S0606 Ethnicity and Nationalism in Divided Societies - Conflict and Accommodation

Very few states in the world are culturally homogeneous or form what may be termed pure national states. Most states are muti-ethnic or mutli-national. The ethnonational resurgence in the wake of the collapse of Communism has brought this salience of global reality to the attention of both academics and political actors many of whom might have wished this phenomenon away. The growing globalization, that was expected to serve as the big homogenizer, has had, in fact, mixed effects on ethnonational particularism. On the one hand, we are witnessing the growth of transnational communities, transnational and multicultural citizenship and the emerging of the European Union as a supra national polity. Yet on the other hand, interethnic civil wars, ethnic cleansing and even genocide have brought to the fore the devastating potential of the contradiction between the \'nation-state\' and its constituent ethnic communities. From the point of view of the stability of the world inter-state system and the consolidation of appropriate political orders in particular states, the resolution of this contradiction has become one of the foremost challenges of the academic and political communities.Traditionally, the balance of academic approach to the phenomenon of ethnonational identity and assertion has been rather negative. Perceived as irrational and malevolent, this phenomenon has been considered inappropriate as the organizing principle of the state in our modern, progressive world. By also informing the attitudes and conduct of important global actors, this approach has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. In this course we shall revisit the conventional wisdom regarding ethnonationalism and ethnicity and their interaction with the modern state. Ethnicity and ethnonationalism are Janus face in their political manifestations. Rwanda, former Yugoslavia and others represent the dark side of these phenomena. By contrast, in many multi national, multi ethnic states, from Switzerland and Spain down to many former communist states the spirit of peace and accommodation has prevailed. Thus politically ethnicity and nationalism are not necessarily evil or destabilizing. Their particular balance sheet is determined by the interaction between them as ideologies and identities and the particular historical, economic and social contexts in which they unfold. The course will focus on this interaction. From this vantage point an attempt will be made to locate the politics of ethnicity and nationalism along a continuum between violent conflict and peaceful accommodation.