The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism

by Young, Crawford

• ISBN13: 9780299138844
• ISBN10: 0299138844
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-31
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

Two decades after the publication of his prize-winning book,The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, Crawford Young and a distinguished panel of contributors assess the changing impact of cultural pluralism on political processes around the world, specifically in the former Soviet Union, China, United States, India, Ethiopia, and Guatemala. The result is an arresting look at the dissolution of the nation-state system as we have known it. Crawford Young opens with an overview of the dramatic rise in the political significance of cultural pluralism and of scholars' changing understanding of what drives and shapes ethnic identification. Mark Beissinger brilliantly explains the demise of the last great empire-state, the USSR, while Edward Friedman notes growing challenges to the apparent cultural homogeneity of China. Nader Entessar suggests intriguing contrasts in Azeri identity politics in Iran and the ex-USSR. Ronald Schmidt and Noel Kent explore the language and racial dimensions of the rising multicultural currents in the United States. Douglas Spitz shows the extent of the decline of the old secular vision of India of the independence generation; Alan LeBaron traces the recent emergence of an assertive Mayan identity among a submerged populace in Guatemala, long thought to be destined for Ladinoization. A case study of the diversity and uncertain future of Ethiopia dramatically emerges from four contrasting contributions: Tekle Woldemikael looks at the potential cultural tensions in Eritrea, Solomon Gashaw offers a central Ethiopian nationalist perspective, Herbert Lewis reflects the perspectives of a restless and disaffected periphery, and James Quirin provides an arresting explanation of the construction of identity amongst the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews). Virginia Sapiro steps back from specific regions, offering an original analysis of the interaction between cultural pluralism and gender.

Author Biography

    Crawford Young is the Rupert Emerson Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  His many books include Politics in the Congo, Ideology and Development in Africa, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, and The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, coauthored with Thomas Edwin Turner, the last two published with the University of Wisconsin Press.

Table of Contents

Contributors
Preface
The Dialectics of Cultural Pluralism: Concept and Reality	p. 3
Engendering Cultural Differences	p. 36
To Polarize a Nation: Racism, Labor Markets, and the State in the U.S. Political Economy, 1965-1986	p. 55
Language Policy Conflict in the United States	p. 73
Demise of an Empire-State: Identity, Legitimacy, and the Deconstruction of Soviet Politics	p. 93
Azeri Nationalism in the Former Soviet Union and Iran	p. 116
Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Ethiopia	p. 138
Ethnicity in Ethiopia: The View from Below (and from the South, East, and West)	p. 158
The Cultural Construction of Eritrean Nationalist Movements	p. 179
Ethnicity, Caste, Class, and State in Ethiopian History: The Case of the Beta Israel (Falasha)	p. 200
Ethnic Identity and the De-Nationalization and Democratization of Leninist States	p. 222
Cultural Pluralism, Revivalism, and Modernity in South Asia: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh	p. 242
The Creation of the Modern Maya	p. 265
Index	p. 287
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