Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity

by Andreas Wimmer

• ISBN13: 9780521812559
• ISBN10: 0521812550
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Andreas Wimmer argues that nationalist and ethnic politics have shaped modern societies to a far greater extent than has been acknowledged by social scientists. The modern state governs in the name of a people defined in ethnic and national terms. Democratic participation, equality before the law and protection from arbitrary violence were offered only to the ethnic group in a privileged relationship with the emerging nation-state. Depending on circumstances, the dynamics of exclusion took on different forms. Where nation building was 'successful', immigrants and 'ethnic minorities' are excluded from full participation; they risk being targets of xenophobia and racism. In weaker states, political closure proceeded along ethnic, rather than national lines and leads to corresponding forms of conflict and violence. In chapters on Mexico, Iraq and Switzerland, Wimmer provides extended case studies that support and contextualise this argument.

Author Biography

Andreas Wimmer is Professor of Political and Cultural Change, and Director at the Center for Development Research of the University of Bonn.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
Shadows of modernity	1	(18)
I Theoretical explorations
Compromise and closure: a theory of social dynamics	19	(23)
The making of modern communities	42	(43)
II State-building and ethnic conflict
Who owns the state? Ethnic conflicts after the end of empires	85	(29)
Nationalism and ethnic mobilisation in Mexico	114	(42)
From empire to ethnocracy: Iraq since the Ottomans	156	(43)
III The politics of exclusion in nationalised states
Racism and xenophobia	199	(23)
Nationalising multi-ethnic Switzerland	222	(47)
References	269	(37)
Index	306