Globalization and migration are pressuring nations around the world to change their ethnic self-definition and to treasure diversity not homogeneity. This book explores the growing gap between modern nations and their dominant ethnic groups.
The impact of liberal globalization and multiculturalism means that nations are under pressure to transform their national identities from an ethnic to a civic mode. This has led, in many cases, to dominant ethnic decline, but also to its peripheral revival in the form of far right politics. At the same time, the growth of mass democracy and the decline of post-colonial and Cold War state unity in the developing world has opened the floodgates for assertions of ethnic dominance. This book investigates both tendencies and argues forcefully for the importance of dominant ethnicity in the contemporary world.
"Rethinking Ethnicity is a fascinating collection of studies of political status seeking and status reversal on the part of dominant or once-dominant ethnic groups. With its bountiful array of materials, it presents a panoramic picture of ethnic change and of efforts to thwart." - Donald L. Horowitz, Duke University
