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Description
Wimmer goes above and beyond the debate on whether nationalism and
ethnicity are modern or ancient phenomena. He shows that nationalist
and ethnic politics are not only by-products of modern state formation,
but they provide the basis for modernity itself. Democratic participation,
equality before the law, and national self-determination are offered
only to the ethnic group in a privileged relationship with the modernising
state. They are denied to those who do not belong to the state-embodying
nation. According to the varying geometries of power, these dynamics
of exclusion take on different forms. Where nation building is ‘successful’,
immigrants and ethnic minorities are excluded from full participation.
In weaker states, political closure proceeds along ethnic, rather
than national lines. In his chapters on Mexico, Iraq and Switzerland,
Wimmer provides extended case studies that support and contextualise
this argument.
Chapter Contents
Introduction; Part I. Theoretical Explorations: 1. Compromise and
closure: a theory of social dynamics; 2. The making of modern communities;
Part II. State Building and Ethnic Conflict: 3. Who owns the state?
Ethnic conflicts after the end of empires; 4. Nationalism and ethnic
mobilisation in Mexico; 5. From empire to ethnocracy. Iraq since
the Ottomans; Part III. The Politics of Exclusion in Nationalised
States: 6. Racism and xenophobia; 7. Nationalising multi-ethnic
Switzerland.
To order please contact CUP at http://books.cambridge.org/052101185X.htm
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