The Model of Ethnic Democracy

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The Model of Ethnic Democracy THE MODEL OF ETHNIC DEMOCRACY Sammy SMOOHA ECMI Working Paper # 13 October 2001 EUROPEAN CENTRE FOR MINORITY ISSUES (ECMI) Schiffbruecke 12 (Kompagnietor Building) D-24939 Flensburg Germany +49-(0)461-14 14 9-0 fax +49-(0)461-14 14 9-19 e-mail: [email protected] internet: http://www.ecmi.de ECMI Working Paper # 13 European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) Director: Marc Weller © European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) 2001. ISSN 1435-9812 The European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) is a non-partisan institution founded in 1996 by the Governments of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the German State of Schleswig-Holstein. ECMI was established in Flensburg, at the heart of the Danish-German border region, in order to draw from the encouraging example of peaceful coexistence between minorities and majorities achieved here. ECMI’s aim is to promote interdisciplinary research on issues related to minorities and majorities in a European perspective and to contribute to the improvement of inter-ethnic relations in those parts of Western and Eastern Europe where ethno- political tension and conflict prevail. ECMI Working Papers are written either by the staff of ECMI or by outside authors commissioned by the Centre. As ECMI does not propagate opinions of its own, the views expressed in any of its publications are the sole responsibility of the author concerned. ECMI Working Paper # 13 European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) © ECMI 2001 CONTENTS 1. About the Author......................................................................................................3 2. Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................4 3. Abstract.....................................................................................................................5 4. Introduction ..............................................................................................................5 5. Defining Democracy.................................................................................................9 6. Types of Civic Democracy.....................................................................................11 Individual Liberal Democracy..............................................................................12 Republican Liberal Democracy............................................................................13 Consociational Democracy...................................................................................14 Multicultural Democracy......................................................................................15 7. Types of Quasi- or Non-Democracy ......................................................................19 Control..................................................................................................................19 Herrenvolk Democracy.........................................................................................20 Ethnocracy............................................................................................................22 8. Ethnic Democracy as a Model................................................................................23 Definition and Delineation ...................................................................................24 Distinction from Other Types of Political Regimes .............................................26 Features.................................................................................................................28 Factors Conducive to Emergence.........................................................................36 Conditions of Stability..........................................................................................37 Mini-Model...........................................................................................................39 Subtypes................................................................................................................41 Issues ....................................................................................................................42 9. Cases of Ethnic Democracy....................................................................................48 Israel .....................................................................................................................48 Slovakia ................................................................................................................64 Estonia ..................................................................................................................71 Northern Ireland (1921-72) ..................................................................................80 Poland (1918-35) ..................................................................................................81 Malaysia................................................................................................................81 10. Some Implications ................................................................................................82 11. Conclusions ..........................................................................................................83 12. References ............................................................................................................87 1 2 1. About the Author Sammy Smooha is Professor of Sociology at the University of Haifa. He completed his graduate studies at UCLA and taught at the University of Washington at Seattle, SUNY at Binghamton and Brown University. He served as a Research Fellow at Annenberg Research Institute (Philadelphia), Graduate Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (Oxford), Arnold Bergstraesser Institut (Freiburg, Germany) Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (Berlin), European Centre for Minority Issues (Flensburg, Germany), and Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies (Tel Aviv). Prof. Smooha specializes in comparative ethnic relations and conducts studies on Israeli society. His most recent work focuses on the ethnic nature of Israeli democracy in a comparative perspective (Northern Ireland, Slovakia and Estonia) and on the implications of the peace process for Israeli society. He has widely published on the internal divisions in Israel. Smooha’s books include Israel: Pluralism and Conflict (University of California Press and Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), Social Research on Arabs in Israel, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (The Jewish-Arab Center, 1978 and 1984), Social Research on Jewish Ethnicity in Israel (Haifa University Press, 1987), Arabs and Jews in Israel, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (Westview Press, 1989 and 1992), and Autonomy for Arabs in Israel? (Institute for Israeli Arab Studies, 1999, written in Hebrew). Contact information: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]. 3 2. Acknowledgments This paper integrates two unpublished papers. The initial draft of the first paper, “The Model of Ethnic Democracy: Characteristics, Cases and Comparisons,” was written during my term as a Skirball Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Yarnton-Oxford (Spring 1997) and later versions during my stay as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung (WZB) (Summer 1997) and the Arnold Bergstraesser Institut (Summer 1999). The draft of the other paper, “The Model of Ethnic Democracy: Comparing Israel, Slovakia and Estonia,” was written during my work at the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies (Spring 2001). The present integrated, expanded and revised version was prepared while serving as a Visiting Research Fellow at the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) (Summer 2001). The support of all these research institutes is greatly appreciated. Various versions of the paper were presented in conferences, including the conference on “The New Politics of Ethnicity, Self-Determination and the Crisis of Modernity,” organized by The Morris E. Curiel Center for International Studies, Tel Aviv University, May 1995; the conference on “Nationalism and Democracy,” in connection with the seventh annual conference of ASEN (Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism), London School of Economics, April 1997; the conference on “Structural and Behavioral Aspects of Democracy,” held at the University of Haifa and Israel Democracy Institute, Jerusalem, May 1997; and the conference on “Multiculturalism and Democracy in Divided Societies,” organized by the Center of Multiculturalism and Educational Research, University of Haifa (March 1999). Comments of discussants in these conferences and numerous workshops and seminars were valuable for advancing my thinking on the theme of the paper. 4 3. Abstract The classical model of the liberal-democratic nation-state is on the decline in the West as a result of globalization, regionalization, multiculturalism, the institutionalization of universal minority rights and the rise of minority ethnonationalism. While western countries are decoupling the nation-state and slowly shifting toward multicultural democracy, some other countries are consolidating an alternative form of a democratic state that is identified with and subservient to a single ethnic nation. This type of political regime, “ethnic democracy,” combines the extension of civil and political rights for all permanent residents with an institutionalized ethnic ascendancy of the majority group. The core ethnic nation controls the
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