Ethnic Groups and the State

Abstract

This chapter discusses the effects of the state, its official ideologies, its structural forms, its alliance strategies, and its specific policies upon ethnic identity formation. Ethnic identity formation is viewed as a process that involves three sets of struggles. Most contemporary theories of the modern state can be broadly distinguished in terms of whether or they see the state as an arena, as an instrument of group domination, or as a relatively autonomous entity with interests and strategies of its own. The Group Pluralist Perspective. In the group pluralist or interest group perspective, the state is seen as a largely neutral arena of interest group conflict. The results of such conflict may be that the state adopts policies, distributes resources, or creates agencies specifically of relevance to particular categories of the population. The ethnocentrism of this view of the state will be evident to most specialists in comparative politics and history.