Ethnicity and Sociopolitical Change in Africa and Other Developing Countries: A Constructive Discourse in State Building

by Santosh C. Saha

Overview

This edited collection of essays answers a basic question posed by contemporary discourse on state building: How might people's identification with a particular ethnic group matter? Essays in this book use an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding regional and local community culture and socio-political development in developing countries-especially in Sub-Saharan Africa-to argue that the state, as well as civil society, confers on cultural differences a legitimacy that can be achieved in no other way but by positive cooperation. Contributors from different countries look at local patterns in state building and modernization as they have unfolded over the course of the last fifty years. They claim that the people and ethnic groups in most developing countries adhere to a concept of popular sovereignty that testifies that aspects of positive and moral ethnicity can contribute to social change as in China, economic development as in India, or in a democratization process as in Rwanda and Burundi. The eventual methodological assumption made by these essays presumes that ethnic conflicts in such countries as Cyprus, Turkey, India, and Rwanda have no moral sanction; ethnicity has not assumed a political ideology. One conclusion reached by the contributors is that some form of accommodation between opposing ethnically diversified groups, as well as between state and ethnic elements, is feasible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739123324
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	03/07/2008
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.33(w) x 9.41(h) x 0.96(d)

About the Author

Santosh C. Saha is professor of history at Mount Union College in Ohio.

Table of Contents

Part 1 African Countries
Chapter 2 Moral Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan African National Identity Issues: Ethnicity and State-Building
Chapter 3 Reconstructing or Dismantling the Nation? A New Rwanda
Chapter 4 Education for Social Change in Burundi and Rwanda: Creating a National Identity beyond the Politics of Ethnicity
Chapter 5 Rwanda-Burundi's "National-Ethnic" Dilemma: Democracy, Deep Divisions and Conflict Re-Represent
Chapter 6 Overstating the Connection between Ethnicity and Military Coups d'Etats in Africa: A Meta-analysis
Part 7 Other Developing Countries
Chapter 8 Third-Party Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: Turkey's Intervention in Cyprus and Role Theory
Chapter 9 Ethnicity and the Role of Education as a Mechanism for National Unity in China
Chapter 10 Ethnic and Civil Nationhood in India: Concept, History, Institutional Innovations and Contemporary Challenges
Chapter 11 The Palestinians and the Kurds: A Comparative Analysis
Part 12 Bibliography
Part 13 Contributors
Part 14 Index

Editorial Reviews

Saha has put together an impressive set of new articles and essays that challenge the conventional pessimistic view of ethnicity as a negative force in African and other developing nations, instead illustrating the positive role of ethnicity in political and social life. This is a refreshing perspective on the value of ethnic diversity at a time when ethnicity is too often cited as the primary source of social ills and conflict. It is therefore a valuable book for anyone seeking a more balanced perspective on the multifaceted—and potentially positive—role of ethnicity in the developing world.

Clayton D. Peoples