The Ethnic Dimension in International Relations

This book focuses on ethnic nationalism and its universality as a phenomenon in world politics. By employing case studies, the essays demonstrate the past, current, and future persistence of this fragmenting tendency and its implications for various regional and world-wide political dynamics. By its very comprehensiveness and geographic case diversity, the study provides evidence that there are two simultaneous (and sometimes contradictory) dynamics taking place in the international political arena--integration and fragmentation. This collection of essays analyzes fragmentation. There are significant implications for description, analysis, evaluation, and prescriptive policy in international relations. This book challenges the bias in post-war America (and the West overall) that the preeminent, if not exclusive, political behavior tendency in regional and world politics is integration of actors and their behavior. While not seeking to refute or deny integration, it suggests balancing the analysis of international politics by upgrading the fragmentation tendencies based upon a very basic phenomenon--ethnic nationalism.