The Politics of Ethnicity in Southwest Asia: Political Development or Political Decay?

The discussion of ethnic politics has passed through many phases. Earlier works had the pronounced tendency of assuming that ethnicity was a problem that would be solved in the course of modernization. Fragmented loyalties were expected to decline as the nation-state became the focus of identity and authority. Ethnic nationalism, in other words, would simply wither away. ' Over time it was realized that these expectations were extremely exaggerated. It was recognized that the climate of nationalism and social change could also serve to encourage ethnic nationalism, challenging the stability of multiethnic polities. According to Joseph Rothschild, no society or political system is today immune from the burgeoning pressure of ethnic nationalism, with its possible legitimating or delegitimating effects. Communist and non-communist, old and new, advanced and developing, centralist and federalist states must all respond to the pressure of this ascendant ideology.2