Debates on Ethnicity –

What is Modernity –

Modernity in Anthony Gidden’s words refers to a mode of social life or organization that emerged in
Europe around the seventeenth century and has a worldwide influence. Primarily, the concept of
modernity highlights a contrast between ‘tradition’ and ‘modern’, a transition from the traditional to
modern ways of life. It involved an overhauling of the past structures giving way to new modes of
thinking and doing. Modernity is a historical process, incremental in its formation. It is generally
agreed that ‘modernity’ refers to a powerful set of cultural, political, economic, and spatial relationships
that have fundamentally influenced the nature of social life, the economy, and the use and experience of
time and space. The general characteristics of these relationships include:
- an emphasis upon rationality and science over tradition and myth; a belief in progress and
improvement
- confidence in human mastery over nature
- a focus on humanism, individuality
- self-consciousness
- a close association to the birth and development of market capitalism
- a strong reliance upon the state and its legal and governmental institutions.

Meaning of Ethnicity –

It refers to, ‘a community type group of people who share the same culture or to descendants of such
people who may not share this culture but who identify themselves with this identity group.’ It has three
core components namely, common history, common descent and common homeland.

An ethnic group gets converted into nationhood or federalism when it is territorially concentrated. If the
ethnic groups are dispersed, they mainly demand for affirmative action like employment, education,
protection of language, culture and religion, and so on.

Ethnicity and Modernity -

The study of ethnicity in modern societies has assumed special attention in contemporary works on
comparative political analysis. It was generally believed that primordial identities and ethnic solidarity
will weaken with the impact of modernization. The universal values and the attempts to homogenize
political cultures in modern Europe were seen to impose uniformities in political administrative practices
especially with the standardization of languages. However, quite contrary to what was assumed,
identities under the impact of modernization assumed new meanings and dimensions. Minority ethnic
groups in countries like UK, Spain, France, Belgium, Russia, Canada and later United States made new
demands before the state. Uniformity of law and regulations sometimes created problems of
assimilation and took the form of sub-national movements. This led to series of conflicts and sometimes
took violent forms like riots and pogroms. The biggest challenge that emerged before the government in
modern societies was how to maintain democratic stability amidst political disturbances arising out of
ethnic nationalism.
Ethnic identities also became an important source of political mobilization by political parties in both
developed and developing countries. The political elites often made ethnic appeals to garner electoral
support of ethnic groups. New political formations emerged that exclusively focused on the votes of
such groups. These are often referred to as ethnic parties. With the growing significance of ethnic
identities in politics, a clear pattern of party preference amongst ethnic groups is being witnessed.

The other explanation for ethnic resurgence in modern societies is offered by the diffusion competition
model. The main proponents of this theoretical position are Hannan, Nielsen, and Ragin. It states that
the impact of industrialization and market economy in modern societies make the culturally
heterogeneous population more homogenous as modernity gives precedence to the universatlistic
criteria of rationality, logic and merit, that is ascribed status over ascriptive positions of individuals.
Hannan finds a definite link between ethnic identity and ecological process. He states that
modernization affects ethnicity in two contradictory ways:

1. Modernization reduces ethnic diversity

2. Modernization increases the possibility of large-scale ethnic mobilization

The diffusion-competition model draws a picture of modern societies in which competitive feelings
amongst different cultural groups brings the members together and heightens the solidarity within
them.

A new way of correlating modernization with ethnicity and nationalism historically is Constructivism. Its
core argument is that the ethnic and national identities are the constructs of modernization. Modernity
brought the issue of ethnicity center stage of politics by, ‘transforming the meaning of ethnic identities
by bringing the masses into a vastly expanded framework of consciousness and meanings.’ It highlights
the importance of print-capitalism in transforming the local cultural identities into larger national
identities in modern European societies.

The Comparative studies on modernization and ethnicity locates two types of ethnic political
mobilization in advanced capitalist countries:

1. Political mobilization in underdeveloped regions of multinational states like Wales, Scotland, Flanders,
Quebec, and Basques

2. Political mobilization of economically advantaged and disadvantaged ethnic groups in United States.

Ethnic Conflicts in Modern Times

All ethnic-plural societies are ridden with identity-based cleavages and involve ethnic conflicts. These
conflicts may take violent overtones when they assume extreme form. Since freedom of expression is
given chief importance in democratic societies, the possibilities for conflicts within the confinements of
law-and-order requirements are much higher. Examples of these includes - This will include the
Protestant-Catholic Conflict in Northern Ireland; Black-White Conflict in United States and South Africa;
Malay-Chinese conflict in Malaysia; Hindu-Muslim conflict in India; Tamil-Sinhalese conflict in Sri Lanka
and the Shia-Sunni Conflict in Iran.