Dealing with Difference

With the dissolution of the bipolar world, cleavages between religious, ethnic and cultural groups have resurfaced in many countries, often with greater intensity than before. The result is new conflict.
This volume offers a critique of both the standard models of interpretation and recent variations on these themes. Case studies drawn from Black Africa, Latin America, the Near and Middle East and Europe illustrate the complexity of conflict situations. Other studies examine South Africa’s remarkable attempt to bridge cleavages peacefully and democratically – the enabling and facilitating factors as well as the dangers and obstacles. In contrast to liberal and Marxist-inspired interpretations, several contributions emphasise the growing importance of religion as a factor of social differentiation. The concluding section presents three contrasting concepts for regulating ethnic conflicts: denationalising the nation-state, transition to a post-national republic, and domesticating ethnicity within the nation-state.
The authors are social scientists from Beirut, Boston, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Grahamstown, Haifa, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, London, Rostock, Seattle, Strasbourg, Tibilissi, Trier and Vancouver.
n Contains English and French articles