Ethnocracy
Encyclopedia
Ethnocracy is a form of government
where representatives of a particular ethnic group hold a number of government posts disproportionately large to the percentage
of the total population
that the particular ethnic group(s) represents and use them to advance the position of their particular ethnic group(s) to the detriment of others.
The minority
ethnic groups are systematically discriminated against by the state
and may face repression
s or violations of human rights
at the hands of state organs. Ethnocracy can also be a political regime which is instituted on the basis of qualified rights to citizenship
, and with ethnic affiliation (defined in terms of race, descent, religion
, or language
) as the distinguishing principle.
Generally, the raison d'être of an ethnographic government is to secure the most important instruments of state power in the hands of a specific ethnic collectivity. All other considerations concerning the distribution of power are ultimately subordinated to this basic intention. Ethnocracies are generally considered to be non-democratic in nature.°
Ethnocracies are characterised by their control system the legal
, institutional, and physical instruments of power deemed necessary to secure ethnic dominance. The degree of system discrimination will tend to vary greatly from case to case and from situation to situation. If the dominant group (whose interests the system is meant to serve and whose identity it is meant to represent) constitutes a small minority (20% or less) of the population within the state territory, extreme degrees of institutionalised suppression will probably be necessary to sustain the status quo.
The other side of the coin might well be a system of full-fledged democracy (inclusive and competitive in Robert Dahl's terminology) for the privileged population, making up what Pierre van den Berghe (1981) calls "Herrenvolk democracy
" (with reference to apartheid South Africa
). This is a system of ethnocracy which offers democratic participation to the dominant group only.
, Oren Yiftachel
, Asaad Ghanem, Haim Yakobi, Nur Mashala and Hannah Naveh.. However, scholars such as Gershon Shafir, Yoav Peled and Sammy Smooha prefer the term ethnic democracy
to describe Israel, a term which is intended to represent a "middle ground
" between an ethnocracy and a liberal democracy.
In 2010, Haaretz
commentator Gideon Levy said in relation to the proposed Jewish state
loyalty oath
: "Remember this day. It's the day Israel changes its character ... From now on, we will be living in a new, officially approved, ethnocratic, theocratic, nationalistic
and racist country."
Critics of this view of Israel claim that Israel is a secular state which affords civil and political rights to all its citizens, including its large Arab minority who serve in the Knesset
and on the Israeli Supreme Court.
and Estonia
, spanning from Liberal or Civic Democracy
through Ethnic democracy
to Ethnocracy. Will Kymlicka
regards Estonia as a democracy, stressing the peculiar status of Russian-speakers, stemming from being at once partly transients, partly immigrants and partly natives. British researcher Neil Melvin
concludes that Estonia is moving towards a genuinely pluralist democratic society through its liberalization of citizenship and actively drawing of leaders of the Russian settler communities into the political process. James Hughes, in the United Nations Development Programme
's Development and Transition, contends Latvia and Estonia are cases of ‘ethnic democracy’ where the state has been captured by the titular ethnic group and then used to promote ‘nationalising’ policies and alleged discrimination against Russophone
minorities. (Development and Transition has also published papers disputing Hughes' contentions.) Israeli researchers Oren Yiftachel
and As’ad Ghanem consider Estonia
as an ethnocracy. Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha, of the University of Haifa
, disagrees with Yiftachel, contending that the ethnocratic model developed by Yiftachel does not fit the case of Latvia and Estonia; it is not a settler society as its core ethnic group is indigenous, nor did it expand territorially or have a diaspora
intervening in its internal affairs as in the case of Israel for which Yiftachel originally developed his model.
classifies contemporary constitutional proposals for a solution to the conflict in South Africa
into four categories:
Not surprisingly, Lijphart argues strongly in favour of the consociational model and his categories illustrates that, on the constitutional level, state power can be distributed along two dimensions: Legal-institutional and territorial.
Along the legal-institutional dimension we can distinguish between singularism (power centralised according to membership in a specific group), pluralism (power-distribution among defined groups according to relative numerical strength), and universalism (power-distribution without any group-specific qualifications). The three main alternatives on the territorial dimension are the unitary state, "intermediate restructuring" (within one formal sovereignty), and partition (creating separate political entities).
Ethnocracy indicates a specific principle of power-distribution in a society.
under dictator Idi Amin Dada has also been described as an ethnocracy favouring certain indigenous groups over others, as well as for the ethnic cleansing of Indians in Uganda by Amin.
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
where representatives of a particular ethnic group hold a number of government posts disproportionately large to the percentage
Percentage
In mathematics, a percentage is a way of expressing a number as a fraction of 100 . It is often denoted using the percent sign, “%”, or the abbreviation “pct”. For example, 45% is equal to 45/100, or 0.45.Percentages are used to express how large/small one quantity is, relative to another quantity...
of the total population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
that the particular ethnic group(s) represents and use them to advance the position of their particular ethnic group(s) to the detriment of others.
The minority
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
ethnic groups are systematically discriminated against by the state
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
and may face repression
Political repression
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
s or violations of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
at the hands of state organs. Ethnocracy can also be a political regime which is instituted on the basis of qualified rights to citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
, and with ethnic affiliation (defined in terms of race, descent, religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, or language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
) as the distinguishing principle.
Generally, the raison d'être of an ethnographic government is to secure the most important instruments of state power in the hands of a specific ethnic collectivity. All other considerations concerning the distribution of power are ultimately subordinated to this basic intention. Ethnocracies are generally considered to be non-democratic in nature.°
Ethnocracies are characterised by their control system the legal
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, institutional, and physical instruments of power deemed necessary to secure ethnic dominance. The degree of system discrimination will tend to vary greatly from case to case and from situation to situation. If the dominant group (whose interests the system is meant to serve and whose identity it is meant to represent) constitutes a small minority (20% or less) of the population within the state territory, extreme degrees of institutionalised suppression will probably be necessary to sustain the status quo.
The other side of the coin might well be a system of full-fledged democracy (inclusive and competitive in Robert Dahl's terminology) for the privileged population, making up what Pierre van den Berghe (1981) calls "Herrenvolk democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
" (with reference to apartheid South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
). This is a system of ethnocracy which offers democratic participation to the dominant group only.
Israel
Israel has been labelled an ethnocracy by scholars such as: Alexander Kedar, Shlomo SandShlomo Sand
Shlomo Sand is professor of history at Tel Aviv University and author of the controversial book The Invention of the Jewish People . His main areas of interest are nationalism, film as history, and French intellectual history.- Biography :Sand was born in Linz, Austria, to Polish Jewish survivors...
, Oren Yiftachel
Oren Yiftachel
Oren Yiftachel teaches political geography, urban planning and public policy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.Yiftachel studied during the 1980s in Australian and Israeli universities...
, Asaad Ghanem, Haim Yakobi, Nur Mashala and Hannah Naveh.. However, scholars such as Gershon Shafir, Yoav Peled and Sammy Smooha prefer the term ethnic democracy
Ethnic democracy
Ethnic democracy is a political system that combines a structured ethnic dominance with democratic, political and civil rights for all. Both the dominant ethnic group and the minority ethnic groups have citizenship and are able to fully participate in the political process. Ethnic democracy differs...
to describe Israel, a term which is intended to represent a "middle ground
Middle ground
Argument to moderation is a logical fallacy which asserts that given two positions there exists a compromise between them which must be correct.An individual demonstrating the false compromise fallacy implies that the positions...
" between an ethnocracy and a liberal democracy.
In 2010, Haaretz
Haaretz
Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
commentator Gideon Levy said in relation to the proposed Jewish state
Jewish state
A homeland for the Jewish people was an idea that rose to the fore in the 19th century in the wake of growing anti-Semitism and Jewish assimilation. Jewish emancipation in Europe paved the way for two ideological solutions to the Jewish Question: cultural assimilation, as envisaged by Moses...
loyalty oath
Loyalty oath
A loyalty oath is an oath of loyalty to an organization, institution, or state of which an individual is a member.In this context, a loyalty oath is distinct from pledge or oath of allegiance...
: "Remember this day. It's the day Israel changes its character ... From now on, we will be living in a new, officially approved, ethnocratic, theocratic, nationalistic
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and racist country."
Critics of this view of Israel claim that Israel is a secular state which affords civil and political rights to all its citizens, including its large Arab minority who serve in the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...
and on the Israeli Supreme Court.
Latvia and Estonia
There is a spectrum of opinion among authors as to the classification of LatviaLatvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
and Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, spanning from Liberal or Civic Democracy
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
through Ethnic democracy
Ethnic democracy
Ethnic democracy is a political system that combines a structured ethnic dominance with democratic, political and civil rights for all. Both the dominant ethnic group and the minority ethnic groups have citizenship and are able to fully participate in the political process. Ethnic democracy differs...
to Ethnocracy. Will Kymlicka
Will Kymlicka
Will Kymlicka is a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on multiculturalism. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, and Recurrent Visiting Professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the...
regards Estonia as a democracy, stressing the peculiar status of Russian-speakers, stemming from being at once partly transients, partly immigrants and partly natives. British researcher Neil Melvin
Neil Melvin
Dr. Neil Melvin is an expert on contemporary forms of conflict and the current Director of the SIPRI Armed Conflict and Conflict Management Programme. Dr Melvin has extensive experience both as a researcher and as a policy practitioner...
concludes that Estonia is moving towards a genuinely pluralist democratic society through its liberalization of citizenship and actively drawing of leaders of the Russian settler communities into the political process. James Hughes, in the United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
's Development and Transition, contends Latvia and Estonia are cases of ‘ethnic democracy’ where the state has been captured by the titular ethnic group and then used to promote ‘nationalising’ policies and alleged discrimination against Russophone
Russophone
A Russophone is literally a speaker of the Russian language either natively or by preference. At the same time the term is used in a more specialized meaning to describe the category of people whose cultural background is associated with Russian language regardless of ethnic and territorial...
minorities. (Development and Transition has also published papers disputing Hughes' contentions.) Israeli researchers Oren Yiftachel
Oren Yiftachel
Oren Yiftachel teaches political geography, urban planning and public policy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.Yiftachel studied during the 1980s in Australian and Israeli universities...
and As’ad Ghanem consider Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
as an ethnocracy. Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha, of the University of Haifa
University of Haifa
The University of Haifa is a university in Haifa, Israel.The University of Haifa was founded in 1963 by Haifa mayor Abba Hushi, to operate under the academic auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
, disagrees with Yiftachel, contending that the ethnocratic model developed by Yiftachel does not fit the case of Latvia and Estonia; it is not a settler society as its core ethnic group is indigenous, nor did it expand territorially or have a diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
intervening in its internal affairs as in the case of Israel for which Yiftachel originally developed his model.
Malaysia
Although not officially an ethnocratic government, most of the governmental positions were held by ethnic Malays, while only small percentages were held by non-Malays.South Africa
Ethnocracy indicates a specific principle of power-distribution in a society. In his book Power-Sharing in South Africa, Arend LijphartArend Lijphart
Arend d'Angremond Lijphart is a world renowned political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity and politics. He received his PhD in Political Science at Yale University in 1963, after studying at the University of...
classifies contemporary constitutional proposals for a solution to the conflict in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
into four categories:
- majoritarian (one man, one vote)
- non-democratic (varieties of white domination)
- partitionist (creating new political entities)
- consociational (power-sharing by proportional representation and elite accommodation) (1985:5)
Not surprisingly, Lijphart argues strongly in favour of the consociational model and his categories illustrates that, on the constitutional level, state power can be distributed along two dimensions: Legal-institutional and territorial.
Along the legal-institutional dimension we can distinguish between singularism (power centralised according to membership in a specific group), pluralism (power-distribution among defined groups according to relative numerical strength), and universalism (power-distribution without any group-specific qualifications). The three main alternatives on the territorial dimension are the unitary state, "intermediate restructuring" (within one formal sovereignty), and partition (creating separate political entities).
Ethnocracy indicates a specific principle of power-distribution in a society.
Uganda
UgandaUganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
under dictator Idi Amin Dada has also been described as an ethnocracy favouring certain indigenous groups over others, as well as for the ethnic cleansing of Indians in Uganda by Amin.
See also
- Ethnic nationalismEthnic nationalismEthnic nationalism is a form of nationalism wherein the "nation" is defined in terms of ethnicity. Whatever specific ethnicity is involved, ethnic nationalism always includes some element of descent from previous generations and the implied claim of ethnic essentialism, i.e...
- Dominant minorityDominant minorityA dominant minority, also known as alien elites if they are recent immigrants, is a group that has overwhelming political, economic or cultural dominance in a country or region despite representing a small fraction of the overall population...
- Ethnic eliteEthnic eliteAn ethnic elite refers to an ethnic group which in a local context has gained a position of economic and power over that of other groups. Ethnic elites may also foster ideologies and beliefs which serve to sustain their relative power....
- Ethnic nepotismEthnic nepotismEthnic nepotism describes a human tendency for in-group bias or in-group favouritism applied by nepotism for people with the same ethnicity.- The theory :...
- Ketuanan MelayuKetuanan MelayuKetuanan Melayu is a political concept emphasizing Malay preeminence in present day Malaysia. The Malays of peninsular Malaysia claimed a special position and special rights owing to their long domicile and the role of the Malay rulers of the nine Malay states...
- Superstratum
- NationalismNationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
- South Africa under apartheid
- Human rights in EstoniaHuman rights in EstoniaHuman rights in Estonia are generally respected by the government, according to US Department of State. Estonia is ranked above-average in democracy, press freedom, privacy and human development...
External links
- Politics of Ethnocracies: Strategies and Dilemmas of Ethnic Domination Nils A. Butenschøn