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Burma presents a paradigm case in which the state is faced with the demands for democratisation and demands for ethnocultural recognition and self-government. To date, the state has failed to successfully address either challenge. This chapter explores some of the historical and political factors that explain this failure, and considers the prospects for democratic multination federalism.

Once the EU developed its active leverage, noncompliance with EU membership requirements became visible and costly for governments in candidate states. This chapter illustrates the effectiveness of the EU’s active leverage in compelling Hungary to moderate its foreign policy towards neighbouring states, and it explores the EU’s vigorous attempts to improve the treatment of ethnic minorities in Romania and Slovakia. The EU’s active leverage was usually ineffective in directly pressuring ruling elites in Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia to change key domestic policies. But the relationship between the EU and credible future members gradually changed the domestic balance of power in illiberal states against rent-seeking elites by making the political systems more competitive. It did so by working through society to change the information environment and the institutional environment to the advantage of more liberal political forces. This helped undermine the ‘democratic monopoly’ that had allowed rent-seeking elites to use ethnic nationalism and economic populism to win and maintain power. In states where no united, organized liberal opposition existed before 1989, the EU’s active leverage—in cooperation with other international actors and in synergy with domestic forces—helped to create one, shaping the more liberal political parties that took power in 1996 in Romania, in 1997 in Bulgaria and in 1998 in Romania.

This chapter examines why Western liberal theories of minorities rights have not been adopted in Japan. It argues that while the Japanese state is relatively liberal, Japanese society is not. Although the state, particularly local governments, has adopted more enlightened policies towards minorities, Japanese society is often discriminatory towards minorities. This social conservatism and illiberalism limits the sorts of minority policies that the state can adopt.

This chapter offers a variety of explanations as to why ethnic minorities in Britain suffered ‘ethnic penalties’ or serious disadvantages in the labour market. These explanations focused on the lack of human capital on the part of the migrant workers and the prejudice and discrimination they experienced at the hands of the British society.

Ethnic minority disadvantage in the labour market has been a matter of growing concern in many developed countries in recent years. Discrimination on the basis of ascriptive factors, such as social origins or ethnicity, is generally regarded to be a source of economic inefficiency and waste. More importantly, it is a source of social injustice and social exclusion. This book explores ethnic inequalities in the labour market, particularly with respect to access to jobs. It examines whether ethnic minorities compete on equal terms in the labour market with equally qualified members of the charter populations and focuses on the experiences of the ‘second generation’, that is, the children of migrants who have themselves grown up and been educated in the countries of destination. In addition to the classic immigration countries of Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United States, the book also covers the major new immigration countries of Western Europe, such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Sweden, as well as South Africa.

Belgium has three major ethnic minorities – Italians, Moroccans, and Turks – originating from guest workers who arrived in the post-war period. These groups continue to experience significant ethnic penalties in the Belgian labour market. For employment and occupational attainment alike, the Italian second generation experiences the smallest ethnic penalties and comes closest to achieving parity with native Belgians. In contrast, the Moroccan and Turkish second generation experience much larger ethnic penalties. Moreover, the Turkish second generation is clearly at the bottom end of the ethnic hierarchy, since it experiences at once the largest penalties on avoidance of unemployment and on access to the salariat. The persistence of ethnic disdvantage in the second generation suggests that at least part of the explanation is to be found in the receiving society. Possible explanations range from overt ethnic prejudice to citizenship status.

The main problem of Ukrainian ethnic policy is balancing Ukrainian majority nation-building with respect for ethnic minority rights. This explains a paradoxical, but logical mixture of liberal and illiberal elements in the nation-building process. The more illiberal elements are rooted in a post-colonial ‘Russian syndrome’, which drives Ukrainians to distances themselves from Russia. At the same time, the policy of nation-building in Ukraine is moderate and open to compromise, reflecting the balance of forces between the political elite of the country and the country’s different regions and main ethnocultural groups.

This chapter focuses on demographic changes in China's major ethnic minority groups and compares them with those observed in the population of the Han. Great variations were observed in fertility, mortality, age structure, and population growth among China's major ethnic groups. These variations were closely related to differences in the level of socio-economic development, the degree of sinicization, and the implementation of family planning policies in ethnic minority populations.

Describes four characteristic dangers arising from cultural pluralism, dangers with which a multiculturalism of fear must concern itself: forcible inclusion of an ethnic minority that wishes to retain its own identity; forcible exclusion from citizenship and the protection of the state of small and stigmatized minorities; internal cruelty, arising from attempts by communal leaders to prevent members from assimilating to or hybridizing with a neighbouring culture; and the outcast status of those who leave their ancestral ethnic communities. Forced inclusion and forced exclusion are analysed as the two sides of an impulse towards nation‐state homogeneity. Internal cruelty, particularly against girls and women, often increases in reaction against assimilationist pressures from outside. State regulation of internal cruelty is legitimate and justified, but must be carefully done. Prohibited‐but‐still‐practised customs may be the most dangerous for group members, leaving selective acceptance and recognition as often preferable to outright bans.

Essentialist and anti‐essentialist views of multicultural society are discussed, using data from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities in Britain, which was undertaken in 1994. One of the survey findings was that there is much empirical support for those theorists who have emphasized the fluid and hybrid nature of contemporary post‐immigration ethnicities in Britain. It is argued that the political challenge is to reach for a multicultural Britishness that is happy with this hybridity, but also has space for religious identities, which have been largely neglected by theorists. The last part of the chapter discusses the importance of recognizing religious communities further.

This chapter discusses the status and rights of ethnic and religious minorities, emphasizing the perils of both secular ultra-nationalist homogenization and religious (Shi’i Islamist) segmentation in contemporary Iran. It argues that an uneven and overcentralized strategy of development has resulted in a wide socioeconomic gap between the center and peripheries. A great part of the grievances of ethnic minorities, who mostly inhabit provincial peripheries of Iran, has its roots in the uneven distribution of power and socioeconomic resources rather than in any interethnic tension. The chapter discusses the significance of the recent rise in politicization of ethnic issues, manifested during the presidential elections of 2005 and also in the 2006 clashes in Khuzestan and Kurdestan, from national, regional, and international perspectives. In spite of being treated as a minority, and in spite of the discriminatory attitudes and traditional cultural constraints, ethnic and religious minorities in contemporary Iran have succeeded in improving their social conditions, as well as in articulating their democratic demands and presenting themselves as a significant political constituency.