Between Balkanization and Banalization: Dilemmas of Ethno-cultural Diversity

Abstract

This paper seeks to highlight the inescapable nature of the dilemmas that confront any attempt to reconcile the desire for political cohesion with respect for ethno-cultural diversity within any actually existing nation state. Methods of accommodating such diversity while maintaining the state's territorial integrity range from granting minorities regional autonomy to selectively incorporating aspects and symbols of their heritage and identity into a shared, trans-ethnic national tableau. Each of these approaches carries certain risks: the former may arouse fears of ‘Balkanization’, while the latter can be associated with assimilationist pressures that may be perceived as reducing substantive cultural differences to banal variations on a hegemonic national–cultural theme. In practice, any successful policy must rest on a flexible conception of state sovereignty and will likely rely on experimentation with a variety of options from along the Balkanization–banalization spectrum.

Acknowledgements

I wish to tip my hat to Maxine Grossman, whose remarks about the paradoxes of cultural tolerance helped stimulate my thinking about the ‘banalization’ of ethnic diversity. My thanks also go to the anonymous reviewer of this manuscript for a most insightful and helpful set of comments, as well as to David J. Smith and Karl Cordell for encouraging me to develop this essay. The responsibility for any errors or shortcomings found herein is, of course, strictly my own.

Notes

1. Bell (2001) wrote of “… the odd paradox at the heart of modern nationalism: claiming as justification and legitimation a nation which, as even its adherents admit, is not yet there” (p. 200).

2. For a comparative, theoretical discussion of some of the issues discussed in this paragraph, see also Brubaker, 1996, Chapters 3 and 4.

3. For a highly theoretical treatment of this theme from the perspective of a historical sociologist see Sassen (2006).

4. I use ‘Balkanization’ in a broad sense to denote the witting or unwitting fostering or unleashing of centrifugal forces that have the potential to tear countries apart along lines of ethno-cultural difference. I employ this term advisedly. I do not mean to suggest that a propensity for ethnic conflict and political–territorial fragmentation is somehow more intrinsic to Balkan cultures than to other cultures (see Fleming, 2000). In using the term ‘banalization’ I do not mean to allude to Billig's (1995) concept of ‘banal nationalism’, which has to do with the weaving of nationalist references and symbols into the fabric of quotidian existence. In the context of this paper, the term banalization refers to the representation of ethno-cultural differences within a nation as relatively superficial variations on a common, trans-ethnic theme rather than as sources of deep internal cleavages.

5. For a philosophical treatment of this phenomenon see Taylor (1994). The Canadian House of Commons did pass motions recognizing Quebec as a ‘distinct society’ and acknowledging that “the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada” in 1995 and 2006, respectively, but these resolutions lacked any constitutional force (Flanagan, 2006).

6. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031224.html.

7. For their part, small ethno-religious groups that remain more insular in their devotion to an all-encompassing tradition—such as the Amish and the Hasidic communities—are tolerated as exotic objects of interest rather than reviled as thorns in the side of national homogeneity.

8. See also Huntington (2004b, Chapter 9) and Lieven (2004, p. 91).

9. The seminal thinkers were the Austrian Social Democratic Party ideologues Karl Renner and Otto Bauer and (independently of Renner and Bauer) the Russian–Jewish historian and political activist Simon Dubnov (Bauer, 1907; Bottomore & Goode, 1978, pp. 102–117; Blum, 1985, Chapters 3 and 5; Dubnov-Erlich, 1991, pp. 117–118 and 138–139; Nimni, 2005).

10. On the tensions and synergies between ethnic and civic elements in the development of national identities see Tamir (1993), Gutmann (1994), Habermas (1994), Taylor (1994), Walzer (1994), Kymlicka (1995), Miller (1995), Yack (1999), Schöpflin (2000), Kuzio (2002), Shulman (2002), Vincent (2002, Chapter 4), Auer (2004), Kaufmann (2004), Shils (2004) and Roshwald (2006, Chapter 5).