ABSTRACT

The impact of liberal globalization and multiculturalism means that nations are under pressure to transform their national identities from an ethnic to a civic mode. This has led, in many cases, to dominant ethnic decline, but also to its peripheral revival in the form of far right politics. At the same time, the growth of mass democracy and the decline of post-colonial and Cold War state unity in the developing world has opened the floodgates for assertions of ethnic dominance. This book investigates both tendencies and argues forcefully for the importance of dominant ethnicity in the contemporary world.

chapter |14 pages

Introduction

Dominant ethnicity: from background to foreground

part |44 pages

Conceptualising dominant ethnicity

chapter |9 pages

The Identity and Changing Status of Former Elite Minorities

The contrasting cases of North Indian Muslims and American WASPs

part |97 pages

Dominant ethnicity in transition

part |85 pages

Dominant ethnicity resurgent