ABSTRACT
An alternative avenue to preserve social stability is via effective domination over the minority (Lustick, 1979). As in consociationalism, the ethnic division in culture, identity, organizations and resources is retained. However, ethnic stratification and cultural hegemony are institutionalized in lieu of consociational compromise and partnership. The majority dominates the state institutions, superimposes its culture, takes for itself a disproportionate share of resources and promotes its ethnic interests. It determines the living con ditions of the minority and tends to disregard its needs. Domination relies on two mutually reinforcing mechanisms: economic dependence on the majority that deprives the minority of any independent economic base, and political control that prevents the minority from organizing itself independently and resisting the regime (van den Berghe, 1973: 965). While the minority’s right to separate identity and institutions is acknowledged, institutional autonomy is withheld to avert cumulation of power. This method has proved itself with regard to blacks in the United States up until the 1960s, Catholics in Northern Ireland between the years 1921 and 1968, and the non-Amharic minority in Ethiopia for centuries. It has nevertheless failed in other periods and circumstances (e.g. the collapse of colonialism which was built upon domina tion).
