Brown Bag Seminar: Şener Aktürk (Koç University)

Sabancı University
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

BROWN BAG SEMINARS

European State Formation and Three Models of Nation-Building

Şener Aktürk

(Koç University)

Wednesday, November 18, 2015
12:00  FASS 2034

Abstract:

How do state policies toward ethnic diversity vary across countries? How can one measure and conceptualize cross-national variation in state policies toward ethnic diversity? What explains such variation? This article presents cross-national data on nine state policies toward ethnic diversity in 42 European countries, collected through a global expert survey over four years (2011-2014), which is the empirical core of the current article. Second, it is demonstrated that there is significant cross-national variation in state policies toward ethnic diversity, with three meaningful patterns clustering in particular countries. Three different nation-building patterns are identified and conceptualized as antiethnic, monoethnic, and multiethnic nation-state models. Third, it is argued that three waves of nation-building, roughly corresponding to French (1789), German (1871), and Soviet (1924) nation-building experiences, and the diffusion of these three models across Europe through chronological, geographical, linguistic, and ideological mechanisms, explain the cross-national variation in state policies toward ethnic diversity.

P.S.: The seminar will be held in English.