Ethnic Democracy

Abstract

Ethnic democracy is an analytic model meant to describe a form of state that combines majoritarian electoral procedures and respect for the rule of law and individual citizenship rights with the institutionalized dominance of a majority ethnic group over a society. Ethnic democracy consists of two incompatible constitutional principles: liberal democracy, which mandates equal protection of all citizens, and ethnonationalism, which privileges the core ethnic group. Critics of the model have pointed out that the tension between these two contradictory principles causes inherent instability in this form of state. This tension could be overcome, however, and ethnic democracy could be stabilized, if a third constitutional principle, mediating between liberal democracy and ethnic nationalism, were to exist in the political culture.

Ink on paper

“…The new state behaved in a pioneering manner, responding to the ideals of Zionism and expected citizens to contribute towards this broader Zionist project. 110 Somewhat counter-intuitively, this also applied to those Palestinian-Israelis who became a minority in Israel after the 1948 war and were granted citizenship, albeit with minority status. Through this combination, the nascent Israeli state took shape, yet it retained a fundamental tension between its ethnic and democratic characteristics that can be revealed in a hierarchy of citizenship, which simultaneously differentiates and incorporates.…”

How do western democracies cope with the challenge of societal diversity?

“…It also institutionalizes defensive democracy measures to prevent the minorities from undermining the regime and its character. This is a system based on an inherent contradiction between civil rights for the minorities and majority supremacy (Peled, )…”