The Primordial Challenge: Ethnicity in the Contemporary World

Ethnicity plays a vital role in contemporary world politics. This collection of essays documents the international dimensions of ethnic identity by examining the interaction between ethnicity and the actions of modern nation-states in a variety of global, regional, and urban settings throughout the world. The editor, John F. Stack, Jr., provocatively argues that the dynamics of ethnicity in the contemporary world are best examined from the perspective of primordial attachments–those givens of social existence based on family ties, race, custom, language, religion, and region. This perspective is disputed by a number of the contributors who see ethnicity as the result of instrumental forces–state building, socioeconomic class, modernization, political development, and the transformation of the global political economy.