Ethnic Diversity and the Nation State

ABSTRACT The coterminality of nation and state is the central legitimising principle of the modern state, which has recently come to be challenged by a variety of ethnic groups across the world. This essay identifies two such challenges: (a) The Claim of Alternative Statehood, which endorses the coterminality of cultural and political community, challenges the political boundaries of existing nation-states, and grounds its secessionist demands in a more precise congruence between nationality and state; and (b) The Claim of Alternative Citizenship, which does not threaten the nation-state, and seeks only protection for the special requirements of cultural community, for which it demands autonomy, agency and rights. Both types of challenge tend to submerge the individual, as they uphold the rival claims of states and cultural communities.
It is argued that the failed promise of pluralism in modern multi-ethnic societies demands a rethinking of the notion of citizenship. Extending citizenship from its location in polity/state to society as such, and providing space for affiliative and affinitive identities in addition to filiative ones, may help to strengthen civil society, within a non-majoritarian and non-homogenising political framework.