In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Chapter 19 Conclusion Much of history has been concerned with efforts by those without power to assert greater control over their own lives. Designation as a "minority " or "majority" has had little meaning in many of these struggles, as the territory in which dissident or anti-state forces find themselves is generally defined (by them) in a manner which ensures that the principle of "majority rule" can be used to justify their rejection of the ruling auth~rities.'~'~ In the nineteenth century, those groups which obtained international recognition as constituting a new state became majorities; unsuccessful aspirants to statehood remained minorities. There has been great concern in the twentieth century with "nation building," but a more accurate view of recent history would be that of nations being destroyed (or at least diminished) by states. The spread of empires-from the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman to the British, French, Ottoman, and Russian-reflected political and legal theories that separated ethnicity, religion, and "nationhood" from the authority of government. While the government of the empire was often itself closely tied to a particular culture, non-settler empires did not always seek to impose more than political and economic control over their subjects (with the exception of missionaries' attempts at religious conversion). The identification of "state" with "nation" in the late nineteenth 1194 "[Iln the most refractory cases, the conduct of a 'fair and frce election' is no panacea. Rather, it raises in a most acute form the question of which population belongs to which territory-a question which. . . is often inextricably bound up with the issue of the critical date. Preconceived notions of who the 'real' population of a territory is; of the significance to be given to movements of population, in the recent and more remote past; and, above all, of whose rights should prevail over whose-ineluctably influence the stand taken on the illusorily neutral issue of the conditions for holding a 'fair' referendum." Pomerance, supra note 103, at 29. Chapter 19 Conclusion Much of history has been concerned with efforts by those without power to assert greater control over their own lives. I)esignation as a "minority " or "majority" has had little meaning in many of these struggles, as the territory in which dissident or anti-state forces find themselves is generally defined (by them) in a manner which ensures that the principle of "majority rule" can be used to justify their rejection of the ruling authorities. 1194 In the nineteenth century, those groups which obtained international recognition as constituting a new state became majorities; unsuccessful aspirants to statehood remained rninorities. There has been great concern in the twentieth century with "nation building," but a more accurate view of recent history would be that of nations being destroyed (or at least diminished) by states. The spread of empires-from the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman to the British, French, Ottoman, and Russian-reflected political and legal theories that separated ethnicity, religion, and "nationhood" from the authority of government. While the government of the empire was often itself closely tied to a particular culture, non-settler empires did not always seek to impose more than political and economic control over their subjects (with the exception of missionaries' attempts at religious conversion). The identification of "state" with "nation" in the late nineteenth 1194 "[I]n the most refractory cases, the conduct of a 'fair and free election' is no panacea. Rather, it raises in a most acute form the question of which population belongs to which territory-a question which ... is often inextricably bound up with the issue of the critical date. Preconceived notions of who the 'real' population of a territory is; of the significance to be given to movements of population, in the recent and more remote past; and, above all, of whose rights should prevail over whose-ineluctably influence the stand taken on the illusorily neutral issue of the conditions for holding a 'fair' referendum." Pomerance, supra note 103, at 29. 454 Conclusion and twentieth centuries dramatically reversed the course of the empires. As democracy and social contract theory became central to European concepts of government, multi-ethnic states became more difficult to sustain. States-in-waiting utilized ethnic or linguistic homogeneity to justify their separation from the empire to which they were subject, as well as to legitimize peripheral territorial expansion. Contiguous empires , such as the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian, disintegrated under the pressures of ethnic nationalism (aided and abetted by rival powers), while the new overseas empires...

Share