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Worldwide, ethnopolitics takes on various shapes. Yet, while politics involving ethnicity can be either conflictual, competitive, or cooperative,1 analysts typically focus either on instances of conflict or ignore the multiethnicity of states by sticking to "the comfortable integrationist presumptions of the 1950s."2 All too rarely does one find analyses of policies that work in difficult situations. This global trend is intensified in the case of Eastern Europe. As this region has suffered instances of ethnic politics gone wrong-most recently in the former Yugoslavia-many analysts assume that constructive approaches to ethnic relations are impossible, even though they are needed more than ever. Here, I outline a model of ethnopolitics which is both democratic and constructive, has been used in East Central Europe in the past, and has potential for the future. In presenting the case for ethnopluralism, I outline a promising alternative to ethnic conflict or neglect.
Ethnopluralism as presented here is a coherent policy model that goes beyond ad hoc arrangements and notions of minority rights. Its essence is to focus on all groups involved and to foster civic unity while safeguarding ethnic identities, typically by guaranteeing minority group self-expression in some spheres. As argued by pluralist thinkers, comprehensive ethnic mixing and homogenizing can be problematic in non-immigrant multiethnic societies, whereas providing a framework for the stable preservation of distinct identities can promote overall integration.3 Pluralist thinking is paradoxical in that it assumes that diversity, clustering, and the creation of some boundaries can help to promote national unity. As expressed by one author, "probably the only means of preserving cultural and consensus values, and the only means of integration in the long term, is through local autonomy in the short term. Separation promotes a sense of security from which there can be cooperative transactions between communities, leading finally to a higher degree of functional cooperation, if not integration."4 Thus, in practice, ethnopluralism involves a twotrack policy that needs to be fine tuned in each case: one policy track maintains the cultural space and identity of each community, while the other track enhances a common culture and values it as a tool of state building and formation of a civic nation.
The specific forms of pluralist ethnic expression vary. In East Central Europe, the emphasis has...