Phenotypical, Linguistic or Religious? On the Concept and Measurement of Ethnic Fragmentation

Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies, Jun-Dec 2003 by Yeoh, Kok Kheng

Abstract: Existing studies on public policy and ethnicity either include only one of the three main non-class cleavages in society - racial (phenotypical), linguistic, religious - or considered them as separate variables. This paper suggests that they should be regarded as different manifestations of one single characteristic of ethnic differentiation. To treat these different 'ethnic markers' as separate variables or to employ one to the exclusion of the other regardless of the peculiarities of individual countries, forged especially by their specific historical geography and degree of ethnic intensity, inevitably leads to mismeasurement of the degree of fragmentation. Nevertheless, the inadequacy of such a measure of ethnic fragmentation needs to be recognised not only due to the cross-cutting or mutually reinforcing nature of cleavages, but also to the existence of other non-ethnic social variables that either contribute to the institutional complexity of the social environment in which the ethnic fragmentation functions or by themselves directly affect the degree of ethnic fractionalisation.

1. Introduction

The socio-economic implications of ethnic diversity has in recent years acquired an increasing global significance, due especially to the impact of re-ethnicisation and the widening of inequalities in Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism, or more appropriately, what Raiklin (1988) called "totalitarian state capitalism," in the summer and autumn of 1989. There social tensions are increasingly "expressed and enacted... as interethnic conflicts: conflicts among majority and minorities; or as conflicts among competing minorities." (Gheorghe 1991: 842)

Although ethnic diversity is not an exclusive feature of today's developing societies, it is nevertheless particularly relevant to them, since economic deprivation or desperate poverty "unduly heightens sensitivities and breeds a general atmosphere of unreasonableness and distrust, making it immensely more difficult to attain solutions to outstanding problems on the basis of a reasonable give and take" (Vasil 1984: 1-2). Indeed, the perceived gravity of impending ethnic conflicts led Aron (1969: 46) to predict that such conflicts "over social, racial, or political dominance - in turn or simultaneously - appear more likely than the continuation of the class struggle in the Marxist sense".

With ethnicity becoming "a perplexing political issue overlapping with and sometimes displacing the issue of class" (Rex 1983: xxi), particularly in multi-ethnic developing countries, a study of the relationship between the demographically/politically dominant ethnic group and the State', and the role of ethnic diversity in the political economy of the states concerned, should be more than a theoretical exercise.

2. The Concept of Ethnic Diversity

The importance of ethnic diversity as outlined above means that a precise definition of the concept is much needed. Nevertheless, its measurement has always been problematic. This is complicated by the confusion between the related concepts of race and ethnicity. There is a tendency in academic circles to distinguish between socially defined and biologically defined races - 'ethnie' and 'race'. An ethnie or ethnic group is said to exist when three conditions are present - "a segment of a larger society is seen by others to be different in some combination of the following characteristics - language, religion, race and ancestral homeland with its related culture; the members also perceive themselves in that way; and they participate in shared activities built around their (real or mythical) common origin and culture [and] a nation [is] an ethnic group that claims the right to, or at least a history of, statehood" (Yinger 1986:22). In contrast with 'racial groups' which are biological categories based on immutable, physical attributes fixed at birth, 'ethnic groups' are defined by a much wider range of cultural, linguistic, religious and national characteristics, with a more flexible form of group differentiation. However, racial and ethnic characteristics thus defined often overlap in any one group while extremely deep divisions are often found between groups whose racial as well as ethnic differences are actually imperceptible, e.g. the Burakumin, the so-called "invisible race" of Japan. Moreover, as Yinger remarked, in practice, ethnicity has come to refer to anything from a sub-societal group that clearly shares a common descent and cultural background (e.g. the Kosovar Albanians), to persons who share a former citizenship although diverse culturally (Indonesians in the Netherlands), to pan-cultural groups of persons of widely different cultural and societal backgrounds who, however, can be identified as 'similar' on the basis of language, race or religion mixed with broadly similar statuses (Hispanics in the United States).

Barth (1969) noted that the 'traditional proposition' that race=culture =language(=nation) is far removed from empirical reality. Hoetink (1975 :18) abstained from the use of the term 'ethnic' - and preferred 'socioracial' instead - because 'ethnic group' suggested an absence of overlapping ascriptive loyalties. He noted that from the important ascriptive criteria of territoriality (ancestral homeland), notions of common descent ('race'), language and religion, the presence of only one of the four is necessary to create an 'ethnic group' (Hoetink 1975 : 24). Since ethnicity may ambiguously subsume a variety of exclusive or overlapping loyalties, Hoetink preferred to analyse these in terms of their ascriptive content and their greater or lesser correlation. The term 'ethnic' as used in this paper should therefore be considered equivalent to Hoetink's term 'socioracial'.