Ethnic democracy

Ethnic democracy is a political system that combines a structured ethnic dominance with democratic, political and civil rights for all. Both the dominant ethnic group and the minority ethnic groups have citizenship and are able to fully participate in the political process. Ethnic democracy differs from ethnocracy in that elements of it are more purely democratic. It provides the non-core groups with more political participation, influence and improvement of status than ethnocracy supposedly does. Nor is an ethnic democracy a Herrenvolk democracy which is by definition a democracy officially limited to the core ethnic nation only.^[1]

The term "ethnic democracy" was introduced by Professor Juan José Linz of Yale University in 1975,^[2] and subsequently by University of Haifa sociologist Professor Sammy Smooha in a book published in 1989,^[3] as a universalised model of the Israel case.^[4]^[2] The model was used widely in subsequent decades; in 1993 for a comparison of several countries, in 1997 for a comparison of Israel and Northern Ireland, applied to Estonia and Latvia in 1996 and Slovakia in 2000.^[2]

^ Smooha, S. 'The model of ethnic democracy: Israel as a Jewish and democratic state', Nations and Nationalism, p. 475. Volume 8 Issue s4, 2002.
^ ^a ^b ^c Smooha, 2001, p.23: "I used this name in 1989 without being aware that it was coined originally by Linz in 1975 to refer to a political system that is democratic for the dominant group but excludes, on the basis of ethnicity, other groups from the democratic process. In 1996 Linz and Stepan followed Linz’s original usage and employed the term (Type II, pp. 429-430) to essentially mean “Herrenvolk democracy”, which is a non-democratic system."
^ Smooha, S. The model of ethnic democracy Archived June 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, European Centre for Minority Issues, ECMI Working Paper # 13, 2001, p24.
^ S Smooha, Ethnic democracy: Israel as an archetype Archived 2017-03-09 at the Wayback Machine Israel, 1997

[smooha-1] Smooha, S. 'The model of ethnic democracy: Israel as a Jewish and democratic state', Nations and Nationalism, p. 475. Volume 8 Issue s4, 2002.

[Smooha23-2] Smooha, 2001, p.23: "I used this name in 1989 without being aware that it was coined originally by Linz in 1975 to refer to a political system that is democratic for the dominant group but excludes, on the basis of ethnicity, other groups from the democratic process. In 1996 Linz and Stepan followed Linz’s original usage and employed the term (Type II, pp. 429-430) to essentially mean “Herrenvolk democracy”, which is a non-democratic system."

[3] Smooha, S. The model of ethnic democracy Archived June 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine, European Centre for Minority Issues, ECMI Working Paper # 13, 2001, p24.

[4] S Smooha, Ethnic democracy: Israel as an archetype Archived 2017-03-09 at the Wayback Machine Israel, 1997

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