著者

石川 一雄

出版者

一般財団法人 日本国際政治学会

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1987, no.86, pp.1-17,L5, 1987

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Ethnic differences are used to be the single most important source of conflict within states, and they are frequently instrumental in arousing critical situations between countries as well. In present day world, the increase of ethnic diasporas and of antagonistic confrontations between or among politicized ethnic groups in most parts of the world, is changing the social and political milieu of the intra- and international relations more than expected. But, the international and, in particular, the trans-state activities of those ethnic groups, have hardly been addressed by students of comparative politics, or international relations. So that the demand for new scholarly efforts to understand their dynamics to find the peaceful and effective management of conflict become urgent.<br>This paper, responding to the demand, is concerned about the political and social configurations of states as serving units to create or sustain systemic ethnic disadvantages and inequalities. And to convey a sense of the generality of ethnic conflicts and to indicate the necessity of the reorientating basic conceptualizations, simultaneously, such concepts as state, nation, integration, and the formation of institutional arrangements are re-examined.<br>Firstly, using the compact illustration of the configuration of ethnic demands and governmental responses, various policy alternatives are relocated and reviewed on the continuum between complete autonomy and complete assimilation. The illustration tells us that ethnic conflicts cannot be expected to be resolved as long as we coexist with different ethnic groups in a single state, and also international frameworks won't be the final alternative to resolve the conflicts. The complete autonomy of ethnically self-conscious groups and their assimilation into the larger social setting in which they find themselves are both no real resolution of the conflicts. The best way of regulating ethnic conflicts has to be found somewhere in a domestic political arena.<br>Secondly, arguing the impracticability of social and cultural unification model both in segmented societies and in international regional systems, the necessity of pluralistic conceptualization of political integration is discussed.