The Basic Elements of a Systematic Theory of Ethnic Relations

The theory of ethnic relations has developed ad hoc on an interdisciplinary basis. It has dealt with ethnicity in small communities, larger ethnic groups or "ethnies", ethnic nations, modernising nation states, subordinate nationalisms, the establishment of empires, post-imperial situations, transnational migrant communities and the political problems facing modernising nation states in dealing both with subordinate nationalisms and with migrant ethnic minorities.This paper seeks to deal with these various elements in an interconnected and systematic way setting out the nature of communities, small- scale self contained communities, the enlargement of these communities to form ethnic nations and the relationship between these and the institutions of the modernising nation state. It also seeks however to deal with what I call "The second project of ethnicity" which is migration and finally goes on to look at the complex problems of multi-nationality and multiculturalism in modern nation states