Do race and ethnicity present a danger to the consolidation of effective democratic government? Can liberal constitutionalism provide a stable basis for governance of a polity historically erected on racial and ethnic division? In this book Courtney Jung argues that when ethnic and racial identities are politically fluid and heterogeneous, as she finds they are in South Africa, ethnic and racial politics will not undermine the peaceful and democratic potential of the government.

Jung examines three important cases of politicized racial and ethnic identity in South Africa: Zulu, Afrikaner, and Coloured. Working from extensive field research and interviews, she develops a model to explain shifts in the political salience, goals, and boundaries of these groups between 1980 and 1995. Jung challenges the common assumption that cultural identities overdetermine political possibility, pointing out that individual members fail for the most part to internalize the political agenda of "their own" ethnic group. Group engagement with the state is also conditioned by contextual factors, not determined by its constitution in ethnic or racial terms. South Africa is no more divided than most other societies, she concludes, and no less likely to consolidate democracy as a result of its politicized cleavages of race and ethnicity.

The achievements of the democratic constitutional order have long been associated with the sovereign nation-state. Civic nationalist assumptions hold that social solidarity and social plurality are compatible, offering a path to guarantees of individual rights, social justice, and tolerance for minority voices. Yet today, challenges to the liberal-democratic sovereign nation-state are proliferating on all levels, from multinational corporations and international institutions to populist nationalisms and revanchist ethnic and religious movements. Many critics see the nation-state itself as a tool of racial and economic exclusion and repression. What other options are available for managing pluralism, fostering self-government, furthering social justice, and defending equality? In this interdisciplinary volume, a group of prominent international scholars considers alternative political formations to the nation-state and their ability to preserve and expand the achievements of democratic constitutionalism in the twenty-first century. The book considers four different principles of organization-federation, subsidiarity, status group legal pluralism, and transnational corporate autonomy-contrasts them with the unitary and centralized nation-state, and inquires into their capacity to deal with deep societal differences. In essays that examine empire, indigenous struggles, corporate institutions, forms of federalism, and the complexities of political secularism, anthropologists, historians, legal scholars, political scientists, and sociologists remind us that the sovereign nation-state is not inevitable and that multinational and federal states need not privilege a particular group. Forms of Pluralism and Democratic Constitutionalism helps us answer the crucial question of whether any of the alternatives might be better suited to core democratic principles.

Tracing the political origins of the Mexican indigenous rights movement, from the colonial encounter to the Zapatista uprising, and from Chiapas to Geneva, Courtney Jung locates indigenous identity in the history of Mexican state formation. She argues that indigenous identity is not an accident of birth but a political achievement that offers a new voice to many of the world's poorest and most dispossessed. The moral force of indigenous claims rests not on the existence of cultural differences, or identity, but on the history of exclusion and selective inclusion that constitutes indigenous identity. As a result, the book shows that privatizing or protecting such groups is a mistake and develops a theory of critical liberalism that commits democratic government to active engagement with the claims of culture. This book will appeal to scholars and students of political theory, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology studying multiculturalism and the politics of culture.

Tracing the political origins of the Mexican indigenous rights movement, from the colonial encounter to the Zapatista uprising, and from Chiapas to Geneva, Courtney Jung locates indigenous identity in the history of Mexican state formation. She argues that indigenous identity is not an accident of birth but a political achievement that offers a new voice to many of the world's poorest and most dispossessed. The moral force of indigenous claims rests not on the existence of cultural differences, or identity, but on the history of exclusion and selective inclusion that constitutes indigenous identity. As a result, the book shows that privatizing or protecting such groups is a mistake and develops a theory of critical liberalism that commits democratic government to active engagement with the claims of culture. This book will appeal to scholars and students of political theory, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology studying multiculturalism and the politics of culture.

The achievements of the democratic constitutional order have long been associated with the sovereign nation-state. Civic nationalist assumptions hold that social solidarity and social plurality are compatible, offering a path to guarantees of individual rights, social justice, and tolerance for minority voices. Yet today, challenges to the liberal-democratic sovereign nation-state are proliferating on all levels, from multinational corporations and international institutions to populist nationalisms and revanchist ethnic and religious movements. Many critics see the nation-state itself as a tool of racial and economic exclusion and repression. What other options are available for managing pluralism, fostering self-government, furthering social justice, and defending equality? In this interdisciplinary volume, a group of prominent international scholars considers alternative political formations to the nation-state and their ability to preserve and expand the achievements of democratic constitutionalism in the twenty-first century. The book considers four different principles of organization-federation, subsidiarity, status group legal pluralism, and transnational corporate autonomy-contrasts them with the unitary and centralized nation-state, and inquires into their capacity to deal with deep societal differences. In essays that examine empire, indigenous struggles, corporate institutions, forms of federalism, and the complexities of political secularism, anthropologists, historians, legal scholars, political scientists, and sociologists remind us that the sovereign nation-state is not inevitable and that multinational and federal states need not privilege a particular group. Forms of Pluralism and Democratic Constitutionalism helps us answer the crucial question of whether any of the alternatives might be better suited to core democratic principles.