Minority Rights: Between Diversity and Community / Edition 1

by Jennifer Jackson Preece

Overview

The question of minority rights is one of the great dilemmas of contemporary politics. Increases in the flow of immigrants, migrants and refugees have raised public concerns that greater cultural and ethnic diversity creates instability within nation-states. But does stability really require homogeneity? Or can it be maintained in the presence of different minority groups?

In this path-breaking book, Jackson Preece analyses whether traditional minority rights theory is sufficiently dynamic to inform effective responses to modern challenges. The central premise behind minority rights is that groups recognized and supported by the political community are far less likely to challenge its authority or threaten its territorial integrity. However, as Jackson Preece shows, the potential for collisions of values and interests still exists, and the possibility of a permanent solution to the problem of diversity remains illusive.

Minority Rights will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of political science, international relations, law, and sociology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745623962
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	12/23/2005
Series:	Key Concepts
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Jennifer Jackson-Preece is Lecturer in Nationalism in Europe at the European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Table of Contents

Preface.

List of Abbreviations.

1. Understanding the ‘Problem Minorities.

2. Religion.

3. Race.

4. Language.

5. Ethnicity.

6. Beyond the ‘Problem of Minorities’?.

Appendix A: Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging.

to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.

Appendix B: Selected Documents.

References.

Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

'This is an important book. At a time when western societies are becoming increasingly polarised between those who urge the virtues of milticulturalism and those who fear that our values are being undermined and our security threatened by the presence of minorities, we badly need a careful and clear-headed appraisal of minority rights and the dilemmas that they pose. Jennifer Jackson Preece is to be congratulated on providing us with just such an account.'

James Mayall, University of Cambridge

Editorial Reviews

'This is an important book. At a time when western societies are becoming increasingly polarised between those who urge the virtues of milticulturalism and those who fear that our values are being undermined and our security threatened by the presence of minorities, we badly need a careful and clear-headed appraisal of minority rights and the dilemmas that they pose. Jennifer Jackson Preece is to be congratulated on providing us with just such an account.'

James Mayall, University of Cambridge

From the Publisher