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1. On data and trends in horizontal inequality

Author:
Carla Canelas
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Economic, social, and political inequalities are at the forefront of today’s public debate. While governments around the world have made conscious efforts to promote social inclusion, and major progress in fulfilling basic needs has been witnessed during the last decades, certain groups of people are still left behind in many domains of life. This paper aims to summarize recent horizontal inequality trends across and within countries and to better understand these changes over time. Overall, horizontal inequalities have been falling in the developing world, in spite of significant country variation. Importantly, significant differences exist for different inequality dimensions, i.e. economic, social, political. In terms of data, few cross-country horizontal inequality datasets are available for research. In general, there is a trade-off between the coverage of countries and time periods as well as comparability of the results between countries and years. Contrary to vertical inequalities, there has not been a systematic effort to construct and maintain an up-to-date dataset on horizontal inequalities.
Topic:
Inequality, Ethnicity, and Data
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Ethnic dominance and exclusion: Unpacking cross-national data

Author:
Andrea Vaccaro
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
It is widely accepted that the distribution of power between ethnic groups within a country plays a key role in major social, political, and economic outcomes. Researchers working on the topic have various measures of ethnic dominance and exclusion, and other closely related aspects such as ethnic fractionalization, polarization, and heterogeneity, available to them. These measures are, however, often used without sufficient critical reflection and their empirical differences are not entirely understood. The literature does not provide too much guidance either. In fact, efforts to comparatively evaluate data on how power is distributed between ethnic groups are in short supply. To address this gap in the literature, the study at hand provides a comprehensive descriptive analysis of publicly available common cross-national country-level measures on ethnic dominance and exclusion. The findings of this study suggest that Varieties of Democracy’s Exclusion by Social Group and Ethnic Power Relations’ Ethnic Exclusion are more alike than the other measures under scrutiny, yet in general the empirical differences among common measures of ethnic dominance and exclusion are substantial. Scholars should thus reject an ‘any measure will do’ approach when choosing among competing measures.
Topic:
Ethnicity, Data, and Exclusion
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Consumer and employer discrimination in professional sports markets – New evidence from Major League Baseball

Author:
Wolfgang Maennig and Steffen Mueller
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
Abstract:
We investigate the relationship between consumer discrimination, racial matching strategies, and employer discrimination in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1985 to 2016. To this end, we assess the extent to which both fan attendance and team performance respond to changes in teams’ and their local market areas’ racial compositions. We innovate by using a significantly enhanced data basis with individual player data that we derive from combining web scraping and using facial recognition techniques to identify player race and using County-level Census data instead of Metropolitan Statistical Area data. We find that fans in both MLB Leagues developed a taste for racial diversity in the late 1980s; since the 2000s, discrimination starts to increase again. However, this discrimination is not fully rationalizing the performance gap across athletes of different race and ethnicity; employer discrimination is not primarily driven by fans’ racial preferences.
Topic:
Economics, Race, Employment, Sports, Ethnicity, Discrimination, Consumer Behavior, Facial Recognition, and Baseball
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Movements for Inclusion (Syllabus Resource)

Author:
Peace and Security (GIWPS) Georgetown Institute for Women
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS)
Abstract:
The following is material to consider for your syllabus related to movements for inclusion: Specifically, there is: Disability Rights Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minority Rights Indigenous Rights Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Rights Scholarly writing on movements for inclusion written by diverse scholars and experts; Scholarly writing providing geographic variety and geographically varied perspectives; Studies and analyses examining diversity, equity, and inclusion-related dimensions of movements for inclusion.
Topic:
Human Rights, Religion, Ethnicity, Linguistics, Disability, LGBT+, Indigenous, and Gender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. North Atlantic Perspectives: A Forum on Stuart Hall’s The Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity, Nation, Part I

Author:
Donna V. Jones, Kevin Bruyneel, and William Garcia Medina
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
Stuart Hall, a founding scholar in the Birmingham School of cultural studies and eminent theorist of ethnicity, identity and difference in the African diaspora, as well as a leading analyst of the cultural politics of the Thatcher and post-Thatcher years, delivered the W. E. B. Du Bois Lectures at Harvard University in 1994. In the lectures, published after a nearly quarter-century delay as The Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity, Nation (2017), Hall advances the argument that race, at least in North Atlantic contexts, operates as a ‘sliding signifier,’ such that, even after the notion of a biological essence to race has been widely discredited, race-thinking nonetheless renews itself by essentializing other characteristics such as cultural difference. Substituting Michel Foucault’s famous power-knowledge dyad with power-knowledge-difference, Hall argues that thinking through the fateful triangle of race, ethnicity and nation shows us how discursive systems attempt to deal with human difference. Part I of the forum critically examines the promise and potential problems of Hall’s work from the context of North America and western Europe in the wake of #BlackLivesMatter and Brexit. Donna Jones suggests that, although the Birmingham School’s core contributions shattered all certainties about class identity, Hall’s Du Bois Lectures may be inadequate to a moment when white racist and ethno-nationalist appeals are ascendant in the USA and Europe and that, therefore, his and Paul Gilroy’s earlier work on race and class deserve our renewed attention. Kevin Bruyneel examines Hall’s work on race in relation to three analytics that foreground racism’s material practices: intersectionality, racial capitalism and settler colonialism. William Garcia in the final contribution asks us to think about the anti-immigrant black nativisms condoned and even encouraged by discourses of African-American identity and by unmarked references to blackness in the US context. In ‘Fateful Triangles in Brazil,’ Part II of Contexto Internacional’s forum on The Fateful Triangle, three scholars work with and against Hall’s arguments from the standpoint of racial politics in Brazil.
Topic:
International Relations, Race, Capitalism, Ethnicity, and Nation-State
Political Geography:
Brazil and Global Focus

6. National Minority Capital: Introducing the New Concept

Author:
Zora Popova
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
The aim of this issue brief is to present the novel concept of national minority capital and to define it against the background of minority and social capital studies. The concept is based on analysis of empirical evidence within the frameworks of past ECMI research projects and the conceptual models designed for their purposes. It sits at the intersection of regional development studies, minority studies and social capital theory, which helps it to offer an alternative perspective and inspire further interdisciplinary academic research and debates on the topic. Although the model and the theory are only at their initial stage, the discourse that they introduce can help policy and decision makers in their strategic planning. National minority capital can become an asset and economic advantage to states but only if they can manage diversity so that individuals belonging to minority communities feel motivated to offer their cultural competences to the benefit of the multicultural societies to which they belong.
Topic:
Governance, Multiculturalism, Minorities, Ethnicity, and Identity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. National Minorities and Socioeconomic Equality: Still Work in Progress

Author:
Andreea Carstocea
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
National minorities often find themselves at a socio-economic disadvantage, whether in their access to employment, adequate housing, social services or healthcare. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the main legal instrument safeguarding the rights of national minorities, includes the right to equality before the law and of equal protection by the law, and the right to effective participation in social and economic life. This Issue brief will focus on the monitoring process of this legal instrument, analysing the extent to which the right to socioeconomic participation is monitored by the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The conclusion of the Issue brief will point towards a rather inconsistent and unstructured approach towards the monitoring of this topic and will argue that the socio-economic objectives already developed under the Framework Convention should be followed through in the monitoring of the socio-economic situation of all national minorities, alongside renewed requests for improved data collection by governments.
Topic:
Economics, Government, Nationalism, Minorities, Ethnicity, Socioeconomics, and Protected People
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. The FCNM at 20: Is There Indeed a Crisis?

Author:
Ljubica Djordjevic
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
The occasion of the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) has called for recapitulation of its effects and provoked debates about the current state of affairs in the European system of minority protection. The general tune of the comments/observations is rather cloudy: although the significance of the FCNM has been acknowledged, it has been often remarked that the system is in a crisis and stuck in a dead-end. It has been argued that states are more reluctant to the concept of a multicultural society and to the minority protection, that bilateral relations increasingly affect the position of respective minorities and, consequently, multilateralism has ceased to be the dominant method to solve issues in minority protection. The monitoring system has also been subjected to criticism, suggesting it is inefficient and unable to enforce the principles set out in the FCNM. The purpose of this Issue Brief is to outline some basic tendencies in the dynamics of the FCNM in the past 20 years, with the aim to explore whether the FCNM is indeed in crisis, as it has often been argued. The first part shows the quantitative dynamics of the FCNM: the timeline of the process of submitting instruments of signature and ratification, as well as reservations, declarations or communications. It also addresses the problem of the delays in the monitoring process that have been observed and rightly criticized. The second part focuses on the qualitative impact of the FCNM on the protection of national minorities in its states parties. Here, some general positive and negative trends have been pointed out, which the Advisory Committee has brought up in several of its Activity Reports. The Issue Brief is part of the ECMI larger research project seeking to assess the impacts of the FCNM and the effectiveness of the monitoring of its implementation. As such, the Issue Brief presents some central (though still preliminary) findings of the study that will be published in 2019.
Topic:
Treaties and Agreements, Multiculturalism, Minorities, Ethnicity, Identity, and Protected People
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. A Life in the Margins: Understanding the Roma Experience

Author:
Michelle Nicholasen
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
In one of the popular Madeline children’s stories, the well-known redheaded French schoolgirl runs away with her friend Pepito to join a caravan of Gypsies who train them to perform in their traveling circus. At first they are thrilled not to have to go to school or brush their teeth. But when they become homesick, the Gypsy mother sews them into a lion costume, effectively kidnapping them. Of course it ends well, with a rescued Madeline exchanging farewells with the affectionate Gypsy mother and children and returning to boarding school. Is this a harmless children’s adventure story or does it perpetuate an enduring stereotype of criminality and indifference among a little-understood ethnic group? The educational crisis of Romani children (pejoratively referenced as “Gypsies”) is just one of many research topics spearheaded by a faculty team from the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center on Health and Human Rights at Harvard. Ask an American if they know someone of Roma heritage, and they will likely draw a blank. But mention the word “Gypsy” and a flood of associations will come to mind, especially from childhood.
Topic:
Culture, Ethnicity, and Diversity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. Ethnicity and ethnicities Part I

Author:
Shokhrat Kadyrov, Olga Brusina, and Isaac Scarborough
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:
Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:
Scientific paradigm changes are frequently accompanied by the reconsideration of central terms and ideas. This article demonstrates how this process is currently underway in Russian anthropological studies [narodovedenie] as part of a broader move away from ethnography to theoretical ethnology. The article also shows lines of succession and divergence between various paradigms currently dominant in Russian anthropology, including primordialism and constructivism, and presents the author’s vision of a definition of “ethnicity”, instruments needed to study ethnicities, the nature of “ethnicity,” the underlying axioms on which ethnicities are conceptualized. An initial attempt has been made in the article to outline the central positions that would provide for a principally new ethnological paradigm by way of a new definition of the phenomenon of ethnicity
Topic:
Science and Technology, Ethnicity, Anthropology, and Constructivism
Political Geography:
Russia, Eastern Europe, and Global Focus