non has existed and exists,  wrote Seton-Watson. And will continue to exist in the foreseeable future, we may safely add.
One of the most original explanations of why ethnicity is so persistent was provided by Pierre van den Berghe. It is based on notions derived from sociobiology and regards ethnicity as kin selection.  Ethnicity is common descent, either real or putative, but, even when putative, the myth has to be validated by several generations of common historical experience. 10 Ethnicity is thus perceived as something natural, rooted in the biological makeup of humankind. And favoring one s ethnic brothers (another kin term!) is part and parcel of any traditional social system.
This fact, of course, does not explain the many masks of nationalism. It was born in the struggle of the West European middle class against feudal privilege and absolutism. Later, it was used by the state for colonial expansion and imperialism (the  bureaucratic nationalism,  as Anthony Smith calls it.11) Meanwhile, as it expanded (or contaminated) multinational empires of Central and Eastern Eu-r pe, nationalism was adopted by the nascent intelligentsias of ethnic minorities who sought freedom and development through self-determination and secession. As it penetrated the lower social strata, nationalism merged with populism and xenophobia to support us against them and provide structure and cohesion that the uprooted masses lacked. In short, nationalism can put on any number of masks, which explains why it has
 expanded and proliferated into the most powerful yet elusive of all modem ideologies. 12
And there is no end in sight. The ideal of self-determination is now firmly established in the popular mind. Liberation movements of all kinds ethnic, gay, women s, racial have gained acceptance and respectability. Size no longer matters Iceland, Luxembourg, and Malta proved that even very small states can be viable. Accession to economic unions, such as the European Community, gives even the smallest states access to huge markets. And successfill conclusion of liberation struggles in former colonies gave a tremendous boost to ethnic political movements in the old countries in Europe.
Thus, smaller and more ethnies  the Basques and the Catalans, the Scots and the Flemings are beginning to seek more autonomy and, eventually, independence, perhaps within a unified Europe.13 And on it goes.
FROM VIENNA TO VERSAILLES The gradual acceptance of the principle of self-determination can clearly be seen in the history of international congresses called upon to solve political problems after major wars.
Up until the nineteenth century, ethnicity got scant attention from statesmen and diplomats. As late as 1862, Lord Acton, in a flash of prescience, wrote that  nationality does not aim at either liberty or prosperity, both of which it sacrifices to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould and measure of the State. Its course will be marked with material as well as moral ruin.
Only an absolutist state ruled by an established dynasty was recognized as an acceptable international partner. ta, at the Congress of Vienna, the Great Pow ers upheld^the legitimacy of^dynastic empire and confirmed the partition of Poland with total disregard for ethnic sent Zt. However, even mighty empires could not withstand the spread of new ideas, including the idea of P Pul^7he eighty. When applied to nationality, the principle of popular sovereignty whed that ethnically alien government was file ^X^thnic nationalism gained momentum European powers could no longer ig-X  it. The Greek war of independence,
the conflict between Germans and Danes in Schleswig-Holstein, the Italian struggle for unification, Polish uprisings, all demanded settlement based on self-determination.
Once the Great Powers realized that they could not control or resist the rising tide of nationalism, they tried to use it for their own gain as, for example, Napoleon III used Italian struggle against Austria for his own purposes in 1859. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878 the Great Powers had to concede independence to various Balkan peoples who had broken away from the Ottoman Empire, but still felt free to carve up Bulgaria when it suited their interests.
It was only at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that the principle of nationality and self-determination was firmly established as the normative principle of a legitimate government. Thus, between 1814 and 1919 there occurred a major shift in the principle of settling international disputes. Since then, ethnicity has retained its importance.
Germany, Austria, and Turkey after World War I, Czechoslovakia in 1938, Romania in 1940, Yugoslavia in 1941 all lost territory or were dismembered along ethnic lines. (There are, of course, notable exceptions, as when Germany lost ethnically German territories after World War II, but even here populations were expelled to make sure that political and ethnic borders coincided.)
It was precisely for that reason (the lack of congruence between political and ethnic borders) that the settlement reached at Versailles proved so ephemeral: It left too many ethnic enclaves, too many ethnic problems unsettled.
SOLUTIONS: THE MELTING POT AND THE UNMELTABLE ETHNICS
Americans are probably most familiar with the notion of a melting pot. It could have developed only in a country of mass immigration, a country that had successful absorbed mittons of immigrants.
America, of course, is not unique ir that sense. Other settler colonies Cana da, Australia, New Zealand, South Afri ca to name a few have also been settlec in a similar pattern. And old coimtne: like France after World War I also al lowed and even promoted massive in-mi gration.
20
8. THE ETHNIC FACTOR: CHALLENGES FOR THE 1990s
However, America has always been a classical land of immigration, so it is no wonder that the theory of assimilation and amalgamation of people of different ethnic stock was developed in this country. Basically, the theory postulated that assimilation was a four-stage process that included contact, competition, accommodation, and, finally, assimilation.
Since then the theory has been much tinkered with. For example, it has been suggested that white immigrants assimilate within large religious denominations. Some sociologists even ventured to predict that eventually large ethno-religious blocs of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews would develop.
The data on intermarriage seem to support this hypothesis. In the late 1970s, 40 percent of Jews and Catholics married outside their religion. And among certain ethnic groups high rates of intermarriage suggest the approach of complete meltdown: 70 percent for Germans and Irish, 50 percent for Poles and Italians, 40 percent for French Canadians.15
However, there are several cracks clearly visible in the melting pot. One is
that ethnic identification often persists even after all ethnic peculiarities have been lost. America is full of Italians whose Italianness finds expression in eating pasta and Poles whose Polishness is limited to kielbasa.
Second, it takes two to assimilate. Acculturation, in other words, changes in observable behavior, can be accomplished by one actor. But assimilation, that is, absorption into the social structure of another group, is impossible without at least a tacit approval of the assimilating group.
In a country like Australia, which was without significant racial minorities (until very recently), such assimilation may proceed relatively smoothly, but in the United States with its ethnic and racial diversity, complete amalgamation may have stalled, perhaps for good.
Does the melting pot work? There is no overall answer. We have to proceed country by country. In the United States, it worked for virtually all white immigrants although rates of assimilation and the degree of assimilation achieved vary from group to group. Some Asians, particularly second- and third-generation Japanese, have also achieved high rates of out-
marriage. It is quite possib will eventually dissolve, like grants, in the American stew.
The question is more with black and Latino pop though rates of outmarriage to increase among these gro the presence of large Latino south of the border and the bers of the black minority (tl make absorption more difficu
So the verdict is still out tant thing to keep in mind is ing pot can only work in a se where ethnic groups lack 1 Whenever the territorial di pears as in Quebec the would not work.
SWITZERLAND: THE ADV OF APARTHEID
The exact opposite < pot is the concept in other words, a   and structural sepa stituent racial or ethnic grou
Various approximations though best known as it wa
from Serbia^ he return of Baranya territory
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South Africa, can be found all over the globe, including Switzerland. (I can already see stares of incredulity on most readers  faces ... but wait.)
Even in South Africa, apartheid was never carried out to its logical extreme  the complete separation of racial groups from each other. In a developed industrial society dependent on cheap black labor that was impossible. So, even South Africa at the height of apartheid would not qualify as an example of pure apartheid. On the other hand, America, the classical land of a melting pot, never achieved complete melting. So, we have to keep in mind that we are talking about ideal types.
Romansh. In terms of religious subdivisions, 58 percent are Protestant and 42 percent Catholic.
If we now take a closer look at the cantons, we will find that of the twenty-six cantons (actually, twenty-two cantons and four semicantons), twenty-three are more than 80 percent monolingual and in the other three the percentage of people speaking the main language does not dip below 60. What s more, in seventeen cantons, monolinguals amount to 95 percent. The same pattern can be observed in the distribution of religious denominations. In eighteen cantons religious majority exceeds 70 percent; nowhere does it fall below 53 percent.16
44. Ethnic Conflic
man, two French, and one Italian (there is, however, a marked tendency for uneven income/religion distribution; thus, nine of the ten richest cantons are Protestant, nine of the ten poorest are Catholic, a clear indication of how Protestantism interacts with the spirit of capitalism).17 In short, each canton has a large linguistic and religious majority, and this prevents fission based on language and religion.
A recently resolved problem in Jura is a hint of what might have happened if Swiss ethnic, linguistic, and denominational communities were mixed together.
The territoiy, predominantly Francophone and Catholic, was attached to Bern by the Vienna Congress of 1814 as
Now, Switzerland is far from being a land of apartheid in its pure form because all Swiss citizens are equal before the law (at least in theory). However, its major linguistic and religious groups do not mix, for each one has a canton or cantons of its own. And this fact allows me to call it, tongue in cheek,