Preventing Ethnic Conflict

This renamed and revised paperback edition of Irwin Deutscher's Accommodating Diversity shares most of the book's original content but reframes the work with teachers and students in mind. Part social policy analysis and part intellectual autobiography, Preventing Ethnic Conflict mines the world's most troubling incidences of racial and ethnic conflict in order to find national policies that defuse the strains of cohabitation and encourage true reconciliation. Debunking the notion that conflict is inevitable when dominant and minority communities cohabit, Deutscher looks at five successful policies, from Swedish legislation dealing with immigrant education to the Chieftaincy act in Ghana, as he examines the possibilities for successful and harmonious intergroup relations. Deutscher concludes that the pursuit of a benign pluralist policy leads ultimately to assimilation, providing a political solution, which satisfies the champions of both diversity and unity. With introductory essays to each section written by Linda Lindsey that place the material within sociological theory, its problem solving focus, and provocative study questions, Preventing Ethnic Conflict is an ideal supplement for courses in race, ethnicity, and social problems.