Minorities and Civil society in the Baltic region: study guide : a resource book for students

Abstract

The aim of the course is to present the role of the state in dealing with the problems of various minorities and in creating civil society in the Baltic region; to analyze ethnicity and reasons for ethnic discrimination in modern society; and to give sufficient competence to explain the development of ethnic compositions in the Baltic region. The Baltic Region in this class is defined as the Baltic Sea Region and its relation to the neighboring countries. Eric P. Kaufmann, focusing on dominant ethnicity, represents the State’s transformations and participation in the formational process of civil society. His analysis is based on liberal globalisation and multiculturalism that “have compelled nations to transform their identities from an ethnic to a civic mode. This has led, in many cases, to dominant ethnic decline, but also to its peripheral revival in the form of Far Right politics. At the same time, the growth of mass democracy and the decline of post-colonial and Cold War state unity in the developing world have opened the floodgates to assertions of ethnic dominance”. The post-Cold War period opens the way for new directions and changes in the Baltic Sea region.