victim out-group as sub-human and inferior as discussed earlier in
this chapter.
An alternative approach to the management of ethnic and racial
differences is an assimilationist one in which members of ‘minority’
communities are granted equality and rights to the extent to which
they adopt the way of life of the ‘dominant’ group. Thus French
colonial policy was based on the doctrine of the equality of all civilised
men – civilisation being equated largely with French education,
language and loyalty. In effect US and British citizenship policy has
had some elements of this, with requirements for fluency in English,
knowledge of the constitution and the swearing of allegiance.
Another model for achieving the integration of different ethnic or
racial groups in one society is the pluralist one – which, to a large
extent, has predominated in the USA. In European terms one might
call it the Swiss model – in which separate groups respect each other’s
linguistic, religious and cultural inheritances. Whilst a degree of
convergence may take place in terms of values and political habits,
there is no requirement that one group’s values be seen as the
orthodoxy for the society as a whole. Clearly tolerance and negotiated
compromises must mark such a society if it is to endure.
From the point of view of political change and stability, the
domination of one ethnic or racial group over others may appear to be
a quite stable situation. In some cases such stability may be pur-
chased at the price of a certain element of stagnation since intellectual
and social change may be seen as threatening the ideology of the
dominant group. It may well be accompanied by violent repression of
dissent either by the state (as in apartheid South Africa and under
colonial regimes) or by the dominant group (as with the Ku Klux
Klan in the southern USA). However, repression of a majority
population is a dangerous strategy and carries with it the possibility
of revolutionary upheaval.
Where policies of assimilation or pluralism are adopted then the
possibilities for improvement for the less-favoured groups reduce the
likelihood of full-scale violent confrontation between groups.
Piecemeal adjustment of conflicts between groups is possible and
long-term changes resulting from immigration or industrialisation
may be more easily accommodated. Paradoxically, there may be more
day-to-day overt expressions of ethnic and racial conflict than in
PROCESSES 113