Pandaemonium: Ethnicity in International Politics
Select Format
Select Condition 
Book Overview
Ten years before the Soviet Union collapsed, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan stood almost alone in predicting its demise. As the intelligence community and cold war analysts churned out statistics demonstrating the enduring strength of the Moscow regime, Moynihan, focusing on ethnic conflict, argued that the end was at hand. Now, with such conflict breaking out across the world, from Central Asia to South Central Los Angeles, he sets forth a general proposition: Far from vanishing, ethnicity has been and will be an elemental force in international politics.
Drawing on a lifetime of scholarship, the Senator provides in Pandaemonium a subtle, richly textured account of the process by which theory has grudgingly begun to adapt to reality. Moynihan--whose previous studies range over thirty years from Beyond the Melting Pot (with Nathan Glazer) to the much acclaimed On the Law of Nations--provides a deep historical look at ethnic conflict around the globe. He shows how the struggles that now absorb our attention have been going on for generations and explain much of modern history. Neither side in the cold war grasped this reality, he writes. Neither the liberal myth of the melting pot nor the Marxist fantasy of proletarian internationalism could account for ethnic conflict, and so the international system stumbled from one set of miscalculations to another.
Toward the close of World War I, Woodrow Wilson declared the "self-determination of peoples" to be an Allied goal for the peace. Toward the end of World War II, Josef Stalin inserted "self-determination of peoples" into Article I of the United Nations Charter, defining "The Purposes" of the new world organization. This process has been going on ever since. The first phase, the breaking up of empire, was relatively peaceful. The second phase, presaged by the 1947 partition of India, is certain to be far more troubled, as fifty to a hundred new countries emerge.
Moynihan argues, however, that a dark age of "ethnic cleansing" is not inevitable; that the dynamics of ethnic conflict can be understood, anticipated, moderated. Ethnic pride can be a source of dignity and of stability, if only its legitimacy is accepted. Moynihan writes in a learned, reflective voice: at times theoretical, but always in the end directed to issues of fierce immediacy. A splendid achievement, Pandaemonium begins the re-education of Western diplomacy.
Drawing on a lifetime of scholarship, the Senator provides in Pandaemonium a subtle, richly textured account of the process by which theory has grudgingly begun to adapt to reality. Moynihan--whose previous studies range over thirty years from Beyond the Melting Pot (with Nathan Glazer) to the much acclaimed On the Law of Nations--provides a deep historical look at ethnic conflict around the globe. He shows how the struggles that now absorb our attention have been going on for generations and explain much of modern history. Neither side in the cold war grasped this reality, he writes. Neither the liberal myth of the melting pot nor the Marxist fantasy of proletarian internationalism could account for ethnic conflict, and so the international system stumbled from one set of miscalculations to another.
Toward the close of World War I, Woodrow Wilson declared the "self-determination of peoples" to be an Allied goal for the peace. Toward the end of World War II, Josef Stalin inserted "self-determination of peoples" into Article I of the United Nations Charter, defining "The Purposes" of the new world organization. This process has been going on ever since. The first phase, the breaking up of empire, was relatively peaceful. The second phase, presaged by the 1947 partition of India, is certain to be far more troubled, as fifty to a hundred new countries emerge.
Moynihan argues, however, that a dark age of "ethnic cleansing" is not inevitable; that the dynamics of ethnic conflict can be understood, anticipated, moderated. Ethnic pride can be a source of dignity and of stability, if only its legitimacy is accepted. Moynihan writes in a learned, reflective voice: at times theoretical, but always in the end directed to issues of fierce immediacy. A splendid achievement, Pandaemonium begins the re-education of Western diplomacy.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0198277873
ISBN13:9780198277873
Release Date:February 1993
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Length:238 Pages
Weight:0.94 lbs.
Dimensions:0.8" x 5.8" x 8.8"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
Moynihan Rides Again
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
For me, a trained American political scientist, this book is a work of genius by one of our nation's foremost geniuses of the art of the political and sociological sciences. Daniel Patrick Moynihan is a renaissance man of sorts: His resume is long, varied, cross-disciplinary and distinguished. We have heard his voice ripple across the political and sociological landscape on more than just a few occasions: Always warning against taking the easy quick-fix route to social problem-solving, always warning against making the facile interpretations to domestic and international policy. More often than not, it has been his lone voice that has left a ringing echo in the wilderness. And just as was the case when Richard Clark sounded the alarm on terrorism, many of us in the State Department heard him but we just were not tuned into the same frequency: terrorism just seemed so far-fetched that we thought the guy was some kind of kook. The same is true with Pat Moynihan: We have all heard his spiel but just were not always tuned into the same frequency. Recall that it was his analysis that backed up the famous (or infamous depending on ones position on the issue) Coleman Study that set U.S. Education policy for a generation. It was his prediction too that suggested that there would be a social meltdown in the black family and he gave all the reasons why. It happened exactly as he predicted, and black leaders are still chasing their tails and firing at each other in a circular firing squad, in perpetual denial about the things Moynihan had made crystal clear in this respect a decade before the meltdown occurred. Then, he opposed the Reagan "Communist scare" because of the Cuban and Soviet follies into Angola: To Moynihan this excursion was a joke that would simply hasten the fall of the USSR, which is exactly what it did. His advice to the US government: to ignore it, actually got him "eased-out" from his post as Ambassador to the UN. And finally he was one of only a handful of experts that predicted the fall of the Soviet Union at least a decade before it actually happened: Making clear that it would be due to ethnic fragmentation as much as to anything else. Never did he "read the tea leaves" more accurately, nor have his predictions about the role and importance of ethnicity been more prescient than in the claims set forth in this book. He has localized the source of the disturbance as being the preoccupation with the internationally voguish term "self-determination of independent people." Yet, when the term "people" are examined closely (or even the terms nation and state for that matter), he finds the same thing that Vlamik Volkan found: that people are bound together as much by their vulnerabilities and "chosen fears and insecurities" as they are by language, race, customs and a shared history. (Patrick Geary also found the same in this book Myth of Nations.) And chosen fears, grievances, and animosities have a very, very long half-life: They seem n
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
