Talk:Ethnocracy

message: "Ethnic democracy" redirects to this page and it really shouldn't they are 2 separate theories of government. Sammy Smooha came up with the "ethnic democracy" concept to reconcile the differences between an ethnocracy and democracy for Israel. Ethnocracy replaces the demos (everyone) in democracy with ethnos (an ethnic group) meaning that it is no longer a democracy. Although i don't entirely subscribe to his view,  Smooha argues that although Israel is a Jewish state, run by and for the Jewish people, it has enough democratic characteristics (independent Judiciary, periodic elections etc.) for it to still be classed as a form of democracy rather than an ethnocracy or apartheid regime.  There is obviously much debate about which Israel actually is, but the fact of the matter is that they are not the same type of system. - B Cook 87.194.21.65 19:40, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I entirely agree. This article originally stated that "ethnocracy" and "ethnic democracy" was the same thing. I attempted to clean up this article, but obviously we need a separate article. Martintg 01:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Split into Ethnic democracy completed Martintg 01:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect? 

message: You also miss a Mastodon in the room, and the elephant sits over him....Israel is a democracy built, aside all merits and efforts, in a "easy way"; not educating all people who live in a place to cohabit without racism and violence but, uhmmmmmm.......denying citizenship to the ones we don't like. That is, sending away an  undesirable numerical majority of natives denying its natural citizenship rights in that land, according to rules applied anywhere else in post-colonial time. Eg, if you are born in India, be it in Tamil Nadu o Uttar Pradesh, under British rule, when India is independent you have citizenship and voting rights. 
In Israel instead this is only given to a "controllable" minority of Arabs, which still seem a bit less privileged than the so engineered Jewish majority. Even if there is this minority of accepted Arabs that make you happy and cheerful, the mastodon remains: a large, PREDOMINANT chunk of the "natural" regional demos was kicked out for political reasons by a minority that made its own state and its own rules. Another large chunk (Palestinians in Gaza an West Bank) is locked out without citizenship and with limited freedoms. This is in contrast with a democracy based on "western" standards, especially because no viable, human-rights compliant alternative (eg, two states - see Slovakia and Czech Republic) was seriosly pursued. Israel is a democracy built and preserved with a substantial, habitual violation of contemporary citizenship attribution criteria and of human rights general charters. Denying it is fiction. 
The current stability of the current Israeli democracy relies on the expulsion of a vast majority of former Arabic, non-Jewish inhabitants (as many as the current jewish population maybe more), as much as on the prohibition of their return. Ok, for the people who belong to it, it is a democracy; but the ethnic, numeric and social aspects of the DEMOS that had full international and customary rights to inhabit that land has been VIOLENTLY altered in preparation and during the cours of this democratic system. We all know that the Palestinians had a valid case to be citizens after the British independence if a single state was to be, and they would clearly, if allowed to vote, alter deeply the current nature of Israel (its democracy system itself included). Can you be proud of a democracy that excluded from the game most of the natives, putting it in the same league of SweDEN OR Switzerland (exact opposite) without being at least a bit in bad faith?
Enough many historians, I bet, agree it is a democracy made with XIX century methods, crafted kicking out / keeping under control the "wrong people", to make room to the current Israeli system of "right guys", which everyone knows / admits will always be "protected" from risks of Arab demgraphic takeover by propor political choices that preserve the desired ethnic balance (if you need quotations we will find some, but new settlements and Jerusalem construction strategy go in this direction)....
:: Since most other historic cases slaughtered all the natives, and Israel merely expelled them (and clearly did a bad job of it, considering 20% of people in Israel-proper are Arabs), sure, I'm proud. Also worth mentioning that the majority of them were expelled in a defensive war initiated by the other side, and there is good reason to believe no expulsions would have happened if not for the context of war, so really, I think the idea that the consequences of war rest with the aggressor is not entirely far-fetched.
::Anyway, none of this rhetoric is a good argument for claiming that the state of Israel, the one that actually exists -- not the one that could have been -- is an ethnocracy. 64.244.215.226 (talk) 22:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: ========================

message: Despite the fact that more 22% of the Latvian citizens are ethnic Russian speakersCentral Statistical Office, http://www.csb.gov.lv, not a single ethnic Russian speaker was working as a minister from the beginning 1990History of the Cabinet of Ministers, http://www.mk.gov.lv/en/mk/vesture/. Only some ethnic Russian speakers were holding top level positions in the governmental institutions. The lack of loyalty is mentioned as justification for that.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gandonini (talk • contribs) 14:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Continuing the discussion about Latvia. That is not only question of citizens and non-citizens. Lets take citizens only! A lot of Russian speakers are living for centuries in Latvia. In 2009 about 22% of all the CITIZENS are Russian speakers in Latvia. In the last 19 years there was 15 Cabinets of Ministers (in each more than 10 ministers). Not a single minister was ethnic Russian speaker. Russian speakers are politically labelled as "non-loyal", without any legal basis. Only some Russian speakers (like Aleksejs Losutovs) was working in the whole governmental sector at the top positions (yet there are no statistics about that). So, Russian speakers are heavily underrepresented. I am not putting references to the secondary source of information, but to the primary sources, like statistics. --Gandonini (talk) 15:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Latvia

message: Malaysia is dominated by the ethnic Malay group which is only 50% of the population while Chinese and Indian minorities suffer official discrimination under the 'Malays first' policies that were enacted in1 1965.  It should be included.Seth J. Frantzman (talk) 08:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Malaysia

message: It seems to me that a good deal of confusion regarding the concept is over what 'ethnic affiliation defined in terms of language' actually means.  My understanding is that Butenschøn's criterion is based on the primary language of a person.  However, a lot of the discussion above involves ability to communicate instead.  The former can reasonably be construed as an indicator of affiliation; the latter certainly not. Digwuren 14:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language affiliation 

message: I think including Serbia on the basis of article written in 1996 in US publication (in the same time when US had been involved in direct military action against Serbs in B&H) is an insane example of POV. Besides, most of paragraph's content about Albanian ethnic parties not allowed in elections and Serbia having low index of human rights is simply irrelevant. I am removing this paragraph and inviting all interested wikipedians to discuss. 206.186.8.130 13:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serbia 

message: The section on South Africa is quite dated (1985 or so) and talks about "the conflict in South Africa" during Apartheid as if it is an ongoing event. I feel that this section should either be edited to indicate that this was a past proposal, removed entirely, or changed to show that Apartheid was a form of ethnocracy. Pjones (talk) 16:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: South Africa

message: Based on the discussion above (which has not even been archived to a separate page yet), I oppose inclusion of Latvia in this article.  Classification issues are particularly tricky, requiring widespread consensus among the relevant scholars -- and it's clear that there is no such consensus here.  It even appears that some of the relevant POVs are non-notable, but if they weren't, they should be discussed in other pages. ΔιγουρενΕμπρος! 08:17, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Latvia is already discussed in Ethnic democracy, which discusses a wide range of scholarly opinions ranging from Civic democracy to Ethnic democracy. --Martintg (talk) 13:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inclusion of Latvia, again 

message: Two sources for Estonia ,  don't mention ethnocracy at all. First speaks of alleged ethnic democracy in Estonia and Latvia - and for some reason, a very strong refutation of the claims in the same newsletter is not mentioned at all. The second document from Amnesty does not mention ethnocracy as well.
The source about Latvia  seems to be an opinion piece. I have no idea if the source is notable or not, I think someone from Latvia can be a judge of that.
Both Estonia and Latvia have a section in ethnic democracy. Unless some actual source is dedicated (not just mentioning) to describing Estonia and Latvia as ethnocracies can be found, including those countries to Ethnocracy is an original research. It seems to come from ethnic prejudices and/or hatred towards those countries.
:--Sander Säde 11:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a span of opinion backed by academic sources, ranging from civic democracy, through ethnic democracy to ethnocracy, and this is discussed in a neutral way in Ethnic_democracy#Latvia_and_Estonia, which includes Oren Yiftachel's opinion. Should we also insert Estonia and Latvia into the article Civic democracy too? Ethnic democracy was considered the middle ground and the most appropriate place for treatment given the range of opinions. --Martintg (talk) 00:56, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Inclusion of Latvia and Estonia, once again

message: I understand it's probably not as urgent as covering the Estonia's current inhuman regime, but the section on South Africa doesn't make any sense. Oth (talk) 21:06, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but the paragraph is still no good, being a quite out-of-context description of a book from 1985. Other country paragraphs in the article are essentially saying "this state is an ethnocracy" but I don't think anyone is claiming these days that South Africa is one (am I mistaken)? It should be either completely rewritten to describe apartheid era of South Africa (and explicitly state so) or deleted as it is mentioned in article's main text already. Oth (talk) 07:38, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: South-Africa

message: This article provides no sources that show that ethnocracy is a recognized term, let alone than it has any recognized definition.  What does it mean anyway - a society governed by ethnic conflict?  The Four Deuces (talk) 03:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: Do Kazakhstan qualifies as ethnocracy. Kazakhstan sayes, that they do need russian specialists, but most of in goverment positions anywhay are ethnic kazakhs. Kazakhstan is whay democratic than rest of central asia, but still not Swiss;)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.246.177.142 (talk) 15:25, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Kazakhstan

message: Glaring omission.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.216.129.105 (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saudi Arabia 

message: I removed the following from the article:
In 2003, Citizenship Law was passed which stipulates that the interior minister does not have the authority to approve residence in Israel for a resident of West Bank unless they are Jewish settlers. The law prevents Israeli citizens from marrying the spouse of their choice and living with this spouse in Israel, if the spouse is a Palestinian from West Bank.
In March 2014, the Israeli cabinet passed two laws. One authorizes rural, Jewish-majority communities to reject Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and other applicants for residency based on "suitability", and the other imposes fines on Arab towns, local authorities and state-funded organizations that commemorate Nakba Day. Critics said the laws will increase discrimination against Arabs.
In November 2014, the Israeli cabinet approved a bill declaring Israel to be a "Jewish state". The law would grant the Israeli state the authority to strip Arab residents of civil rights if they were found to participate in or encourage the use of violence, including stone-throwing. It would also mean that Jewish law will be the inspiration for Israel's legal system and it enshrines the automatic citizenship granted by the Law of Return. The bill affirms "the personal rights of all [Israel's] citizens according to law" and reserves communal rights for Jews only. Arabic was demoted from its status as an official language, alongside Hebrew. The bill was seen as controversial by some politicians due to its potential effects on Israel's Arab minority, which make up around 20 percent of the population.
None of the sources here mention "ethnocracy". Seems like putting it in the article is OR. Any thoughts? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 03:24, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There was an RFC on the subject we can't include sources that doesn't mention ethnocracy if someone want to change it please gain a new consensus.--Shrike (talk) 14:37, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFC 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I made a few rearrangements, but the page still needs extensive cleanup, perhaps the "blow it up and start over" treatment. OtterAM (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs cleanup and NPOV editing 

message: One issue needing attention is how ethnocracy differs from Herrenvolk democracy.
Is the difference that:
* whereas in an ethnocracy ethnicity (or race or religion) is the key to securing power
* in a Herrenvolk democracy they are the keys to citizenship of any kind?
If it is not this factor, what else sets ethnocracy apart from Herrenvolk democracy? luokehao, 21 December 2020, 13:41 (UTC)
:I am also struggling to find differences.--Geysirhead (talk) 19:58, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Differences from Herrenvolk democracy need explanation 

message: Singapore should also be included as it is ruled by the Chinese-Singaporeans, with only nominal equality for the other two groups: Malay-descended and British-descended peoples living there. 203.46.132.214 (talk) 06:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Singapore to be included? 

message: Northern Ireland should be moved to a new section under historic ethnocracies, along with the Jim Crow-era United States.
MathewMunro (talk) 17:07, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need to create a section for historic ethnocracies. 

message: Since the term ethnocracy is in fact a Portmanteau - a combination of the terms ethnic and democracy, I believe that the introduction should include a reference to the Portmanteau Wiki. Also, I believe that the entire Ethnic democracy Wiki should be deleted, as it appears to be little more than a Zionist propaganda exercise - trying to argue in the face of findings by Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch that Israel is in fact an apartheid state, that it's somehow not quite as bad as other ethnocracies. MathewMunro (talk) 17:19, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  The introduction should include a reference to the Portmanteau Wiki