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Conference Announcement "International Approaches to Governing Ethnic Diversity: Security, Democracy and Minority Rights" Interdisciplinary Workshop Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Project Donald Gordon Centre, Queen’s University Kingston, ON (Canada) 24-25 September 2010 __________________________________________________ While decisions about the governance of ethnic diversity remain primarily in the hands of national governments, a wide range of international actors often seek to influence those decisions, or to shape their implementation. This workshop will explore the role of international actors in a variety of settings, in order to better understand their motivations, capacities, strategies, and effects. By “international actors” we mean not only traditional intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations, but also international advocacy groups (such as Human Rights Watch), international corporations, as well as a range of third-party actors, such as the foreign aid programs of Western states. The governance of ethnicity by diverse international institutions is a component of the emergence of a global context of concepts, principles and practices relating to human security, sustainable development, human rights and citizenship and the responsibility to protect. At the most basic level, our interest is in determining whether and how international actors can contribute to the peaceful and democratic governance of ethnic diversity. But to answer this, we need more fine-grained analysis of a number of more specific issues, including: - to what extent, or under what conditions, are international actors attentive to the ethnic dimension of their activities? Do these actors have specific policies or guidelines that instruct them to be sensitive to ethnic issues (in the way that many actors have gender sensitivity as part of their mandate)? - insofar as they are sensitive to ethnic issues, what assumptions do these actors make (implicitly or explicitly) about the appropriate models for governing ethnic diversity? Do they tend to favour more “multiculturalist” models of democracy, or do they tend to favour more familiar (majoritarian and unitary) models of “nation-building”? - what are the main goals of international actors when making decisions about how to approach ethnic issues? Are they primarily governed by security considerations (peace and stability), or by democratization and human rights, or by more economic considerations of development or profit? - what tools do international actors have available to promote their preferred models of governing ethnic diversity? We can imagine a continuum here from very gentle forms of persuasion (such as organizing workshops to discuss “best practices”) through various forms of norm-setting (eg., international declarations on minority rights) to various diplomatic sticks and carrots to coercive military intervention (as in Kosovo). - what are the intended and unintended effects of these international activities? What sorts of domestic ethnic politics do they legitimate or encourage, and what sorts do they delegitimize or marginalize? When do they contribute to the peaceful and democratic governance of ethnic diversity, and when do they exacerbate conflict and instability? We hope to explore these questions in a range of different contexts, including different types of international organizations (eg., how the UN’s approach differs from that of the World Bank), different types of ethnic diversity (eg., how the international approach to indigenous peoples differs from the approach to other ethnic groups), different types of conflict situations (eg., conflict prevention versus conflict resolution versus post-conflict rebuilding), and different regional contexts (eg., Africa versus Asia versus Latin America). Given the diversity of different types of international actors and of different types of ethnic relations around the world, we do not expect to find any universal laws or rigid formulas here. Our aim rather is to try to get a better sense of the range of possibilities, in terms of the motives, tactics, and effects of international actors. EDG team members and students interested in this workshop should contact Jennifer Clark ([email protected]) and copy Will Kymlicka ([email protected]) and Jane Boulden ([email protected]). Workshop website: http://www.queensu.ca/edg/CFP_Sep_2010.pdf __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
