Ruling an empire, governing a multinational state: the impact of Britain's historical legacy on the ethno-racial regime

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511489228.002

1 - Ruling an empire, governing a multinational state: the impact of Britain's historical legacy on the ethno-racial regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009

Edited by

Tariq Modood and

Mary J. Hickman: Affiliation:
Irish Studies Center, University of North London
Glenn C. Loury: Affiliation:
Boston University
Tariq Modood: Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Steven M. Teles: Affiliation:
Brandeis University, Massachusetts

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Summary

Introduction

The ethno-racial regime in Britain is discussed usually in terms of the impact of the end of empire and the post-1945 immigration of people, mostly in possession of British citizenship, from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan. This chapter extends the discussion to bring into simultaneous consideration the formation of the multinational state and the light this can shed on the management of national/ethnic relations within the domestic sphere. It is the articulation of these two realms, those of empire and that of the multinational state, which will be explored to reveal the extent to which common practices inform both, and the specificity of each which explains the particularities of the British case.

Much of the literature about the post-1945 immigrants and their British-born children argues that as populations they are distinguished by their experiences of colonialism and subsequent related experiences after migration to the imperial centre. It is assumed, quite correctly, that this history of colonial relations has been important in developing British attitudes to ethno-racial differentiation. I am not challenging these fundamental points but I am arguing against any reduction of this history to a matter of white/black relations. A major reason for arguing against this is that in Ireland empire and multinational state formation intermeshed and produced a history which both explains the centre and the periphery and had an impact on the developing ethno-racial regime.

Type: Chapter
Information: Ethnicity, Social Mobility, and Public Policy
Comparing the USA and UK
, pp. 21 - 49

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511489228.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2005

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