Volume 49, Issue 1, June 2020, Pages 197–205
Gjeraqina Leka1
1 Faculty of Law, University of Tetova, Tetovo, Republic of North Macedonia
Original language: English
Copyright © 2020 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article examines the influence of foreign policy on the inter-ethnic relationship in multi-ethnic states. Focused on external disputes, which revolve around issues of national identity, the article attempts to find out how foreign policy constraints and pressures may affect the unity of ethnically different groups. From the existing literature on international and national integration, the article derives arguments which relate foreign policy’s behavior toward external threats to inter-ethnic unity or division. International integration policies, as part of the official foreign policy, influence the unifying mentality of ethnically different people, helping to foment a national (state) identity, based on civic elements. External obstructions to such policies, however, risk to transform foreign policy into an object of contestation between ethnic groups, who, due to the presence of external disputes, no longer share the same vision over the state’s foreign policy. Using an exploratory approach, this article uses the case of Macedonia to provide greater understanding of the arguments above, and consequently presents the empirical findings collected from semi-structured interviews.
Author Keywords: Multi-ethnic states, external threats, inter-ethnic relations, international integration, identity.
Gjeraqina Leka1
1 Faculty of Law, University of Tetova, Tetovo, Republic of North Macedonia
Original language: English
Copyright © 2020 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
This article examines the influence of foreign policy on the inter-ethnic relationship in multi-ethnic states. Focused on external disputes, which revolve around issues of national identity, the article attempts to find out how foreign policy constraints and pressures may affect the unity of ethnically different groups. From the existing literature on international and national integration, the article derives arguments which relate foreign policy’s behavior toward external threats to inter-ethnic unity or division. International integration policies, as part of the official foreign policy, influence the unifying mentality of ethnically different people, helping to foment a national (state) identity, based on civic elements. External obstructions to such policies, however, risk to transform foreign policy into an object of contestation between ethnic groups, who, due to the presence of external disputes, no longer share the same vision over the state’s foreign policy. Using an exploratory approach, this article uses the case of Macedonia to provide greater understanding of the arguments above, and consequently presents the empirical findings collected from semi-structured interviews.
Author Keywords: Multi-ethnic states, external threats, inter-ethnic relations, international integration, identity.
How to Cite this Article
Gjeraqina Leka, “The role of foreign policy threats on inter-ethnic relations,” International Journal of Innovation and Scientific Research, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 197–205, June 2020.
