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An ethnocracy is a type of political structure featuring "rule by a particular in a multi-ethnic situation". Ethnocracies may involve a state apparatus controlled by a dominant ethnic group (or groups) to further that group's perceived interests, power, dominance, and resources. Ethnocratic régimes in the modern era typically display a 'thin' democratic façade covering a more profound ethnic structure, in which ethnicity (race, religion, language, etc.) — and not citizenship — is the key to securing power and resources. An ethnocratic society facilitates the ethnicization of the state by the dominant group, through the expansion of control likely accompanied by conflict with minorities or neighbouring states.
The Israelis Critical theory Oren Yiftachel introduced the theory of ethnocratic régimes in 1997.
Research shows that several spheres of control are vital for ethnocratic regimes, including the armed forces, police, land administration, immigration, and economic development. These powerful government instruments may ensure domination by the leading ethnic groups and the stratification of society into "ethnoclasses" (exacerbated by 20th century capitalism's typically neo-liberal policies). Ethnocracies often manage to contain ethnic conflict in the short term by effective control over minorities and by effectively using the 'thin' procedural democratic façade. However, they tend to become unstable in the longer term, suffering from repeated conflict and crisis, which are resolved by either substantive democratization, partition, or regime devolution into consociational arrangements. Alternatively, ethnocracies that do not resolve their internal conflict may deteriorate into periods of long-term internal strife and the institutionalization of structural discrimination (such as apartheid).
In ethnocratic states, the government is typically representative of a particular ethnic group, which holds a disproportionately large number of posts. The dominant ethnic group (or groups) uses them to advance the position of their particular ethnic group(s) to the detriment of others.Yiftachel, O. (2006). Ethnocracy: Land, and the Politics of Identity Israel/Palestine. PennPress. Other ethnic groups are systematically discriminated against and may face repression or violations of their human rights at the hands of state organs. Ethnocracy can also be a political regime instituted on the basis of qualified rights to citizenship, with ethnic affiliation (defined in terms of race, descent, religion, or language) as the distinguishing principle.Kariye, Badal W. (2010). The Political Sociology of Security, Politics, Economics and Diplomacy. AuthorHouse. , p. 99, item 20. Generally, the raison d'être of an ethnocratic government is to secure the most important instruments of state power in the hands of a specific ethnic collectivity. All other considerations concerning the distribution of power are ultimately subordinated to this basic intention.
Ethnocracies are characterized by their control system – the legal, institutional, and physical instruments of power deemed necessary to secure ethnic dominance. The degree of system discrimination will tend to vary greatly from case to case and from situation to situation. If the dominant group, whose interests the system is meant to serve and whose identity it is meant to represent, constitutes a small minority (typically 20% or less) of the population within the state territory, substantial institutionalized suppression will probably be necessary to sustain its control.
Andreas Wimmler notes that a non-ethnic federal system without minority rights has helped Switzerland to avoid ethnocracy but that this did not help in overcoming ethnic discrimination when introduced in Bolivia. Likewise, ethnic federalism "produced benign results in India and Canada" but did not work in Nigeria and Ethiopia. Edward E. Telles notes that anti-discrimination legislation may not work as well in Brazil as in the U.S. at addressing ethnoracial inequalities, since much of the discrimination that occurs in Brazil is class-based, and Brazilian judges and police often ignore laws that are intended to benefit non-elites.
British researcher Neil Melvin concludes that Estonia is moving towards a genuinely pluralist democratic society through its liberalization of citizenship and active drawing of leaders of the Russian settler communities into the political process. James Hughes, in the United Nations Development Programme's Development and Transition, contends Latvia and Estonia are cases of 'ethnic democracy', where the state has been captured by the titular ethnic group and then used to promote 'nationalising' policies and alleged discrimination against Russophone minorities. ( Development and Transition has also published papers disputing Hughes' contentions.)
Israeli researchers Oren Yiftachel and As'ad Ghanem consider Estonia an ethnocracy. Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha, of the University of Haifa, disagrees with Yiftachel, contending that the ethnocratic model developed by Yiftachel does not fit the case of Latvia and Estonia: they are not settler societies as their core ethnic groups are indigenous, nor did they expand territorially, nor have intervening in their internal affairs (as in the case of Israel for which Yiftachel originally developed his model).
However, some Israeli scholars such as Gershon Shafir, Yoav Peled and Sammy Smooha prefer the term ethnic democracy to describe Israel,Uri Ram, Nationalism: Social conflicts and the politics of knowledge, Taylor & Francis, 2010 pp.63-67. which is intendedMichael Galchinsky, Jews and Human Rights: Dancing at Three Weddings, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008 p.144 to represent a "middle ground" between an ethnocracy and a liberal democracy. Smooha in particular argues that ethnocratic democracies, allowing a privileged status to a dominant ethnic majority while ensuring that all individuals have equal rights, are defensible. His opponents reply that insofar as Israel contravenes equality in practice, the term 'democratic' in his equation is flawed.Katie Attwell, Israeli National Identity and Dissidence: The Contradictions of Zionism and Resistance, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 p.26.
In 2018, Israel passed the which declared that "The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people." The law also changed the status of Arabic, from an official language to a language with a special status, with Hebrew remaining the sole official language of Israel.
According to Article 66 of the Turkish Constitution, "everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk." According to the constitution, there are no minority rights since all citizens are Turks. This constitutional article ignores ethnic and religious minority rights. Although the Treaty of Lausanne guarantees some rights to non-Muslim minorities, in practice Turkey recognizes only Armenians, Greeks and Jews as minorities and excludes other non-Muslim groups.Nurcan Kaya and Clive Baldwin (July 2004), Submission to the European Union and the Government of Turkey, Minority Rights Group International
Bilge Azgın points to government policies whose goals are the "exclusion, marginalization, or assimilation" of minority groups that are non-Turkish as the defining elements of Turkish ethnocracy. Jack Fong describes Turkey's policy of referring to its Kurdish minority as "mountain Turks" and its refusal to acknowledge any separate Kurdish identity as elements of the Turkish ethnocracy.
These illustrate the idea that state power can be distributed along two dimensions: legal-institutional and territorial. Along the legal-institutional dimension are singularism (power centralised according to membership in a specific group), pluralism (power distribution among defined groups according to relative numerical strength), and universalism (power distribution without any group-specific qualifications). On the territorial dimension are the unitary state, "intermediate restructuring" (within one formal sovereignty), and partition (creating separate political entities). Lijphart had argued strongly in favour of the consociational model.
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