Editing Ethnicity (section)

==Ethno-national conflict==
{{Further|Ethnic conflict}}

Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like [[Jürgen Habermas]] and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view, the state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like [[Charles Taylor (philosopher)|Charles Taylor]] and [[Will Kymlicka]], argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of the nation-state.

The 19th century saw the development of the political ideology of [[ethnic nationalism]], when the concept of race was tied to [[nationalism]], first by German theorists including [[Johann Gottfried von Herder]]. Instances of societies focusing on ethnic ties, arguably to the exclusion of history or historical context, have resulted in the justification of nationalist goals. Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the 19th-century consolidation and expansion of the [[German Empire]] and the 20th century [[Nazi Germany]]. Each promoted the pan-ethnic idea that these governments were acquiring only lands that had always been inhabited by ethnic Germans. The history of late-comers to the nation-state model, such as those arising in the Near East and south-eastern Europe out of the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as those arising out of the USSR, is marked by [[ethnic war|inter-ethnic conflicts]]. Such conflicts usually occur within multi-ethnic states, as opposed to between them, as in other regions of the world. Thus, the conflicts are often misleadingly labeled and characterized as [[civil war]]s when they are inter-ethnic conflicts in a multi-ethnic state.