Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archetype

UNTINGTON ESTIMATES THAT IN 1990 there were 130 independent states having a population of at least one million people, of which 59 (45.4 percent) were democratic. In comparison, in 1973 there were only 30 democratic states out of 122 (24.6 percent).' Hence, the situation in 1990 had improved greatly. Huntington holds that the entire world has been swept by a wave of democratization since 1974.2 This is all the more true after the breakdown of Communism, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the liberation of Eastern Europe in the early 1990s. Most of these democratic states are ethnically or nationally divided societies, and some of them are even deeply divided. Ethnic divisions constitute special hindrances for democracy because of structural incompatibilities and sharp disagreements between the constituent segments of society. The main question that comes to mind is what types of democracy prevalent in these societies are and how they cope with the ethnic splits and conflicts.