Demographic engineering and the struggle for power.

• Author: Bookman, Milica Z.

"As long as nationalists think that they can achieve self-determination on the basis of the ethnic population of a territory, they will strive to create an ethnically pure population in the region or regions they covet."

The drive to increase population has led to conquests, receptive immigration laws and pro-natalist population policies. But population size has taken on a new meaning in the post-Cold War world, in which nationalism is on the rise and ethnic self-awareness seems to permeate once-placid populations. Currently the size of a total population is less relevant than the absolute and relative size of a particular ethnic, religious, racial or linguistic group. (1) Indeed, an inter-ethnic war of numbers is taking place in numerous locations. The goal of this war of numbers is to increase the economic and political power of an ethnic group relative to other groups, and the method by which this is achieved entails the increase in size of one population relative to others. Most ethnic groups in multinational states across the globe are engaged in this activity in varying degrees, thus clearly manipulating population numbers in their struggle for power. They have similar goals and differ only in the form and intensity of the struggle.

This inter-ethnic struggle exists because there is a positive link between political power and relative size, as well as between economic power and population size. (2) This link is observed across levels of development, degrees of ethnic heterogeneity and systems of political organization. (3)

With respect to political power, population size implies enhanced representation in political bodies, which translates into decision-making that tends to reflect the interests of that group. (4) Size also implies political legitimacy to partake in the political arena and to express ethnic demands in an organized fashion. Size affects participation in the political system, insofar as it gives the group in question equal or preferential access to legal protection and the legal system, to civil service positions and to the military and police service. Finally, size influences the right to make demands on the political system, as some groups are of insufficient size to even be recognized as groups in the political spectrum. The assertion of these rights in the spheres of economics, politics and ethno-cultural issues can be classified into three types of demands: (5) The mildest demand of a people entails policy changes whose effects will favor the group in question. These are usually of a cultural nature, such as the right to schooling in a non-titular language (such a right was granted by the Yugoslav Constitution of 1974 to minorities such as the Hungarians and the Albanians). Another type of demand is for full integration into the decision-making process. This usually entails minority groups that strive for rights equal to those enjoyed by the titular majority, including the right to own property and to defend property rights in courts, the right to vote or partake in political life and the right to enjoy the social welfare of the country (an example of this right is embodied in the Austrian Constitution of 1876). (6) The strongest demand is for autonomy. While this demand may be satisfied by the extension of increased political rights to the region where the group resides, the demand may also include the right to secession based on self-determination.

The economic rewards that population size convey include the following: (7) First, ethnic population size is usually positively related to access to scarce resources. The larger the size, the greater its power to appropriate those resources through various forms of political manipulation. Distribution of scarce resources is often the primary source of conflict among ethnic groups. If there is no scarcity, there is no economic source of conflict. (8) Second, ethnic size is usually positively related to group input in policy-making. As a result of their rights to voice concerns and make demands, ethnic groups also obtain economic rewards. (9) As a result of the political powers that are allocated by size, the dominant ethnic group is capable of extending its powers into various aspects of policy so that economic benefits accrue to its particular group. Third, ethnic size is usually positively related to control over productive inputs on a given territory. This is especially true if ethnic groups dominate in specific territories and if there is some measure of decentralization of power. Under those circumstances, the dominant group exercises control over raw materials, industrial sites, urban development and other infrastructure. Fourth, ethnic size is usually positively related to the allocation of economic favors. Favors doled out by ethnic group include jobs, slots in educational facilities, industrial location, and so on. (10)

POLICIES OF DEMOGRAPHIC ENGINEERING

Given the perceived need to defend one's ethnic group and to alter the relative size of that group on a given territory, what are the methods by which the numerical balance is maintained or tilted? Abdo Baaklini discussed the issue in the context of Lebanon: converting others, eliminating others, holding key positions in non-elected jobs or "structuring the political game and electoral process in such a way that their preeminence might last irrespective of their size." (11) Theodore Wright discussed changing the numerical ratio in India in the following ways: religious conversion, differential fertility rates in response to family planning, immigration and emigration, manipulation of the census, language differentiation or aggregation, political boundary changes, changes in the definition and procedures for obtaining citizenship or other changes in a group's legal status, exogamy in which the partner from outside the community can be brought in, exchange of populations with other countries, expulsion and genocide. (12) Much of the literature on demographic engineering deals with either the developing world or a specific historical period. There is none, to my knowledge, addressing cases of contemporary demographic engineering, including those in the post-communist world. In this study, six methods have been chosen that seem to be the most relevant in the 1990s. They are broad in scope insofar as they incorporate all the methods discussed by Baaklini and Wright and include others.

Population Measurement

Statistical recordings that count births, deaths and migrations by ethnicity have become very important because they determine the relative size of ethnic groups. The least intrusive method of altering relative numbers is to change how populations are defined and measured. The census, universally the principal measure of population size, lends itself to this kind of manipulation principally by alterations in definitions that de jure result in a change in the ethnic population size, even if they may not de Facto change that size.

Census politicization has taken place with ferocious intensity most recently in the Balkans. The Bulgarian census of 1992 was awaited with great trepidation, as it represented the first compilation of data on ethnic affiliation in decades. Human rights activists confronted nationalists as both groups waited for results to support their respective positions. Also, it is because of the political significance of ethnic population size that the Albanians of both Kosovo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) have boycotted recent censuses, enabling them to claim a larger number of people than the censuses might indicate. Official sources in Bulgaria and Romania have underestimated the numbers of their minority populations, while the adjoining home countries of those minorities have over-estimated them (for example, according to Turkish official sources, the Turkish populations in Bulgaria and Greece are significantly larger than those claimed by Bulgaria and Greece). (13) These minority statistics are used to corroborate evidence of minority ill-treatment or lack thereof. Finally, interest in demographic statistics was all too clear in the recent civil war in Bosnia, where all three sides were using population size to bolster claims that their populations deserved more territory and political power. Srdjan Bogosavljevic described this numbers struggle aptly:

Members of many nations in the territory of the former Yugoslavia are vying in stories on who has not been properly counted, [what] their numbers [are], who "dominates" [in numbers] and who has the right to more sunshine." (14) If population size is important in determining the political and economic status of an ethnic group, then the determination of that size is crucial. Indeed, if ethnic population size is politically important, then the process of statistical collection, compilation, analysis and interpretation becomes politicized. To the extent that demographic statistics indicate that the ruling ethnic group is not in fact demographically dominant, its hold on power becomes tenuous. Alternatively, if ethnic groups outside the leadership are more populous, then political instability may emerge. In either case, in an atmosphere of competing nationalist sentiments, which characterized much of the world in the 1990s, population counting is too important a matter to be left to the statisticians, because demographic statistics are often used, manipulated and misinterpreted in order to achieve political and economic goals.

Pronatalist Policies

A relatively non-intrusive method of altering demographic characteristics is the encouragement of procreation of a particular ethnic, linguistic or religious group. Such a pronatalist population policy aims to increase the size of one population relative to others. A pronatalist population policy involves the stimulation of procreation in order to increase fertility rates and, over the long run, increase population. A passive pronatalist...