Ethnic/Racial Relations in the United States in Comparative Perspective
| Published date | 01 March 1981 |
| Date | 01 March 1981 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271628145400116 |
| Author | Richard D. Lambert |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
189
Ethnic/Racial
Relations
in
the
United
States
in
Comparative
Perspective
By
RICHARD
D.
LAMBERT
Richard
D.
Lambert
is
a
professor
of
sociology
and
is
chairman
of
the
South
Asia
Regional
Studies
Department
at
the
University
of
Pennsylvania.
He
is
also
Editor
of
THE
ANNALS.
He
has
been
president
of the
Association
for Asian
Studies,
of
the
American
Academy
of
Political
and
Social
Science,
and
a
vice-president
of
the
International
Studies
Association.
He
has
published
extensively
on
South
Asian
and
American
societies.
ABSTRACT:
Ethnic/racial
relations
in
the
United
States
are
compared
with
those
in
other
countries
on
six
dimensions:
saliency,
polarity,
hierarchy
versus
qualitative
differentiation,
territoriality,
relationship
to
government,
and
conflict
proc-
esses.
Ours
were
found
to
be
unusual
compared
with
other
countries
in
the
growing
salience
of
ethnic/racial
relations,
their
bipolarity,
their
emphasis
on
hierarchy
over
cultural
contrast,
the
casting
of
government
in
the
role
of
protagonist
for
the
underclass,
and
the
ethnic
specificity
and
direction
of
violence.
Some
evidence
of
international
convergence
is
noted.
190
ETHNI C/racial
relations
in
the
E
United
States
share
some
fea-
tures
with
the
rest
of
the
world,
but
in
many
ways
they
are
quite
dif-
ferent.
In
the
past
few
years
there
has
been
a
growing
number
of
case
studies
of
ethnic
conflict
in
other
countries’
and
a
few
attempts
to
systematize
particular
aspects
of
this
phenomenon
at
a
more
general
level,2
2
but
such
analyses
tend
not
to
be
fed
back
into
the
literature
on
American
ethnic/racial
relations.
Moreoyer,
Americans
sometimes
think
of
our
society
as
uniquely
beset
by
ethnic/
racial
conflict,
or
conversely,
we
project
our
own
vision
of
ethnic/
racial
relations
on
the
rest
of
the
world.
This
article
is
written
in
the
hope
that
a
comparative
look
at
ethnic/
racial
relations
placing
the
Ameri-
can
experience
in
a
world
context
will
bring
fresh
insights
into
the
analysis
of
our
own
problems
and
accomplishments.
Among
the
vast
number
of
contrasts
and
similarities
between
our
own
and
other
nations’
ethnic/racial
relationships,
I
will
concentrate
upon
a
few
that
seem
central
to
our
own
situation.
I
will
heed
Harold
Isaacs’s
recent
observa-
tion
after
surveying
current
views
on
American
ethnic
relations
since
1945,3
3
&dquo;Everyone
is
looking
at
the
trees,
usually
their
own
particular
racial
or
ethnic
trees,
and
seemingly
no
one
is
looking
at
the
forest.&dquo;
I
will
concen-
trate
on
the
forest,
the
macrolevel
features
of
our
own
and
other
soci-
eties
relevant
to
ethnic/racial
rela-
tionships.
And
finally,
I
will
concen-
trate
on
issues
that
seem,
at
the
moment,
to
be
undergoing
the
most
fundamental
changes.
In
the
main,
these
changes
represent
an
increas-
ing
international
convergence
of
patterns,
particularly
between
the
United
States
and
Western
Europe.
The
following
themes
will
be
ex-
amined :
(1)
the
saliency
of
ethnic/
racial
relations,
(2)
the
polarity
of
those
relationships,
(3)
hierarchy
versus
qualitative
differentiation,
(4)
territoriality,
(5)
relationship
to
gov-
ernment,
and
(6)
conflict
processes.
SALIENCE
The
first
and
overriding
com-
parative
question
is
the
salience
of
ethnic/racial
affiliation
for
social
re-
lationships
in
the
society
as
a
whole.
What
is
the
relative
balance
between
individual-oriented,
achieved
status
on
the
one
hand,
and
ascriptive,
particularly
ethnic/racial
group
identi-
fications,
on
the
other?
The
evidence
seems
clear
that
ethnic/racial
identi-
fications
continue
to
be
vital,
at
least
as
a
source
of
organized
conflict,
in
many
societies.
In
spite
of
this
fact,
Americans
tend
to
downplay
ethnic/
racial
conflict
as
a
major
world
prob-
lem.
In
a
recent
survey,4
a
national
sample
of
American
college
and
uni-
versity
seniors
listed
it
as
tenth
out
of
10
in
a
list
of
world
problems.
And
1.
See,
for
instance,
Martin O.
Heisler,
ed.,
Ethnic
Conflict
in
the
World
Today,
The
Annals
of
the
American
Academy
of
Political
and
Social
Science,
Vol.
433
(Sept.
1977)
(hereafter
cited
as
Ethnic
Conflict
in
the
World
Today
);
and
see
also
Abdul
A.
Said
and
Luis
R.
Simmons, eds.,
Ethnicity
in
an
International
Context:
The
Politics
of
Dissociation
(New
Brunswick,
NJ:
Transac-
tion
Books, 1976).
2.
For
instance, Cynthia
Enloe,
Ethnic
Conflict
and
Political
Development
(Boston:
Little,
Brown,
1977);
and
Harold
R.
Isaacs,
Power
and
Identity
(New
York:
Foreign
Policy
Association,
1979).
3.
Planning
document
for
American
As-
sembly
(typescript,
May
1980).
4.
Thomas
Barrows,
John
Clark,
and
Stephen
Klein,
"What
Students
Know
About
Their
World,"
in
Educating
For
the
World
View
(New
Rochelle,
NY:
Council
on
Learning,
1980),
p. 14.
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