Definitions and Discourse: Applying Kymlicka's Models to Estonia and Latvia

Abstract

A comment on Will Kymlicka's "Western Political Theory and Ethnic Relations in Eastern Europe" (2001) critiques his fundamental point that ethnocultural neutrality has been superceded by ethnocultural justice with all meaningful ethnocultural groups having a stake in the deployment of state power in social-communicative system management. Focus is on Kymlicka's five-model framework of ethnopolitical conflict. Using the empirical examples of Estonia & Latvia, it is argued that, while ethnopolitical justice is important, attention must also be paid to the discursive struggles of groups pursuing a definition of ethnopolitical situations. J. Zendejas