Ethnic policy: a new perspective

Review of the book «A multi-ethnic city. Problems and prospects of cultural diversity management in the large cities»

Abstract

The book, by famous authors, encourages a rethinking of the principles and practices of ethnic policy. The authors argue for the need to reorient ethnic policy to the level of agglomerations and large cities, where the challenges of cultural diversity erode urban identity, and to shift the focus from identifying the degree of conflict between ethnic relations to the search for existing mechanisms of conflict prevention. The example of the three largest Russian cities shows that the differences between them can overshadow their similarity. The social life, organization of social space and structure of values in each of them are so distinctive that they cannot be ignored when carrying out any policy (ethnic, religious, migration, cultural diversity management).