Sikh Nationalism: From a Dominant Minority to an Ethno-Religious Diaspora

Abstract

gant architecture of the institutionalist approach. One limitation is clearly stated by the author: it applies to liberal democracies only (p. 3). Further, only groups that already benefit from territorial autonomy can be studied, thus excluding for instance, metropolitan France’s linguistic communities such as Corsicans, Bretons, Basques, and Catalans. Then, the framework applies to groups mostly living in territorial concentration, as non-territorial (“corporate”) autonomy solutions are not factored in as bargaining chips between the state and the internal national communities. It is only in the additional case of Puerto Rico that a payoff beyond the regional autonomy arrangements is mentioned explicitly—Puerto Ricans are full US citizens when they move to the mainland, suggesting that the pursuit of the localized secessionism is mollified by this “personal exit option” (p. 158). One rival hypothesis that Lecours seeks to refute is the claim that autonomies serve as slippery slopes toward secessionism. This is an endeavor shared with, and endorsed by the group-based approaches explaining ethnopolitics, and particularly scholars working in the tradition of the Ethnic Power Relations or the Minorities at Risk projects. These projects look for the causes of inter-group conflict in the economic, social, and political disparities among communal groups, and remediating interventions for the benefit of the group are considered to have pacifying effects. This operates similarly to the dynamic autonomy arrangements, where the corrective developments requested by the potential beneficiary group might be viewed as structuring features. There is great value in inventorying all the tools that benevolent agents can use to avoid or defuse inter-community animosity, and the concept of dynamic autonomy is a welcome addition to the list. Yet from this wider perspective on communal conflicts, secessionism is only one form of inter-group tensions. The book argues that this specific type of conflict is solely or mainly shaped by the nature of autonomy, calling for an additional investigation on the original rationale for an autonomy status conferral on ethno-national others by their states of residence in the first instance. Unfortunately, the elegant methodology is somewhat closed toward other approaches, inviting a “take it or leave it” attitude on the part of the reader.