Ethnic Hegemony and World-System

Ethnic Hegemony and World-System

 

"Ethnic hegemony", as I understand it [those who know this better, please correct], is the hegemony of an ethno-cultural group over other ethno-cultural groups. The question may then be posed: Is there an ethnic hegemony in the contemporary world-system?

 

This questions requires two answers - (a) can such a group be identified? (b) does such a group have hegemony?

 

The most likely candidate for being an "ethnic hegemon" in the present world-system is "Western people" (Europeans and their descendants in other parts of the world). [The short-hand expression "whites" is not precise enough.] [ Note that (global) "ethnic hegemon" refers to a group of people, rather than to a country like USA-hegemon.]

 

A. Group Description
From the CIA Factbook 2000 I collected data on ethnic composition of 118 countries and used them to code each of the 118 countries as a country with either a "European-type majority" or "No European-type majority". [Some countries can be coded either way, but most countries are relatively clear in this respect. In the following, Arab countries are coded as "No European-type majority". Some Latin American countries have very large Mestizo or Creole populations, who are here classified as "Not European-type", but the other alternative is also justifiable.] As a result, my 118 countries include 82 countries with "No European-type majority" and 36 with "European-type majority".

 

B. Is the "European-type majority" group of countries a "global ethnic hegemon"?
Probably, yes. Reasons:
(1) What world-system scholars describe as the "core" of the world system is mostly populated by countries with European-type majorities. (The organizations OECD and NATO are mostly organizations of countries with European-type majority.)
(2) The "five [sc. global] monopolies" of the "West" described Samir Amin are monopoly positions of the group of countries with a European-type majority.
(3) Global income is highly concentrated in this group, as follows:

 

(3A) average GDP per capita (in PPP values, 1995):
$5,085 for group "Not European-type majority" (82 countries, population = 3.9 billion)
$13,787 for group "European-type majority" (36 countries, population = 1.2 billion)

 

(3B) percent of "Not European-type" population per country income class (PPP values of GDP per capita, 1995):
(a) GDP/cap = $ 0 to 4,999 ---- population=3.5 billion ---- 93% "Not European-type"
(b) GDP/cap = $ 5,000  to 14,999 ---- pop= 0.7 billion ---- 58% "Not European-type"
(c) GDP/cap = $ 15,000 to 30,000 --- pop= 0.8 billion ---- 18% "Not European-type"

 

(4) How the concept of "global ethnic hegemony" relates to the concept of "global capitalism" is an interesting theoretical question. Some historical empires and historical world-systems had "ethnic hegemony" without capitalism (e.g., the Roman Empire).

 

With greetings from Canada,
Gernot Kohler
Email: gkohler@accglobal.net