Sociologist. Quantitativist. University of Neuchâtel.
2022. SFM Studies ·
Ruedin, Didier. 2022. «Panorama de la diversité au sein du personnel de l’administration de la Ville de Neuchâtel». SFM Studies 82. Neuchâtel: Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies.
Link to full report (French)Immigration is no doubt a topic high on the political agenda and omni-present in everyday debates. Jointly with the Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication, Università della Svizzera italiana, the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM) of the University of Neuchâtel offers a Certificate in Advanced Studies on Migration and Diversity. There is still time to apply and joint the serious conversation on immigration.
The other day I was at a conference, and Poland was described as ethnically homogeneous. This is not a controversial observation, I guess. The speaker was then using this homogeneity as an ‘explanation’ for current government rhetoric against Muslims in the country — compared to government rhetoric in a more heterogeneous country. This struck me as an odd explanation, after all we all know that ethnic groups and their boundaries are socially constructed. This way, the observation that in a country where the common view is one of internal homogeneity also features exclusivity to ‘others’ seemed trivial if not circular. I’m far from claiming that social construction renders ethnic differences meaningless — the consequences are very real indeed — but as an ‘explanation’ this way I’m struggling a bit.
Ruedin, Didier. 2009. ‘Ethnic Group Representation in a Cross-National Comparison’. The Journal of Legislative Studies 15 (4):335–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572330903302448.
Ruedin, Didier. 2013. Why Aren’t They There? The Political Representation of Women, Ethnic Groups and Issue Positions in Legislatures. Colchester: ECPR Press.
In a new paper, Graham Brown and Arnim Langer introduce a general class of social distance measures. They follow the general feeling that many measure of diversity and disparity may be closely related by demonstrating how they are all related. By clarifying how these different measures are related, we should find it easier to choose an appropriate measure for the analysis at hand.
The one thing I’m still not convinced is the title of the paper: While they clearly define what they mean by social distance, my sociological training keeps interfering and social distance doesn’t seem fit to express a characteristic of a society. Perhaps it’s easier to talk of the more concrete instances of ethnic diversity, or income disparity.
Brown, Graham K., and Arnim Langer. 2016. ‘A General Class of Social Distance Measures’. Political Analysis, March, mpw002. doi:10.1093/pan/mpw002.
Didier Ruedin 