FINLAND & PALESTINE Proceedings of a Joint Workshop

.-..-~_________.____..___.. ______~_._____ Hannu Juusola
the differences are evident. Israeli nationalism is one of the
most stridently emphatic in terms of ethnicityamong the states
representing ethno-national model. Due to the highly ethnic
nature of the Israeli polity, several scholars classify Israel either
as an "ethnic democracy" or as an "ethnocracy," in the latter
case altogether denying its democratic nature. Another anomaly
of the Israeli case is the exceptionally strong overlap between
national and religious identity. Hence, the Israeli law of
return also confers an automatic right to citizenship on every
immigrant who is Jew by conversion (i.e. to non-ethnic Jews as
well). The highly ethnic character of Israeli state with strong
religious undercurrents renders it problematic in terms of ethnic
minorities. There has been no attempt to create an Israeli
nation or overarching national identity that would also include
the Israeli Palestinians. Democracy is a fully majoritarian one,
and no ethnic power-sharing is practiced.
The Finnish state, despite a clear ethnic component in its identity,
is clearly at the other end of the continuum in terms of
ethnic power-sharing. Among the democratic states with a significant
ethnic minority, Finland is the only one that uses power-sharing
techniques despite the fact that the minority constitutes
less than 20 percent of the population. 21
Alongside the Finnish ethnic majority ("ethnic Finns") in Finland,
there is a Swedish-speaking minority, which represents
about 5.5 percent of the total population (2005}.22 About half
of this minority population is concentrated in areas where
Swedish is the predominant language. As opposed to other
areas, the Aland Islands between Finland and Sweden com­
21 Dowty 1998, 2100212.
22 This article includes general facts about the Swedish-speaking minority in
Finland. Following books/articles were consulted: Allardt 2000; Allardt &
Starck 1981; Lojander-Visapaa 2008; Modeeen 1999; Pentikiiinen & Hiltunen
1995 and St~lberg 1995.
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