Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
I think the point was that it can be difficult or impossible to establish a social contract in an arbitrarily delineated "nation" that includes traditional enemies within its borders. An example might be the former Yugoslavia.
Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
That's basically it yes.
One of the rather odd things I've picked up over the years is a slightly different view of the concept of a social contract. The fact that X and Y are traditional enemies means that they have a specific, defined and accepted relationship already, which is part of a contract. This has some interesting implications since, I would argue, every nation state (barring possibly Andorra, Monaco and few others) are arbitrarily delineated "nations" that only bear a passing resemblance to an ethnoi.

As to whether or not such a contract can be established, sure it can and has been in a number of places: Canada, Belgium, and Switzerland all spring to mind as classic examples. The question, IMHO, should be more in line with how did such a multi-ethnoi social contract come into existence and why and how has it been maintained?

Cheers,

Marc