Sometimes ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ಗುಂಪುಗಳು are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the twentieth century, ಜನರು began to argue that conflicts among ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ಗುಂಪುಗಳು or between members of an ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ಗುಂಪು and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view, the state should not acknowledge ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ, ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ಗುಂಪುಗಳು can be accommodated within the boundaries of the ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರ-state.

The nineteenth century saw the development of the political ideology of ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯತೆ, when the concept of race was tied to ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯತೆ, first by ಜರ್ಮನ್‌ theorists including Johann Gottfried von Herder. Instances of societies focusing on ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ties, arguably to the exclusion of history or historical context, have resulted in the justification of ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರaಪಟ್ಟಿ goals. Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the nineteenth century consolidation and expansion of the ಜರ್ಮನ್‌ Empire and the twentieth century Third (Greater ಜರ್ಮನ್‌) Reich. Each promoted the pan-ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ idea that these governments were only acquiring lands that had always been inhabited by ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ ಜರ್ಮನ್‌s. The history of late-comers to the ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರ-state model, such as those arising in the Near East and south-eastern Europe out of the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as those arising out of the former USSR, is marked by inter-ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ conflicts. Such conflicts usually occur within multi-ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ states, as opposed to between them, as in other regions of the world. Thus, the conflicts are often misleadingly labelled and characterized as civil wars when they are inter-ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ conflicts in a multi-ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ state.

Ethnies and ಜನಾಂಗೀಯ categories
Ethno-ರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ conflict
ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ in specific countries
Defining ಜನಾಂಗೀಯತೆ