I am mainly thinking of UK, France, Germany, Spain as big, but all of them (with the possible exception of Ireland) could be thought of as stable, ie no wars or revolution since WW2.
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> ethnically homogenous
I’m not sure that Western European countries are more ethnically homogenous. Most have some colonial past with many peoples from these colonies now in the country. ie UK has lots of people from India, Bangladesh, France many Algerians etc
Many East European countries are less diverse.
Of course it depends how you group people. In the UK should the Welsh, Cornish etc be seen as ethnic groups?
But overall I think you are using ethnically homogenous to mean something other than it’s actual meaning.
As an aside different countries eg France and UK have very different views on how they see the integration of non native people into their cultures
Your assumption is wrong.
The UK is anything but homogeneous, Scotland can’t wait to leave, the north Irish were also recently thinking of rejoining Ireland.
Spain was on the brink of separating 3 years ago.
Looking at eastern europe – Poland is pretty solid, the rest of the countries mostly have Russians peppered, partly thanks to Stalin.
But there’s also a lot to thank population movement pre nationalism (think of how Germans were spread throughout Europe and how Hitler used that).
There’s also some to thank border marking. If there is a Polish population living in a place, why is it part of Ukraine and not Poland? (Ruhr as an exampke for this in western Europe).
We had colonies, industrial revolution hit us first and we didn’t lose a cold War
France won a lot of wars. The UK once was the biggest empire.
The Netherlands owned the Dutch indies and did a lot of trading.
Stuff like that
First things first, the UK is an island, islands tend to be more ethnically homogenous than continental countries just because logistics are more difficult. This actually contributed to the stability of it because there were few external pressures and the early modern economic boom gave loads of money to stabilise a lot of issues.
With France I reject your premise. France was on the brink of civil war in the 60s, in the aftermath of a massive war of independence with Algeria. It was only General De Gaul’s massive intervention which stopped this, drafting a new constitution and having a country wide referendum on it. France also has an interesting immigration policy where there is a minimum “French ness” level before you’re allowed to become a citizen.
Spain is an interesting one. Spain was once ruled by the Moors, only being fully reconquered in 1492. This gave a massive boost to crusader zeal and became the Spanish inquisition, actively suppressing those who did not fit into the “Catalan Catholic” mold. This involved expelling Jews and Muslims. Spain was also ruled by Franco until the 70s who was extremely suppressive of rebel sentiment. When he died its a miracle another civil war didn’t break out.
The next factor is simple, if you look at a map, the eastern European nations are comprised of pretty much empty grasslands, the Eurasian steppes. This means that nomadic tribes could wander around and simply turn up wherever they felt like it. When great migrations occurred (like the one preceding the fall of Rome) massive amounts of people moved thousands of miles and just settled where they could. Since they reached eastern Europe first that’s where they settled, the most notable example of this is Bulgaria.
For the West, Spain can be reached across the straits of Gibraltar, but this is difficult because it needs boats that refugees don’t often have. France is extremely far away and bounded by mountains on its southern borders. The UK is an island and very difficult to reach. This means that they’re basically unaffected by great migrations, contributing to the ethno homogeneity.
However the biggest factor is the EU. The EU provided subsidies to restart economies (UK in 1970s) and stability across these countries. Countries don’t go to war when there is mediation available. This stability and comparative wealth means that people don’t revolt because everything’s just fine. Revolutions only start when there’s nothing to lose and people in these countries have something to lose.
A lot of reasons. Firstly, countries need to learn to manage difference. The more sects, races, classes there are, the more likelihood’s of tension there are, especially if nations are founded on oppression of another sect/race/class, etc. Stability also generally depends on a government not being oppressive to its people. High oppression causes more tensions inside the country. (Simplified, it’s a bit more complicated, but that’s a general rule of thumb.) Why Germany, France, U.K., etc are more ethnically homogenous is not 100% true. They actively suppressed other cultures, historically. Look at Basque and Catalan separatism movements. There is tension.
This ignores the fact that the West also is more economically developed in many aspects, because you haven’t asked about economic development haha.
The bigger comment isn’t true.
They are not more ethnically homogenous. Poland is the most ethnically homogenous country in the EU. But size/economic development wise – National, industrial and bourgeoise revolutions hit Western Europe first (NL, UK, France). Since 17-18th century they developed industries and civil society that also brought on strong institutions, while a lot of Eastern Europe was stuck under illiberal empires (AH, Russian, Ottoman). But in general, institutions. Strong, functioning, not dependent on personality institutions are what makes countries stable and prosperous.
Geography and history. Over the centuries, the east and southeast was invaded from Asia by different tribes (Mongolians, Tatars) which stifled growth. Then you had Ottomans conquering southeastern Europe who brought Islam and their peoples to this area. After the defeat of Ottomans in the Battle of Vienna, the land were reconquered and needed to be resettled. Mind that something similar happened in Western Europe, but it was 300 years prior (reconquista).
Another aspect is that some nationals of other countries, mainly Germans, were invited to settle to share the mining technology
A for last century, there were some attempts to homogenise countries after the fall of Austria-Hungary (Benes decrees), but there were further mixing and resettlements too, for example Russian settlement of Ukraine after Holodomor (which result we see now).
The result is that you have assimilated Germans, Hungarians, Slovans influenced by different cultures, Slovans embracing embracing different religions, descendants of raiding tribes, descendants of Turks and many more.
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