CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Panzano, Guido |
|---|---|
| Title | Political Regimes in Plural Societies: Institutions and Performance of Majoritarian and Power-Sharing Democracy in Ethnically Divided Countries |
| Summary | The thesis classifies cases of majoritarian and power-sharing democracy in plural societies. The research questions are: How are democratic regimes in plural societies articulated? Which dimensions can grasp the institutional varieties and practical performances of political regimes in ethnically divided democracies? What is the effect of majoritarian institutions in plural democracies, in terms of ethnic inclusion and exclusion? Accordingly, I shall map 47 plural democracies through 18 variables along 2 institutional dimensions: (i) majoritarianism or power-sharing in the government, parliament and electoral system and (ii) the territorial articulation of power. I shall then add another dimension on (iii) regime quality related to group relations: ethnic inclusion or exclusion. This framework, coupling de jure institutions with de facto performances, proves that: (i) power-sharing democracy is associated with ethnic inclusion; nonetheless (ii) majoritarian democracy occurs in plural societies and can coexist with ethnic inclusion. A simple quantitative analysis is insufficient to explain this pattern. I will thence conduct a most similar comparison of 2 majoritarian democracies of my sample – Turkey (majoritarian/exclusive) and Mali (majoritarian/inclusive) – to confirm that: (i) majoritarian institutions in plural societies often lead to ethnic exclusion, albeit (ii) this scenario can be avoided when exogenous factors are at play (party system, political culture/tradition of accommodation). However, as the diachronic analysis will show, these factors remain precarious and (iii) majoritarian institutions, in particular the centralization of power, are demonstrated to be ill-suited to deal with territorially concentrated minorities. The thesis offers a detailed and useful classification and discusses examples of majority rule and power-sharing in plural democracies, and finally proposes further research directions, including authoritarianism and regime change. |
| Supervisor | Bochsler, Daniel |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/panzano_guido.pdf |
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