Ethnic Coalitions and the Logic of Political Survival in Authoritarian Regimes

Janina Beiser-Mcgrath,Nils W Metternich

doi:10.1177/0010414020920656

Abstract

Why do authoritarian governments exclude ethnic groups if this jeopardizes their regime survival? We generalize existing arguments that attribute exclusion dynamics to ethnic coalition formation. We argue that a mutual commitment problem, between the ethnic ruling group and potential coalition members, leads to power-balanced ethnic coalitions. However, authoritarian regimes with institutions that mitigate credible commitment problems facilitate the formation of coalitions that are less balanced in power. We test our arguments with a k-adic conditional logit approach, using data on ethnic groups and their power status. We demonstrate that in autocracies, the ruling ethnic group is more likely to form and maintain coalitions that balance population sizes among all coalition members. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the extent to which balancing occurs is conditional on authoritarian regime type.

Highlights

Why are some ethnic groups included, whereas others are excluded from political power? This is an important question because current research provides increasing theoretical and empirical evidence that the exclusion of ethnic groups increases the risk of armed civil conflict (Cederman et al, 2010, 2011)
We contribute to this literature by (a) providing a theory of ethnic coalitions, which takes into account the internal dynamics of potential coalition members (“dual selectorate theory”) and (b) demonstrating that ethnic power balancing is more likely to affect coalition formation in personalist regimes because commitment problems cannot be mitigated
Roessler (2016) concludes that ethnic coalitions are formed by large powerful ethnic groups, which results in relatively large ethnic coalitions

Summary

Introduction

Why are some ethnic groups included, whereas others are excluded from political power? This is an important question because current research provides increasing theoretical and empirical evidence that the exclusion of ethnic groups increases the risk of armed civil conflict (Cederman et al, 2010, 2011). The ethnic coalition literature provides compelling arguments that inclusion and exclusion dynamics are a consequence of equilibrium outcomes to maximize regime survival given potential internal and external challengers (Bormann, 2019; Francois et al, 2015; Roessler, 2016; Roessler & Ohls, 2018) We contribute to this literature by (a) providing a theory of ethnic coalitions, which takes into account the internal dynamics of potential coalition members (“dual selectorate theory”) and (b) demonstrating that ethnic power balancing is more likely to affect coalition formation in personalist regimes because commitment problems cannot be mitigated. Three types of empirically observable ethnic coalitions are difficult to explain within the framework of Roessler (2016) and Roessler and Ohls (2018): (I) coalitions among small groups, (II) coalitions between small ruling groups and large coalition partners, and (III) coalitions between large ruling groups and small coalition partners

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Conclusion