Partisan Politics, Electoral Systems and Ethnic Strife

Abstract

In this chapter, we move our analysis away from the symbols of recognition and the formal institutions of the state in the public bureaucracy to the electoral process, which is the arena in which the ethnic factor becomes activated as leadership is recruited and issues and policy proposals are debated. It is within the electoral process that the rival partisan claims for material resources and symbols of recognition are articulated and contested. It is, therefore, essential to examine the performance of the electoral system in practice, especially its role in defining the dialogue that constructs the dynamics of the political arena and that establishes the tone and tensions in the life of the polity. Furthermore, it is in describing and analysing the continuity of successive elections that the main political parties and leaders are best identified and understood, indicating how voters are organized and mobilized, and how competition for the values of the society are represented and waged. Periodic competitive elections offer a rare and valuable occasion for insights into the contours and workings of the political system, addressing, however indirectly, the salient issue of equity and distributive justice.