Power-Sharing Coalitions and Ethnic Civil War

Transcription

1 Power-Sharing Coalitions and Ethnic Civil War Nils-Christian Bormann 1 Martin Steinwand 2 1 Department of Politics, University of Exeter 2 Department of Political Science, Stony Brook University 21 October 2016

2 The Puzzle

3 In a Nutshell 1 Ethnic leaders form governmental coalitions to maximize the spoils of office and minimize the probability of civil war 2 Ethnic groups may be unstable (moderates vs extremists) 3 Larger coalitions will form in anticipation of costly conflict 4 Formal model of coalition formation demonstrates the trade-offs 5 Data on ethnic coalitions and time to civil war illustrates argument

4 Existing Work 1 Institutions as commitment device central to studies of power-sharing Peace agreement provisions (Hartzell & Hoddie; Mattes & Savun) Electoral rules (Lijphart; Horowitz; Norris; Reynolds) Autocratic parties & parliaments (Gandhi; Magaloni; Boix & Svolik) 2 Alternative: self-enforcing coalitions (Francois, Rainer & Trebbi; Acemoglu, Egorov & Sonin)

5 Motivation The primary characteristic of consociational democracy is that the political leaders of all significant segments of the plural society cooperate in a grand coalition to govern the country. Lijphart (1977, 25) England, said Disraeli, does not love coalitions. Neither does a multiethnic polity... Horowitz (1985, 440) How does government formation and risk of civil war onset affect each other?

6 A Formal Model of Ethnic Coalition Formation Key Insight Ethnic leaders form coalitions under the threat of group disintegration, and thus violent conflict. n ethnic groups (with potential sub-groups) Uncertainty about group cohesiveness and influence of sub-groups Formateur chooses coalition size under the shadow of violence Coalition members share peace dividend Trade-off between maximizing pay-off and risk of coalition failure

7 Model Results 1

8 Model Results 2

9 Model Implications Oversized coalitions very common where costs of conflict are high Minimum-winning coalitions very fragile Risk of instability highest directly after formation

10 Data Sources Ethnic Power Relations 2014 Data (Cederman et al. 2010; Vogt et al. 2015) UCDP/PRIO coding of civil war (Gleditsch et al. 2002, Themnér & Wallensteen 2014) ACD2EPR (Wucherpfennig et al. 2012) Attempted and successful coups (Powell & Thyne 2011)

11 Unit of Analysis Alternative Coalition Member(s) Size Government (1) Sunni (2) Shia (3) Kurds (4) Sunni & Shia (5) Sunni & Kurds (6) Shia & Kurds.8 1 (7) Sunni, Shia & Kurds 1 0

12 Introduction Theory Data Results Appendix Ethnic Coalitions in 2009 Ethnic Hegemony Ethnic Coalition

13 Government Formation in Multiethnic Societies 200 West Non West Count of Government Types Minority Majority Minority Min. Win. Oversized Grand Single Member Coalitions

14 Time until Governmental Civil War Coalition No Yes Pr(Government Civil War) Government Age in Years

15 Conclusion Oversized ethnic coalitions are frequent as predicted by model Group leaders form coalitions even though they know they are unstable To do: Integrate formation and duration stage in one empirical model Explore coups vs civil war types

16 Unit of Analysis: Appropriate data? Agency? A ethnic group is considered politically relevant if at least one political organization claims to represent it in national politics... Access to power of a given (relevant) ethnic group is assessed based on the access of those elites who claim to represent the group s interest. EPR codebook Group size as degree of influence? Common assumption in civil war studies Census results as proxies for distribution of power Census functionally equivalent to election? (Horowitz, 2000; Posner 2005)