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
The Puzzle
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
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)
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?
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
Model Results 1
Model Results 2
Model Implications Oversized coalitions very common where costs of conflict are high Minimum-winning coalitions very fragile Risk of instability highest directly after formation
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)
Unit of Analysis Alternative Coalition Member(s) Size Government (1) Sunni 0.19 0 (2) Shia 0.63 0 (3) Kurds 0.17 0 (4) Sunni & Shia 0.82 0 (5) Sunni & Kurds 0.36 0 (6) Shia & Kurds.8 1 (7) Sunni, Shia & Kurds 1 0
Introduction Theory Data Results Appendix Ethnic Coalitions in 2009 Ethnic Hegemony Ethnic Coalition
Government Formation in Multiethnic Societies 200 West Non West Count of Government Types 150 100 50 0 Minority Majority Minority Min. Win. Oversized Grand Single Member Coalitions
Time until Governmental Civil War 0.020 Coalition No Yes 0.015 Pr(Government Civil War) 0.010 0.005 0.000 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Government Age in Years
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
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)