Ethnic bargains, group instability, and social choice theory

Politics and Society

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 337-362

  Chandra, Kanchan ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0035598226     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329201029003002     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. The label constructivist here groups together views of ethnic identity that have sometimes been categorized separately as "situational" or "instrumentalist" or "institutionalist" or "postmodernist." While works categorized as "situational," "instrumentalist," "institutionalist," or "postmodernist" might differ from each other in the mechanisms by which they suggest identities are constructed, their agreement on the prior proposition that identities are constructed warrants the use of a common label to describe them here. For a review of constructivist approaches, see Kanchan Chandra, "Cumulative Findings in the Study of Ethnic Politics: Constructivist Findings and Their Non-Incorporation." APSA-CP, Winter 2001.
2. The use of violence as an indicator introduces a margin of error. The absence of violence may not indicate a successful bargain, since one party might reject the outcome but choose not to resist through violent means. However, since there are few data to be found on actual agreements between contending ethnic groups and between ethnic groups and the state, it is the best available method of assessing the proportion of ethnic group demands overall that result in failed bargains.
3. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
4. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
5. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
6. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
7. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
8. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
9. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
10. Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy," Comparative Politics 12, no. 3 (April 1970): 337-64; Robert Dahl, Polyarchy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971); Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981); Alvin Rabushka and Kenneth A. Shepsle, Politics in Plural Societies (Columbus, MO: Charles E. Merrill, 1972); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Claus Offe, "Strong States, Weak Cures," East European Constitutional Review (Spring 1992); Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997); Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
11. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977). See, for instance, p. 1, where Lijphart describes the "centrifugal tendencies inherent in a plural society."
12. Offe, "Strong States," 22; Rustow, 359-60; Horowitz, 224, 566.
13. Rustow, 359-60.
14. On this point, see also Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, forthcoming), 22.
15. Ibid.
16. Sushil Srivastava, "How the British Saw the Issue," in Sarvepalli Gopal, ed., Anatomy of a Confrontation (New Delhi: Penguin, 1990), 45.
17. For a model illustrating how several groups may be satisfied simultaneously through a lottery, see Rabushka and Shepsle. Although Rabushka and Shepsle argue that the lottery is an unstable strategy, the logic of the argument indicates that in fact it constitutes an equilibrium.
18. Offe, Varieties of Transition; Rabushka and Shepsle; Horowitz.
19. Even though the agreement was successfully reached between representatives of ethnic groups in conflict over an apparently "intractable" symbolic issue, it was rejected three years later in a popular referendum. The question of why the accords were rejected by a population where indigenous groups are in a majority is independently puzzling. The turnout rate of only 18 percent indicates that it may be related to a lack of participation on the part of the indigenous population.
20. Rothschild, 83.
21. I describe this example in greater detail in Kanchan Chandra, "Ethnic Parties and Democratic Stability" (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 3-6 September 1998).
22. Horowitz, 223-24.
23. James D. Fear, "Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict," in David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 107-26; Barry Posen, "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict," in Michael E. Brown, ed., Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 103-24.
24. James D. Fear, "Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict," in David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 107-26; Barry Posen, "The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict," in Michael E. Brown, ed., Ethnic Conflict and International Security (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 103-24.
25. Horowitz, 147.
26. Robert Dahl, "Some Explanations," in Robert Dahl, ed., Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 357; Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. (Basic Books, 1973). Also see Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction," in Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967), 5.
27. Robert Dahl, "Some Explanations," in Robert Dahl, ed., Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 357; Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. (Basic Books, 1973). Also see Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction," in Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967), 5.
28. Robert Dahl, "Some Explanations," in Robert Dahl, ed., Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966), 357; Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. (Basic Books, 1973). Also see Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, "Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction," in Seymour M. Lipset and Stein Rokkan, eds., Party Systems and Voter Alignments (New York: Free Press, 1967), 5.
29. Lijphart, 21-52.
30. Chaim Kaufmann, "Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars," International Security 20, no. 4 (Spring 1996): 136-75; Steve Van Evera, "Hypotheses on Nationalism and War," International Security 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 5-39.
31. Chaim Kaufmann, "Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars," International Security 20, no. 4 (Spring 1996): 136-75; Steve Van Evera, "Hypotheses on Nationalism and War," International Security 18, no. 4 (Spring 1994): 5-39.
32. Offe, Varieties of Transition, 63, 79.
33. This claim is based on data cited in James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, "Explaining Ethnic Violence" (unpublished paper prepared for presentation at the Juan March Institute, Madrid, 22 May 1997); and the Varshney-Wilkinson data set on Hindu-Muslim violence in India, cited in Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, and Steven Ian Wilkinson, "The Electoral Incentives for Ethnic Violence: Hindu-Muslim Riots in India" (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 3-6 September 1998).
34. This claim is based on data cited in James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, "Explaining Ethnic Violence" (unpublished paper prepared for presentation at the Juan March Institute, Madrid, 22 May 1997); and the Varshney-Wilkinson data set on Hindu-Muslim violence in India, cited in Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, and Steven Ian Wilkinson, "The Electoral Incentives for Ethnic Violence: Hindu-Muslim Riots in India" (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 3-6 September 1998).
35. This claim is based on data cited in James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, "Explaining Ethnic Violence" (unpublished paper prepared for presentation at the Juan March Institute, Madrid, 22 May 1997); and the Varshney-Wilkinson data set on Hindu-Muslim violence in India, cited in Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, and Steven Ian Wilkinson, "The Electoral Incentives for Ethnic Violence: Hindu-Muslim Riots in India" (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 3-6 September 1998).
36. For instance, Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); RomilaThapar, "The Politics of Religious Communities," Seminar 365, (January 1990): 27-32.
37. For instance, Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); RomilaThapar, "The Politics of Religious Communities," Seminar 365, (January 1990): 27-32.
38. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1970 (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Pandey, Construction of Communalism.
39. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1970 (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Pandey, Construction of Communalism.
40. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1970 (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Pandey, Construction of Communalism.
41. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1970 (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Pandey, Construction of Communalism.
42. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1970 (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Pandey, Construction of Communalism.
43. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1970 (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1992); David Laitin, Identity in Formation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); David Laitin, Hegemony and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); Pandey, Construction of Communalism.
44. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), quoting Fanon, 35.
45. Nelson Kasfir, "Explaining Ethnic Political Participation," World Politics 31, no. 3 (April 1979): 365-88, 373.
46. Kasfir, 385
47. William H Riker, Liberalism against Populism (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1982), 63.
48. Bhabha, 37.
49. For detailed treatments, see Riker, Liberalism against Populism, chap. 1, and Kenneth A. Shepsle and Mark S. Bonchek, Analyzing Politics (New York: Norton, 1997).
50. For detailed treatments, see Riker, Liberalism against Populism, chap. 1, and Kenneth A. Shepsle and Mark S. Bonchek, Analyzing Politics (New York: Norton, 1997).
51. Shepsle and Bonchek, 53-55.
52. Riker, Liberalism against Populism, 122; Shepsle and Bonchek, 53-55.
53. William H Riker, Agenda Formation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 2. Based on McKelvey's Chaos Theorem.
54. For a theory of ethnic politics that assumes such perfect alignment of individual preferences, see Rabushka and Shepsle.
55. For the argument that institutions may restrict the choice to a single dimension, see Kenneth Shepsle, "Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models," American Journal of Political Science 23, (February 1979): 27-59.
56. By choosing the years between 1947 and 1949, I have chosen a narrow focus on the critical years when the policy was formulated and the choice initially restricted to the relative status of Hindi and English. A wider frame might capture the emergence and eclipse of other alternatives during the three decades before 1947 and the stabilization of the language bargain in the years following 1949. The narrow focus is preferable for the purpose of this article since it allows me to trace the construction of an agreement in detail. However, the argument made here provides a consistent interpretation of longer term developments in Indian language policy. For the argument that the language bargain constituted an equilibrium, see David Laitin, "Language Policy and Political Strategy in India," Policy Sciences 22, (1989): 415-36.
57. Harry Eckstein, "Case Study and Theory in Political Science," in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby, eds., Strategies of Inquiry (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975), 117.
58. Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 211.
59. The 1941 census applied to undivided India and is therefore not useful in this case. The 1951 census did not tabulate the percentage of Hindi speakers separately but grouped them together with Urdu and Punjabi speakers under the category "Hindustani" and so is also less illuminating than the 1961 census.
60. Data on the linguistic identity of the Constituent Assembly members are not available. These figures are rough estimates based on the regions from which each delegate to the assembly was elected. The South sent the second largest number of delegates, followed by the East and West (data from the Web site on the Constituent Assembly Debates, http://alfa.nic.in/debates/ca.htm).
61. Jyotindra Dasgupta, Language Conflict and National Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970), 112.
62. Dasgupta, 48.
63. The delegates voted sixty-three to thirty-two.
64. Horowitz, 224. Also see Przeworski, Offe, "Strong States Weak Cures," and Varieties of Transition.
65. Dasgupta, 134.
66. B Das, delegate from the Eastern state of Orissa, Constituent Assembly Debates, 12 September 1949.
67. Austin, Granville, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1966), 296-305; Times of India, 3 September 1949; Times of India, 15 September 1949.
68. Austin, Granville, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1966), 296-305; Times of India, 3 September 1949; Times of India, 15 September 1949.
69. Austin, Granville, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1966), 296-305; Times of India, 3 September 1949; Times of India, 15 September 1949.
70. Dasgupta, 137. See also Austin, 268.
71. Dasgupta, 131.
72. Austin, 282.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid., 296
75. Ibid.
76. Constituent Assembly Debates, 13 September 1949.
77. Austin, Dasgupta. Despite the fact that fragmentation among supposedly cohesive ethnic blocs is common in empirical studies, the theoretical literature on ethnic politics has not yet successfully incorporated the pervasiveness of such incidents of fragmentation into its theoretical formulations.
78. Based on my coding of speakers in the Constituent Assembly Debates between 1947-49 and of names associated with the "moderate" and "extremist" factions in Austin, 279, 283-84.
79. Kasfir, 374.
80. Riker, Liberalism against Populism, 209.
81. Ibid., 211.
82. Laitin, Hegemony and Culture; Daniel N. Posner, "The Institutional Origins of Ethnic Politics in Zambia" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1998); Chandra, Ethnic Parties.
83. Laitin, Hegemony and Culture; Daniel N. Posner, "The Institutional Origins of Ethnic Politics in Zambia" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1998); Chandra, Ethnic Parties.
84. Laitin, Hegemony and Culture; Daniel N. Posner, "The Institutional Origins of Ethnic Politics in Zambia" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1998); Chandra, Ethnic Parties.
85. Geertz, 253. Geertz is referring in this sentence to nationalism and religion. However, the statement applies to all forms of ascriptive mobilization. As he points out elsewhere in the book, movements based on religion, race, language, tribe, and social custom are "in some sense of a piece. They form a definable field of investigation" (p. 257).