The Mauritius enigma

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 10, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 83-104

  Miles, William F S ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041777802     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.1999.0036     Document Type: Review

References (13)

1. Ibrahim M. Alladin, Economic Miracle in the Indian Ocean: Can Mauritius Show the Way? (Stanley, Rose Hill [Mauritius]: Éditions de l'Océan Indien, 1993). See also Mauritius: Managing Success (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1989). Less econometristic, and more sensitive to the social cost of rapid economic development is Larry W. Bowman, Mauritius: Democracy and Development in the Indian Ocean (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991).
2. Ibrahim M. Alladin, Economic Miracle in the Indian Ocean: Can Mauritius Show the Way? (Stanley, Rose Hill [Mauritius]: Éditions de l'Océan Indien, 1993). See also Mauritius: Managing Success (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1989). Less econometristic, and more sensitive to the social cost of rapid economic development is Larry W. Bowman, Mauritius: Democracy and Development in the Indian Ocean (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991).
3. Ibrahim M. Alladin, Economic Miracle in the Indian Ocean: Can Mauritius Show the Way? (Stanley, Rose Hill [Mauritius]: Éditions de l'Océan Indien, 1993). See also Mauritius: Managing Success (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1989). Less econometristic, and more sensitive to the social cost of rapid economic development is Larry W. Bowman, Mauritius: Democracy and Development in the Indian Ocean (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991).
4. Raj Mathur, "Parliamentary Representation of Minority Communities: The Mauritian Experience," Africa Today 44 (January-March 1997): 61-82.
5. For a case study examining a politically-charged challenge to the linguistic equilibrium in Mauritius, see William F.S. Miles, "The Politics of Language Equilibrium in a Multilingual Society: Mauritius," Comparative Politics, forthcoming.
6. A drug scandal resulted in the arrest of four members of parliament in 1987.
7. In contrast, for instance, Chad, with a population of over six million, had fewer than four hundred equivalent associations in 1994.
8. Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Common Denominators: Ethnicity, Nation-Building, and Compromise in Mauritius (Oxford: Berg, 1998).
9. Since many organizations are multipurpose in nature, some of the categories have been aggregated for this analysis. "Education," for example, combines Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) separately registered for private, secondary, and preprimary schools, those with "social and cultural" in addition to "educational" ends, and those which have been established for the promotion of "education" per se.
10. Mauritius thereby buttresses Horowitz's argument that a fluid structure of decentralized ethnicity favors conflict management better than monolithic or bipolar ethnic domination. Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
11. In an interview with the author in December 1998, Prime Minister Ramgoolam attributed his nation's democratic success to Mauritians' "sense of fairness."
12. Although descendants of Hindi speakers greatly outnumber those of Tamil speakers, the latter claim precedence in their forebears' arrival in Mauritius; hence, their alphabet's traditional placement above the Hindi. Officially, the change in ordering was due to Tamil's greater script length, which created a layout problem on the new currency engravings. Tamil countered that the change was but the latest manifestation of their community's progressive marginalization by the Hindu majority. Not surprisingly, other communities began demanding that their own script be added to the nation's already linguistically crowded currency. (English remains the uncontested major language on the Mauritian rupee.)
13. Kaya had been under arrest for smoking marijuana at a demonstration for the drug's legalization. His death sparked riots in which three more people - including another Rastafarian seggae musician - were killed. Both the regular police and the SMF are overwhelmingly Hindu.