Regional party systems in ethnofederal states
Item
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Title
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Regional party systems in ethnofederal states
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:7d51eb915c9b:11561
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identifier
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12084
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Creator
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Oziashvili, Yekaterina,
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Contributor
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Susan L. Woodward
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Date
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2012
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political science | Elections | Electoral Systems | Ethnofederalism | Ethnoregional parties | Party Systems | Political Parties
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Abstract
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Scholars of federalism and political parties argue that ethnic federalism leads to the creation of regional and ethnoregional parties at the expense of national parties. Critics of ethnofederalism claim that a regional party system dominated by branches of national parties in ethnofederal states is virtually impossible and argue that ethnoregional parties act as centrifugal forces that threaten the territorial integrity of the state. Using the case of Russia this dissertation shows that the rise of regional parties is not a direct result of ethnofederal institutional structures but a product of specific electoral systems. Then, using the cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, I demonstrate the central role of electoral rules and institutions in shaping party systems in ethnofederal states.;Next, I look at the sources of variation in regional party systems in ethnofederal democracies. I demonstrate that the ethno-demographic compositions of the federal units provide the best explanation for this variation. Using the cases of India, Pakistan (1988-1999), Spain, Canada, and Belgium I show that the ethnoculturally and politically dominant communities are more likely to provide electoral support for national parties, regardless of their region of residence. For example, I find that Hindus, despite their linguistic, regional, and tribal heterogeneity, are more likely to support national parties than other ethnic communities in India. Similarly, I find that Anglophones in Canada and Castilian-speakers in Spain provide the most consistent support for national parties. Belgium and Pakistan, on the other hand, lack an ethnoculturally and politically dominant community; as a result, Belgium has no national parties and Pakistan's national parties in the 1990s were perceived as increasingly ethnoregional, drawing most of their support from Sindh and Punjab regions. My findings, therefore, are twofold: they demonstrate that the formation of regional parties is not solely a product of ethnofederal institutional design and that electoral strength of regional parties is not a common characteristic of all ethnofederal states. Their presence depends on electoral institutions and on the ethno-demographic composition of the federal unit in question.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Political Science
