B A L L O T S N O T B U L L E T S : T E S T I N G C O N S O C I A T I O N A L T H E O R I E S O F E T H N I C C O N F L I C T , E L E C T O R A L S Y S T E M S A N D D E M O C R A T I Z A T I O N . Pippa Norris Shorenstein Center John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 F: (617) 495 8696 [email protected] www.ksg.harvard.edu/people/pnorris Abstract: The late twentieth century has seen a resurgence of ethnic conflict in many states worldwide. In seeking the management and containment of such tensions, interest has increasingly turned to issues of ‘constitutional engineering’ or ‘institutional design’. One of the most important and influential claims in the literature is that proportional electoral systems are most appropriate for ethnic minority representation, promoting support for the political system, and therefore leading to conflict resolution in plural societies. But under what conditions do electoral rules shape the political support of different ethnic groups? Does this pattern vary according to the type of ethnonational, cultural-linguistic, racial, or ethnoreligious cleavage? Can we extend our generalizations from established democracies like Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland to plural societies in a wide range of transitional and consolidating democracies like the Ukraine, Romania and Taiwan? To explore these issues, this study examines patterns of support for the political system among ethnic minority populations under proportional, mixed and majoritarian systems in a dozen new and established democracies. Survey data is drawn from the second release of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. The preliminary results presented in this initial study remain subject to reanalysis in a wider range of democracies once more countries are added to this dataset. Nevertheless the initial findings indicate that there is a complex pattern at work and the claim that PR party list 1 systems are automatically associated with higher levels of political support among ethnic minorities is not confirmed by the study. Paper for the International Conference on Institutional Design, Conflict Management and Democracy in the Late Twentieth Century, Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame, 9-11 December 1999. Some of the most difficult issues facing established and new democracies concern the management of ethnic conflict. The familiar litany of problems ranges from the inclusion of diverse racial groups in South Africa and Namibia to long-standing tensions between Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, violence in the Basque region, the Palestine and the Balkans, and the dramatic eruption of bloody wars in Rwanda, Kashmir, and East Timor. Ethnic identities can be best understood as social constructs with deep cultural and psychological roots based on national, cultural-linguistic, racial, or religious backgrounds1. They provide an affective sense of belonging and are socially defined in terms of their meaning for the actors, representing ties of blood, soil, faith and community. Agencies concerned with the peaceful amelioration of such antagonisms have increasingly turned towards ‘constitutional engineering’ or ‘institutional design’ to achieve these ends. The aim has been to develop rules of the game structuring political competition so that actors have in-built incentives to accommodate the interests of different cultural groups, leading to conflict management, ethnic cooperation and long-term political stability. One of the most influential accounts in the literature has been provided by the theory of ‘consociational’ or ‘consensus’ democracy developed by Arend Lijphart which suggests that nations can maintain stable governments despite being deeply divided into distinct ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural communities2. Consociational systems are characterized by institutions facilitating co-operation and compromise among political leaders, maximizing the number of ‘winners’ in the system, so that separate communities can peacefully coexist within the common borders of a single nation-state. Electoral systems represent perhaps the most powerful instrument available for institutional engineering, with far-reaching consequences for party systems, the composition of legislatures, and the durability of democratic arrangements3. Majoritarian electoral systems, like First-Past-the-Post, systematically exaggerate the parliamentary lead for the party in first place, with the aim of securing a decisive outcome and government accountability, thereby excluding smaller parties from the division of spoils. In contrast, proportional electoral systems lower the hurdles for smaller parties, maximizing their inclusion into the legislature and ultimately into coalition governments. Consociational theories suggest that proportional electoral systems are most likely to facilitate accommodation between diverse ethnic groups, making them more suitable for new democracies struggling to achieve legitimacy and stability in plural societies. These are important claims that, if true, have significant consequences for agencies seeking to promote democratic development and peacekeeping. To explore the evidence for these arguments, Part I of this study summarizes the key assumptions in consociational theories of democracy and outlines the central propositions examined in this study. Part II describes the data, research design and methods. Evidence is drawn from the current release of the 1996-98 Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES)4, based upon national election surveys in a dozen nations at different levels of democratic and socioeconomic development. The study compares three nations with majoritarian electoral systems (the United States, Britain and Australia), three using ‘mixed’ or parallel electoral systems (Taiwan, Ukraine, and Lithuania) and six countries 2 with proportional representation systems (Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Spain, New Zealand and Israel). The study compares political attitudes and behavior among a diverse range of ethnic minorities such as the Russian-speaking population living in the Ukraine, residents in the Catalan, Galician and Basque regions in Spain, African-Americans in the United States, the Arab/Muslim populations in Israel, the Scots and Welsh in Britain, the Hungarian minority in Rumania, the mainland Chinese in Taiwan, and the Maoris in New Zealand. The framework contains relatively homogeneous nations such as Poland and Britain as well as plural societies like Israel and the Ukraine. Some countries like Australia are long-established democracies, others like Spain consolidated within recent decades, while others like the Ukraine remain in the transitional stage, characterized by unstable and fragmented opposition parties, ineffective legislatures and limited checks on the executive. Part III defines and analyzes the major ethnic cleavages in each of these societies and tests the central propositions about the effects of electoral systems on differences in minority- majority support. The results in this paper remain subject to confirmation in a wider range of societies once more countries have been merged into the dataset, but the analysis provide preliminary insights suggesting the need for further investigation. The analysis suggests that there is no simple relationship between the type of electoral system and majority-minority differences in political support. In particular, the study finds no evidence for the proposition that PR party list systems are directly associated with higher levels of support for the political system among ethnic minorities. The conclusion considers broader issues of effective electoral designs and conflict mediation through constitutional engineering, summarizes the key findings in the paper, and discusses the next steps in the research agenda. I. Theoretical Framework Ever since seminal work by Maurice Duverger (1954) and by Douglas Rae (1971), a rich literature has developed typologies of electoral systems and analyzed their consequences5. The most common approach has compared established democracies in the post-war period to identify the impact of electoral institutions upon the political system, such as for the proportionality of votes to seats, levels of party competition, executive stability, the social composition of legislatures, and voter turnout6. During the 1990s the research agenda dramatically expanded in scope and reach. Newer work has extended the comparative framework to a broader universe of democracies worldwide7, analyzed the wider impact of electoral institutions upon the public policymaking process8, and examining the dynamics of system change in established democracies like Britain, New Zealand, Israel, Italy and Japan9. There is a common consensus in this literature that no ‘perfect’ bespoke electoral system fits every democracy. Instead, arrangements have to be tailored to each particular context and choices involve trade-offs. Debates about electoral systems in established and in newer democracies, while emphasizing different concerns, share certain common features. The mechanical questions concern what designs lead to what consequences under what conditions. Underlying these arguments are contested visions about the fundamental principles of representative democracy10. Advocates of majoritarian systems argue that the ‘winner’s bonus’ for the leading party produces strong yet accountable single-party government, and single member districts strengthen effective links