CROSSING OVER: ESSAYS ON ETHNIC PARTIES, ELECTORAL POLITICS, AND ETHNIC SOCIAL CONFLICT Brandon Stewart Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2017 APPROVED: Idean Salehyan, Major Professor John Ishiyama, Co-Major Professor Jacqueline H.R. DeMeritt, Committee Member Jae-Jae Spoon, Committee Member Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, Chair of Department of Political Science David Holdeman, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Stewart, Brandon. Crossing Over: Essays on Ethnic Parties, Electoral Politics, and Ethnic Social Conflict. Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science), August 2017, 118 pp., 8 tables, 7 figures, references, 150 titles. This dissertation analyzes several topics related to political life in ethnically divided societies. In chapter 2, I study the relationship between ethnic social conflict, such as protests, riots, and armed inter-ethnic violence, and bloc partisan identification. I find that protests have no effect on bloc support for political parties, riots increase bloc partisan identification, and that armed violence reduces this phenomenon. In chapter 3, I analyze the factors that influence the targeting of ethnic groups by ethnic parties in social conflict. I find some empirical evidence that conditions favorable to vote pooling across ethnic lines reduce group targeting by ethnic parties. In chapter 4, I analyze the effects of ethnic demography on ethnic party behavior. Through a qualitative analysis of party behavior in local elections in Macedonia, I find that ethnic parties change their strategies in response to changes in ethnic demography. I find that co-ethnic parties are less likely to challenge each other for power under conditions of split demography. In fact, under conditions of split demography, I find that co-ethnic parties have political incentives to unite behind a single party because intra-group competition jeopardizes the group’s hold on power. Copyright 2017 by Brandon Stewart ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Ethnic Conflict in Macedonia ................................................................................. 1 1.2 Overview of the Dissertation .................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 2. THE DIVERGENT EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CONFLICT ON ETHNIC BLOC VOTING ......................................................................................................................................... 9 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 9 2.2 Ethnic Voting ........................................................................................................ 10 2.3 The Effects of Ethnic Violence ............................................................................. 12 2.4 Theory ................................................................................................................... 13 2.5 Research Design.................................................................................................... 16 2.6 Results ................................................................................................................... 25 2.7 Analysis................................................................................................................. 27 2.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 30 CHAPTER 3. ETHNIC PARTIES AND TARGET SELECTION IN SOCIAL CONFLICT ..... 32 3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 32 3.2 Dissident-Government Interactions ...................................................................... 34 3.3 Targeting Dynamics in Social Conflict................................................................. 36 3.4 Political Parties and Social Conflict ..................................................................... 38 3.5 Data and Methods ................................................................................................. 43 3.6 Results ................................................................................................................... 55 3.7 Discussion and Conclusion ................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER 4. FROM ADVERSARIES TO ALLIES: CHANGES IN THE DEMOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION OF DISTRICTS AND ETHNIC PARTY BEHAVIOR IN MACEDONIA .... 63 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 63 4.2 Literature Review and Theory .............................................................................. 66 4.3 Background on Macedonia ................................................................................... 70 iii 4.4 Background on Kičevo, Territorial Reorganization and Changes in Ethnic Demography .......................................................................................................... 73 4.5 Party Behavior in Local Elections in Kičevo, 2000-2013 .................................... 77 4.5.1 Macedonian Parties’ Behavior in Kičevo ................................................. 78 4.5.2 Albanian Parties’ Behavior in Kičevo ...................................................... 81 4.5.3 Aftermath of Dehari’s Victory in Kičevo ................................................. 84 4.6 Beyond Kičevo...................................................................................................... 85 4.7 Control Case: Party Strategies in Local Elections in Kumanovo ......................... 85 4.8 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 88 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION...................................................................................................... 91 5.1 Summary of Findings ............................................................................................ 91 5.2 Implications........................................................................................................... 94 5.3 Future Research .................................................................................................... 97 5.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 105 APPENDIX. TEMPORAL DOMAIN FOR COUNTRIES INCLUDED IN CHAPTER 2 ....... 106 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 108 iv LIST OF TABLES Page Table 2.1. GLS Regression Results .............................................................................................. 26 Table 3.1. Ethnic Group Targeting by Country ............................................................................ 47 Table 3.2. List of Ethnic Parties Involved in Social Conflict ....................................................... 49 Table 3.3. Ethnic Parties, Ethnic Fractionalization and Ethnic Group Targeting in Social Conflict, Clustered by Actor Type ................................................................................................ 51 Table 3.4. Ethnic Parties, Ethnic Fractionalization and Ethnic Group Targeting in Social Conflict, Clustered by Country ..................................................................................................... 52 Table 3.5. Ethnic Parties, Presidential Election Years and Ethnic Group Targeting, Clustered by Actor Type .................................................................................................................................... 53 Table 3.6. Ethnic Parties, Presidential Election Years and Ethnic Group Targeting, Clustered by Country ......................................................................................................................................... 54 Table 4.1. Demographic Changes and Party Behavior ................................................................. 69 v LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 2.1. Average CVELI Scores .............................................................................................. 19 Figure 2.2. Changes in CVELI and Ethnic Protests...................................................................... 21 Figure 2.3. Changes in CVELI and Ethnic Riots .......................................................................... 22 Figure 2.4. Changes in CVELI and Armed Attacks ..................................................................... 22 Figure 3.1. Predicted Probability of Ethnic Group Targeting-Model 2 ........................................ 58 Figure 3.2. Predicted Probability of Ethnic Group Targeting-Model 3 ........................................ 58 Figure 3.3. Ethnic Parties, Presidential Election Years, and Ethnic Group Targeting-Model 9 .. 59 vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Ethnic Conflict in Macedonia On March 22, 2001, police in the town of Tetovo, Macedonia, pulled over a car driven by a sixty-year-old Albanian man