Conflict Regimes and Ethnic Democracy

Question 1

Characteristics of a control regime.

Answer 1

• Antithesis of consent, consensus and accommodation between elites.
• Systematic subordination/oppression by one hegemonic group over another.
• May have an ideological dimension.
• Based on hegemonic power.
• Suppresses violent conflict potential.
• Uses state power broadly (not just coercion).
• Might involve denial of equal rights.
• May involve legislation or practices.

Question 2

Lustick’s (1979) definition of political stability.

Answer 2

The continued operation of specific patterns of political behaviour apart from the illegal use of violence, accompanied by a general expectation among the attentive public that such patterns are likely to remain intact in the foreseeable future.

Question 3

Lustick’s (1979) definition of a deeply divided society.

Answer 3

A society is deeply divided if ascriptive ties generate an antagonistic segmentation of society based on terminal identities with high political salience, sustained over a substantial period of time and a wide variety of issues.

Question 4

Control regimes and consociationalism (Lustick, 1979)

Answer 4

Both the consociationalism and control approach takes as their starting point the continuation of deep divisions or vertical segmentation in the societies under consideration, as well as the presence of intense rivalry between those segments for important social, economic, and/or political resources.

Question 5

What is effective control based on (Lustick, 1979)

Answer 5

Effective control can be based on a wide range of political and economic mechanisms, institutional arrangements, legal frameworks, and sociocultural circumstances

Question 6

Lustick on control regimes and stability (1979)

Answer 6

Lustick investigates how to maintain stability in deeply divided societies. His solution is to either use consociationalism or control, where the former depends on the availability of the latter.

He states that effective hegemonic control besides being coercive can be implemented through political and economic mechanisms, institutional arrangement, legal frameworks etc.

Question 7

Symbolic aspects of control.

Answer 7

• Political narratives (foundation myths)
• Movement/access
• Control of public space and territorial control
• Language/Cultural expression
• Formal and informal discrimination
• Rituals of affirmation of power
• Rituals (e.g. marching in Nothern Ireland)
• Banishing issues from public discussion.

Question 8

Smooha - The model of ethnic democracy (2010)

Answer 8

Ethnic democracy is a third model of managing multiethnicity/multinationality via democratic-type systems.

Ethnic democracy is a type of democracy that is spreading among consolidating democracies with a recod of ethnic nationalism. Procedural elements of democracy combined with institutionalised privileging of the majority and discrimination against minorities.

Question 9

Features of ethnic democracy (Smooha, 2010).

Answer 9

1) Ethnic nationalism installs a single core of ethnic nation in the state.
2) The state separates membership in the single core ethnic nation from citizenship.
3) The state is owned and ruled by the core ethnic nation.
4) The state mobilises the core ethnic nation.
5) Non-core groups are accorded incomplete individual and collective rights.
6) The state allows non-core groups to conduct parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle for change.
7) The state perceives non-core groups as a threat.
8) The state imposes some control on non-core groups.

Question 10

Conditions for the emergence of ethnic democracy (Smooha 2010).

Answer 10

1) The pre-existence of ethnic nationalism and the ethnic nation.
2) The existence of a threat (real or perceived) to the ethnic nation that requires mobilisation of the majority in order to preserve the ethnic nation.
3) The majority’s commitment to democracy.
4) A manageable size of the minority.

Question 11

Conditions contributing to the stability of ethnic democracy (Smooha, 2010)

Answer 11

1) A continued, clear numerical and political majority of members of the ethnic nation.
2) A majority’s continued sense of threat.
3) Non-interference on the part of the ‘external homeland’.
4) Non-intervention against, or even support for, ethnic democracy by the international community.

Question 12

Arguments against ethnic democracy.

Answer 12

• It is conceptually inadequate because it can be seen as a contradiction in terms; an impossible unity of equality and inequality.
• Ethnic democracy is inherently unstable because of its fundamental self-contradiction and apparent illegitimacy.
• Ethnic democracy is blamed for ineffective conflict management and for freeing the internal conflict.

Question 13

Arguments in favor of ethnic democracy.

Answer 13

• One of the expedient approaches is to construe ethnic democracy as ‘a lesser evil’, a mode of conflict management that is superor to violence, domination or other non-democratic modes.
• The other pragmatic defence is to cenceive of ethnic democracy as a temporary necessity, as a form that later could and should change to a more acceptable type.
• One ideological justification is to demonstrate that ethnic democracy is compatible with universal minority rights.
• The other moral defence can be made indirectly by stressing its partial superiority to liberal democracy (it does not force assimilation).

Question 14

Hughes’ (2005) critique of ethnic democracy and control regimes.

Answer 14

Control regimes rely on three policy pillars, which are also found in ethnic democracy (cultural subordination, denial of citizenship and restrictions on participation). THese policies deny or suppress basic democratic principles which are critical to emisioning a ‘democratic system’.

Question 15

How does Hughes (2005) explain stbility in Estonia and Latvia?

Answer 15

Hughes believes that the pospect of access to Russophones of EU-wide freedom of movement is the main explanatory factor for explaining why out-migration har decreased in Estonia and Latvia.

Question 16

What is Hughes’ (2005) position on EU conditionality in the case of Estonia and Latvia?

Answer 16

Conditionality thesis: Credibility of EU accession conditionality in forcing Estonia and Latvia to soften their discriminative politics.

Supranational institutions – OSCE, EU, NATO: pressure for moderation of nationalising policies that were restrictive and contrary to “international standards” of minority rights. However, Latvia and Estonia still obtained membership of both the EU and NATO in 2004 despite not having relaxed their discriminatory regimes to an acceptable level.

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Rhetorical conditionality: lack of foundation in EU law and different approaches in Member States.
No internal EU policy priority
No international consensus on ‘national minority’ + minority rights.
Dilemma of enforcement and implementation.

Question 17

What is Laitin’s (1996) concept of ‘competitive assimilation’ (‘The assimilation tipping game’)

Answer 17

The upward social mobility pressures and need to improve opportunities and life chances will drive assimilation in a manner which will transform Russophones into Balts.

The thesis assumes that the political regimes for managing inter-ethnic relations are designed to promote assimilation.

Question 18

Hughes’ (2005) critique of Laitin’s thesis on ‘competitive assimilation’.

Answer 18

• Assumes language generates cultural and value assimilation.
• Assumes that the ethnic core wants assimilation = double-edged sword since assimilation will mean greater political, economic and social influence of the Russophones, but this will be countered by channeling politics in Estonia and Latvia along ethnic lines.
• Assumes language is sufficient for assimilation (cannot undo other markers of difference such as names, residency and culture).