Suchergebnisse

The transitions to democracy in Tunisia and Egypt shortly after the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring, and subsequently in Libya, provide an opportunity to test the empirical validity of the conventional wisdom that democracy cannot be established and sustained in Muslim countries. This article undertakes this task through a systematic comparative analysis of 56 countries classified as Muslim countries by virtue of their membership in the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). It first maps variations in the incidence of democracy among the 56 Muslim countries based on the widely used Freedom House Rating (FHR, www.freedomhouse.org) of countries into "Free," "Partly Free" and "Not Free." It then presents the results of regression analyses to illustrate the importance of cross-national variations in (1) religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity, and (2) the political institutionalization of religion to explain why some Muslim countries are democracies and some are not.

I seek funding to continue my work this summer on the collaborative African Legislatures Project with Professor Robert Mattes of the University of Cape Town (UCT). This project is a comparative study of the role of legislatures in fostering and sustaining emerging democracies in 42 African countries. It focuses on the three key functions of democratic legislatures – lawmaking, representation, and oversight – and collects systematic quantitative data on the institutional, organizational, political and attitudinal variables that impact the capacity of legislatures to perform these three functions while accommodating the tensions inherent among them. The project's research design combines examination of primary and secondary documents in all 42 African countries with intensive in-country research and national surveys of corresponding samples of legislators and constituents in 18 countries. The project's overall goal is to advance systematic analysis and understanding of how legislatures foster and sustain successful democracies in Africa and elsewhere.

I seek funding to work on two collaborative research projects this summer with Professor Robert Mattes at the University of Cape Town (UCT). One project involves the creation and analysis of a dataset on public opinion surveys of nationally representative samples of 6000 respondents in Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa to clarify the influence of social intermediaries-primary social networks, secondary associations, the media, and values and ideologies- on how voters vote. The other project involves establishing the conceptual framework and research design for, and the organizational structure for the administration of , a comparative study of how the constitutional powers, internal organization and procedure, and constituency linkages affect the lawmaking, oversight and representation functions of democratic legislatures in African Countries. The overall goal of both projects is to advance systematic analysis and understanding of how voting behavior and legislatures foster and sustain successful democracies in Africa and elsewhere.

The democratic institutions, especially the electoral institutions for converting votes into seats that were chosen during independence negotiations, have been the key to democratic stability in Mauritius. These institutions emerged out of strategic bargaining structured around a combination of contextual and contingent variables. Conflicting political interests reflecting a combination of class, sectarian and communal interests influenced the institutional preferences of Mauritian elites involved in independence negotiations, leading them to converge on institutional designs that they expected would protect and promote those interests in the new democratic polity. Once in place, the new institutions represented equilibrium outcomes, creating incentives for all actors, engendering a learning curve in peaceful accommodation of inter-group conflicts, and establishing the political basis for social stability, democratic consolidation, and economic development.

AbstractThe democratic institutions, especially the electoral institutions for converting votes into seats that were chosen during independence negotiations, have been the key to democratic stability in Mauritius. These institutions emerged out of strategic bargaining structured around a combination of contextual and contingent variables. Conflicting political interests reflecting a combination of class, sectarian and communal interests influenced the institutional preferences of Mauritian elites involved in independence negotiations, leading them to converge on institutional designs that they expected would protect and promote those interests in the new democratic polity. Once in place, the new institutions represented equilibrium outcomes, creating incentives for all actors, engendering a learning curve in peaceful accommodation of inter-group conflicts, and establishing the political basis for social stability, democratic consolidation, and economic development.

Do electoral institutions in Africa's emerging democracies impact the strategic coordination among voters, candidates and parties and shape the structure of party systems independently or are their effects mediated by contextual variables? The paper attempts to answer this question through analysis of systematic data on 99 national legislative elections held under 55 electoral systems in 37 countries. Specifically, it examines how two contextual variables – (1) institutional variables related to presidential elections and (2) patterns of ethnopolitical fragmentation and concentration – mediate the direct effects of electoral institutions on the structure (degree of fragmentation or concentration) of party systems. Regression analysis shows that electoral institutions have negligible independent effects, while contextual variables independently and interactively with each other and with electoral institutions account for the largest amount of variance on the degree of fragmentation or concentration of party systems. The conclusion discusses the implications of the results for the consolidation of Africa's emerging democracies in the context of ethnopolitical diversity

Do electoral institutions in Africa's emerging democracies impact the strategic coordination among voters, candidates and parties and shape the structure of party systems independently or are their effects mediated by contextual variables? The paper attempts to answer this question through analysis of systematic data on 99 national legislative elections held under 55 electoral systems in 37 countries. Specifically, it examines how two contextual variables – (1) institutional variables related to presidential elections and (2) patterns of ethnopolitical fragmentation and concentration – mediate the direct effects of electoral institutions on the structure (degree of fragmentation or concentration) of party systems. Regression analysis shows that electoral institutions have negligible independent effects, while contextual variables independently and interactively with each other and with electoral institutions account for the largest amount of variance on the degree of fragmentation or concentration of party systems. The conclusion discusses the implications of the results for the consolidation of Africa's emerging democracies in the context of ethnopolitical diversity.

To what extent do political parties in Africa's emerging democracies possess the organizational structures and procedures that enhance their capacity and effectiveness in democratic governance and democratic consolidation? To answer this question systematically, I will undertake a seven-week research trip to South Africa during which I will (a) collect data on the organizational structures and procedures of four major political parties in that country and (b) interview national and provincial party leaders to lay the groundwork for more intensive future research for a larger comparative project on political parties and democracy in Africa. The specific objective of the proposed project is to help develop a dataset for systematic analysis of the role of political parties in democratic governance and democratic consolidation in Africa. Its broader objective is to improve conceptually, theoretically and methodologically rigorous analysis and understanding of the role of political parties in fostering and sustaining successful democracies.

Benjamin Reilly makes an important contribution to the debate on the appropriate institutional design of electoral systems for mitigating conflict and sustaining democracy in ethnically plural societies. The dominant position in this debate posits the importance of proportional representation (PR) systems. An alternative position, less widely accepted largely because of an ostensible absence of empirical examples, posits the importance of majoritarian preferential systems that encourage cross-ethnic vote pooling. Reilly extends this debate by drawing on heretofore unknown or understudied cases to examine the operation of both majoritarian (the alternative vote or AV and the supplementary vote or SV) and proportional (single-transferable vote or STV) preferential systems in different social contexts and in different elections (legislative and presidential).