Collaborative Research: Majorities and Minorities: A New Look at Ethnonationalism and Electoral Extremism

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

Scholars agree that multi-ethnic democracies are vulnerable to the polarizing and zero-sum political competition that breeds anti-liberal politics. Yet despite this consensus there is still fundamental disagreement about who defects from liberal democratic politics and the conditions under which this occurs. This proposal will identify the social bases of extremist voting in multi-ethnic democracies. An original data base of 20 elections and matching censuses from the interwar era (1920-1939) in five East European countries will be assembled. Settlement-level voting data will be matched with census data on ethnicity, language, religion, occupation, social class, settlement size, industrial structure, and the structure of land holding. Estimates of social support for extremist and non-extremist parties among discrete social and ethnic groups will be derived using aggregate data analysis and ecological regression techniques. Causal models of extremist voting will also be developed using the derived individual estimates as dependent variables. This project serves three broader objectives. First, the estimates obtained will bring new information to bear on a number of questions regarding the social bases of political radicalism, in particular the contexts under which minority and other groups defect from liberal democratic politics. Second, in explaining electoral behavior in countries that would eventually fall victim to fascism and communism, this project will shed new light on deeply divisive scholarly and political debates concerning the loyalty of ethnic minorities and the role of both ethnic minorities and majorities in undermining first wave democracies. Finally, the resultant data base as well as estimated vote choice will be put in the public domain, allowing others to explore their own questions and theories concerning electoral behavior in multi-ethnic democracies.