Doctoral Dissertation Research: Why Do Ethnic Parties Flourish or Die?

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

Ethnic political parties - i.e., parties that advocate for the interests of a particular identity group - are a pervasive and often problematic feature of democracies around the world. The politicization of ethnicity can deepen identity-based divisions, cause interethnic conflict, and undermine government accountability. Given these significant negative consequences, it is important to ask: Why do some ethnic parties succeed in mobilizing their target co-ethnic population, whereas others fail? This project tackles this question through studying the case of Karachi, Pakistan - one of the world's largest and most diverse megacities, and a site of endemic ethnic conflict. In particular, it will compare the political behavior of the two largest ethnic groups in Karachi - the Muhajirs and the Pashtuns - in order to develop and test a theory of ethnic party success and failure. In contrast to existing approaches, this approach takes seriously the idea that group-specific beliefs and norms are an important driver of the politicization of identity. Based upon extensive qualitative data collected through three field trips to Karachi, this project conceptualizes bloc-voting for an ethnic party as a coordination problem. This coordination problem is solved when co-ethnics come to share -- often as a result of suffering a common shock - - the belief that (1) their political fates are 'linked' and (2) their ethnic party is best able to serve these linked interests. By contrast, existing theories of ethnic politics are heavily focused on instrumental explanations of ethnic voting that, while useful, are incomplete for both theoretical and empirical reasons. Theoretically, dominant accounts of ethnic voting do not take seriously differences between ethnic groups, in effect disregarding a longstanding social psychology literature on the development of group norms and social incentive structures, and a small incipient literature " limited so far to American Politics " that recognizes the importance of heterogeneity in political understandings and behaviors across ethnic. Empirically, this work moves existing debates beyond an almost exclusive focus on Africa and India. The cases social scientists choose affect the answers they get, which makes extending the literature beyond the study of particular regions a critical undertaking . Finally, this project corrects the literature's tendency to focus empirically on rural areas: as the world rapidly urbanizes, the study of identity politics must pay special attention to how ethnicity manifests politically in diverse metropolises. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.