Minorities in Dictatorship and Democracy

36 Pages Posted: 9 May 2017

See all articles by Arseniy Samsonov

Arseniy Samsonov

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Political Science, Students

Date Written: May 1, 2017

Abstract

Abstract It is a widely-held belief that democracy is good for minorities. However, there are countries like India, Turkey, or Sri Lanka where a competitive political system coincided with ethnic discrimination and conflict. I build a theoretical model that links minority welfare to the level of democracy and the ethnic structure of the society. In the game, ethnic groups form coalitions to share resources, and the level of democracy is modeled as the size of the minimum decisive coalition. I show that, for minorities, a very high or very low level of democracy is preferable to a medium level, because in an autocracy minority rule is possible, while a very democratic system makes the inclusion of minorities necessary. Given a medium level of democracy, the majority group is sufficient to rule, so minorities are not included. Minorities are more likely to prefer autocracy over democracy if the majority group is sufficiently large and the level of diversity is high. I find empirical support for the model's main results using the Ethnic Power Relations dataset.

Keywords: ethnic politics, collective bargaining, Baron-Ferejohn model, minority rights

Suggested Citation

Samsonov, Arseniy, Minorities in Dictatorship and Democracy (May 1, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2961627 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2961627

Arseniy Samsonov (Contact Author)

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Political Science, Students ( email )

Los Angeles, CA
United States

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