TY - JOUR
T1 - Elections, Ethnic Parties, and Ethnic Identification in New Democracies
T2 - Evidence from the Baltic States
AU - Higashijima, Masaaki
AU - Nakai, Ryo
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Mike Bratton, Jeff Conroy-Krutz, Brian Kennedy, Ani Sarkissian, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on the paper. We would also like to thank Richard Rose for kindly sharing raw data of the New Baltic Barometer with us. This research was funded by a Fulbright Fellowship, Tokyo Foundation, and JSPS Grants-in-Aids (#10546328).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
PY - 2016/6/1
Y1 - 2016/6/1
N2 - This paper explores the conditions under which democratic elections encourage citizens to identify with ethnicity. We argue that there are two mechanisms through which elections strengthen ethnic identification. First, the stronger ethnic parties are, the more intensive, ethnically exclusive political campaigns they carry out as an election approaches, resulting in strengthening citizens’ ethnic identity. Second, ethnic party mobilization drives members of other ethnic groups to develop stronger identity to their own ethnicity because such mobilization poses a serious political threat to the out-group members. Data analysis of approximately 18,000 respondents in five waves of the New Baltic Barometer supports the hypotheses. A case study of Latvia follows to illustrate that ethnic party mobilization for elections creates ethnic cleavages among the public.
AB - This paper explores the conditions under which democratic elections encourage citizens to identify with ethnicity. We argue that there are two mechanisms through which elections strengthen ethnic identification. First, the stronger ethnic parties are, the more intensive, ethnically exclusive political campaigns they carry out as an election approaches, resulting in strengthening citizens’ ethnic identity. Second, ethnic party mobilization drives members of other ethnic groups to develop stronger identity to their own ethnicity because such mobilization poses a serious political threat to the out-group members. Data analysis of approximately 18,000 respondents in five waves of the New Baltic Barometer supports the hypotheses. A case study of Latvia follows to illustrate that ethnic party mobilization for elections creates ethnic cleavages among the public.
KW - Election campaigns
KW - Elections
KW - Ethnic identity
KW - Ethnic parties
KW - The Baltic states
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U2 - 10.1007/s12116-015-9187-1
DO - 10.1007/s12116-015-9187-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84931095038
SN - 0039-3606
VL - 51
SP - 124
EP - 146
JO - Studies in Comparative International Development
JF - Studies in Comparative International Development
IS - 2
ER -