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The role of dominant parties for nation building in deeply
divided societies. A comparison between South Africa and Malaysia
Introduction to the Problem:
Ethnic conflicts are one of the biggest threats to multiethnic societies.
Especially the party system is being accused of ethnicizing conflicts
in societies and to profit on this ethnicization. This research
analyzes how political systems can cope peacefully with multiethnicity
and which nation building strategy they can pursue. In order to
examine deeply divided societies in terms of ethnic fragmentation
and socioeconomic stratification the examples of South Africa and
Malaysia will be analyzed. Especially the ethnicized party system,
in which every population group votes along ethnic lines as well
as the dominant party system, in which one party dominates for a
long period, and the effects of such a system for nation building
will be examined in this research. Are dominant parties an adequate
form of governance for multiethnic societies since they guarantee
long-term stability?
Objectives:
- To analyze what the current results of nation building in South
Africa and Malaysia are
- To identify similarities as well as differences of their paths
to nation building
- To understand why the countries have been developing this way
- To find out about the positive and negative influences of a
dominant party in the process of nation building
Methods and Location:
The research will be carried out in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and
Johannesburg/Pretoria (South Africa). The first step is to interview
experts of research institutes and universities to identify relevant
strategic groups with coherent common interests and to collect survey
data in order to analyze the nation building process in both countries.
As second step members of the relevant strategic groups will be
interviewed to learn about structure and change of:
- the group’s composition
- the programmatic agenda
- the applied strategies and tactics to implement their agenda
Expected Results:
Whereas at first the dominant party seems to channel the political
strength of the formerly disadvantaged majority in the society,
it finally appears to lead to strong ethnicization and thus to prohibit
the development from an ethnic to a class-based society.
Further research projects: Governance and Conflict
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