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ethnic voting

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Measuring ethnic voting:Does proportional representation politicize ethnicity?∗John D. Huber†March 24, 2010AbstractThis paper develops a measure that can be used to compare ethnic voting levels across coun-tries. The measure examines the relationship between ethnicity and vote choice: as it becomeseasier to predict voting behavior in a country by knowing only voters’ ethnicity, the ethnicvoting measure increases. The paper then uses data from 71 surveys to estimate ethnic votinglevels in 45 countries, and to examine the validity of the widely held assumption that propor-tional electoral laws lead to higher levels of ethnic voting. The central finding is that all elseequal, proportional representation leads to less rather than more politicization of ethnicity. Byexamining patterns of vote support across ethnic groups, the paper suggests explanations forwhy PR often leads to less ethnic voting than is generally assumed.∗I am grateful for research assistance from Tom Ogorzalek, for research support from the National Science Foun-dation, and for helpful comments from Kate Baldwin and Dawn Brancati. I am also grateful to the Russell SageFoundation, where I was a visiting research scholar while writing this paper.†Professor, Department of Political Science, Columbia University, and Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation,New York.1 IntroductionSocial scientists engage in robust debates about how to design democratic institutions for success-ful governance in ethnically divided societies, and choosing the electoral law is widely held to bethe most crucial decision that institutional engineers face. There are sharp disagreements, however,about which electoral law is most appropriate. Some scholars argue for proportional representa-tion (“PR”) because it allows any group to have its own party, thereby avoiding the frustration anindividual would feel if his or her group is not representated (e.g., Lijphart 1977, Lijphart 1999).Other scholars disagree, arguing that the politicization of ethnicity occurring under PR is undesir-able. The goal instead should be to diffuse ethnicity by forcing parties to seek electoral coalitionsthat span different groups, for example by adopting electoral rules that force vote pooling (e.g.,Horowitz 1985 and 1991).Despite deep disagreements about whether PR is a good idea in ethnically divided societies,there is general agreement that it makes ethnic voting behavior more likely. Since parties are easyto form under PR, political elites can make appeals based on ethnicity, and voters can chooseparties that represent their groups. So while scholars such as Lijphart and Horowitz disagree aboutwhether facilitating ethnic voting behavior is a sensible thing to do, they do not disagree that PRwill politicize ethnicity in the electoral arena.1Social scientists do not actually know, however, whether PR is associated with a heightenedimportance of ethnicity in voting behavior because there exists no measure that can be used to com-pare ethnic voting levels across countries. Developing such a measure is important for adjudicatingdebates about how electoral institutions affect possibilities for stable governance in ethically di-vided societies. And understanding the politicization of ethnicity in elections is important for otherreasons as well. Ethnic diversity is associated with a variety of governance issues, in developedand developing democracies, including lower levels of public goods provision, higher corruption,1See also Reilly and Reynolds 1999, Sisk and Reynolds 1998, and Tsbelis 1990.1and slower economic growth. Understanding the factors leading to the politicization of ethnic-ity can therefore shed light on the circumstances under which ethnic diversity causes governanceproblems in democracies.This paper does not seek to adjudicate disputes about whether PR is a good choice in ethni-cally divided societies. Instead, the goal is to understand the degree to which ethnicity becomespoliticized under different electoral laws, which seems a crucial first step toward recommendingparticular institutional arrangements. Specifically, the paper has two objectives. The first is todevelop a measure of ethnic voting. There are a variety of ways one could conceptualize ethnicvoting, including levels of support for ethnic parties, the incidence of ethnic appeals by parties,the propensity of ethnic group members to vote in the same way, and the propensity of voters tosupport candidates from their own group, to name several. The measure developed here does notfocus on ethnic parties, candidates, or appeals. Instead, it focuses on the relationship between eth-nicity and vote choice. As it becomes easier to predict voting behavior in a country by knowingonly voters’ ethnicity, the ethnic voting measure increases.Focusing on the relationship between ethnicity and voting behavior is a sensible place to startin efforts to measure ethnic voting. If ethnic appeals are strong, or ethnic parties are present, butvoters do not let their ethnicity guide their vote, it is doubtful that the politicization of ethnicity inthe electoral arena exists to any meaningful extent. And even if we do not observe explicit ethnicappeals by ethnic parties, it is hard to deny the politicization of ethnicity if an individual’s vote isaccurately predicted by the individual’s ethnicity.While it is possible to measure ethnic voting at the group or party level, the focus here ison measuring ethnic voting at the country level. Without a country-level measure, it is difficultto study empirically the relationship between system-level factors – like the electoral law – andthe politicization of ethnicity. And by focusing on a country-level measure, it is possible to takeaccount of group size in measuring the politicization of ethnicity. We should expect, for example,that if everyone from a particular ethnic group supported the same party (and no one outside this2group supported the party), then the degree to which this politicization of ethnicity is a problemin society should depend on the size of the group. As a small group becomes larger, the overallpoliticization of ethnicity in electoral politics should be said to increase. Holding all else equal,the measure proposed here increases as the size of groups becomes more equal. The theoreticalrange of the measure is from 0 (which occurs when the proportion of voters supporting each partyis the same across groups) to 1 (which occurs when each


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