Identity politics and Representation Flashcards
Define ethnicity (Kanchan Chandra 2006)
Membership into an ascriptive category such as race, caste, tribe an, language or religion
Ethnic identity is relatively sticky (difficult to change e.g. accent), and visible (difficult to hide e.g. skin colour)
Primordialist
believes individuals have a single ethnic identity which is fixed in the present and future
Does not need to be biologically determined
Once acquired becomes immutable and central to their political behaviour
Primordialist - ethnicity fractionalisation
Ethnicity fractionalisation impeded the provision of public good,
- Different preferences over goods
- Barriers to communication making coordination difficult
- People do not do their share in taking care of public goods due to misinformation within society
- Membership in groups creates stronger feelings of altruism to other groups
Ethnic fractionalisation worsens collective action problems
- Public schools in Kenya tend to be worse where there is greater ethnic fractionalisation
Constructuvists
see ethnicity as a dependent variable Economic, social and political processes shape the salience and the emergence of identity categories
State building for example results in enumerating human, figuring out their territorial basses
Constructavist - case studys
- In 1876 India, the British created the decidual Indian census which had tried to measure the castes and tribes of India
This process of enumerating people had strengthened and challenged these identity’s
Caste categories in India become politized because the states make effort to build policy and make measure in the process of state building
- Evan Leiberman argues that the creation of a constitutional white national political community in South Africa had led to the construction of an apartheid regime
Robert Bates
Modernisation had led to the flourishing of ethnic politics as it had created ethnic winners and losers
Modernity is defined as the attainment of higher levels of education, growing per capita income, urbanisation, political participation, industrial employment and media penetration
It creates a set of desired goods e.g. jobs, land, which establishes a new basis for satisfaction in society
Colonial policy created dominant ethnic groups and winners
Instrumentalists
nstrumentalists are a sub-set of constructivists
See ethnicity as constructed to advance certain political objective
It is heightened by strategic actions of the elite and is a way for certain groups to obtain scarce government services
This is because leaders find effective to dole out goods in a more discreet personalised manner to ensure their success in an election rather than provide mass welfare because they don’t know what the electoral effects of diffuse marks welfare benefits will be
They play a game where they know for sure if they can address the needs of group XY&Z in a minimum winning coalition by distributing goods they can use that as a way to put themselves in power
Chandra 2005
Chandra (2005): argues identities are constructivist over a long-period of tine based on incentive of state building
Lead to a particular state of affairs
Found in India in the 1990’s, the state had the ability to give jobs and provide services elected officials had discretion on how those jobs services would be provided and would get those jobs
If private sector became bigger than the public sector thwere would be no discretion
India is a patronage democracy which leads to groups fighting to take control over this sector in order to distribute benefits to those in their group
New forms of new forms of untouchability new forms of even upper casteness merge as a way to compete with each other
Baldwin and Hubert
Baldwin & Huber: tried to figure out a way to look at how ethnicity overlaps with economic stats and when it doesn’t
Ranked ethnic system emerge when ethnicity when ethnicity’s are divided by income (ranked system)
In unranked systems there are both fighters and funders which when mobilised based on ethnicity can create more violence and fighting
Ethno linguistic factorisation (ELF)
Ethno linguistic factorisation (ELF): all you’re doing is simply counting the different types of groups how many people there are and coming up with a number that explains how very different people are in a system then other places where people look the same
Cultural factorisation (Cf)
Cultural factorisation (Cf): it’s not just that people are different by counting them they have to be meaningfully different from each other that can explain their preferences for politics, they count them by the different languages they speak so they go with the idea that if you speak different languages you’re creating a basis of cultural difference which makes it harder to agree on what matters
Between group inequality (BGI)
Between group inequality (BGI): look at the amount of rich and poor people in ethnic groups looking at the inequality within ethnic groups
