Political parties matter: a research agenda on interactions among elites in post-conflict democracies

ABSTRACT

The literature has devoted considerable attention to the understanding of state institutions and rule of law in the processes of democratization. However, despite the crucial relevance of dynamic and repeated interactions between actors and institutions in non-homogenous post-conflict societies, most research lacks systematic analyses on the role of parliaments, parties and party systems after civil wars. While several studies have examined the effects of electoral systems or veto rights after power-sharing agreements, as well as the transformation of rebel groups into political parties in post-conflict societies, the development of parties within parliaments has been largely ignored. Therefore, by combining conflict studies, institutional design perspectives and peacebuilding approaches, this paper presents a research agenda on the overlooked role played by parliament as a crucial arena for a better analysis, in the long term, of power-sharing mechanisms and state-building, post-war political framing and narratives, ethnic outbidding and party modernization strategies.

Keywords:

• Peacebuilding
• institutions
• conflicts
• parties
• party systems
• parliaments

Acknowledgements

A preliminary version of the paper has been presented at the Workshop 'Conflicts & Institutions' (Genoa, 16–17 June 2016) and at the 2016 ECPR Conference (Prague). The authors wish to thank L.-E. Cederman, S. Costalli, K. Bakke, H. Hegre, F. N. Moro, A. Ruggeri, and all the panellists for their useful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Giampiero Cama is Professor of Political Science in the DISPO – Department of Political Science at the University of Genoa.

Fabrizio Coticchia is Assistant Professor of Political Science in the DISPO – Department of Political Science at the University of Genoa. [email protected]

Notes

1. For an exception see Reilly (2013).

2. Recent exceptions are: Moore et al. (2014) and Bunte and Vinson (2016).

3. For an updated review see Garry (2014).

4. For instance, there aren’t studies that ‘relate power-sharing to democratic survival dynamically’. Graham et al. (2017, p. 687).

5. While the peace-building literature has generally examined elites at the government level, the paper focuses on the political elites in legislative assemblies. On domestic elites as neglected (and contested) concept see Grimm and Weiffen (2018). On central and secondary elite and peacebuilding see Zürcher (2018).

6. Marshall and Ishiyama investigated the long-term inclusion of former-rebel groups by looking at the proportion of seats held during the legislature. However, they do not provide detailed analyses on the tangible interactions between former-rebel groups in the legislative context.

7. See, for instance: ‘Parties Start New Coalition Talks in Bosnia's Federation’, available at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/talks-start-on-new-ruling-coalition-in-bosnia-s-federation#sthash.9rxa62f2.dpuf.

8. Quoted in Touquet (2011, p. 458).

9. SDA supported the initiative while SBiH opposed it. Also the HDZ and the HDZ 1990 voted in different ways (Basta, 2016, p. 956).

10. In Bosnia there are nearly ‘200 parties competing in national, regional, and local elections’ (Hulsey & Stjepanovic, 2017, p. 43).

11. The lower chamber of the Bosnian assembly is elected according to a proportional system. Ethnicity plays a different role according to the mono-ethnic or multi-ethnic nature of different national or local institutions.

12. On consociationalism and Northern Ireland see: McGarry and O’Leary (2006).

13. The ‘state-sponsored denial’ of the genocide in Srebrenica is a relevant example (McGrattan, 2014).

14. For instance, the minutes of the debates in Sierra Leone are available also in English. See http://www.parliament.gov.sl. See also recent projects on parliaments and civil society such as: http://parliaments4people.com/projects/