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Leonhardt van Efferink is a PhD student at Royal Holloway, University of London. For more information about his PhD, please check:
Leonhardt van Efferink: Geopolitical scripts and the (de)legitimisation of ISAF
He holds Master’s degrees in Geopolitics, Territory and Security (King’s College London) and Financial Economics (Erasmus University Rotterdam).
This article addresses the role that democratisation can play in the settlement of ethnic conflicts. It starts with a discussion of the critical concepts: ethnicity, ethnic conflicts, democracy and democratisation. Then the paper continues with a discussion of the central question: what factors affect the effectiveness of democratisation in terms of the settlement of ethnic conflicts?
This is part 4 of the article that provides the conclusion, bibliography and endnotes of this article. The first part discusses the definitions of democratisation and ethnic conflicts. Parts 2 and 3 each address six relevant factors that that affect the effectiveness of democratisation to settle ethnic conflicts:
Whether democratisation succeeds in settling an ethnic conflict, by achieving its two key goals of raising popular participation in politics and to establish a stable government that respects democratic ideals[38], depends on a complex range of factors. This paper first looked into the democratisation process, focusing on its sequence, the initiating actors and the inclusion of ethnic groups. Then it examined the role of ethnic composition of army and previous government, governance and security. Subsequently, this study discussed the role of ethnic groups, in terms of identities, collective memories and their economic and territorial position within a country. Finally, the analysis focused on the importance of trust in countries that seek to settle an ethnic conflict by means of democratisation.
De Nevers (1993, p. 71) notes that the eventual result of democratisation should be a political system that fairly distributes power among ethnic groups. We could safely say that all groups involved in an ethnic group would agree.
Disagreement would however arise over the next question: what is fair? Ethnic groups do usually not have the same expectations of democratisation. The variety in opinions stems from differences in identity and economic position and their identity. Furthermore, after an ethnic conflict, ethnic groups usually have different views on the past and negative images of other groups.
Therefore, when an ethnic conflict is to be settled by democratisation, a key focus should be the management of perceptions of the ethnic groups. This focus should concern the images of ethnic groups of themselves, the other ethnic groups and the state. To improve relations between ethnic groups, the strengthening of mutual trust will be key. How to achieve this should be the responsibility of the ethnic leaders, if necessary supported by foreign mediators specialised in the country.
To improve the confidence of the ethnic groups in the government, the state should attempt to function as ethnically-neutral as possible. Concurrently, members of ethnic groups should not be forced to distance themselves from their ethnic roots as such a policy could easily backfire and harm the conflict settlement process. Moreover, a focus on good governance and accountability will be critical as well.
Eventually, the state should convince all ethnic groups that they have a stake in public matters and that each group benefits from it. Ideally, all ethnic groups learn to perceive the government as sole supplier of public goods (such as security) and trust the other ethnic groups so that they can together develop their country to the benefit of all groups.
In all, I concur with De Nevers (1993, footnote 14, p. 77) who argues that a rigid ‘one size fits all’ approach to democratisation could be detrimental to the settlement of the ethnic conflict.
