Pippa Norris
Developments in Iraq and Afghanistan highlight the considerable uncertainties surrounding the process of designing new constitutions and electoral systems, and how little is known about the most appropriate institutional arrangements to achieve political stability in deeply-divided plural societies. The prime aim of this research project is provide more rigorous empirical evidence to test the Lijphartian thesis that consensus institutions (particularly PR electoral systems) promote the accommodation of ethnic interests and thereby contribute towards greater political stability (and good governance) in plural societies.
The project will to use systematic cross-national evidence worldwide to classify nations into six types according to (i) the degree of ethnic fractionalization (heterogeneous/homogeneous) and (ii) the type of electoral system (majoritarian, combined, proportional). The key contrast concerns the political performance of the countries within each category. In particular, Arend Lijphart claims that, all other things being equal, the plural-majoritarian countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Uganda (which have high ethnic fractionalization AND majoritarian electoral systems) should prove most unstable and vulnerable to government breakdown and even state failure. By contrast the countries such as Benin , South Africa and Suriname that are plural-PR (sharing equally heterogeneity and yet with proportional electoral systems, as a proxy for consociational institutions), should prove more successful and stable. The performance of each category will be evaluated using multiple indicators of good governance and democracy, such as the rule of law, levels of political participation and measures of political stability.