IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v101y2007i04p693-708_07.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States?

Author

Listed:
  • ELKINS, ZACHARY
  • SIDES, JOHN

Abstract

We investigate whether political institutions can promote attachment to the state in multiethnic societies. Building on literatures on nationalism, democratization, and conflict resolution, we discuss the importance of attachment, understood as a psychological identification with, and pride in, the state. We construct a model of state attachment, specifying the individual-, group-, and state-level conditions that foster it. Then, using cross-national survey data from 51 multiethnic states, we show that, in general, ethnic minorities manifest less attachment to the states in which they reside than do majorities. Combining the survey data with minority group attributes and country-level attributes, we show that the attachment of minorities varies importantly across groups and countries. Our central finding is that federalism and proportional electoral systems—two highly touted solutions to ethnic divisions—have at best mixed effects. These results have implications for state-building and democratic consolidation in ethnically heterogeneous states.

Suggested Citation

  • Elkins, Zachary & Sides, John, 2007. "Can Institutions Build Unity in Multiethnic States?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(4), pages 693-708, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:101:y:2007:i:04:p:693-708_07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055407070505/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tamilina, Larysa, 2021. "The Dynamics of National Identity and Pride Formation in Ukraine," MPRA Paper 111033, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Gary Goertz & Tony Hak & Jan Dul, 2013. "Ceilings and Floors," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 42(1), pages 3-40, February.
    3. Thomas Christin & Simon Hug, 2012. "Federalism, the Geographic Location of Groups, and Conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 29(1), pages 93-122, February.
    4. Giuditta Fontana & Argyro Kartsonaki & Natascha S Neudorfer & Dawn Walsh & Stefan Wolff & Christalla Yakinthou, 2021. "The dataset of Political Agreements in Internal Conflicts (PAIC)," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 38(3), pages 338-364, May.
    5. John Kincaid & Richard L. Cole, 2016. "Citizen Evaluations of Federalism and the Importance of Trust in the Federation Government for Opinions on Regional Equity and Subordination in Four Countries," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 46(1), pages 51-76.
    6. Fiedler, Charlotte & Mross, Karina & Berg, Anna & Bhattarai, Prakash & Drees, Dorothea & Kornprobst, Tim & Leibbrandt, Alexandra & Liegmann, Philipp & Riebsamen, Maleen, 2022. "What role do local elections play for societal peace in Nepal? Evidence from post-conflict Nepal," IDOS Discussion Papers 4/2022, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    7. Deniz Aksoy & Dino Hadzic, 2019. "Political institutions and collective attachments," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 584-607, December.
    8. Bastiaan Bruinsma & Marlene Mußotter, 2023. "A Move Forward: Exploring National Identity Through Non-linear Principal Component Analysis in Germany," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 885-903, February.
    9. Flesken, Anaïd, 2014. "Researching Ethnic Relations as the Outcome of Political Processes," GIGA Working Papers 251, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:101:y:2007:i:04:p:693-708_07. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.