The "Ethnic Conflict" factor in democratic consolidation

Abstract

This study aims to explore the potential linkage between ethnic conflict and democratic consolidation through scrutinizing the experiences of two consolidated and two unstable democracies. Four different variables assist this endeavor. Such an analysis reveals that there are a number of conditions which facilitate democratic consolidation in spite of an ongoing conflict. It is a central argument that rather than the conflict management strategy adopted by political systems, other peculiar variables are critical in accounting for democratic consolidation. The level of violence, political party role, and popular stance in relation to the conflict surface as factors central to the determination of the extent to which democratic consolidation is possible under circumstances posed by the conflict. Unlike various accounts which stress the centrality of the conflict management strategy, this study underlines the fact that it is other supporting conditions that distinguish the performance of consolidated democracies from unstable democracies. While the identification of the combinations of conditions that enable democratic consolidation even under circumstances created by ethnic conflict is attempted, a final effort entails the analysis of the Turkish case with an emphasis on the extent to which the reigning conditions allow for democratic consolidation. Hence, the extent to which an integrated strategy of conflict management is accompanied by other supporting conditions in the case of Turkey is utilized as a benchmark in evaluating the prospects for democratic consolidation.