Katharine Adeney

Contextualising the Teaching of Statistics in Political Science

The teaching of quantitative research methods is an integral part of most postgraduate programmes in politics, but less common at undergraduate level. This article explores the extent to which research methods in general, and quantitative research methods in particular, form part of the curricula of Politics departments in the UK. We then discuss an approach for motivating interest in a subject that tends to be unpopular with many students. We recommend an approach that utilises the links between the general quantification of politics with the quantitative study of political phenomena, as well as a combination of basic research methods for all and more advanced student-focused training for some.

Democracy in South Asia: Getting beyond the Structure-Agency Dichotomy:

With reference to South Asia, we argue that recourse to the conventional structuralist and transition accounts of democratisation sustains an unhelpful dichotomy. Those approaches tend towards either determinism or agent-driven contingency. In contrast, an alternative approach that recognises the relevance of both structure and agency is proposed. In certain circumstances, human agency opens up the possibility of the relatively rapid transformation of structures. In particular, there are periods of political openness when structures are malleable, and individuals, or individuals acting collectively, are able to reshape structures. Decolonisation both constituted a moment of transition and opened up the possibility of structural change in the context of enhanced elite agency. For the purposes of comparison, the discussion covers the three cases of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Particular attention is drawn to political parties and the structure of ethnic diversity as leading explanatory variables.

The Limitations of Non-consociational Federalism: The Example of Pakistan

Pakistan is a federation with a chequered democratic history, but this should not prevent us from analysing the ways in which its federal form has influenced identity formation and articulation. The form of Pakistans federation has changed radically and Pakistan has experienced several severe ethno-linguistic conflicts. Interestingly however, the community most often associated with nationalist demands, Pashtuns in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), have been remarkably quiescent. Pashtuns in NWFP possess a strong sense of identity, but they have not seen this as incompatible with their membership of Pakistan. One reason for this is their co-option in the core institutions of state. Can this be replicated elsewhere in Pakistan? This paper will contend that it is the absence of consociational mechanisms that has caused much of the conflict in Pakistan even in the absence of democracy.

Constitutional Centring: Nation Formation and Consociational Federalism in India and Pakistan

States, as political and territorial entities, can be more or less centralised through adopting differing governing structures. Nations are more fluid. Since the French Revolution regimes have explicitly sought to legitimise their rule by articulating a national identity. This national identity defines the membership of the state’s community and in what capacity the ‘private’ characteristics of an individual, whether based around religion, language or culture are recognised politically in the institutions of that state. In most states of the world, national and political borders do not coincide and the national identity is therefore contestable. It is logical to speak of centring the nation around a core group, for example the Punjabis in Pakistan, Hindus in India, or a territory that holds particular significance for the nation (Kosovo for the Serbs, or Kashmir in the case of Pakistan and India). However, all these cases are good examples of contested status, not least because the articulation of who ‘belongs’ is linked to the distribution of political power and economic resources. Even non-culturally defined nations, based around territorial ‘civicness’, can be contested, as seen by the BJP’s rejection of the secular identity of India. My starting point is that the articulation of the national identity of the states of India and Pakistan profoundly influenced the type of institutions that were created to give expression to this identity. Before independence, the Congress and League’s conceptions of the Indian nation(s) were given expression through a mixture of consociational and federal formulae, structures of government designed to manage ethnic and national diversity within states. Both federalism and consociationalism operate according to the principle of devolution of powers and are therefore important institutions to determine the extent of the centring or decentring of a state’s national identity. Whilst federations do not have to be organised according to ethnicity, as in the case of Austria, federations can be a mechanism to manage ethnic identities, when they either (a) devolve power to territorially

Does ethnofederalism explain the success of Indian federalism

ABSTRACT Ethnofederalism has been contested as a solution for diverse societies as seen recently in Nepal (where federalism has been accepted, but the design and number of units remains heavily contested) and Myanmar (where ethnic minority demands for increasing federalization have had to take a back seat to the demands for increasing democracy). It remains a heavily contested subject in Sri Lanka. Concerns are expressed that ethnofederalism will increase pressures for secession and/or lead to increased violence through increasing a sense of separateness of the people living within that territory, providing resources for political entrepreneurs to mobilize groups against the center and will lead to the persecution of minorities within the ethnofederal units. India is an example of a federation that appears to demonstrate that ethnofederalism decreases rather than increases conflict through its successful reorganization of states along linguistic lines. However, a group-level analysis reveals a more diverse picture. India has simultaneously been both a success and a failure at conflict management.

A MOVE TO MAJORITARIAN NATIONALISM? CHALLENGES OF REPRESENTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

Despite Indias status as the worlds largest democracy and increasing turnouts in many of the countries of South Asia, recent elections raise concerns about the threat to democracy in the form of majoritarianism. Many of the countries of South Asia are extremely diverse and (mainly) informal mechanisms of accommodation of minorities have been deployed. At the same time concerns about the threat to minority rights in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been strongly articulated. It is notable that those countries of South Asia, such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan, which have not accommodated their non-dominant groups, have witnessed high levels of conflict. India has been more accommodative, of both linguistic and religious minorities. However, it is precisely this process of accommodation that many in India now worry will be undermined by Hindu majoritarianism.

How to understand Pakistan's hybrid regime: the importance of a multidimensional continuum

ABSTRACT Pakistan has had a chequered democratic history but elections in 2013 marked a second turnover in power, and the first transition in Pakistans history from one freely elected government to another. How do we best categorize (and therefore understand) political developments in Pakistan? Is it now safe to categorize it as an electoral democracy or is it still a hybrid case of democracy? Using the Pakistani case as an example, this article argues that hybrid regimes deserve consideration as a separate case (rather than as a diminished subtype of democracy or authoritarianism), but must be categorized along a multidimensional continuum to understand the dynamics of power within the political system.

Comment: The “Necessity” of Asymmetrical Federalism?

Federal forms of government are diverse creatures. They can be centralized or decentralized, majoritarian or consociational, multinational or homogeneous. But they also vary in the ways that the relationship is structured between the centre and the units, as John McGarry has reminded us in his contribution to this symposium. Such diversity can take the form of one or more units within a federation possessing more (and by the same token some possessing less) powers or responsibilities than others. This type of federal arrangement has been termed an asymmetrical one, and is often seen in federations that are internally heterogeneous. McGarry has produced a lucid consideration of the merits (and dangers) of asymmetrical federalism for plurinational federations. He reminds us that there are many different definitions of what asymmetry is but points out that it has been used in recent years to refer to the asymmetrical distribution of powers, although authors such as Watts (2004) still continue to analyse the concept more broadly. Federal structures of government continue to receive a bad press in relation to their effectiveness as a mechanism of ethnic conflict regulation, as the debates over constitution formation in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate. Such bad press primarily arises from the perception that federal structures will increase the likelihood of secession. But this fear ignores the fact that federal structures of government are diverse. The success or failure of federalism in managing ethnic conflict within diverse societies will vary according to many factors. These include the numbers of units within a federation, whether these units are homogeneous or heterogeneous, as well as the policies of the central government. It is important to remember that federalism only divides sovereignty and federal forms of government can be more or less centralized. Even if protection in the territory of a territorially concentrated minority is substantial, federal forms of government do not provide guaranteed representation at the centre, or any guarantee that the wishes of this minority will be taken account of at the centre. This is why consociational mechanisms of power sharing and representation at the centre are often required for a stable federation in diverse societies (O’Leary, 2001; Adeney, 2007), not least because they also provide additional incentives for otherwise potentially secessionist minorities to remain engaged in an existing polity; i.e. they balance self-rule and shared rule. Notwithstanding the need for adequate mechanisms of representation and protection at the level of the central state, asymmetrical federalism, especially for territorially concentrated communities that control their own state or states, can also be an important complementary element of ethnic conflict regulation. As McGarry points out, it can address the concerns of minorities who want more autonomy than the centre is willing to concede, Ethnopolitics, Vol. 6, No. 1, 117–120, March 2007

Between Federalism and Separatism

The cases of India and Pakistan provide excellent examples for a comparative analysis of federalism as a national and ethnic conflict regulation mechanism. Both states were ethnically heterogeneous, and products of the same colonial regime and similar, although not identical, institutional frameworks. At independence, they both needed to pursue economic development, state-building and nation-building. Yet both states also provide examples of contested features of federal systems, effecting very differently motivated reorganisations of their provincial boundaries within ten years of independence. These reorganisations were both designed to manage ethnonational diversity; however, this was their only similarity. India’s reorganisation of states was based around linguistic identities, denying those based on religion. Pakistan rejected the recognition of language as the basis of identity, and through the adoption of the One Unit Plan fused the Western wing into one provincial unit. Paradoxically, that decision set off a bipolar antagonistic relationship against the linguistically homogeneous Eastern wing (today’s Bangladesh). Unsurprisingly, the One Unit Plan is widely derided for causing the breakup of Pakistan in 1971. What is more surprising are the views articulated by India Today in 1998: ‘Four decades ago, the country upturned every tenet of good governance by carving out new states on the basis of language rather than administrative convenience’ (Editorial, 20 November 1998).

Current challenges to multinational federalism in India

ABSTRACT India’s multinational federation has experienced multiple challenges in the last 25 years, relating to the rise of coalition politics and the process of economic liberalization, both of which have increased the power of some of the states of the federation at the expense of others. The internal borders of India continue to be restructured, with the latest state, Telangana, created in 2014. India is often seen as a successful multinational federation, but it is important to recognize the limitations of this success, as well as the areas where the rise of an aggressive Hindu nationalism poses a powerful threat to India’s multinational federal democracy.