Minorities and Democratization David Epstein & Sharyn O’Halloran Columbia University Bahar Leventoglu SUNY – Stonybrook

Project Background Interested in Racial Gerrymandering in the US In the 1990’s, saw many Republican-Black Democrat coalitions in redistricting Makes sense electorally: concentrating black voters in a few districts helps elect Republicans elsewhere But not for policy – one side has to do better So do this with numbers Estimate plans that maximize substantive represen- tation, and those that maximize descriptive rep. Are they the same, or is there a tradeoff?

Findings In the 1970’s & 1980’s, maximize substantive representation by electing blacks to office But starting in 1990’s, do better by creating districts of no more than 45% black At that point, good chance of electing minority rep. But don’t lose too much influence elsewhere On the other hand, maximize # of minorities elected by concentrating up to 75% BVAP Not the same as maximizing substantive rep. So a Pareto Frontier has emerged over time

Lessons: AP Version Districting can give minority voters: A lot of influence in a few districts, or Less influence in more districts At times one strategy is best, at times the other may be superior In the US, the answer changed due to: Decreased polarization in the electorate Increased polarization in Congress

Lessons: CP Version In a majoritarian system, minorities must form coalitions to influence policy There are two ways to do this: In elections, via encompassing parties, or In the legislature, via vote trading Political institutions can favor one of these alternatives over the other This holds true for all types of minorities

Segue into this paper… So, within majoritarian systems: institutions  coalitions  min. influence But of course, many systems are not majoritarian This is itself an object of choice and change Minorities don’t always do better w/democracy Voting to Violence Important issue now in many places

Questions – Reciprocal Effects How does the presence of ethnic factionalization affect democratization? Does it make it easier or harder to transition to democracy? Does it matter if the ruling party is from the majority or minority group? How does democratization affect minorities? More discrimination, or less?

Model – Acemoglu & Robinson Society with two classes: upper (U) and lower (L) Group i is proportion i of the population, with L > U Total wealth x in society, U starts with   x,  U U L

Model – Acemoglu & Robinson U L   L  Only issue is degree of redistributive taxes (  ) U, of course, wants  L would tax rich & transfer At first, only U members can vote, but can democratize

Game Tree U: Democratize? YN L: Set  L U: Set  U L: Revolt? YN UU Nature UU Success Not R Note: For A&R, revolutionary outcome destroys proportion  of economy, and U gets 0 utility. For us, lose  as before, but then move to democracy. “Revolutionary Outcome”

Model – ELO U L 12 To A&R model, we add a second ethnic group Assume L>U, and 1>2 (so L1 is largest group) Groups decide independently whether to uprise.

Revised Game Tree

Model – ELO So now, two taxes are possible: economic and ethnic Ethnic tax  2 yields “discrimination rents” to majority U L 12 ee 22 Note:  1 is always 0 in equilibrium.

Model – ELO U L 12 In democracy, L1 makes first proposal for {  e,  2 } If L1 has a majority, proposal passes Otherwise, form coalition:

Model – ELO U L 12 In democracy, L1 makes first proposal for {  e,  2 } If L1 has a majority, proposal passes Otherwise, form coalition: L1-U1 (ethnic)

Model – ELO U L 12 In democracy, L1 makes first proposal for {  e,  2 } If L1 has a majority, proposal passes Otherwise, form coalition: L1-U1 (ethnic) or L1-L2 (class) Note: Reversion policy in case of disagreement is  e =  2 =0.

Equilibrium In autocracy, U1 sets {  e =0,  2 =1} No way to credibly commit to any  e >0 other than democratization Check equilibrium under democracy and see which U1 prefers If L1 > 50% of the population, then it sets {  e =1,  2 =1} So focus on L1 < 50% case

Implications Less peaceful democratization the larger is 2, the size of the minority Peaceful democratization occurs at intermediate levels of uprising cost  Either both L1 and L2 revolt together, or L2 alone revolts Probability of transition independent of size of the economy (x)

Extensions Power Sharing in Autocracy U1 can attract L1 or U2 as coalition partner Democracy can be worse for minorities U2 starts off in power Makes peaceful transitions less likely Two-period model with class mobility Induces upper-lower class sympathy Increases likelihood of transitions with anti- minority coalition in democracy

Conclusions Ethnic diversity reduces the probability of peaceful democratic transitions Upper class loses discrimination rents Lower class does well in: Autocracy  violence potential Democracy  numbers Addresses question of when politics revolves around an ethnic dimension