UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
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Item Minority Language Policy and Ethnic Conflict(2023) Ozkan, Alperen; Birnir, Jóhanna K; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Language is one of the most important cleavages along which ethnic identities are formed and shaped. Yet, in addition to being an identity marker, language is a policy area, in which the state cannot remain impartial toward the interests of the speakers of different languages in a country. The main research questions of my dissertation are how minority language policies are formed and how different policy outcomes affect likelihood of ethnic conflict. Recent empirical evidence suggests that ethnic conflicts are likely to occur along linguistic lines at least as much as religious ones. Despite this finding, the role of language policies in occurrence of conflict remains uncovered. I claim that this is partly due to paying insufficient attention to how minority language policies are formed while explaining the link between language and ethnic conflict. Language policies in multilingual societies are political outcomes that emerge out of the interplay between ethnic competition and rivalry, national cohesion, and ethnolinguistic vitality of linguistic minorities. I argue that these three factors are primarily reflected by relative group size and interaction of language divide with other social cleavages. Specifically, I contend that these two variables shape language policy outcome by impacting group capability for mobilization and coalition building patterns. In turn, I claim that the most restrictive policy option, defined by exclusion of minority language from public sphere, and the most accommodative policy option, promotion of minority language by state, contribute to outbreak of ethnic conflict along linguistic lines. But middle-ground policies based on toleration of use of minority language in public sphere and providing support for it has the potential to defuse the tensions over language policy and contribute to prevention of conflict breaking out. I test these propositions on a cross-national dataset of minority language policy that covers 424 linguistic minority groups from 50 randomly selected countries. Results provide robust empirical support for the theory.Item Ethnic Politics and Urban Voting Behavior in India: Explaining Variation in Electoral Support for the Bharatiya Janata Party, 1999-2009(2013) Berland Kaul, Allison; Pearson, Margaret M.; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation focuses on urban voting behavior in India, and explores the factors affecting voter support for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), one of two major parties in India, and the only ethnic party that competes at the national level. How do we understand the rise of this ethnic party to become the second most electorally successful party in India? Why do voters vote for this ethnic party, which has been linked in the past with episodes of ethnic violence? Existing explanations have focused on ethnic factors or programmatic factors to explain voter support for the BJP. I argue that there is a need to understand the way in which both ethnic interests and programmatic interests explain voter support for the BJP. This dissertation puts forward a theory of voting behavior, Ethnically Mediated Retrospective Voting (ERV), which posits the conditions under which ethnic interests and programmatic interests influence voters' political choices, as a means of explaining the nature of voter support for an ethnic party. ERV theorizes the way in which changes in the level of ethnic conflict influences the political salience of ethnic interests, and changes resulting from economic growth and economic reforms influences programmatic demands by voters. The mechanisms of ERV together posit different generalized scenarios of voting behavior to explain voter support for an ethnic party in different socio-economic conditions. The theory is tested through an investigation of urban voting behavior in two locations, Delhi and Gujarat, across three national elections (1999, 2004 and 2009), and includes over 70 interviews of voters in the cities of Ahmedabad and New Delhi. This study finds that ethnic interests and retrospective programmatic interests are both important factors in explaining voter support for the BJP over space and time. Under conditions of a high level of perceived ethnic conflict, ethnic interests increase in salience in voters' political choices. Second, under conditions of strong economic growth, programmatic demands increase in salience in voters' political choices. As a result, different socio-economic conditions impact the relative influence of ethnic and programmatic interests in explaining overall voter support for an ethnic party. Through an examination of the way in which both ethnic interests and programmatic interests influence voter support for the Bharatiya Janata party, this dissertation broadens our understanding of voting behavior and the factors influencing voter support for an ethnic party in a rapidly developing country context.