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Minorities and Democratization
Author(s) -
Epstein David,
Leventoğlu Bahar,
O'halloran Sharyn
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
economics and politics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1468-0343
pISSN - 0954-1985
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0343.2012.00403.x
Subject(s) - democratization , polity , democracy , ethnic group , inequality , economic inequality , politics , development economics , political science , political economy , demographic economics , sociology , economics , law , mathematics , mathematical analysis
We analyze the process of democratization in a polity with groups that are divided along ethnic as well as economic lines. We show that: (i) the presence of ethnic minorities, in general, makes peaceful democratic transitions less likely; (ii) minorities suffer from discriminatory policies less in democracies with intermediate levels of income inequality; and (iii) in new democracies with low levels of income inequality, politics is divided along ethnic lines, and at greater levels of inequality economic cleavages predominate.