Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation in India and Pakistan


Book Description

Katharine Adeney demonstrates that institutional design is the most important explanatory variable in understanding the different intensity and types of conflict in the two countries rather than the role of religion. Adeney examines the extent to which previous constitutional choices explain current day conflicts.




Federalism in Asia


Book Description

This comprehensive book critically analyzes the successes and failures of federalism in India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Nepal and Myanmar for the political accommodation of ethno-regional diversity and assesses their comparative democratic significance for other countries in Asia. This revised new edition incorporates updated demographic, religious and linguistic data for the case study countries and examines some of the major changes that have taken place in formally federal states since 2010, including the 18th Amendment of the Constitution in Pakistan in 2010, which gave a major turn to decentralization by empowering the provinces; the new federal democratic Constitution that was introduced in Nepal in 2015; and the abolition of the Planning Commission and the National Development Council in India. The author thematically examines the growing tensions between nation and state-building in ethnically plural societies; modes of federation-building in Asia; persistent ethnic tensions in federations and the relationship between federalism and democracy; and federalism and decentralization. The book will be of use to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Asian politics, comparative federalism and modern Asian political history and institutions, as well as policy makers on ethnic conflict regulation and peace studies and stakeholders in ethnic power-sharing and political order.




The Politics of Ethnic Conflict Regulation


Book Description

This major and timely collection addresses one of the world's most visible and tragic problems: ethnic conflict and its regulation. It begins with a guide to the primary methods used to eliminate or manag eethnic conflict, and is followed by a global sample of case studies written by leading authorities in their fields.




Political Conflict in Pakistan


Book Description

This book is a major reinterpretation of politics in Pakistan. Its focus is conflict among groups, communities, classes, ideologies and institutions, which has shaped the country's political dynamics. Mohammad Waseem critically examines the theory surrounding the millennium-long conflict between Hindus and Muslims as separate nations who practiced mingled faiths, and the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh renaissances that created a twentieth-century clash of communities and led to partition. Political Conflict in Pakistan addresses multiple clashes: between the high culture as a mission to transform society, and the low culture of the land and the people; between those committed to the establishment's institutional constitutional framework and those seeking to dismantle the "colonial" state; between the corrupt and those seeking to hold them to account; between the political class and the middle class; and between civil and military power. The author exposes how the ruling elite centralised power through the militarisation and judicialization of politics, rendering the federalist arrangement an empty shell and thus grossly alienating the provinces. He sets all this within the contexts of education and media as breeders of conflict, the difficulties of establishing an anti-terrorist regime, and the state's pragmatic attempts at conflict resolution by seeking to keep the outsiders inside. This is a wide-ranging account of a country of contestations.




The Promise of Power


Book Description

Under what conditions are some developing countries able to create stable democracies while others have slid into instability and authoritarianism? To address this classic question at the center of policy and academic debates, The Promise of Power investigates a striking puzzle: why, upon the 1947 Partition of British India, was India able to establish a stable democracy while Pakistan created an unstable autocracy? Drawing on interviews, colonial correspondence, and early government records to document the genesis of two of the twentieth century's most celebrated independence movements, Maya Tudor refutes the prevailing notion that a country's democratization prospects can be directly attributed to its levels of economic development or inequality. Instead, she demonstrates that the differential strengths of India's and Pakistan's independence movements directly account for their divergent democratization trajectories. She also establishes that these movements were initially constructed to pursue historically conditioned class interests. By illuminating the source of this enduring contrast, The Promise of Power offers a broad theory of democracy's origins that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, democratization, state-building, and South Asian political history.




Constitutional Design for Divided Societies


Book Description

How should constitutional design respond to the opportunities and challenges raised by ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural differences, and do so in ways that promote democracy, social justice, peace and stability? This is one of the most difficult questions facing societies in the world today. There are two schools of thought on how to answer this question. Under the heading of accommodation, some have argued for the need to recognize, institutionalize and empower differences. There are a range of constitutional instruments available to achieve this goal, such as multinational federalism and administrative decentralization, legal pluralism (e.g. religious personal law), other forms of non-territorial minority rights (e.g. minority language and religious education rights), consociationalism, affirmative action, legislative quotas, etc. But others have countered that such practices may entrench, perpetuate and exacerbate the very divisions they are designed to manage. They propose a range of alternative strategies that fall under the rubric of integration that will blur, transcend and cross-cut differences. Such strategies include bills of rights enshrining universal human rights enforced by judicial review, policies of disestablishment (religious and ethnocultural), federalism and electoral systems designed specifically to include members of different groups within the same political unit and to disperse members of the same group across different units, are some examples. In this volume, leading scholars of constitutional law, comparative politics and political theory address the debate at a conceptual level, as well as through numerous country case-studies, through an interdisciplinary lens, but with a legal and institutional focus.




Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflicts


Book Description

Following a theoretical introduction, experts in ethnopolitics provide in-depth case studies, covering each of the major approaches to conflict management and settlement in different geographic regions.




Historical Title, Self-Determination and the Kashmir Question


Book Description

In Historical Title, Self-Determination and the Kashmir Question Fozia Nazir Lone offers a critical re-examination of the Kashmir question. Through an interdisciplinary approach and international law perspective, she analyses political practices and the substantive international law on the restoration of historical title and self-determination. The book analytically examines whether Kashmir was a State at any point in history; the effect of the 1947 occupation by India/Pakistan; the international law implications of the constitutional incorporation of this territory and the ongoing human rights violations; whether Kashmiris are entitled to restore their historical title through the exercise of self-determination; and whether the Kashmir question could be resolved with the formation of international strategic alliance to curb danger of spreading terrorism in Kashmir.




Coalition Politics and Hindu Nationalism


Book Description

This new collection examines the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the ways in which its Hindu nationalist agenda has been affected by the constraints of being a dominant member of a coalition government. Religious influence in contemporary politics offers a fertile ground for political-sociological analysis, especially in societies where religion is a very important source of collective identity. In South Asian societies religion can, and often has, provided legitimacy to both governments and those who oppose them. This book examines the emergence of the BJP and the ways in which its Hindu nationalist agenda has been affected by the constraints of being a dominant member of a coalition government. The collected authors take stock of the party's first full term in power, presiding over the diverse forces of the governing NDA coalition, and the 2004 elections. They assess the BJP's performance in relation to its stated goals, and more specifically how it has fared in a range of policy fields - centre-state relations, foreign policy, defence policies, the 'second generation' of economic reforms, initiatives to curb corruption and the fate of minorities. Explicitly linking the volume to literature on coalition politics, this book will be of great importance to students and researchers in the fields of South Asian studies and politics.




Conflict and Peace Building in Divided Societies


Book Description

This groundbreaking book provides an integrated account of ethnic, nationality and sectarian conflicts in the contemporary world including the role of collective myths, the mass media and the ethnification of identities as contributors to ethnic conflicts and wars. In addition to many examples from the last two decades, Oberschall provides a comprehensive overview of the conflict and peace processes in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the Middle East. Oberschall analyzes: peace building through constitutional design power sharing governance disarming combatants, post-accord security and refugee return transitional justice (truth and reconciliation commissions, war crimes tribunals) economic and social reconstruction in a multiethnic society. In addition to many examples from the last two decades, Oberschall provides a comprehensive overview of the conflict and peace processes for Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and Israel-Palestinians. He argues that insurgency creates contentious issues over and above the original root causes of the conflict, that the internal divisions within the adversaries trigger conflicts that jeopardize peace processes, and that security and rebuilding a failed state are a precondition for lasting peace and a democratic polity. This book will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and academics interested in the fields of peace studies, war and conflict studies, ethnic studies and political sociology.