1 Political Engineering of Parties and Party Systems

Because they channel, aggregate and express political demands, political parties play an important role in the management of conflict in societies divided along cultural, linguistic, religious, regional or other kinds of ‘ethnic ’ lines. However, the impact that parties have on ethnic conflict varies depending on the way in which such cleavages are expressed by the party system. Ethnically-based parties, for example, typically claim to represent the interests of one group alone. By making ethnically-specific appeals to mobilize voters, the emergence of such parties often has a centrifugal effect on politics, heightening ethnic tensions. The role of ethnic Serb and Croat parties in undermining the consolidation of democracy in post-war Bosnia is a case in point. By contrast, multi-ethnic parties need to appeal to a broader support base, and thus tend to have a more centrist impact, aggregating diverse interests and de-emphasising mono-ethnic demands. India’s Congress Party is often held up as a classic example of the advantages for social integration and conflict management of a broad-based governing party committed to national cohesion and stability. Political parties are thus intimately linked to the rise and fall of conflict in ethnicall