Ethnic Parties: Their Emergence, Survival, and Impact

This dissertation examines the emergence of ethnic parties, their survival in the political system, and their impact on the governance practices. While scholars have long debated the impact of ethnic parties on state-building and democratization process, few works have empirically examined their behavior in the political system. Empirical research on ethnic parties is limited to single countries or regions -- Latin America, Eastern Europe, or a few countries including India. Firstly, this dissertation extends the research on ethnic parties to include another South Asian Country – Nepal. Secondly, research on ethnic parties has been hampered by the lack of cross-sectional data on ethnic parties. This dissertation employs new datasets on the electoral performance of ethnic parties, making use of the newly available resource. Employing both qualitative and quantitative techniques, this dissertation is built around three empirical chapters. Firstly, it argues that strategic interactions between major parties and ethnic groups, among others, determine why some ethnic groups successfully form their own parties and others do not. Secondly, it argues that the factors that are responsible for the emergence of ethnic parties are hardly sufficient for the survival of these parties in the long run and shows that ethnic parties' access to state resources is a major factor that can explain the variation in their survival. And thirdly, it argues and empirically shows that support from ethnic groups to political parties does not necessarily lead to higher levels of corruption as scholars have often argued. The parties that are overwhelmingly supported by ethnic groups increase the level of regime corruption, while the parties that have large coalitions of voters including ethnic groups do not