Regime Types and Discrimination against Ethnoreligious Minorities: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Autocracy-Democracy Continuum
| Author | Jonathan Fox,Shmuel Sandler |
| Published date | 01 October 2003 |
| Date | 01 October 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.00436 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Regime Types and Discrimination
against Ethnoreligious Minorities:
A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the
Autocracy–Democracy Continuum
Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler
Bar Ilan University
Although many assume that the relationship between the autocracy–democracy continuum and
discrimination is linear, with autocracies discriminating the most and democracies discriminating
the least, the assumption is not universal. This study uses the Minorities at Risk dataset to test
this relationship with regard to government treatment of religiously differentiated ethnic minor-
ities (ethnoreligious minorities) as well as ethnic minorities that are not religiously differentiated.
The results show that the pattern of treatment of ethnoreligious minorities differs from that of
other ethnic minorities. The extent to which a state is democratic has no clear influence on the
level of discrimination against non-religiously differentiated ethnic minorities, but it has a clear
influence on the level of discrimination against ethnoreligious minorities. Autocracies discriminate
more than democracies against ethnoreligious minorities, but semi-democracies, those govern-
ments that are situated between democracies and autocracies, discriminate even less. This result
is consistent on all 11 measures used here and is statistically significant for seven of them, and it
remains strong when controlling for other factors, including separatism. This phenomenon
increases in strength from the beginning to the end of the 1990s. Also, democracies discriminate
against ethnoreligious minorities more than they do against other minorities. The nature of liberal
democracy may provide an explanation for this phenomenon.
The relationship between democracy and toleration has recently been receiving
renewed academic attention (Bader, 1999; Stepan, 2000). For some time, the clas-
sical view of democracy and toleration, which associates democracy with tolerance,
especially in comparison with autocracies, has been the dominant view (Dahl,
1971; Rawls, 1971; Sinopoli, 1995). It places democracy and autocracy at two ends
of a continuum. As a state moves closer to the democratic end of the continuum,
it becomes more tolerant and discriminates less against minorities, including ethnic
and religious minorities. This classical view is not universally accepted, particularly
by comparative politics students of the pluralist school and more recently by some
students of religion and state. In the light of this reality, a cross-sectional analysis
of the link between the autocracy–democracy continuum and tolerance is
warranted.
This study used quantitative methodology to examine the correlation between
democracy and discrimination with regard to religiously differentiated ethnic
minorities (ethnoreligious minorities). Sometimes, as is the case here, this means
that the operational definitions of certain aspects of the study are limited by the
nature of the available data. The most important limitation on this study was the
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2003 VOL 51, 469–489
© Political Studies Association, 2003.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
470 JONATHAN FOX AND SHMUEL SANDLER
nature of the democracy variable, which was based on institutional factors alone.
These include competitiveness of political participation, competitiveness of execu-
tive recruitment, openness of executive recruitment and constraints on the chief
executive. As will be discussed in more detail in the Research Design section and
in Appendix A,1this is not to deny the importance of other aspects of liberal democ-
racy, including individual rights and judicial review. For this reason, we will not
limit our discussion to this more narrow definition of democracy in our review of
the literature and in our conclusions, but we want to make it clear that the empir-
ical results are based on this narrow definition, which also has certain advantages.
Our definition of discrimination is also guided by the variables used here and can
be generally defined as the extent to which group’s economic, political and cul-
tural activities and rights are limited by government laws or actions.
A major argument we will make here, based on our results, is that semi-
democracies, those states that are situated along the spectrum between democra-
cies and autocracies, do not behave as we would expect and, in fact, discriminate
less than democratic and autocratic states against ethnoreligious minorities. This
finding, along with the results of other studies, indicates that semi-democracies
may be a distinct category of regime with its own unique characteristics. However,
although our results provide strong reasons to believe that this is the case, further
research is needed to establish it definitively.
Democracy and Intolerance
There are several trends within the literature that question the concept of a direct
link between democracy and tolerance. First, some note that tolerance is often
more difficult to accomplish in heterogeneous societies. John Stuart Mill argued
that democracy is almost impossible in states with multiple nationalities (Mill,
1951, p. 46). Some contemporary comparative politics students are similarly skep-
tical of the ability of divided societies to sustain a full democracy (Rabushka and
Shepsle, 1972). Though less pessimistic, Horowitz (1985, p. 682) agrees that bifur-
cation along ethnic lines ‘accelerates the slide away from democracy’. Arend
Lijphart and others are more optimistic and suggest ways of how divided societies
can preserve democracy via shared power arrangements and coalition politics
(Lijphart, 1977; Esman, 1973; Nordlinger, 1972). Nevertheless, what emerges
from their writings is that, although they might have problems in ethnically divided
societies, multicultural democracies still do better than autocracies with regard to
tolerance.
Second, many question both the actual extent of separation of church and state in
modern democracies and whether this separation is the best way to accomplish
toleration. Recent studies of the relationship between state and religion cast doubt
upon whether democracies, especially liberal democracies, require or fulfill the
condition of a total separation between church and state. One such argument is
the religious dimension of liberalism (Botwinick, 1998). Another is the need of
democracy to fulfill the ‘twin tolerations’: ‘the minimal boundaries of freedom of
action that must somehow be crafted for political institutions vis-a-vis religious
authorities, and for religious individuals and groups vis-a-vis political institutions’
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