The issue with achieving a balance between a stable democratization process and peacebuilding is an ongoing difficulty. Scholars argue that the long-term effects are not properly considered when constructing a peace accord and is affecting the process of nation-rebuilding. The integrationalist and consociationalist perspectives, two major strands within this field, disagree on the point of incorporating ethnicities in the political arena, in which both parties argue that the outcome is negative for a state's developmental process.  An analysis of state reports conducted by the U.S. Department of State and the cases´ peace accords, will be conducted using Freedom Houses indicators for political rights. This is to observe if there is a difference in efficiency between the two perspectives and to what degree it can be mirrored in the level of political rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The Most Similar System Design is used to isolate the similar variables that the two case countries share in order to compare a possible difference in the level of political rights. The results show that there is a difference seen from the start to the end point for both cases, as well as a difference in the level of political rights between the two. This lines up with the findings of present scholars on this topic thus amplifying the need for more research to be conducted.

How can party system design contribute to managing ethnic relations? This thesis investigatesthe relationship between party system design and the type of nation-building efforts pursuedin a country. More specifically, whether a country allows ethnicity to be a source of politicalmobilization or not and how that relates to nation-building policies having an assimilating ora multicultural character. Departing from the debate between the integrative approach and theconsociational approach, theories of institutional design, the thesis theorizes that countriesbanning ethnic political parties are pursuing civic nationalism and should therefore havenation-building policies with an assimilating character. On the other hand, it theorizes thatcountries that do not restrict parties to form on ethnic basis will have multiculturalnation-building policies, striving for a multicultural nationalism. Using a ‘most similarsystems design’ the study investigates the nation-building policies in Kenya and Nigeria, twosimilar countries with different party system designs. It mainly investigates education policiesto look for indicators of assimilating and multicultural nation-building. Taken together, theresults show that national unity and integration is an overarching goal which overridescultural recognition in both cases. The correlation between party system design and type ofnation-building policies show to be weak since the two countries have very similar policies.However, some nuances in means to achieve national unity are found.