Does political power sharing foster or inhibit democratisation in post-civil war states? Previous research dedicated to the study of power sharing and democratisation has been limited to the early post-conflict period and used minimalistic definitions of democracy. This thesis uses a wider definition of democracy and hypothesise that the empowerment of elite actors from relevant communities would strengthen democratisation in the short-term, as these groups would gain a patron that could protect their democratic liberties. Meanwhile, a digression was expected in the longer term as power sharing would equip these elite patrons to avoid accountability and suppress opposition. Democracy score changes were analysed using an OLS regression on 127 cases of civil war settlement between 1945-2006. Findings suggest that political power sharing promotes democratisation in the short term. Moreover, no negative long-term effects were found. Practitioners should therefore host no hesitations against introducing political power sharing when resolving conflicts. The absence of negative long-term effects could be attributed to criticisms not recognising the different setups that power-sharing institutions can take which promote accountability. Possibly, there are also other mechanisms which facilitates interaction between elite actors and their communities at play, counterbalancing the negative effects that power sharing would otherwise entail.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-384858 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Ruus, Anton |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för freds- och konfliktforskning |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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