Ethnic Politics and Democratic Transition in Rwanda

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Routledge, 2012 - History - 204 pages

This book offers an examination of how a deeply divided post-conflict society embarks on democratic transition. Using Rwanda as the case study, it combines analysis of democratic transition and ethnopolitical debate, asking why deeply divided ethnic societies have a tendency to fail.

Though marginalised in existing literature on democratic transition, this path-breaking book shows how ethnicity has a significant impact on the direction and success of democratic process. The initial failure of democratic transition in Rwanda shows that the current regime will need to be sensitive to ethnicity, ethnopolitical consciousness and mobility in order to be successful in its second transition attempt. Based on key informant interviews, participant observation and primary resources, this book develops beyond the case study of Rwanda to posit a new framework that integrates variables of unity, equality, trust and institutional engineering in an integrative model to study and evaluate democratic transition in divided or post-conflict society.

Ethnic Politics and Democratic Transition in Rwanda will be of interest to students and scholars of democratization, democracy, and ethnic politics and conflict.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Ethnicity ethnopolitics and democratic transition
6
Consociationalism revisited
45
The precolonialand colonial background
61
4 The First Republic 19591973
82
5 When democratic transition killed
99
6 Slouching towards democratic transition
116
7 Crowning the transition? The 2003 legislative and presidential elections
139
Conclusion
159
Glossary
165
Notes
166
Bibliography
168
Subject Index
199
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About the author (2012)

David E. Kiwuwa is an Assistant Professor in the School of International Studies, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.