What is the effect of ethnic cleavages on the development of democracy? How do they affect democracy immediately after democratization? What effect do ethnic groups exert on later democratic development? How does the exclusion of ethnic groups from electoral politics affect democracy? These are some of the questions addressed in this book. This project does not attempt a comprehensive explanation of the effect of ethnic cleavages on democracy. Rather, its objective is to show the effect of ethnic political participation on the evolution of party systems in new democracies and highlight some incentive structures that systematically influence this participation.

The argument articulated in Chapter Two begins with ideas of socialization to specify a mechanism through which members of ethnic groups arrive at and then update their ideas about politics. All voters use information available to them to make vote choices. Socialization theory, rational choice theory, political psychology, and game theory all lead one to believe that ethnicity is a particularly salient cue. Moreover, ethnic group affiliation generally persists despite authoritarian efforts to assimilate the minority. Ethnic identities are passed on through families via language and culture, which are difficult to regulate. Therefore, under authoritarian regimes ethnic minorities already have a more developed form of group loyalty than those who identify with the dominant ethnic group. As countries democratize, it is consequently easier to translate existing ethnic group loyalties into sTable party loyalties than it is to create new party loyalties among the uncommitted majority of voters.