ABSTRACT
In a critique of the democratization literature, Thomas Carothers (2002: 6) argues that scholars of democratic change have often conflated any move away from authoritarian forms of government with a move towards democracy. Problematically, the transition narrative may miscast the dilemmas that seem to bedevil many countries that appear to be perpetually stuck in a space somewhere between the two poles of authoritarianism and consolidated democracy. In this chapter I examine how democratization efforts in many postcolonial contexts are impacted by mythologies of ethnic dominance that can limit the probability of a state moving to a more transparent and open politics. In particular, I look at a category of ethnically plural states that are characterized by a form of heterogeneity where at least one group possesses sufficient numbers to try to claim dominance over politics. Milne (1981) and Reilly (2006) have identified these bipolar states as possessing structural features that generate incentives for a type of zero-sum politics in which political authority is viewed as the sacrosanct property of one ethnic community. A resurgence in the literature examining these sorts of autochthonous claims has stressed the importance of ethnic myths and symbols that justify such claims for authority (Geschiere and Jackson 2006; Kaufmann 2004; Marshall-Fratani 2006).
