DEMOCRATIZATION, CIVIL SOCIETY AND ETHNIC VIOLENCE

Democratization, Civil Society and Ethnic Violence in Post-Colonial Africa

Democratization, Civil Society and Ethnic Violence in Post-Colonial Africa

This work does not mean to imply that ethnic heterogeneity in a state automatically leads to ethnic violence. For example, states like Czechoslovakia and Switzerland are multi-ethnic democracies with no history of ethnic conflicts and violence during transition, and throughout their democratization process. This means that there factors, other than the presence of multi-ethnicity in a state, at work. Two specific factors that may stimulate ethnic violence during a democratic transition have been identified by scholars. First, the absence of strong civil society organizations prior to democratization, and second, the lack of institutional capacity to guarantee citizens' security, fully enforce the rule of law, protect citizens from arbitrary violence, ensure active democratic participation, and enable equitable distribution of public goods and services.

One of the major challenges to democratization, however, lies in the application of institutional design and change that mitigates protracted ethnic violence. Many scholars have been engaged in building a growing body of knowledge on interethnic and intrastate conflicts as well as the conflict resolution mechanisms that may be successfully applied. However, despite the interest in institutional development, ethnic conflicts, and democratizing states, conflict resolution still remains a daunting task. This inability to develop a universally applicable conflict resolution mechanism based on institutionalization stems partly from the paucity of data on the integration of institutional change theories into conflict resolution or their influence on the strategies used by states to mitigate ethnic violence. Before digressing into a discussion of institutional change, however, it is important that we first define the theoretical concepts under study. What do we mean by “democratization”, “civil society” and “ethnic violence”?. Indeed varied definitions have been advanced by several different scholars for each of these concepts.

Democratization

Democratization is commonly understood as a transitional process from an authoritarian regime to one that is democratic. Democratization is a complex process, however, defined differently by various scholars. Fernando's definition is that democratization “is a process that people enter into to create a state for their own benefit..” Accordingly, the objectives of democratization can be achieved only when political actors have genuine independence in terms of the capacity to access and efficiently exploit natural resources, redistribute wealth for the state's overall welfare, advance democratic principles, improve the political and social equality of citizens, and bring diverse groups together to work for society and enforce the rule of law in the state. These are often achieved through a genuine institutional change process.

However, the results of any process of democratization is neither predictable nor easily controllable. In general, while democratization is not a process that brings about an absolute metamorphosis in sociatal norms, it does require a considerable shift or upheaval in the balance of power and access to resources; consequently democratization is bound to face strong opposition from existing elite groups that have much to lose. This does not mean that democratization necessarily entails bloodshed and ...