Who Opposes Ethnic Territorial Autonomy?
52 Pages Posted: 10 May 2016
Date Written: May 9, 2016
Abstract
Ethnoterritorial autonomy is typically studied through outcomes like decentralization or war. The microfoundations of ethnoterritorial politics, such as position taking by individual central actors, are rarely observed. I use Indian parliamentary records to code legislators’ stances on dozens of proposals for ethnic self-rule. I consider three explanations of government opposition to autonomy — the economic value of territories at stake; central nationalism; and regional ethnic rivalries — alone and interacted with pro-autonomy violence. Regional ethnic rivalries play the clearest role; the core opposition to an autonomy demand was representatives of other ethnic groups in the same area. Legislators were also more averse to autonomy for religious minority areas. Interestingly, this pattern held even among MP’s whose own constituency was not majority Hindu. Opposition did not increase with the development or natural resources of a proposed autonomous territory. This unique study of legislative behavior suggests new hypotheses about government reactions to ethnoterritorial movements.
Keywords: separatism, autonomy, ethnic conflict, civil violence
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