Ethnic Accommodation and Electoral Rules in Ethno-Geographically Segregated Societies: PR Outcomes Under FPTP in Myanmar Elections

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Selway, Joel Sawat
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	In this article I explore how the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) rules contributed to the failure of ethnic compromise during the democratic period (1948–1962) in Myanmar by encouraging extremist parties, hardening ethnic divisions, and causing political deadlock, ironically the same charges the centripetal school lays against proportional representation (PR). This puzzle of “PR outcomes” under FPTP is explained using geographic information systems techniques that map the country's 2010 electoral districts onto an ethnic population map. It shows that ethnic party success in the 2010 election closely follows the distribution of ethnic groups in Myanmar and that given the high level of ethno-geographic segregation in Myanmar the representation of ethnic parties would be similar under PR and the alternative vote to the current FPTP. I conclude by discussing Indonesia's electoral rules as a possible solution for Myanmar. The general theoretic contribution is that, although past scholars have generally argued that FPTP is bad for ethnically divided societies, their mechanisms are incorrect for ethno-geographically segregated societies.
Starting Page	321
Ending Page	360
Page Count	40
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1017/S1598240800009103
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/CBBEC6F115F70FD540B514009B94CFB6/S1598240800009103a.pdf/ethnic_accommodation_and_electoral_rules_in_ethnogeographically_segregated_societies_pr_outcomes_under_fptp_in_myanmar_elections.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.1017/S1598240800009103
Volume Number	15
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article