Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. xviii, 261 pp. (Illustrations.) US$75.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-472-13024-5.
Ethnoterritorial conflicts and claims for more autonomy continue to challenge stable governance worldwide. In her significant contribution to the topic, Bethany Lacina asks how and when such conflicts emerge, which strategies the involved actors employ, and under what conditions governments either accommodate or decline demands. Drawing on an elaborate case study of India, the author challenges common interpretations of ethnoterritorial conflict, which simplify it as the outcome of a centre-periphery relationship and reactions to centralized power and nationalism. Instead, she points at the central role of rival interests within the periphery, where pro and anti-autonomy groups struggle for either change or the status quo. At the heart of her analysis stands the contention that explaining the emergence and course of ethnoterritorial conflict requires focusing on the political relationships between the centre and these rival claimants on the periphery. The prime minister’s reaction to ethnoterritorial conflict depends on his/her weighting of the electoral importance of these contentious camps. In turn, regional pro-autonomy leaders’ tactics and the use of violence reflect their estimation of the centre’s reaction.
The book proceeds along four hypotheses that link “the prime minister’s dependence on competing regional interests to violence, new Indian states, and state majoritarianism” (33–34).
The first hypothesis is that pro-autonomy violence is more likely if pro- and anti-autonomy interests have similar representation in the prime minister’s party or coalition (48). The second hypothesis is that an ethnic group is more likely to become a majority in a federal state if the group’s representation in the prime minister’s party or coalition is greater relative to local anti-autonomy interests (49). The third hypothesis is that a violent autonomy movement is less likely if the largest ethnic group in the state has more representation in the prime minister’s party or coalition (50). The fourth, and last, hypothesis is that majoritarian state policies are more likely if the largest ethnic group in the state has more representation in the prime minister’s party or coalition (51).
Based on her reading of India as an “ethnic federation” and a review of the history of its federalism, the author develops a quantitative model that supports these hypotheses. The model compares the relative representation of actors on the periphery in the prime minister’s government (as a percentage of seat shares in the Lok Sabha) with India’s record of territorial ethnic conflicts, and juxtaposes successful and non-successful demands, and those that have not materialized. The following chapters display the political processes behind these patterns by reconstructing various case studies of ethnoterritorial claims in India since independence.
Chapter 5 identifies Delhi’s inability to balance the competing concerns of different state and sub-state elites as the reason for the failure of negotiations with Sikh insurgents in Punjab in the 1980s. Chapter 6 underlines how violence can spur central policy change. Reconstructing the conflict around the future of Bombay City in the 1950s, and based on the 1955 Lok Sabha debates on state reorganization, it shows that members of Parliament are more likely to comment on ethnoterritorial claims outside their own constituencies if these are violent. Such upscaling of regional issues increased the pressure on the prime minister to act. Chapters 7 and 8 switch to the role of regional elites and their choice of strategies in struggles for or against autonomy. The example of the hill state movement in Assam in the 1960s and 1970s shows that the regional elite’s choice of tactics is a “matter of gauging the political ties between the prime minister and regional, anti-autonomy blocs” (148). Chapter 8 elaborates on the connections between majoritarian politics and the anti-autonomy bloc’s strategies, and representation of the state’s ethnic majority in the prime minister’s coalition (i.e., the central executive’s electoral ties to the state plurality group). State governments are more likely to use co-optation or autonomy concessions when faced with the possibility of pro-minority central intervention, and coercion and majoritarian politics if enjoying more central support. This leads to a “stability paradox,” where “the federation is especially stable where state-level ethnic majorities are electorally important to the prime minister. Without the threat of minority mobilization and subsequent central intervention, however, these very stable states are the most discriminatory against minorities” (188). The ensuing public frustrations undermine the legitimacy of the federation, further contradicting the centre-periphery reading of ethnoterritorial conflict. The final empirical chapter applies these findings to a global level, drawing on case studies from Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Northern Ireland.
The study’s structure nicely supports the author’s arguments. The detailed description of various contemporary and historical case studies (including Gorkhaland, the Andhra state movement, Telangana, and Khalistan), ensures that even those less familiar with quantitative models can follow the argument. The study is strongest in deciphering the mechanisms of federal reorganization by linking the elites at the national, state, and sub-state levels. It makes a serious attempt at opening the black box of competing interests on the “periphery.” However, considering the political change in India since independence, I found it questionable whether the mechanisms leading to federal change in the 1950s still apply today. Tillin (Remapping India. New States and their Origins, Hurst & Company, 2013), for instance, points out the changing conditions enabling reorganization in 2000: mobilization of lower castes, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s shift towards state reorganization and accommodation of social movements. Further, the argument’s inherent instrumentalism (i.e., electoral considerations of the prime minister) does not account for the highly emotional nature of many autonomy agitations and their at times spontaneous emergence. After all, autonomy movements themselves are complex constructs with competing interests (Lacina accounts for this in terms of co-ethnic rivalry). For readers more interested in autonomy movements themselves, or their various mechanisms of mobilization and framing, the book is less revealing. In sum, however, Lacina’s highly inspiring study provides original insights into a so-far understudied aspect of ethnoterritorial movements. The book is extremely useful for those trying to understand the twists and turns of federalism and ethnoterritorial claims, as well as the political, legal, and colonial background of such developments in India and beyond.
Miriam Wenner
Georg August University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany