Political Engineering and Party Politics

One of the major challenges facing democratization in fragile states is the development of coherent political parties. In a new article in the international journal Democratization, CDI Director Ben Reilly examines the record of attempts to encourage broad-based, aggregative and multi-ethnic political parties in new democracies. Drawing on remarkable recent attempts to 'engineer' political parties in conflict prone societies including Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya, Thailand, the Philippines, Bosnia, Kosovo, Turkey, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, Dr Reilly examines the international record of these attempts to shape the way political parties form, develop and function. He identifies four strategies of political engineering that have been used to promote broad-based, cross-regional or multi-ethnic political parties in new democracies around the world.

'Political Engineering and Party Politics in Conflict-Prone Societies' - Benjamin Reilly, Democratization, Vol.13, No.5, December 2006, pp.811–827