Replication Data for: Probing PR: Probing PR: Does proportional representation induce ethnic power sharing and reduce conflict?

Recent work on power sharing and civil conflicts in ethnically divided societies emphasizes the crucial distinction between mandates and their implementation. Formal power-sharing rules reduce the risk of armed conflict, but power-sharing practices mediate this effect. Political scientists frequently categorize proportional electoral (PR) rules as part of the broader class of power-sharing institutions, which should induce power-sharing practices, and in turn reduce the likelihood of intrastate armed conflict. Empirical evidence for this claim is indirect at best. Using mediation analysis, we assess whether PR rules or executive power-sharing institutions (or their combination) engender elite power sharing in ethnically divided societies, and reduce the risk of ethnic intrastate conflict. Using different datasets, we find no evidence for a positive effect of PR on power-sharing practices, and some weak evidence that PR reduces intrastate conflict through other mechanisms. Recommendations of PR to ethnically divided societies or post-conflict environments as means to foster inclusion and thus reduce conflict should be reconsidered.

近年来针对族群分裂社会中的权力分享与国内冲突的研究，着重强调了正式权力分享规定与其实际执行之间的关键差异。正式的权力分享规则虽可降低武装冲突风险，但其效应会受到权力分享实践的调节。政治学者常将比例代表制（Proportional Representation，PR）归类为更广泛的权力分享制度范畴之一，认为此类制度可催生权力分享实践，进而降低国内武装冲突的发生概率。然而，支撑这一主张的经验证据充其量仅为间接性证据。本研究采用中介分析方法，评估比例代表制规则或行政权力分享制度（或二者结合）是否能够在族群分裂社会中催生精英层面的权力分享，并降低族群性国内冲突的风险。借助多组数据集开展分析后，我们未发现比例代表制对权力分享实践存在正向影响的证据，仅找到少量微弱证据表明，比例代表制可通过其他机制降低国内冲突的发生概率。因此，针对族群分裂社会或战后环境推广比例代表制以促进包容、进而减少冲突的相关政策建议，亟需重新审视。