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Guyana: Coercion and Control in Political Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Percy C. Hintzen  and
Ralph R. Premdas
Percy C. Hintzen
Affiliation:
Department of Afro-American Studies, University of California, Berkeley
Ralph R. Premdas
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Ife, Nigeria
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Extract

Many communally divided postcolonial states rely almost exclusively upon an effective machinery of control to ensure political order. This has stemmed from two factors: (1) unrestrained communal competition for votes; and (2) inheritance of a highly centralized state apparatus. The first condition has tended to politicize sectional cleavages, exacerbating distrust (Premdas, 1972: 19-20). Without a body of shared values in the state, protection of a communal group's interest is perceived to reside on the capture of the government. The second condition under such circumstances facilitates “effective domination of one group over another” (Smooha, 1980: 257). Apart from a consociational arrangement, democracy in deeply divided societies is elusive, rendering authoritarian control seemingly necessary to prevent protracted communal conflict and political disintegration (Lijphart, 1969: 207; Milne, 1975: 413; Norlinger, 1972). As a legitimator of domination, stability is a controversial value, especially in the face of cynical and brutal abuses of human rights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , August 1982 , pp. 337 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1982

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