Jóhanna Birnir
Biographic Data
| ID | 1165461 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jóhanna Birnir |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jóhanna |
| FAMILY NAME | Birnir |
| SIGNATURE | BIRNIR J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, College Park |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1261-8812 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 202 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The Patriarchy in the Parties: Voters, parties and women’s electoral fortunes in the 2024 legislative election in Indonesia
The Challenger’s Winning Coalition: Mobilization of Religion in Ethnic Civil War
When is shared religion mobilized in ethnic civil war? Most civil wars are fought between distinct ethnic groups, but in the last half century mobilization of religion is increasingly common, mostly in conflicts between ethnic groups that share religion. While the literature explains the role of religion in conflict onset—especially between groups segmented by religion—the reason why religion becomes an organizing principle in an ongoing violent …
State Institutions, Civic Associations, and Identity Demands: Regional Movements in Greater Southeast Asia
In a project of this ambition-covering almost twenty regions in eight countries-the thanks spread far and wide.We first want to thank the incountry experts and informants who made each of the individual chapters possible.As a community of scholars, we are constantly reminded that we are students of the citizens and cultures of the countries that we study.We express deep gratitude to them for allowing us access to their worlds and for imparting wi…
Locking Down Violence: The Covid-19 Pandemic's Impact on Non-State Actor Violence
Although the effects of non-state actor violence on public health outcomes are well known, the effects of public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic on non-state actor violence are not. Lockdown measures, widely used to stop the spread of disease in crises, we argue, are likely to reduce non-state actor violence, especially in urban and non-base areas. These measures deplete actors' resources, reduce the number of high-value civilian targets…
Alternatives in Mobilization: Ethnicity, Religion, and Political Conflict
What determines which identity cleavage, ethnicity or religion, is mobilized in political contestation, be it peaceful or violent? In contrast to common predictions that the greatest contention occurs where identities are fully segmented, most identity conflicts in the world are between ethnic groups that share religion. Alternatives in Mobilization builds on the literature about political demography to address this seeming contradiction. The boo…
The Politics of Co-optation: Ethnopolitical Minority Organizations and Authoritarian Elections in the Middle East
Co-optation via elections in authoritarian regimes, in which leaders ward off threats to their rule by granting parties electoral access in exchange for their support, is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has received considerable attention from scholars. Two important questions that remain unanswered, however, are who exactly from among the opposition is being co-opted and why do parties accept offers of co-optation? We argue that among ethnopolitica…
Voting in the Shadow of Violence: Electoral Politics and Conflict in Peru
Why do some insurgent groups with associated electoral parties target civilians despite the costs of doing so? Organizations with peaceful electoral wings and violent factions operating at the same time are common in contemporary democracies. One of the more consistent observations in the literature is that insurgent targeting of civilians is costly to their electoral counterpart, and insurgents are aware of this cost. Yet, many insurgent groups …
Introducing the Amar (All Minorities at Risk) Data
The article introduces the All Minorities at Risk (AMAR) data, a sample of socially recognized and salient ethnic groups. Fully coded for the forty core Minorities at Risk variables, this AMAR sample provides researchers with data for empirical analysis free from the selection issues known in the study of ethnic politics to date. We describe the distinct selection issues motivating the coding of the data with an emphasis on underexplored selectio…
State of the Field of Ethnic Politics and Conflict
Ethnicity is one of the most salient and enduring topics of social science—resulting in hundreds, if not thousands, of studies being produced, throughout the world and over time. From theoretically
Socially relevant ethnic groups, ethnic structure, and Amar
Protracted conflicts over the status and demands of ethnic and religious groups have caused more instability and loss of human life than any other type of local, regional, and international conflict since the end of World War II. Yet we still have accumulated little in the way of accepted knowledge about the ethnic landscape of the world. In part this is due to empirical reliance on the limited data in the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project, whose …
Religion and Coalition Politics
The literature holds that coalition-building parties prefer the policy distance of coalition partners to be as small as possible. In light of continued importance of religion in electoral politics cross-nationally, the distance argument is worrisome for minorities seeking political access because many minorities are of different religion than the majority representatives forming coalitions. The authors suggest plurality parties’ objectives to dem…
Religion, Government Coalitions, and Terrorism
When ethnic minority parties are excluded from government coalitions, are group attributes such as religion related to the groups' use of political violence? We argue that extremist factions within minority groups make use of divergence in religion to mobilize support for violent action when the group is excluded from government. Thus, we posit that while religion per se is not a source of violence, extremist elements of ethnic minorities, whose …
Ethnic inclusion and economic growth
Is ethnic social diversity relevant to cross-national variation in economic development, or is the inclusion or exclusion of said groups in political decision-making the more salient factor? We argue that deleterious policy effects resulting in diminished economic growth are caused by exclusion of mobilized ethnic groups from the policy process and not just ethnic social diversity per se. Conversely, a positive impact of ethnicity as more groups …
Where Are the Disgruntled Voters: Voter—Party Relations under Cartelizing Conditions
Katz and Mair’s provocative Cartel Party argument continues to create fertile ground for debate. This article contributes to under-explored areas of this debate by enhancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of the change in the relationship between parties and voters resulting from the introduction of the cartelizing condition of public funding. To this end, the article examines vote stability empirically, changes in turnout and indivi…
Ethnicity and Electoral Politics
Disunity in Diversity: Party System Fragmentation and the Dynamic Effect of Ethnic Heterogeneity on Latin American Legislatures
This paper demonstrates that in Latin America a significant portion of the increased legislative party system fragmentation since the 1980s is explained by the recent political incorporation of ethnic populations. Until now, scholars have likely not identified this relationship because they have not used the nuanced measures of ethnic fractionalization that account for internal diversity of indigenous populations and race, and because they have n…
Divergence in Diversity? The Dissimilar Effects of Cleavages on Electoral Politics in New Democracies
Recent theory on ethnic identity suggests that it is constructed and highly influenced by contextual factors and group leaders' strategies. Therefore, while the notion that social cleavages stabilize electoral politics is well established, which cleavages matter and why remain open questions. This article argues that in new democracies the effects of diffuse ethnic cleavages on electoral politics diverge depending on the amount of information the…
Latin American Research Review Volume 42 Number 1, 2007
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Public Venture Capital and Party Institutionalization
Funding of parties is common and controversial in new democracies. Nonetheless, the nascent literature about the effects of money in new party systems largely sidesteps the issue of public funding. This article seeks to begin filling this theoretical and empirical void. Two hypotheses are formulated about the expected effects of introduction and marginal increases in public funding on institutionalization of the party system. The hypotheses are t…
Stabilizing party systems and excluding segments of society: The effects of formation costs on new party foundation in Latin America
Divergence in Diversity? The Dissimilar Effects of Cleavages on Electoral Politics in New Democracies
Recent theory on ethnic identity suggests that it is constructed and highly influenced by contextual factors and group leaders' strategies. Therefore, while the notion that social cleavages stabilize electoral politics is well established, which cleavages matter and why remain open questions. This article argues that in new democracies the effects of diffuse ethnic cleavages on electoral politics diverge depending on the amount of information the…
Public Venture Capital and Party Institutionalization
Funding of parties is common and controversial in new democracies. Nonetheless, the nascent literature about the effects of money in new party systems largely sidesteps the issue of public funding. This article seeks to begin filling this theoretical and empirical void. Two hypotheses are formulated about the expected effects of introduction and marginal increases in public funding on institutionalization of the party system. The hypotheses are t…
Socially relevant ethnic groups, ethnic structure, and Amar
Protracted conflicts over the status and demands of ethnic and religious groups have caused more instability and loss of human life than any other type of local, regional, and international conflict since the end of World War II. Yet we still have accumulated little in the way of accepted knowledge about the ethnic landscape of the world. In part this is due to empirical reliance on the limited data in the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project, whose …
Introducing the Amar (All Minorities at Risk) Data
The article introduces the All Minorities at Risk (AMAR) data, a sample of socially recognized and salient ethnic groups. Fully coded for the forty core Minorities at Risk variables, this AMAR sample provides researchers with data for empirical analysis free from the selection issues known in the study of ethnic politics to date. We describe the distinct selection issues motivating the coding of the data with an emphasis on underexplored selectio…
Stabilizing party systems and excluding segments of society: The effects of formation costs on new party foundation in Latin America
Voting in the Shadow of Violence: Electoral Politics and Conflict in Peru
Why do some insurgent groups with associated electoral parties target civilians despite the costs of doing so? Organizations with peaceful electoral wings and violent factions operating at the same time are common in contemporary democracies. One of the more consistent observations in the literature is that insurgent targeting of civilians is costly to their electoral counterpart, and insurgents are aware of this cost. Yet, many insurgent groups …
Religion, Government Coalitions, and Terrorism
When ethnic minority parties are excluded from government coalitions, are group attributes such as religion related to the groups' use of political violence? We argue that extremist factions within minority groups make use of divergence in religion to mobilize support for violent action when the group is excluded from government. Thus, we posit that while religion per se is not a source of violence, extremist elements of ethnic minorities, whose …
Religion and Coalition Politics
The literature holds that coalition-building parties prefer the policy distance of coalition partners to be as small as possible. In light of continued importance of religion in electoral politics cross-nationally, the distance argument is worrisome for minorities seeking political access because many minorities are of different religion than the majority representatives forming coalitions. The authors suggest plurality parties’ objectives to dem…
Ethnic inclusion and economic growth
Is ethnic social diversity relevant to cross-national variation in economic development, or is the inclusion or exclusion of said groups in political decision-making the more salient factor? We argue that deleterious policy effects resulting in diminished economic growth are caused by exclusion of mobilized ethnic groups from the policy process and not just ethnic social diversity per se. Conversely, a positive impact of ethnicity as more groups …
Where Are the Disgruntled Voters: Voter—Party Relations under Cartelizing Conditions
Katz and Mair’s provocative Cartel Party argument continues to create fertile ground for debate. This article contributes to under-explored areas of this debate by enhancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of the change in the relationship between parties and voters resulting from the introduction of the cartelizing condition of public funding. To this end, the article examines vote stability empirically, changes in turnout and indivi…
Locking Down Violence: The Covid-19 Pandemic's Impact on Non-State Actor Violence
Although the effects of non-state actor violence on public health outcomes are well known, the effects of public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic on non-state actor violence are not. Lockdown measures, widely used to stop the spread of disease in crises, we argue, are likely to reduce non-state actor violence, especially in urban and non-base areas. These measures deplete actors' resources, reduce the number of high-value civilian targets…
The Challenger’s Winning Coalition: Mobilization of Religion in Ethnic Civil War
When is shared religion mobilized in ethnic civil war? Most civil wars are fought between distinct ethnic groups, but in the last half century mobilization of religion is increasingly common, mostly in conflicts between ethnic groups that share religion. While the literature explains the role of religion in conflict onset—especially between groups segmented by religion—the reason why religion becomes an organizing principle in an ongoing violent …
The Politics of Co-optation: Ethnopolitical Minority Organizations and Authoritarian Elections in the Middle East
Co-optation via elections in authoritarian regimes, in which leaders ward off threats to their rule by granting parties electoral access in exchange for their support, is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has received considerable attention from scholars. Two important questions that remain unanswered, however, are who exactly from among the opposition is being co-opted and why do parties accept offers of co-optation? We argue that among ethnopolitica…
Stabilizing party systems and excluding segments of society: The effects of formation costs on new party foundation in Latin America
Public Venture Capital and Party Institutionalization
Funding of parties is common and controversial in new democracies. Nonetheless, the nascent literature about the effects of money in new party systems largely sidesteps the issue of public funding. This article seeks to begin filling this theoretical and empirical void. Two hypotheses are formulated about the expected effects of introduction and marginal increases in public funding on institutionalization of the party system. The hypotheses are t…
Latin American Research Review Volume 42 Number 1, 2007
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Disunity in Diversity: Party System Fragmentation and the Dynamic Effect of Ethnic Heterogeneity on Latin American Legislatures
This paper demonstrates that in Latin America a significant portion of the increased legislative party system fragmentation since the 1980s is explained by the recent political incorporation of ethnic populations. Until now, scholars have likely not identified this relationship because they have not used the nuanced measures of ethnic fractionalization that account for internal diversity of indigenous populations and race, and because they have n…
Divergence in Diversity? The Dissimilar Effects of Cleavages on Electoral Politics in New Democracies
Recent theory on ethnic identity suggests that it is constructed and highly influenced by contextual factors and group leaders' strategies. Therefore, while the notion that social cleavages stabilize electoral politics is well established, which cleavages matter and why remain open questions. This article argues that in new democracies the effects of diffuse ethnic cleavages on electoral politics diverge depending on the amount of information the…
Ethnicity and Electoral Politics
Where Are the Disgruntled Voters: Voter—Party Relations under Cartelizing Conditions
Katz and Mair’s provocative Cartel Party argument continues to create fertile ground for debate. This article contributes to under-explored areas of this debate by enhancing the theoretical and empirical understanding of the change in the relationship between parties and voters resulting from the introduction of the cartelizing condition of public funding. To this end, the article examines vote stability empirically, changes in turnout and indivi…
Ethnic inclusion and economic growth
Is ethnic social diversity relevant to cross-national variation in economic development, or is the inclusion or exclusion of said groups in political decision-making the more salient factor? We argue that deleterious policy effects resulting in diminished economic growth are caused by exclusion of mobilized ethnic groups from the policy process and not just ethnic social diversity per se. Conversely, a positive impact of ethnicity as more groups …
Religion and Coalition Politics
The literature holds that coalition-building parties prefer the policy distance of coalition partners to be as small as possible. In light of continued importance of religion in electoral politics cross-nationally, the distance argument is worrisome for minorities seeking political access because many minorities are of different religion than the majority representatives forming coalitions. The authors suggest plurality parties’ objectives to dem…
Religion, Government Coalitions, and Terrorism
When ethnic minority parties are excluded from government coalitions, are group attributes such as religion related to the groups' use of political violence? We argue that extremist factions within minority groups make use of divergence in religion to mobilize support for violent action when the group is excluded from government. Thus, we posit that while religion per se is not a source of violence, extremist elements of ethnic minorities, whose …
Socially relevant ethnic groups, ethnic structure, and Amar
Protracted conflicts over the status and demands of ethnic and religious groups have caused more instability and loss of human life than any other type of local, regional, and international conflict since the end of World War II. Yet we still have accumulated little in the way of accepted knowledge about the ethnic landscape of the world. In part this is due to empirical reliance on the limited data in the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project, whose …
State of the Field of Ethnic Politics and Conflict
Ethnicity is one of the most salient and enduring topics of social science—resulting in hundreds, if not thousands, of studies being produced, throughout the world and over time. From theoretically
Voting in the Shadow of Violence: Electoral Politics and Conflict in Peru
Why do some insurgent groups with associated electoral parties target civilians despite the costs of doing so? Organizations with peaceful electoral wings and violent factions operating at the same time are common in contemporary democracies. One of the more consistent observations in the literature is that insurgent targeting of civilians is costly to their electoral counterpart, and insurgents are aware of this cost. Yet, many insurgent groups …
Introducing the Amar (All Minorities at Risk) Data
The article introduces the All Minorities at Risk (AMAR) data, a sample of socially recognized and salient ethnic groups. Fully coded for the forty core Minorities at Risk variables, this AMAR sample provides researchers with data for empirical analysis free from the selection issues known in the study of ethnic politics to date. We describe the distinct selection issues motivating the coding of the data with an emphasis on underexplored selectio…
The Politics of Co-optation: Ethnopolitical Minority Organizations and Authoritarian Elections in the Middle East
Co-optation via elections in authoritarian regimes, in which leaders ward off threats to their rule by granting parties electoral access in exchange for their support, is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has received considerable attention from scholars. Two important questions that remain unanswered, however, are who exactly from among the opposition is being co-opted and why do parties accept offers of co-optation? We argue that among ethnopolitica…
Alternatives in Mobilization: Ethnicity, Religion, and Political Conflict
What determines which identity cleavage, ethnicity or religion, is mobilized in political contestation, be it peaceful or violent? In contrast to common predictions that the greatest contention occurs where identities are fully segmented, most identity conflicts in the world are between ethnic groups that share religion. Alternatives in Mobilization builds on the literature about political demography to address this seeming contradiction. The boo…
The Challenger’s Winning Coalition: Mobilization of Religion in Ethnic Civil War
When is shared religion mobilized in ethnic civil war? Most civil wars are fought between distinct ethnic groups, but in the last half century mobilization of religion is increasingly common, mostly in conflicts between ethnic groups that share religion. While the literature explains the role of religion in conflict onset—especially between groups segmented by religion—the reason why religion becomes an organizing principle in an ongoing violent …
State Institutions, Civic Associations, and Identity Demands: Regional Movements in Greater Southeast Asia
In a project of this ambition-covering almost twenty regions in eight countries-the thanks spread far and wide.We first want to thank the incountry experts and informants who made each of the individual chapters possible.As a community of scholars, we are constantly reminded that we are students of the citizens and cultures of the countries that we study.We express deep gratitude to them for allowing us access to their worlds and for imparting wi…
Locking Down Violence: The Covid-19 Pandemic's Impact on Non-State Actor Violence
Although the effects of non-state actor violence on public health outcomes are well known, the effects of public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic on non-state actor violence are not. Lockdown measures, widely used to stop the spread of disease in crises, we argue, are likely to reduce non-state actor violence, especially in urban and non-base areas. These measures deplete actors' resources, reduce the number of high-value civilian targets…
The Patriarchy in the Parties: Voters, parties and women’s electoral fortunes in the 2024 legislative election in Indonesia
Political science (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Law (14 works) · Political economy (13 works) · Politics (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Ethnic group (11 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (8 works)