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Societal divisions and even violence can occur when electoral candidates appeal to race, religion, or tribe. Why do candidates make these ethnic appeals? More specifically, why do some candidates appeal to their own ethnic group while others reach out to other ethnic groups or abandon ethnic appeals altogether? In “Bonding, Bridging, and Bypassing” Colm Fox adopts a novel approach to study the campaign appeals made by thousands of candidates. During intensive fieldwork he collected and systematically analyzed photographs of over 25,000 election posters from election campaigns across Indonesia, along with newspaper reports and interview data. The book shows how electoral rules, political party ideology, ethnic demographics, and social norms shape candidates’ decisions to bond with co-ethnics, bridge across other ethnic groups, or bypass ethnicity entirely. Its findings yield not only insights as to which ethnic identities are likely to become politicized, but also prescriptions on how to curb divisive ethnic politics.

About the Speaker

Colm Fox is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the School of Social Science at Singapore Management University. He studies elections, ethnic politics, media, social movements and protest in Southeast Asia. His work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Political Communication, Comparative Political Studies, Journalism Studies and Democratization. His monograph ‘Bonding, Bridging, and Bypassing: Understanding Ethnic Politics in Diverse Societies’ has recently been published by Oxford University Press.