Structuring Exclusion

What role do institutions play in structuring ethnic dominance and state capture in divided societies? How do historical legacies of exclusion and repression influence communal mobilization and elite institutional preferences? In Structuring Exclusion: Institutions, Grievances, and Ethnic State Capture, Mako proposes a historical institutionalist framework to explain how ethnic elites rely on state institutions to entrench group dominance and affect power-sharing outcomes in divided, post-colonial societies. Through a systematic analysis of elite institutional dominance strategies across critical statebuilding junctures, this book posits that ethnic grievances and group mobilization are informed by past collective experiences with exclusion and repression as causal mechanisms that structure communal conflict overtime. Using Iraq as a case study, Mako develops a novel theory of ethnic state capture that links elite institutional choices to strategies of political control. The book advances a processual argument to illustrate how historical legacies shape elite bargaining strategies and institutional preferences during the initial phases of post-conflict statebuilding in deeply divided societies. Drawing on extensive archival research, elite memoirs and interviews, and a systematic examination of legal and institutional changes across various regimes, the book shows how elites construct exclusionary institutions to maintain dominance. By situating Iraq within comparative works on post-colonial state-building, the book advances a processual argument about how historical legacies inform elite bargaining and institutional design as control strategies in deeply divided societies.

Shamiran Mako is Assistant Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Her research and teaching focus on the international relations and comparative politics of the Middle East with a substantive emphasis on ethnic politics, governance in divided societies, foreign intervention, and post-conflict statebuilding. In 2022, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship as Canada Research Chair in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and the University of Waterloo. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Edinburgh.