Institutional Engineering, Management of Ethnicity, and Democratic Failure in Burundi

This article argues that constitutional engineering along consociational lines in Burundi – explicitly accommodating ethnicity rather than attempting to suppress it – was instrumental in reducing the political role of ethnicity, but that other endogenous and exogenous factors also played a role. After surveying developments since 1988, this article focuses on the 2005 polls. The outcome of the parliamentary elections suggests that the...