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How can the salience of ethnicity in Rwandan and Burundian politics be overcome? How can this salience be approached analytically? And why, exactly, is it that it is potentially conflict-prone? This book gives answers to these questions on the basis of what Rwandan and Burundian interviewees expressed as taken for granted and real. In particular, it focuses on different political institutional models, and how they help to overcome an ethnic interpretation of political and social exclusion. Despite the diverging institutional approaches to dealing with ethnic cleavages, the qualitative analysis shows that political and social exclusion, in particular the distribution of power, are interpreted in ethnic terms in both countries. Focusing on notions taken for granted by Rwandan and Burundian interviewees, the book demonstrates, how deeply intertwined ethnicity and politics are in Rwanda and Burundi today.

The Dilemma of Recognition: Experienced Reality of Ethnicised Politics in Rwanda and Burundi

The 'Dilemma of Recognition'. On the 'Experienced Reality' of Ethnicised Politics in Rwanda and Burundi.- The Cases: Rwanda and Burundi.- Procedural Principals.- Theoretical Knowledge about the 'Dilemma of Recognition'.- Institution and 'Institutional Engineering' as 'Experienced Reality'.- Ethnic Categories: Institutions Defined by Descent.- The Institutions of Politicised Ethnicity and Ethnicised Politics: Inclusion and Exclusion Based on Ethnic Categories.- 'Denial of' versus 'Power Sharing along' Ethnic Cleavages: Ethnicised Politics and the 'Dilemma of Recognition'.- The Knowledge of 'Those Living in that World': Interpreting Ethnicity and Politics in Rwanda and Burundi.- Experienced Constructed and Essentialist Ethnicity.- Politicised Ethnicity as 'Experienced Reality'.- The Struggle for Recognition: Ethnicised Politics as 'Experienced Reality'.- The 'Dilemma of Recognition': Diverging Realities of Ethnicised Politics.