Abstract
Guyana, an ethnically bipolar state has suffered immense developmental damage as a consequence of competitive partisan elections based on communal mobilization. After colonial control was relinquished, the country fell into two and half decades of corrupt authoritarian ethnocratic rule. In 1992, free and fair elections were restored, but in succeeding general elections, the pattern of ethnic preference persisted. The discovery of immense petroleum resources in 2016 is about to confer unprecedented wealth on this small country of about 800,000 people. The problem now consists in the challenge to overcome the bipolar ethnic antagonism between Indians and Africans even as the new wealth itself threatens to unleash its own form of curse.
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Premdas, R., Ragoonath, B. (2020). Diaspora and Ethnic Contestation in Guyana. In: Ratuva, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_45-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_45-2
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Diaspora and Ethnic Contestation in Guyana- Published:
- 28 November 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_45-2
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Diaspora and Ethnic Contestation in Guyana- Published:
- 22 April 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_45-1