CPO-2002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 61: Tumbuka Language, Chewa People
Document Summary
One of the roles of parties is to represent particular groups in societies. Individuals are multifaceted and have a repertoire of attributes, such as religion, language, class, gender, skin color, and so on, that makes them eligible for membership in some identity category. An attribute is a characteristic that qualifies an individual for membership in an identity category. An identity category is a social group in which an individual can place herself. Let s suppose (cid:449)e ha(cid:448)e a cou(cid:374)try that is di(cid:448)ided i(cid:374) ter(cid:373)s of regio(cid:374) (cid:894)north, south(cid:895) a(cid:374)d la(cid:374)guage (french, dutch) Who you are has becomes associated with region and language over the years. How attributes map onto actual identity categories is likely to depend on the distribution and correlation of those attributes. A country with uncorrelated attributes has cross-cutting attributes (cleavages). A country with correlated attributes has reinforcing attributes (cleavages). (see 29-20) Electoral rules can influence which cleavages become politicized.
