The transferability of ethnic politics: A theoretical perspective

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new theoretical framework of the nature of ethnic politics that can be transferred from one state to another. To achieve this objective, a literature review was undertaken to investigate the existing studies on ethnic politics and how it can be transferred or developed by the politicians, particularly the political elites in other areas. It summarizes factors that significantly contributed to such phenomenon and suggest a new theoretical perspective of the nature ofethnic politics. It is argued that ethnic politics is an important phenomenon of modern societies and is the key determining factors for state formation through democracy process in Asia and Africa. This often resulted in the growing of ethnic conflict insome Asian and African countries such as Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria and Sudan. For this reason, this paper established theoretical link between ethnic politics and ethnic conflict, emphasizing the nature of ethnic politics that can be transferred form onestate to another. This paper also drawn the criterion to such nature. By doing so, several different research directions could be established. The main research opportunity exists in testing or implementing the proposed theoretical framework.