Nested Claims, Cross‐Segmental Issues, and Elite Competition in Powersharing

Abstract

Powersharing systems rely on descriptive representation, where elected elites ‘stand in’ for their segment's voters, incentivising intransigence and penalising cross‐segmental cooperation. Yet powersharing politics regularly witness cross‐segmental appeals, voting patterns and party formation. Though irrational under institutions encouraging descriptive representation, they are the consequence of nested claims: representative strategies through which segmental elites incorporate non‐segmental issues into their programmatic appeals, simultaneously entrenching their intrasegmental position and signalling institutional commitment. Thereby, intrasegmental competition drives the process: non‐dominant elites adopt issues originating outside formal politics and test their electoral viability; dominant elites adopt those that prove successful, transmitting societal concerns into formal political agendas without requiring cross‐segmental parties to succeed electorally. Departing from centripetalist and institutional accommodationist accounts, my argument generates three observable subgames traced through a structured focused comparison of Northern Ireland and Bosnia: dominant elites broaden appeals when secure, retrench around vital interests under electoral threat, while non‐dominant elites will innovate continuously.