Nested claims, cross-segmental issues, and elite competition in powersharing

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.