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Ouvrages Année : 2024

Ethnic Minorities, Political Competition, and Democracy

Résumé

Abstract Ethnic minorities make contemporary Europe increasingly diverse. The wisdom in research on ethnicity is that it is a troublemaker disrupting programmatic politics, prioritizing group identity over ideology, polity over policy, principle over compromise. Ethnicity is expected to be a source of particularistic tension. This book takes a theoretical step back. Approaching ethnic politics as normal politics, it investigates the ideological potential of ethnicity. The book seeks to answer central questions: What are the political preferences of ethnic minorities and their representatives and how are they translated into political representation? How does this shape political competition, and with what systemic effects? The book proceeds from the expectation that ethnic minorities seek group preservation. While group preservation is best ensured via group sovereignty, this is often unlikely. Most ethnic minorities face low chances of achieving group sovereignty, and, consequently, they remain as permanent minorities. This book demonstrates that permanent minorities search for group preservation by championing liberal rights that would protect them from the tyranny of the majority. This translates into broader ideological preferences and political behavior, inducing the formation of liberal political poles. This dynamic is system forming, as it configures political cleavages, shapes party systems, and informs the absorption of new political issues. Ultimately, the presence of ethnic minorities can be a force for liberal democracy. Simultaneously, ethnic liberalism is circumstantial, as conditional factors cross-pressure the ethnic minority search for rights and liberties, potentially attenuating ethnic liberalism and inducing exclusionary particularism. The book combines the study of ethnic politics with research on electoral behavior and party competition, while studying minorities in eastern Europe in comparison with majorities. The book utilizes existing data, and collects new evidence, which it analyses using mixed experimental, quantitative, and qualitative methods. Its empirical chapters are divided into two parts, one focusing on large-N comparative analyses, and one carrying out three in-depth case studies on interwar Czechoslovakia, and contemporary Slovakia and Estonia.
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Dates et versions

hal-04610641 , version 1 (13-06-2024)

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Jan Rovny. Ethnic Minorities, Political Competition, and Democracy. Oxford University PressOxford, 1, 2024, 9780198906742. ⟨10.1093/9780198906742.001.0001⟩. ⟨hal-04610641⟩
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