UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 7th Annual International Postgraduate Conference

Inclusion Exclusion

16-18th February 2006

Saturday 18 February 10:00 – 11:30: Panel H3: Post-Communist Politics

Daniel Bochsler (University of Geneva): ‘Electoral engineering and inclusion of ethnic groups: how to integrate ethnic minorities into central and eastern European institutions’

"Electoral engineering" was an important component of the institution building process in "third wave" (post-communist) European democracies. This means that electoral rules were designed in order to establish a certain kind of party systems (Shvetsova 2003; Norris 1997). However, the impact of those electoral laws on ethnic minority representation was not an important topic in electoral system research.

However, electoral rules have an important effect on ethnic minority representation (Reilly 2001; Horowitz 1985). Theory treats "power sharing" institutions as a means to accommodate all the different social groups in the political system (Lijphart 1994). Commonly, among electoral systems, proportional representation is considered to be such an inclusive "power sharing" institution, while plurality elections ("the winner takes all") are exclusive (Duverger 1951; Taagepera/Shugart 1989). But this "classical" electoral system theory fails if it is applied on ethnic minorities’ representation. In fact, most ethnic groups in Central-East Europe are geographically concentrated. And this characteristic has an important impact for the functioning of electoral systems.

Rarely noticed literature on electoral systems and party systems shows that the electoral system effect is almost reverse for minorities that live on a concentrated territory (cf. Riker 1982; Barkan 1995). In other words: In contrast to the common theory, geographically concentrated ethnic minorities in many cases should prefer plurality electoral systems. Thus, because in their regional "strongholds", they are able to get even more than proportional seat share. On the other hand, minorities spread throughout the country prefer proportional representation (cf. OSCE 2001). Furthermore, there are different models of exceptional rules for ethnic minority parties (cf. Cesid 2002; Jovanović 2004). Yet, they may have unwanted consequences, promoting ethnic segregation instead of giving incentives to mixed-ethnic political parties.

In contribution to this conference , I shall investigate what impact the electoral rules in Central-East Europe have on the representation of ethnic minorities. For that purpose, I develop different criteria that electoral systems should meet with regard to integration of ethnic minorities. I accord special attention to the question if ethnic minorities are geographically concentrated or separated. I shall investigate which electoral laws meet those criteria. Finally, I shall have a look at existing electoral laws and ethnic minorities in Central-East Europe, applying the criteria that I have developed for that purpose. Thanks to a novel database on party systems and electoral systems in Central and Eastern Europe, including data from single electoral districts, I provide empirical data on the "nationalisation" or regional concentration of ethnic minority parties. This allows me to study the impacts of electoral system on them.

The integration of ethnic minorities into state institutions is a very sensitive issue with large impacts on stability and good governance. All the more, the conditions which electoral systems contribute to this goal have to be studied. This is why research on this subject for Central and Eastern Europe is of high importance.

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