Yes we can? Ethnic minority representation at the local level: the influence of political parties and electoral systems in Belgium and England
- Author
- Floor Eelbode (UGent)
- Organization
- Abstract
- Since the end of World War II, most Western countries face a growing number of ethnic minorities within their borders. Over the years, the migrant population diversified and turned into a permanent phenomenon. As a result, we nowadays live in very diverse societies. However, our political institutions are less diverse, as there remains an underrepresentation of specific groups and more specifically of ethnic minorities. The scholarly literature on ethnic minority representation points at the importance of the Political Opportunity Structure (POS) and more specifically of citizenship regimes, electoral systems, characteristics of the ethnic group and political parties to explain the political (under)representation of ethnic minorities. In this paper, I focus more specifically on the influence of electoral systems and political parties. I discuss which party characteristics and which elements of the electoral system are beneficial for the political representation of ethnic minorities. This comparative paper is based on a qualitative case study of one Belgian and one English city. In these cities, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ethnic representatives, ethnic candidates, representatives of the ethnic community and party representatives. Interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory approach (Glaser, 1992).
- Keywords
- Ethnic minorities, political parties, electoral systems
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-4126602
- MLA
- Eelbode, Floor. “Yes We Can? Ethnic Minority Representation at the Local Level: The Influence of Political Parties and Electoral Systems in Belgium and England.” PIPOP Conference 2012 : Political and Civic Participation, Proceedings, 2012.
- APA
- Eelbode, F. (2012). Yes we can? Ethnic minority representation at the local level: the influence of political parties and electoral systems in Belgium and England. PIPOP Conference 2012 : Political and Civic Participation, Proceedings. Presented at the PIPOP conference 2012 : Political and civic participation, Guilford, UK.
- Chicago author-date
- Eelbode, Floor. 2012. “Yes We Can? Ethnic Minority Representation at the Local Level: The Influence of Political Parties and Electoral Systems in Belgium and England.” In PIPOP Conference 2012 : Political and Civic Participation, Proceedings.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Eelbode, Floor. 2012. “Yes We Can? Ethnic Minority Representation at the Local Level: The Influence of Political Parties and Electoral Systems in Belgium and England.” In PIPOP Conference 2012 : Political and Civic Participation, Proceedings.
- Vancouver
- 1.Eelbode F. Yes we can? Ethnic minority representation at the local level: the influence of political parties and electoral systems in Belgium and England. In: PIPOP conference 2012 : Political and civic participation, Proceedings. 2012.
- IEEE
- [1]F. Eelbode, “Yes we can? Ethnic minority representation at the local level: the influence of political parties and electoral systems in Belgium and England,” in PIPOP conference 2012 : Political and civic participation, Proceedings, Guilford, UK, 2012.
@inproceedings{4126602,
abstract = {{Since the end of World War II, most Western countries face a growing number of ethnic minorities within their borders. Over the years, the migrant population diversified and turned into a permanent phenomenon. As a result, we nowadays live in very diverse societies. However, our political institutions are less diverse, as there remains an underrepresentation of specific groups and more specifically of ethnic minorities. The scholarly literature on ethnic minority representation points at the importance of the Political Opportunity Structure (POS) and more specifically of citizenship regimes, electoral systems, characteristics of the ethnic group and political parties to explain the political (under)representation of ethnic minorities. In this paper, I focus more specifically on the influence of electoral systems and political parties. I discuss which party characteristics and which elements of the electoral system are beneficial for the political representation of ethnic minorities. This comparative paper is based on a qualitative case study of one Belgian and one English city. In these cities, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ethnic representatives, ethnic candidates, representatives of the ethnic community and party representatives. Interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory approach (Glaser, 1992).}},
author = {{Eelbode, Floor}},
booktitle = {{PIPOP conference 2012 : Political and civic participation, Proceedings}},
keywords = {{Ethnic minorities,political parties,electoral systems}},
language = {{eng}},
location = {{Guilford, UK}},
pages = {{29}},
title = {{Yes we can? Ethnic minority representation at the local level: the influence of political parties and electoral systems in Belgium and England}},
year = {{2012}},
}