What Effect Do Sate Institutions Have on Multiculturalism Policy Adoption?

• In Event: Dysfunction and Exclusion in the Development of Migration Regimes and Policy

Abstract

Institutional structure is a strong predictor of a wide variety of state characteristics. However, there has been limited academic research into the relationship between institutionalism and the extent of multiculturalism within a state. Although many scholars have argued that certain state institutions such as federalism, proportional representation, and parliamentarianism have been more successful in integrating and accommodating minorities than other institutional structures, this has not been tested in the context multiculturalism policy adoption. We hypothesize that multicultural policies will be more prominent in parliamentary states with proportional representation. We conduct a cross-sectional Bayesian growth curve regression analysis of 21 democratic states utilizing the Multiculturalism Policy Index (MPI), a relatively new dataset which has rarely been used as a dependent variable. We find that there is a relationship between electoral structure and the rate of multicultural policy adoption across our sample, and that this relationship started off strong, but has decreased in strength over time. Results for legislative structure remain inconclusive.

Authors

• Rose Benton, University of North Texas

• Herbert McCullough