Ethnic Preference Seats and Descriptive Representation in National Legislatures

• In Event: Institutions and Inclusion

Abstract

Interest in the impact of electoral engineering on descriptive representation has grown with the global spread of electoral rules that target specific ethnic minority groups for increased representation. These “ethnic preference seats,” as we call them here, include majority-minority districts, special legal thresholds for ethnic minority parties, reserved seats, electoral districts in ethnic federal units, and quotas (Krook and O’Brien 2010; Reynolds 2006). Targeted accommodations for specific social categories are particularly interesting for two reasons. First, single-country case studies have shown that such measures can be effective, dramatically increasing the diversity of the legislature by ensuring the election of the targeted group (FitzGerald 2019; Farrer and Zingher 2018; Bird 2014; Lublin and Wright 2013; Lublin, et al. 2009; Krook and O’Brien 2010). Second, preferential electoral rules are more narrowly focused than other electoral rules and therefore represent a particular type of electoral engineering. Unlike electoral systems such as plurality elections or proportional representation that are applied to all parties or candidates, ethnic preference seats apply only to certain groups to increase their representation specifically. This aspect of preferential rules raises complicated issues such as which groups mobilize to secure these rules (Krook and O’Brien 2010; Lijphart 2004), how the rules affect other identity cleavages such as minority women (Hughes 2011), and whether representatives elected through these rules affect the substantive representation of the target group (Lublin 1997; Canon 1999; Franceschet and Piscopo 2008).

One natural consequence of the narrow focus of preferential electoral rules is that the scholarship on such rules tends to focus on the electoral gains made by the targeted group. For example, the scholarship on majority-minority districts and reserved seats concentrates on ethnic minorities while work on gender quotas concentrates on women. This study aims to explore how ethnic preference seats affect the relative inclusiveness of national legislatures more generally. We examine the overall impact of these rules by comparing cases with and without ethnic preference seats and consider how these rules affect non-targeted minority groups.
In this paper, we take a holistic approach to the examination of ethnic preference seats. We use a unique dataset that identifies the ethnic background and sex of individual legislators in 80 countries – 18 of them employ some type of ethnic preference seat while 62 do not. With data on the electoral system, seat type, and political party of each legislator, we can explore the multifaceted effects of ethnic preference seats. We examine some of the potential positive and negative externalities of preferential electoral rules by addressing the following questions: Do countries that use ethnic preference seats have more inclusive national legislatures than countries that do not use these electoral rules? Do ethnic groups that are targeted by ethnic preference seats gain a higher degree of representation, relative to their share of the population, than ethnic minorities that are not targeted? What impact, if any, do rules intended to benefit specific ethnic minorities have on the election of minority women of targeted groups and non-targeted groups? What impact, if any, do different types of ethnic preference seats – majority-minority districts, lower electoral thresholds, reserved seats, and electoral districts in ethnic federal units – have on inclusion, particularly the election of minority women?

Authors

• Stephanie S. Holmsten, University of Texas, Austin

• Robert G. Moser, University of Texas at Austin

• Rachel Rosenberg, University of Texas at Austin