Success of ethnic minority parties: analysis of central and eastern europe

Success of Ethnic Minority Parties: Analysis of Central and Eastern Europe Despite the fact that ethnic minorities and their parties have been researched in political science field for a long time, this topic still has many unanswered questions. For example, even though scientists believe that success of ethnic minority parties can be explained by country‘s electoral system and ethnic minority‘s size, it is unclear why different ethnic minority parties in the same region or even in the same country achieve diverse results in different parliamentary elections. By examining conditions of cultural integration this paper tried to explain these niche parties’ success phenomenons by introducing economic variables. It presupposed that state’s economic situation changes can be additional and significant motivation for ethnic minorities to cast their vote for parties that represent them. In order to narrow down the field of study, four hypotheses were raised: H1: the higher unemployment rate, the more support ethnic minority parties can expect in parliamentary elections. H2: due to increasing minimum wage ethnic minority parties will attain less support in parliamentary elections. H3: the higher income inequality, the more support ethnic minority parties can expect in parliamentary elections. H4: the higher economic growth, the less support ethnic minority parties can expect in parliamentary elections. To test these hypotheses 74 parliament elections in nine Central and Eastern Europe countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) between the years 1990 and 2018 were analysed. Also, 43 ethnic minority parties were identified and the percentage of votes that they received in diferent parliamentary elections became the dependant variable of the analysis. Similarly, unemployment rate, minimum wage, GINI index, and GDP per capita growth became the main independent variables. Also, electoral system variables (electoral threshold and average constituency size) and ethnic group’s size, as well as territorial concentration variables were used as control variables. By using multiple linear regression analysis, it was concluded that there is a relation between economic variables and ethnic minority parties’ success. Second hypothesis was confirmed, which stated that there is an inversely proportional connection between minimum wage and the amount of votes that ethnic minority parties receive in parliamentary elections. Also, it was discovered that only electoral system and ethnic minority size variables are not sufficient to explain the support for ethnic minority parties. The results of this thesis raised some questions that can become basis for future research. It would be interesting to know, whether the same hypothesis could be confirmed in other parts of Europe or other continents. Also, other economic variables could be tested within the same framework to see if they have influence on the amount of votes that ethnic minority parties receive in parliamentary elections. Finally, more research could be done in order to analyse ethnic minorities’ understanding of cultural integration. It is still unknown when exactly ethnic group feels assimilated into society and how their political behaviour changes. These questions show that there is still much to analyse in the field of ethnic minority studies