The political representation of ethnic minorities: a framework for a comparative analysis of ethnic minority representation

Globalization and the migration flows that go with it, created a situation in which many European countries are confronted with a growing number of ethnic minorities within their societies. This situation raises several questions concerning (1) the political rights of these people, (2) their representation and (3) their participation in political decision-making as constitutive elements of citizenship. A true democracy represents all people, but nowadays ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the political institutions of many countries. This paper gives a blueprint of my future research and discusses the theoretical framework. It discusses the use of the Political Opportunity Structure (POS) Model to explain the degree of political representation of ethnic minorities at local level. The POS model exists of four explanatory factors: the citizenship regime, the political party, the electoral system and the interest constellations. All of them can have an effect on the political representation of ethnic minorities. The analysis concentrates on two dimensions: the descriptive -and the substantive dimension of representation