Applied Economics Lunch Seminar

Du 16/04/2019 de 12:30 à 13:30

Salle R2-01, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

ROVNY Jan (Sciences Po)

Circumstantial Liberals: Ethnic Minorities and Political Competition

Ethnic minorities make contemporary Europe increasingly diverse. The prevailing wisdom in research on ethnic politics is that ethnicity is a trouble-maker disrupting programmatic universal politics – it tends to prioritize group identity over ideology, polity or policy, principle over compromise. In short, ethnicity is expected to be a source of particularistic tension. This project takes a theoretical step back. Approaching ethnic politics as a component of normal politics, it investigates the ideological potential of ethnicity, and examines the conditions that determine the formation of diverse preferences and behavior among ethnic groups and their representatives. The project seeks to answer central questions: What are the political preferences of ethnic minority groups and their representatives? Under what circumstances do ethnic minority groups and representatives prefer to cooperate with the majority, and under what circumstances is this preference undermined? The project proceeds from the expectation that ethnic minorities seek group preservation. It hypothesizes that the search for group preservation may induce ethnic minorities to champion rights and liberties, translating into broader ideological preferences and political behavior. Simultaneously, conditional factors cross-pressure the search for rights and liberties, potentially leading ethnic groups and members towards exclusionary extremism instead. The identification of these conditions is of central theoretical importance, as well as of practical use. The project combines the study of ethnic politics with research on electoral behavior and party competition, while studying both minorities in eastern Europe comparison with dominant majorities. The project collects novel data sources, which it analyses using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. It is divided into two parts, one focusing on large-N quantitative comparative analyses, and one carrying out three in depth case studies.