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Evidence suggests that as public opinion towards immigration becomes more negative, so the descriptive representation of ethnic minority groups is increasingly restricted. Recently, some initial research into the causal mechanism hinted that this effect is driven by patterns of candidacy. This suggests that political parties are creating an ‘ethnic penalty’ of their own in the selection stage. This paper investigates the relationship between patterns of candidacy, party strategy, and public opinion in Great Britain from 1997 to 2019, and proposes that ‘punitive parties’ are strongly responsible for shaping the representational outcomes of minority groups. I find support for earlier suggestions that parties are increasingly likely to place ethnic minority candidates away from ‘winnable’ contests as anti-immigrant hostility rises. These findings are important for our conceptions of ethnic penalties, of party behaviour in selection processes, and for the study and cause of improving political representation.

The study aims to explore the genesis and the role of the Madhesh movement on state-restructuring in Nepal as well as challenges. This social movement erupted in January 2007 in the Tarai/Madhesh (southern plain terrain) region of Nepal after the issues of federalism and proportional representation were not included in the Interim Constitution. The data collection of this empirically-based study was carried out through In-depth interviews with participants (politicians, journalists, and ordinary people) of the movement, and direct observation. The Madheshi community as the excluded community in Nepal seemed to have angered against state-sponsored discrimination and exclusion that had been occurring for centuries. Madheshis were treated as non-Nepali; though the history of Nepal’s Tarai/Madhesh has been old. The movement was spontaneous to a large extent against the state's prejudices and discriminations. This movement brought the changes, promoting social justice and equality in essence, and Madheshis / minorities’ rights and inclusion in particular. As a result, the number of electoral constituencies was increased as it reached 120 in Tarai/Madhesh while it was 80 only; the representation of Madheshi and other minorities in the political arena reached 35 % and more, while it was 20% only. The main output of this movement was that it contributed to ensuring the principle of inclusion and federalism as a political system.

International audience; Religious minorities are increasingly present in the public sphere. Often pointed out as a problem, we argue here that the establishment of these minorities in Western societies is happening through struggles for recognition. Communities or individuals belonging to different minorities are seeking recognition from the society in which they are living. In Section 1, we present, briefly, our perspective, which differs from the analyses generally presented in the sociology of religion in that it adopts a bottom-up perspective. In Section 2, we present and discuss articles dealing with case studies in the cities of Barcelona, Geneva, and Montreal. In Section 3, we discuss two articles that present a process of individualization of claims for recognition. Finally, we present an article that discusses the case of an unrecognized minority in the Turkish school system.

Im Vorfeld zur Knesset-Wahl 2021 werben jüdische Parteien aktiv um die Stimmen der israe­lischen Araber, die 17 Prozent der wahlberechtigten Israelis stellen. Zugleich äußern arabische Israelis verstärkt das Bedürfnis nach einer Politik, die zur Verbesserung ihrer Lebensumstände beiträgt und ihnen mehr politische Beteiligung er­mög­licht. Während das arabische Parteienbündnis Vereinte Liste seinen traditionellen Op­posi­tionskurs beibehält und dabei die Abspaltung ihres Mitglieds Islamische Bewe­gung (Ra’am) in Kauf nahm, treten im Wahlkampf neue Akteure auf, die eine prag­ma­tischere arabische Poli­tik betreiben und auf Zusammenarbeit mit jüdi­schen Partei­en setzen. Der Konflikt und die Iden­ti­tät des jüdischen Staates Israel spielen für sie allen­falls eine Nebenrolle. Ähn­lich sieht es in der israelischen Kommunalpolitik aus. Dort wird eine interessens­basierte jüdisch-arabische Kooperation bereits praktiziert. (Autorenreferat)

In verschiedenen Städten im Landesinnern Myanmars ist es während der vergangenen Tage zu Angriffen auf Militäreinrichtungen gekommen. Dabei wurden unter anderem Flugfelder des Militärs beschossen, die die Luftwaffe genutzt hatte, um Rebellenstützpunkte der ethnischen Minderheiten im Osten und Norden des Landes zu atta­ckieren. Bislang hat sich niemand zu den Angriffen bekannt, doch ist davon auszugehen, dass sie in Zusammenhang mit dem neu formierten Bündnis zwischen demokratischer Opposition und ethnischen Minderheiten stehen. Angesichts dieser Entwick­lung drohen die Gewaltkonflikte in Myanmar von den Grenzregionen auf das gesamte Territorium des Landes überzugreifen, einschließlich der großen urbanen Zentren. Zu befürchten ist daher, dass Myanmar politisch, ökonomisch und sozial noch weiter destabilisiert werden wird. (Autorenreferat)

In the run-up to the 2021 elections to the Knesset, Jewish parties are actively courting the votes of Israeli Arabs, who constitute 17 per cent of all Israelis eligible to vote. At the same time, Israeli Arabs are increasingly emphasizing the need for a politics that will help improve their living circumstances and allow them greater political partici­pa­tion. While the Joint List alliance of Arab parties continues to follow its traditional oppo­si­t­ionist course and has come to terms with the decision of one of its members, the Is­lam­ic Movement (Ra’am), to split away, the election campaign has seen the emer­gence of new Arab politics, whose actors advocate a more pragmatic approach and are look­ing to cooperate with Jewish parties. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the iden­tity of the Jewish state of Israel are playing a secondary role. The situation is simi­lar in Is­raeli local politics, where Jews and Arabs are already engaged in interest-based coopera­tion. (author's abstract)

The myth that the Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) can be the ‘cure’ for fragile heterogeneous societies has been debunked shortly before its 10th anniversary. The general research question of this article is how political parties in Macedonia assess the role of the OFA in building functioning multiethnic society, while the specific puzzle is what accounts for the radicalism of the nationalistic rhetoric of the political parties in Macedonia? We argue that the assessment of the success of the OFA implementation would depend on the parties’ position of power and the type of ethnic community (the majority, majority-minority or non-majority minority). We find the bad economic situation and the exclusion from the government to be the most perceived radicalizers of nationalistic party rhetoric in Macedonia. This case study uses qualitative analyses of thirty semi-structured interviews with high representatives of the 26 most important political parties in Macedonia.

With a growing presence in The Hague municipality, the sub-Sahara African diasporas like other minority groups face challenges related to integration, participation, representation, and social exclusion. The majority still find difficulties with the Dutch language, with access to education, the labour market, and public services. These concerns also inform initiatives by the municipality in search of joint solutions through citizen participation with the African diasporas. Equally, African diasporas engage in formal and informal initiatives targeting decision-maker in The Hague, seeking to reverse their sense of vulnerability and social exclusion in the city. Using data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork in The Hague from 2015 to 2017, this article examines how African diaspora organisations have sought to exercise their civic agency and to influence policy-making to become more inclusive, by proposing common solutions and collective initiatives. The aim is to understand how diaspora collective initiatives are informed by notions of civic agency, and how prospects can be generated for diasporas to secure the ‘right to have rights’ and ensure that the host municipality addresses concerns related to the diasporas’ exclusion. The concept of civic agency is also used to analyse dynamics influencing diasporic activities, the broader context of diaspora engagement, and some likely socio-political outcomes. I argue that collective diasporic initiatives are broadly aimed at ensuring more inclusive policy-making and that solutions are an expression of diasporic people’s collective energy and imagination. These collective initiatives demonstrate the significance of enacted citizenship in challenging broader conditions of social and economic exclusion that the African diasporas face in host municipalities like The Hague.

This article addresses the critical role that civil society at the urban level plays in integrating and empowering immigrants and minorities in Canadian society. From a place-based approach, it investigates how key agencies in the local community have been instrumental in including immigrants in general and refugees in particular into the fabric of Canadian society. Empirically the analysis focuses on Neighbourhood Houses in Greater Vancouver and the Privately-Sponsored Refugee program in Canada. With the interpretative lens on the urban context, the article shows how immigrants and refugees have gained agency and voice in the public arena through place-based communities. The insight into these two empirical cases provides the basis for conceptualizing the socio-political dynamics of immigrant settlement and integration in terms of the effects generated by urban governance structures.

Namibia's Husab uranium mine is the Chinese government's largest investment in Africa to date. This article develops a theoretical framework of hybridity to analyse the (geo)political and ecological implications of China's rising global influence in uranium mining. Drawing on multiple-methods fieldwork, the article explains how Husab has resuscitated Namibia's uranium industry and facilitated the political goals of both Chinese and Namibian leaders. Husab's materialisation of “South–South solidarity,” however, also appears to be deepening the marginalisation of minority communities near uranium mines. Far from paradoxical, this uneven distribution of benefits and costs is as intertwined with nuclear geopolitics as it is with the materiality of uranium mining.

Infolge des Konflikts zwischen Russland und der Ukraine seit 2014 wurde die Anfälligkeit der baltischen Staaten für Destabilisierung zu einem wichtigen Thema in den transatlantischen und europäischen Strukturen. Nicht nur das Problem der militärischen Verwundbarkeit ist in diesem Zusammenhang wesentlich. Zahlreiche weitere Themen gerieten ins Blickfeld. Sie reichen von der Rolle der russischen und russischsprachigen Minderheiten über Energiesicherheit und wirtschaftliche Verflechtungen bis zu Desinformation und zur digitalen Sphäre. Seit Mitte der 2010er Jahre haben die drei Länder ihre Resilienz gegenüber Destabilisierung spürbar verbessert, und zwar durch eigene Anstrengungen sowie die Unterstützung ihrer Partner in EU und Nato. Nach wie vor bestehen aber offene Flanken. Das gilt sowohl für mili­tärische Sicherheit als auch für Felder der "soft security". Für Deutschland heißt dies, seine Beziehungen zu Estland, Lettland und Litauen fortzuentwickeln und daran mitzuwirken, eine nachhaltige Resilienzpartnerschaft in EU und Nato aufzubauen. (Autorenreferat)

The scholarship on political transnationalism aims to understand how and why emigrants keep relevant political ties with their state of origin as well as cultivate new ones with their country of residence. Through the multiple formal shapes that such political ties can adopt, much has been written on the electoral channel, neglecting other important formal mechanisms of political participation from abroad. In this short paper we contribute to the study of one such mechanism: consultative bodies of emigrant affairs. Looking at an entire world region -Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)- we compare the creation of such consultative bodies to the adoption of electoral rights and account for the main characteristics of consultative bodies, creating a typology of them along on two dimensions: independence from governmental authorities and degree of entitlement in the policy-making process. This work aims to set the ground for and encourage further comparative large-N and in-depth case studies that will contribute to better understand the possibilities that emigrant consultative bodies open for emigrant participation.

Anti-minority rhetoric as an almost universal feature of extremeright parties is often analytically and empirically linked to their electoral success. This article tests the link between the presence of an outgroup and the vote for the extreme right in an attempt to explain the electoral success of the first openly anti-system extreme-right party to enter the Slovak parliament in 2016. A multilevel approach is used to analyse the connection between Roma presence in a municipality and extreme-right support while controlling for the individual characteristics of voters. Analysis using exit-poll data covering 161 municipalities and 20 128 voters reveals no relationship between the presence of Roma in a municipality and support for the extreme right. A partial exception seems to be observed for older voters and the university-educated, who are generally the least inclined to far-right support. Interaction effects suggest that, for these groups, Roma presence might be connected to a higher probability to cast a vote for the extreme right. However, a notably higher chance of voting for the extreme right was associated with young, male, manual labourers and people without university education.

Das folgende Protokoll der Konferenz "Wohin treibt der Nahe Osten?" in Berlin im November 2019 entstand aus den Notizen, die der Unterzeichnete als Konferenzteilnehmer für sich erstellt hatte. Insofern ist es das Ergebnis eines unvermeidbar selektiven Hörens. Nicht alles Wichtige, was gesagt wurde, kann sich in diesem Protokoll niedergeschrieben finden, und nicht jede Rednerin und jeder Redner wird sich hier zufriedenstellend wiedergegeben sehen. Indes entwickelte sich nach Ende der Konferenz der Wunsch, angesichts der Bedeutung, die das Thema hat, und im Hinblick auf die politischen Schlussfolgerungen, die aus Manchem, was gesagt wurde, zu ziehen wären, wenigstens einiges für künftige Verwendungen festzuhalten.

In Australia, public debate about recognition of the nation’s First Australians through constitutional change has highlighted the complexity and sensitivities surrounding Indigenous/state relations at even the most basic level of legal rights. But the unevenness of race relations has meant Aboriginal perspectives on race relations are not well known. This is an obstacle for reconciliation which, by definition, must be a reciprocal process. It is especially problematic in regions with substantial Aboriginal populations, where Indigenous visibility make race relations a matter of everyday experience and discussion. There has been considerable research on how settler Australians view Aboriginal people but little is known about how Aboriginal people view settler Australians or mainstream institutions. This paper presents the findings from an Australian Research Council project undertaken in partnership with Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a cross-section of Darwin’s Aboriginal residents and visitors, it aims to reverse the racial gaze by investigating how respondents view settler Australian politics, values, priorities and lifestyles. Through interviews with Aboriginal people this research provides a basis for settler Australians to discover how they are viewed from an Aboriginal perspective. It repositions the normativity of settler Australian culture, a prerequisite for a truly multicultural society. Our analysis argues the narratives of the participants produce a story of Aboriginal rejection of the White Australian neo-liberal deal of individual advancement through economic pathways of employment and hyper-consumption. The findings support Honneth’s arguments about the importance of intersubjective recognition by pointing to the way misrecognition creates and reinforces social exclusion. (author's abstract)

The recent decision by The Gambia to file a genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has directed international attention again towards Rakhine State in western Myanmar, where the Rohingya people have faced discrimi­nation and persecution for decades. What took many observers by surprise was the announcement by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi that she would be travelling to The Hague to personally "defend the national interest" and thus, by extension, the actions of her former nemesis. After all, she had enjoyed broad international support precisely for her role as leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and her democratic, non-violent opposition against the military dictatorship. These develop­ments, we argue, must be understood against a wider rollback of the democratisation process. The rollback is at least partly being orchestrated by Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD, and it could bode ill especially for the ethnic minorities in the country. (author's abstract)

With the election of Evo Morales and his party Movement to Socialism (MAS) in 2005, Bolivia has become the only country in Latin America to have an indigenous party in power. However, it is misleading to take the MAS government as representing all of Bolivia's ethnic diversity. Its indigenous population can be classified into peoples from the Andean highlands and from the Amazonian lowlands. Research has treated the indigenous population as uniform or focused on the Andean peoples and on parties rather than voters. This paper aims to differentiate this picture by showing that variances between highland and lowland indigenous peoples started with the appearance of Homeland's Consciousness (CONDEPA) and have increased since MAS came to power. While the highland indigenous peoples have preferred left political parties, parties with pro-indigenous agendas or which used indigenous symbolism, the lowland peoples have tended to support centre-right parties. The paper attempts to explain these differences in the voting behaviour of Bolivia's indigenous peoples. Ethnic voting is analysed in the time span from 1985 until 2014 within a mixed-methods design.

This article aims to explain citizens’ support for the Law on the Use of Languages (LUL) through their demographic characteristics, political participation, party affiliation, and ethnic belonging. We base this article on an empirical ordered logistic regression model using an original database of 669 Macedonian respondents. We compare the support of the Macedonian public for the LUL with the support for the general idea of promotion of the use of the languages of the non-majority ethnic communities in Macedonia. We argue that both the support for the promotion of minority languages in Macedonia, as well as the support for this concrete Law, depends mainly on citizens’ ethnicity and party affiliation. We find statistically significant opposition for the LUL among the ethnic Macedonians, the (Macedonian / mainstream) opposition parties, the participants in the so-called ‘For a Shared Macedonia’ initiative, and those whose mother tongue is a minority language other than the Albanian.

The field of critical digital literacy studies has burgeoned in recent years as a result of the increased cultural consumption of digital media as well as the turn to the production of digital media forms. This article extends extant digital literacy studies by focusing on its subfield of digital citizenship. Proposing that digital citizenship is not another dimension or axis of citizenship, but a practice through which civic activities in the various dimensions of citizenship are conducted, this article critically considers how the concept of digital citizenship can furnish further insight into the quality of online civic participation that results in claims to and acts of citizenship. Through interdisciplinary scholarship, drawing from critical media and cultural theory, and media psychology, and deriving new empirical data from qualitative digital ethnography and quantitative focus group and survey studies, it presents original case studies with young people in Southeast Asia, including young Muslim women’s groups in Indonesia and youth public opinion on LGBTs in Singapore. It argues that Southeast Asian youth digital citizenship foregrounds civic participation as emergent acts that not only serve to make society a better place, but also enacts alternative publics that characterise new modes of civic-making in more conservative, collectivistic Southeast Asian societies.

The creation of an EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies (2011) marks a significant step in the politicisation of Roma identity by ensuring a further increase in the number of initiatives, projects and programmes explicitly targeting Roma. The Framework itself is part of a process that began with postcommunist transition and which has produced historically unprecedented levels of Roma political activism along with a proliferation of national and transnational policy initiatives focussed on Roma identity. In seeking to explain this contemporary political phenomenon, the article argues that Roma is an identity constructed at the intersection of political and expert knowledge by various actors, such as policymakers, Romani activists, international organizations and scholars. This political-expert identity is applied to groups that are not bounded by a common language, religion, cultural practice, geographic location, occupation, physical appearance or lifestyle. The article explores how this collation of disparate populations into a notional political community builds upon a centuries-old Gypsy legacy. It scrutinizes five strands of identification practices that have contributed to the longue durée development of today’s Roma as an epistemic object and policy target: police profiling of particular communities; administrative surveys; Romani activism; Roma targeted policies; quantitative scientific research. The article argues that the contemporary economic and political conditions amidst which the politicisation of Roma identity is occurring explain how the ideological and institutional construction of the ethnic frame tends toward the reinforcement of the exclusion of those categorised as Roma, thus increasing the perceived need for Roma policy initiatives. A self-sustaining cycle has been created where Roma knowledge identifies Roma problems requiring a policy response, which produces more Roma knowledge, more needs and more policy responses. Yet, there are consequences to racialising public discourse by presenting Roma as both problematic and essentially different from everyone else. Hostility towards Roma has increased in many states indicating that the expert framing of Roma groupness affects social solidarity by disconnecting and distancing Roma from their fellow citizens.

Since Ted Gurr’s Why Men Rebel it has become conventional wisdom that (relative) deprivation creates grievances and that these grievances in turn lead to intergroup violence. Recently, studies have yielded evidence that the exclusion of ethnic groups is a substantial conflict risk. From a theoretical angle, the relationship is straightforward and is likely to unfold as a causal chain that runs from objective discrimination to (subjective) grievances and then to violence. We test this proposition with unique group-format data on 433 religious minorities in the developing world from 1990 to 2008. While religious discrimination indeed increases the likelihood of grievances, neither grievances nor discrimination are connected to violence. This finding is supported by a large number of robustness checks. Conceptually, discrimination and grievances can take very different shapes and opportunity plays a much bigger role than any grievance-based approach expects.

Language planning and control have played a prominent role in attempts of nation building in contemporary Romania, a nation-state formed in the early 20th century by binding together provinces that were previously part of multi-national empires. As a long-lasting process, language control stretches throughout many historical periods. In communist and post-communist era, it has largely interfered with the political logic of both socialist internationalism and post-socialist democratic citizenry. More recently, under the impact of the European Union’s expansion to the East and Romania’s integration to it, language control has switched from severe limiting minority languages to a fair acceptance of reasonable compromises with the official dominance of Romanian as national official language. Although Romania acknowledges several minority languages, the article focuses on the usage of Hungarian language, the most important minority language in Romania. The aim of the article is double. On one hand, it analyses political negotiations over the status and corpus of the Hungarian language, by assessing the importance of language policies in the broader context of the processes of historical reconciliation and neighbourhood policies between Romania and Hungary. On the other Hungarian political parties in Romania during the democratic postcommunist transition.

Am 19. Juli 2018 hat das israelische Parlament das sogenannte Nationalstaatsgesetz verabschiedet. Das Gesetz ist in Israel wie auch im internationalen Kontext stark umstritten, obwohl es strenggenommen nur wenige Neuerungen enthält. Seine Befürworter betonen, dass darin nur Realitäten zum Ausdruck kämen. Kritiker machen geltend, das Gesetz diskriminiere Minderheiten, richte sich gegen demo­kratische Werte und unterschlage insbesondere das Prinzip der Gleichheit. Dabei offenbart die Debatte in Israel das gesellschaftliche Spannungsverhältnis zwischen "jüdischer" und "demokratischer" Identität. Zudem zeigt sich, dass die maßgeblichen Unterstützer des Gesetzes auf Regierungsseite weiterreichende Absichten verfolgen, als dessen Wortlaut erkennen lässt. Ihnen geht es darum, jüdische Kollektivrechte über indivi­duelle Rechte und Freiheiten zu stellen. Das Gesetz ist daher auch eine Manifesta­tion derzeitiger Regierungspolitik, die darauf abzielt, Israel weg von einer eher libera­len und hin zu einer majoritären Demokratie zu führen. Insbesondere der Oberste Ge­richtshof als Verteidiger liberaler Prinzipien ist von dieser Politik betroffen. (Autorenreferat)

Являясь многоэтническим государством, Китай сталкивается с проблемой обеспечения и защиты прав и свобод этнических меньшинств. Реализация права национальных меньшинств на самоопределение в КНР проводится посредством создания национально-территориальных автономий, что соответствует стратегическим целям внутренней политики Китая в целом и национальной политики в частности. Национальная политика Китая направлена на сохранение политической стабильности и территориальной целостности государства, поддержание процесса интеграции китайского общества и гармоничного развития межэтнических отношений. Объектом исследования является проблема реализации права на самоопределение наций в теории и политике КПК. Методологической базой исследования выступают исторический, структурно-функциональный и системный подходы. Историография темы представлена работами китайских и российских авторов (Т.В. Лазарева, В.А. Манько, М.Х. Фарукшин), в которых рассматриваются различные взгляды на развитие института национально-территориальной автономии и принципов самоуправления. В Китае процесс реализации национальными меньшинствами права на самоопределение подразделяется на два исторических этапа. Первый этап (с 1922 по 1949 г.) - процесс утверждения права на самоопределение. Второй (с 1949 г. по настоящее время) - процесс совершенствования института национально-территориальной автономии. Создание национально-территориальной автономии и есть способ решения национального вопроса в КНР., As a multi-ethnic country, China is concerned with the protection and reservation of the rights and freedoms of ethnic minorities. The rights of ethnic minorities to self-determination are guaranteed in China through the establishment of ethnic regional autonomies, which corresponds to China’s domestic strategic interests. China’s ethnic policy is aimed at maintaining political stability and the country’s territorial integrity, at achieving the integration of Chinese society and the harmonious development of ethnic relations. The object of research is the problem of enforcement of the right to national self-determination in the Chinese Communist Party’s theory and policy. The research methodology is represented with historical, structural and functional, systemic approaches, and the analysis of literature sources. The historiography of the research is represented with the books by the Chinese and Russian scholars (T.V. Lazareva, V.A. Manko, M.Kh. Farukshin) considering different views on the development of ethnic regional autonomy and self-government principles. In China, the enforcement of the right to self-determination by ethnic minorities is divided into two stages. The establishment of the right to self-determination was the first stage (from 1922 to 1949), and the process of improving the system of regional ethnic autonomy has been the second stage (from 1949 to the present). The system of regional ethnic autonomy in China is an effective way to solve ethnic problems.

The Syrian civil war exacerbated sectarian divisions between the Alawite-ruled Syrian government and Syria's Sunni population, straining also the relations between the Sunni majority and Alawite and Alevi minorities of the neighboring Turkey. The Alawites and Alevis of Turkey were predominantly supporting Syria's president Bashar al-Asad, while the Turkish government greatly supported the Sunni insurgents of Syria. The paper aims at examining how Alawites and Alevis have influenced the relations between Turkey and Syria in the light of the Syrian civil war, the reasons behind the sympathy of Alevis for the Syrian government and the implications that Turkey's Syria policy has had domestically. It finds that the Alevi / Alawite factor has had some restraining effects on Turkey's antagonistic policy towards Syria. In the introductory part, the article touches upon the differences and the similarities between Alevis and Alawites, then it analyzes the developments in regards Turkey's policy towards the Syrian crisis that were also reflected in Ankara's domestic policy vis-a-vis its Alevi and Alawite minorities.

"This article surveys the complex ecumenical, missionary and international church relations of Chinese Protestant Christians. It argues that the inter-church relations to other parts of Asia are overshadowed by relations to Christians in the West, thus reflecting a political preoccupation with relationships to the West. This is evidenced by an analysis of worldwide and Asian ecumenism as well as bilateral church and missionary relationships. The dominance of contacts with the West not only contradicts the idea of a multipolar world and increased South-South contacts, it also stands in contrast to the reality of growing and increasingly important Christianity in Asia. Methodologically, this paper analyses different kinds of international relations (multilateral and bilateral, inter-church and missionary) and develops a typology of different inter-church and inter-state relations to assess international church relations in Asia today. The typology shows how China's international church relations support its political relationships with its neighbours and beyond." (author's abstract)

A U.S. missile strike against the Assad regime in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack may have lessened a fear of Russia among countries that nominally back the Syrian opposition. Renewed U.S. diplomatic engagement in Syria could relieve pressure on the opposition to accept a settlement at the Geneva talks, which would be little more than a facelift of the Alawite-dominated regime. The international environment has lacked the balance to redress the disenfranchisement of Syria's majority Sunni population - a root cause of the war. European states hope to employ their reconstruction funding capacity. But stabilization remains far-fetched without a political transition and an inclusive system that can end the Assad clan's monopoly on power. (Autorenreferat)

The rights to prior consultation and compensation have been established within the framework of international indigenous peoples' rights. However, in practice these processes have often gone hand in hand with adverse social consequences for local populations, such as the exacerbation of conflicts, the division of communities and the weakening of indigenous organizations. These phenomena have received little attention, despite their great relevance for these populations. This article sheds light on the use by the Bolivian state and extraction corporations of exclusionary participation and negotiation processes, on the one hand, and ‘carrot-and-stick’ techniques on the other, which have together accounted for negative social impacts on the ground. The article is based on recently conducted field research, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews in Guaraní communities in Bolivia. The findings extend the existing literature by providing a fine-grained and systematic analysis of divisive undertakings and their sociocultural and sociopolitical consequences in neo-extractivist Bolivia. The broader implications of the study add to academic debates about participation in development, about ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics and about the practice of indigenous peoples' rights.

This work examines events from Cameroon's life since becoming a nation to foster understanding of the worrisome political situation the country has been traversing since 2016. Bitter and unhappy with their treatment since joining the French-speaking part, many citizens of the minority English-speaking part feel fed up and desire a breakup. I show that apart from constituting an aspect of its pride, Cameroon's history is also a source of tricky challenges the country has been wrestling with since inception. I contend that issues of this kind will always be around if those in the country's cockpit fly it to a destination other than what satisfies and respects the two people – especially the one that moved the English-speaking part to opt for a joint destiny. Instead of toying with truth to score personal political points, authorities should yield to truth, operating in good faith to correct errors and heal hurt hearts so that both people will willingly, not by force, accept to work together. Contrary actions will risk the future. Happiness moves people to look at their history with pride finding things to build while pain stirs frustration and fury, moving them to search for flaws to fix or fight. I hold that both parts face almost the same challenges from unmet needs to emaciating struggles of survival. However, the English-speaking part has unique plaques that ache terribly and have nothing to do with the country’s general cry of lagging development. They touch on its identity and survival, unleashing pain many out of its shoes might fail to feel and so unable to understand the degree of excruciation. I caution that though it has been a show of two regions, the likelihood of someday evolving into a ten-region revolution is certain if wise and inclusive actions are not applied. Apart from groaning in their own pain, many among the other eight are sympathetic to the predicament of the lamenting two, expressing fury, first, against the denial by highly placed authorities of the existence of any problem, and second, in their ruthless and brutal treatment of those who complain or challenge their stance. Anger increased as people's patience waned. Their calm will not last if things stay unchanged. When arguments evolve and accommodate their worries they will get on board pushing the heat to levels officials will have problems containing without facing the temptation of fighting the people they are in office to protect. I end with recommendations the state and activists might find useful. They highlight measures that can help in a heterogeneous society like Cameroon to preserve peace and save it from becoming a scene of mayhem and butchery.

Introduction to Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 4/2012: The Politics of Ethnicity in China

For six decades, China’s central authorities have promoted development in ethnic regions through special fiscal allocations with the idea that economic development is the key to national integration and inter-ethnic harmony. Yet, inter-ethnic tensions and violence persist in China. Focusing on historical changes to fiscal allocations as the principal policy instrument used by Beijing to promote development in ethnic areas, this analysis finds these changes mirror broad shifts in the country’s national development strategy. As the study argues, this pattern reflects an approach to development policy in ethnic regions whereby policies serve central objectives consistent with a policy process for determining the fiscal allocations to ethnic regions that has been both centrally concentrated and non-participatory. With evidence that this “non-engaging” approach may be exacerbating ethnic tensions, Beijing has made efforts to introduce more “inclusive” approaches to determining policies for ethnic regions; however, whether these approaches will be institutionalized remains unclear.

Based on a survey of national minorities (immigrants as well as immigrant descendants) and the national majority, this article analyses the distribution and explanation of democratic values in Denmark. With respect to democratic rights, the analysis shows that Muslim immigrants and immigrant descendants score slightly lower on democratic principles and family democracy; however, they have more democratic values than the majority of the populations in Western Europe. Democratic values do not differ between immigrants and descendants of the same national group, and differences in values do not depend on immigrants’ length of stay in the host society. Among national minorities of mixed religious composition, the differences between the Muslim parts of these nationalities are larger than the differences among national groups. There is no sign of value clash between the Muslim minorities and the majority population with respect to democratic values. Differences in democratic values are explained by nationality, not religion.

Conflicts persist between forest dwelling communities and advocates of forest conservation. In Thailand, a community forestry bill and national park expansion initiatives leave little space for communities. The article analyzes the case of the predominantly ethnic Black Lahu village of Huai Lu Luang in Chiang Rai province that has resisted the threats posed by a community forestry bill and a proposed national park. The villagers reside on a national forest reserve and have no de jure rights to the land. This article argues, however, that through its network rooted in place and connected to an assemblage of civil society, local government, and NGOs, Huai Lu Luang has been able to stall efforts by the Thai government that would detrimentally impact their use of and access to forest resources. Their resistance is best understood not in isolation – as one victimized community resisting threats to their livelihoods – but in connection to place, through dynamic assemblages. A ‘rooted’ networks approach follows the connections and nodes of Huai Lu Luang’s network that influence and aid the village’s attempts to resist forest tenure reform., Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, Vol 9 No 1 (2016): Political Ecology and Socio-Ecological Conflicts

Since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, successive regimes in Iran promoted competing conceptions of Iranian national identity. However, the policy of promoting nationalism as a state-sponsored ideology that excludes Iran's ethnic and religious diversity remained unchanged. Competing discourses around nation building and identity strikingly intersect with the struggle for democratization in Iran. Since the Islamic Revolution, the pro-democracy movement in the country takes place on two fronts: the confrontation between the conservatives and the reformists, and the challenge posed by the ethnic movements towards the offi cial denial of the ethnic and religious diversity of Iran. This article argues that be they reformist or conservative, successive governments in Iran have refused to recognise the multi-ethnic structure of Iranian society and the legitimate rights of the ethnic groups. Therefore, a regime change would be unlikely to alter the social and political status of ethnic and religious minorities unless the ethnic movements and the pro-democracy opposition collaborate. Formation of a common discourse on the question of "Iranianness" is the primary condition for this to be accomplished.

The aim of this article is to find in the pages of the national magazine Revista 22, reflections of the minority issue - in this case the targeted subject being the condition of Jewish minority of Romania in the country or emigrated abroad (as for instance Israel). The article brings into discussion also reflections of Jews in Europe. The method of work is the critical interpretations of articles combined with a descriptive analysis of their content. Our conclusion leads to the fact that there is a small, active community of Jews in Romania represented at the political level as a minority community, pursuing specific interests who cherishes the memory of Holocaust and wants to say the truth about it, having important ties and connections with the Romanian Jews from Israel and being directly interested in maintaining Jewish interests in Israel. At European level, the problems, existing with the inner states minorities, are amplified by waves of migrations coming from Asia. The conclusion is that the Revista 22 brings a lot of information about the Jewish minority from Romania, resolving the historical issue of saying the truth about the Holocaust, but, as a recommendation, I suggest to bring more fresh news and periodically about Israel, as a vivid center of religions, that concerns European Union and its citizens.

This article considers how changing media practices of minority groups and political and media elites impact on democratic participation in national debates. Taking as its case study the state-sponsored campaign to formally recognise Indigenous people in the Australian constitution, the article examines the interrelationships between political media and Indigenous participatory media—both of which we argue are undergoing seismic transformation. Discussion of constitutional reform has tended to focus on debates occurring in forums of influence such as party politics and news media that privilege the voices of only a few high-profile Indigenous media ‘stars’. Debate has progressed on the assumption that constitutional change needs to be settled by political elites and then explained and ‘sold’ to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Our research on the mediatisation of policymaking has found that in an increasingly media-saturated environment, political leaders and their policy bureaucrats attend to a narrow range of highly publicised voices. But the rapidly changing media environment has disrupted the media-driven Recognise campaign. Vigorous public discussion is increasingly taking place outside the mainstream institutions of media and politics, while social media campaigns emerge in rapid response to government decisions. Drawing on a long tradition in citizens’ media scholarship we argue that the vibrant, diverse and growing Indigenous media sphere in Australia has increased the accessibility of Indigenous voices challenging the scope and substance of the recognition debate. The article concludes on a cautionary note by considering some tensions in the promise of the changing media for Indigenous participation in the national policy conversation.

EU and German policymakers often promote federalism as a means to strengthen peace in societies emerging from civil war. In Nepal, however, the 2015 constitution which restructured the country to make it a federal republic has become a driver of new violence. This contribution argues that it is not only the substance of the federalist law that has inspired unrest, but also the manner in which it was introduced. Constitutional provisions stipulating geography-based federalism in Nepal sparked protests among Madhesis and Tharus that killed 57 people and stalled imports of petroleum and earthquake relief material from India from September 2015 to February 2016. The Madhesis and Tharus feel that the federalist law further discriminates against them and are demanding the delineation of federal units according to identity. While the constitution was initially perceived as a major breakthrough in the frequently stalled peace process with former Maoist rebels, the Madhesi and Tharu protests represent a new escalation in a long-polarised debate. Three factors have contributed to the violent escalation of the protests: (1) the dominance in the public debate of hill-upper-caste groups at the expense of marginalised groups; (2) the concurrence of the federalist reform with other institutional reforms that, as a whole, have sparked fears of discrimination among Madhesis and Tharus; and (3) increasing involvement on the part of China and India, which is further polarising the government and the marginalised groups. The example of Nepal reflects and accentuates the recent debate on post-war institutional reform – that is, that reforms have joint effects on peace rather than working in isolation. Policy Implications Policymakers must ensure that a future solution to minority demands in Nepal is identified based on dialogue that includes minorities to a larger extent; any elite proposition could lead to new unrest. Nepal also demonstrates that subnational and national institutional reforms as a whole can ease or exacerbate minority fears. Donors should pay attention to such interaction rather than limiting projects to one policy field.

'This article explores key policy developments regarding ethnic minority protection and anti-discrimination in contemporary Poland. More specifically, it examines the relationship between domestic policy formation and the European context. Before 2004, the European Union applied membership conditionality in order to attempt to stimulate candidate member states in post-communist Central Europe to adopt special minority protection measures. As a result, most of these countries turned to the official recognition of the ethnic specificity of minority groups and the acceptance of group-related cultural entitlements, not only as norms in their own right but also as the basis for a policy of stimulating ethnocultural diversity. Since the EU enlargement of 2004, however, European attempts to stimulate ethnocultural diversity in the new member states have been less focused on group-related rights but have emphasized the themes of social inclusion, anti-discrimination and equal opportunities. The author explores how, in this new European context, Polish policies on ethnic minority protection have developed. Through a comparison of dominant Polish perceptions of minority protection issues with dominant discourses about the preservation of ethnic diversity promoted by EU institutions, this article shows the linkages between recent developments in Polish minority policy-making and the current European initiatives in this field. It also shows important points of disjuncture between the way in which European institutions have framed issues of ethnocultural diversity and the way in which Polish policy-makers have worked out minority protection.' (author's abstract)

'The right of the Muslim minority of Western Thrace to receive education in the mother tongue is provided by the Treaty of Lausanne and the educational bilateral agreements - the Educational Agreement (1951) and the Cultural Protocol (1968) - signed between Greece and Turkey. Due to certain particularities in the educational system, however, minority students do not have adequate opportunities to gain knowledge of the Greek or Turkish language. The major problems the Muslim minority faces in education include: a mixed system of administration, outdated textbooks, poorly-educated teaching staff and the absence of an efficient school curriculum. This article will provide a critical analysis of the existing legislation on education provided to Muslim students in the minority schools of Western Thrace. Secondly, an examination will be made of the level and status of minority education in the light of current international human rights treaties documents for the protection of minorities. The existing inadequacies of the educational system will be addressed to provide a series of effective solutions and recommendations in favour of the advancement and improvement of education in minority schools. The article will therefore examine the principle that education needs to be made available and accessible at all levels to the members of a minority group and, most importantly, it needs to adapt to the socio-linguistic and cultural needs of minority students.' (author's abstract)

Der Verfasser setzt sich mit der Frage auseinander, welchen Einfluss die EU auf die Nationalitätenpolitik der Beitrittskandidaten ausübt. Er zeigt, welchen Beitrag die EU zur politischen Partizipation ethnischer Minderheiten in diesen Ländern geleistet hat. Die Minderheitenpolitik der EU verfolgt einen sicherheitspolitischen Ansatz, der die einvernehmliche Regelung von Konflikten gegenüber der Durchsetzung universeller Normen bevorzugt. Dies wird anhand von Beispielen aus Bulgarien, Rumänien und der Slowakei illustriert. Partnerschaftliche Beteiligung an der Macht ist, so die These des Verfassers, eher mit freiheitlich-demokratischen Prinzipien vereinbar als territoriale Autonomieregelungen dies sind. Die einer solchen Minderheitenpolitik zugrunde liegenden Ideen und Normen könnten sich in einer erweiterten EU durchsetzen, wenn auch weiterhin prinzipielle Hindernisse einer Vergemeinschaftung der Minderheitenpolitik entgegen stehen werden. (ICEÜbers), 'The article focuses on the impact exerted by the EU on domestic interethnic politics in accession countries. It argues that the EU has contributed to the emergence of power-sharing arrangements in accession countries, since its minority protection policy has been guided by a security approach that prioritizes the consensual settlement of disputes over the enforcement of universalist norms. The article analyzes the minority protection policy of the EU and highlights elements of consociational power-sharing observable in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. On this basis, it is claimed that consociational power-sharing arrangements are more compatible with liberal democratic principles than territorial autonomy arrangements. Ideas and norms supporting these arrangements could thus permeate into the minority protection policy of an enlarged EU, although the principal obstacles to communitarizing minority rights will persist.' (author's abstract)

In 2011 the world of ice hockey in Romania was hit by a scandal: during a match opposing Romania to Hungary, the players of the Romanian national team started singing the Hungarian national anthem and remained silent for the Romanian one. A few weeks later a player of the under-16 Romanian national team was beaten up by his young teammates because he, the sole Romanian ethnic of the team, asked his co-players, Hungarian ethnic Romanian citizens, to speak Romanian and not Hungarian. Some of the Romanian media in Bucharest rushed then on the scandal and the reactions were strong against what was considered an unacceptable evidence of Hungarian chauvinism. In this context the paper proposes a study of the reaction of the Romanian press to the events which launched the scandal. It shows how the inclusion and exclusion of the Hungarian minority is at stake in the discourse of the country's Romanian majority. Following a methodology inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis as proposed by Wodak (1999), the research takes into account articles in four Romanian daily newspapers dealing with the scandals. It demonstrates how an "other" is constructed in the press and how a latent exclusive discourse pervades into these newspapers.

Die Zuwanderung in die USA aus Lateinamerika ist zwar zurückgegangen, doch die Einwanderungsfrage bleibt brisant. Weitere Immigranten sowie die Einbürgerung "Illegaler" würden sich entscheidend auf die Wählerstruktur auswirken; die Stimmenanzahl der ethnischen Minderheiten hat sich im Vergleich zur vorherigen Präsidentschaftswahl bereits um 28 Millionen erhöht. Nichtsdestotrotz und angeleitet durch Donald Trumps Erfolge in den Umfragen versuchen mehrere Republikaner, sich in konservativen bis zu chauvinistischen Haltungen zur Einwanderungsfrage gegenseitig den Rang abzulaufen. Sollten Jeb Bush und Marco Rubio mit ihren liberaleren Einstellungen in den Vorwahlen scheitern, gäbe dies Hillary Clinton die Chance, die Stimmen der Latinos für sich zu gewinnen und die erste Präsidentin der USA zu werden.

"Im Nordosten Myanmars sind Kämpfe zwischen den Streitkräften der Zentralregierung und einer aus ethnischen Chinesen bestehenden Rebellengruppe wiederaufgeflammt. Auf den ersten Blick ist dies nur eine Randnotiz der internationalen Politik. Doch der Konflikt zeigt europäischen Beobachtern, dass China -sonst derzeit vor allem aufgrund der Streitigkeiten im Südchinesischen Meer in den Schlagzeilen- in bestimmten Fällen zurückhaltender agieren kann: die Lage in dem kulturell und wirtschaftlich chinesisch geprägten Gebiet böte einer auf nationalistische Emotionen setzenden Führung in Beijing einen plausiblen Anlass, um als Schutzmacht ethnischer Chinesen im Ausland aufzutreten. Im Falle Myanmars ist Beijing jedoch offenbar bereit, nationale Befindlichkeiten zugunsten langfristiger strategischer Ziele zurückzustellen. Das chinesische Verhalten beruht auf einem pragmatischen strategischen Ansatz Beijings: wichtige Nachbarn sollen nicht irritiert werden." (Autorenreferat)

Der vorliegende Beitrag wertet das Rahmenabkommen vom August 2001 kritisch aus, dessen Zweck es war, die bewaffnete Konfrontation zwischen der albanischen paramilitärischen Kraft, der nationalen Befreiungsarmee (NLA), und dem mazedonischen Staat zu beenden. Der Autor argumentiert, dass es einige Mängel in der Vereinbarung gibt, die in Zusammenhang mit der regionalen Sicherheit, der organisierten Kriminalität und dem ungelösten Status vom Kosovo stehen und zusammen genommen ein beträchtliches Hindernis für den Frieden und die Stabilität in Mazedonien bedeuten. Diese Mängel beziehen sich auf Probleme der Implementierung der Vereinbarung, sowie auf die Frage, wie der mazedonische Staat gestaltet werden soll. Es wird deutlich, dass die vereinbarte Machtenteilung eher zur Schaffung eines mazedonisch-albanischen binationalen Staates führt als zur Förderung eines bürgerlich orientierten multiethnischen Staates und dass die vorgesehene politische Dezentralisierung die staatliche Kapazität und Autorität untergräbt, wodurch sich die Friedensaussichten in Mazedonien verschlechtern. (ICD)

Viele Flüchtlinge verharren seit Jahren in beengten Wohnsituationen unter unwürdigen Lebensbedingungen. Wenn die Möglichkeit zur Rückkehr in die Heimat besteht, geschieht dies meist unter nicht zufriedenstellenden Bedingungen und kann sogar zu erneuter Vertreibung oder Gewalt führen. Um dies zu vermeiden, wird eine nachhaltige Flüchtlingsrückkehr angestrebt. Diese Dissertation präsentiert eine präzisere Definition nachhaltiger Rückkehr und entwickelt sieben Kriterien nachhaltiger Rückkehr. Mit Hilfe qualitativer Methoden testet sie diese Definition anhand des Fallbeispiels Kosovo und vergleicht sechs in den Kosovo zurückkehrende Minderheiten. Abschließend liefert sie einen überarbeiteten theoretischen Rahmen und gibt Politikempfehlungen, um Flüchtlingsrückkehr zu verbessern. Zusammenfassend zeigt diese Arbeit, dass die Rückkehr erfolgreicher ist und positiv zum Aufbau von Nachkriegsgesellschaften beitragen kann, wenn die Kriterien im Heimatland den definierten Standards entsprechen. Refugees and their escape from violent conflicts or environmental disasters play a considerable role in international politics and are a key concern in social science research. When refugees leave their home country, they surely do not do this without the wish to return one day. However, returning is not always a feasible option, especially when the home state still struggles for peace and freedom. At best a refugee return to their home country needs to be “sustainable.” The thesis at hand gives a more appropriate and more precise definition of a sustainable return and develops seven criteria that enable a sustainable return. It further tests the definition and the criteria practically by analyzing six minority communities returning to post-conflict Kosovo. At the end, it critically revises the theory of sustainable return following discrepancies found between theory and practice and it gives focused policy recommendations to improve return to Kosovo and other post-conflict societies.

Recent multiethnic Lebanese history has been characterised by a high degree of tension between sectarian groups and the state. In a number of cases, minority groups’ resistance to localised majority groups developed into a manifest attempt to limit the action of the central authority by embracing alternative loyalties, both transnational and interreligious. Makdisi (2000) argues that in a multiconfessional Lebanon the old-fashioned idea of longstanding violence between competing sects is unsustainable. However, political microanalysis based on empirical material collected in South Lebanon during and after the 2006 war shows that in situations where state and ethno-religious groups fail to establish a dialogue, tension leads citizens to view the state as alien and other groups as enemies.With reference to Christian minority group responses, this paper looks at the ways Hizbullah post-conflict strategies of reconstruction have been legitimated. Considering the Weberian notion of the state’s sole power and Prato’s (2000) analysis of citizen loyalties to the state as a welfare provider, and reassessing this notion with empirical data collected in conflictual loci, this paper examines the rise of a religion-driven movement in a scenario marked by dramatic economic transformation. The analysis suggests that group denial of the state’s role is most evident at a local level, where sectarian attitudes (e.g. concerning land or property issues) take precedence over nationally based loyalties and where this denial is the only perceptible means of survival for both the individual and his or her group., Studies of Transition States and Societies, Vol 6, No 1 (2014)

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht Wahlpolitik und Wahlverhalten von Roma in Osteuropa. Nach wie vor sind die Roma unterrepräsentiert in nationalen und lokalen politischen Bereichen. Der Autor analysiert die Probleme, die die Roma im Zusammenhang mit Wahlen haben, überprüft die Beziehungen zwischen Roma und wichtigen politischen Organisationen und erforscht das Wahlverhalten der Roma. Der politische Wandel vom Sozialismus zur freien Marktwirtschaft gab den Roma die Gelegenheit, ihre politische Marginalisierung zu verringern. Nach einer Dekade der Mobilisierung bleiben sie aber weiterhin unterrepräsentiert in der osteuropäischen Politik. Hierfür gibt es zahlreiche strukturelle Gründe auch innerhalb der Ethnie selbst. (ICD)

Pro-russische separatistische Aktivitäten in der Ostukraine lenkten im April 2014 das Augenmerk von der Krimhalbinsel ab, die Russland erst einen Monat zuvor annektiert hatte. Dabei wirft die völkerrechtswidrige Krim-Annexion Fragen von aktueller und ge-schichtlicher Relevanz auf, die nicht zuletzt die tatarische Volksgruppe betreffen. Auch wenn die rund 300 000 Tataren nur etwa 12 Prozent der Bevölkerung auf der Krimhalb-insel stellen, verdienen ihre gegenwärtige Situation, ihre historische Erfahrung und die aus ihr abgeleiteten Vorbehalte gegen russische Oberherrschaft Aufmerksamkeit. Die russische Politik schwankt zwischen Maßnahmen zur Rehabilitierung der Krim-tataren, die zu den »bestraften Völkern« der ehemaligen Sowjetunion gehören, und repressiven Maßnahmen wie dem Einreiseverbot für ihren politischen Führer Mustafa Dschemilew. Wie steht diese Volksgruppe zu dem Status ihrer historischen Heimat als neue Teilrepublik der Russischen Föderation? Wie ist die Gefahr gewaltsamer ethnischer Konflikte auf der Krim einzuschätzen? Welche ethno-politischen Risiken sind mit der Eingliederung der Krim in die »einzigartige Vielvölkerzivilisation« (Wladimir Putin) Russland verbunden? (Autorenreferat)

Am 20. September 2014 wird in Neuseeland das Parlament neu gewählt; Premierminister John Key strebt hierbei eine dritte Amtszeit an. Es ist die siebte Wahl, die unter einem proporzorientierten Mischwahlsystem durchgeführt wird, welches bereits seit dem Jahr 1949 in ähnlicher Form auch in Deutschland Anwendung findet. Das seit dem Jahr 1996 in Neuseeland verwendete proporzorientierte Mischwahlsystem hat sich bewährt. Besonderheiten der neuseeländischen Variante des Mischwahlsystems liegen in zusätzlichen speziellen Wahlkreisen für die indigene Bevölkerungsgruppe der Māori sowie der Möglichkeit für Parteien, bereits bei Gewinn eines Direktmandats mit vollem Stimmenanteil in das Parlament einzuziehen. Dem Willen der Regierung sind in der neuseeländischen Variante der Westminster-Demokratie nur wenige institutionelle Schranken gesetzt; umso wichtiger sind als demokratischer Kontrollmechanismus die spätestens alle drei Jahre stattfindenden Parlamentswahlen. Im Mittelpunkt des neuseeländischen Parteiensystems stehen weiterhin die sozialdemokratische Labour Party und die konservative National Party, die auch unter dem Mischwahlsystem ihren Status als "Volksparteien" erfolgreich behaupten konnten. Die Spezifika des Wahlsystems machen es für kleinere Parteien einfacher, in das Parlament zu gelangen, was wiederum die wiederholte Bildung von vergleichsweise stabilen Minderheitsregierungen erleichtert hat. Der Frauenanteil im neuseeländischen Parlament ist unter dem Mischwahlsystem auf ein Drittel gestiegen und die Māori sind dort mittlerweile recht stark repräsentiert. Im September erhofft sich die seit dem Jahr 2008 regierende National Party den dritten Wahlsieg in Folge. Angesichts der positiven Entwicklung der Wirtschaft stehen die Chancen hierfür, trotz einiger jüngerer Skandale, nicht schlecht.