Political representation and ethnic conflict in new democracies

This paper is an exploratory analysis of the efficacy of parliamentary representation as a means to moderate ethnic conflict in new democracies. We agree with many others that the interests of an ethnic minority group are better protected when the group has access to decision makers, can block harmful government policies, and can veto potentially damag-ing decisions. Parliamentary representation, however, does not always allow for an effec-tive representation of those who are not in government. Seats in the legislature may be of little use in a parliament where the executive dominates the policy process at all stages. This paper focuses on the new democracies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2000. We use the number of parliamentary seats obtained by the ethnic minority group as our main independent variable and the MAR index of ethnic protest and rebellion as our dependent variables. In addition, we employ the system of government (i.e., parliamentary versus presidential) as a proxy indicator of the degree of influence that parliamentary parties have over decision-making. A cross-section-time-series regression analysis shows that the ameliorative effect of parliamentary representation over ethnic con-flict is stronger in those legislatures where the ethnic group has effective influence over decision making. It is also shown that representation within national parliaments has no ameliorative effects over violent secessionist conflicts. When the ethnic minority’s demands are too radical, parliamentary representation is simply an inadequate instrument.