The ethnic political parties are political parties whose principal raison d'être is the defense of the interests of one or of several group (S) ethnic (S) or other minorities (linguistic, religious) by the means of the participation in the elections. The parties ethnoregionalists constitute is another category of parties if it is considered that the ethnic parties are specific to the minorities " dispersées" , that is to say a subcategory of the ethnic parties.

Definitions

In Latin America:
the ethnic party is defined here like an organization authorized to contribute to local elections or main roads; the majority of its direction car-is identified like pertaining to a Ethnicity not dominating, and its election platform includes requirements and programs for an ethnic or cultural nature.
In India:
an ethnic party is a party which represents itself openly as a defender of the cause of a particular ethnic category or a whole of categories to the exlusion of others and which makes this representation a central point of its strategy of mobilization of the voters.
See also a comparison between various definitions of the parties (ethno-) regionalistic and a discussion on their relevance in Maxmilián Strmiska, off has Study one Conceptualization (Ethno) regional Parties, Central European Political Studies Review (Brno), Part 2-3, Volume IV, spring-summer 2002.

Parties ethnic, ethnoregionalists, regionalistic

There exist two main categories of parties of minorities:
  1. the parties separatists-territorialistes (“(ethno-) regionalistic”, “separatist”), which aim at the self-determination - to differing degree - of a territorial entity for the account of a ethnic minority, linguistic or religious (the Sardinian Parti action, the Union of the Corsican people, the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, the Dashnak in the Ottoman Empire, the Parti Québécois, the democratic Diète istrienne etc)
  2. the left ethnic , which have as an ambition to represent a ethnic minority , linguistic or religious territorialement dispersed within a political system given, that it is of a Sovereign state or a subetatic entity, the oldest prototypes while being the Jewish parties of the empires Russian and Austro-Hungarian, Bund, Folkspartei, Agoudat Israel, and the Swedish party of Finland, the Svenska Folkpartiet, all founded at the end of the 19th century or the first decade of XXe, at the time when the theoretical option of main road-cultural autonomy by the austromarxists was also developed.

Ideological options

Diversity partisane within the same minority

There are degrees in the claim of autonomy, there are also ideological differences sometimes completely irreconcilable between parties asserting autonomy for the same territory or the same ethnicity, for example for the Juifs of Poland in the inter-war period between the parties Zionists of various obediences, Agoudat Israel (ultra-orthodoxe), the Bund (Marxist) and the Folkspartei (liberal).

In certain cases, only one party, becoming “supra-ideological de facto”, aims, with more or less success, to represent the whole of an ethnicity, like the Svenska Folkpartiet in Finland, SSW (Danish and Frisons) in the German Land of the the Schleswig-Holstein, the left the Greek minority in Albania, the democratic Union of the Magyars of Romania, the Parti the Hungarian coalition in Slovakia, the Polish electoral Action of Lithuania, the Union océanienne (Wallisian and Futuniens) in New Caledonia with the elections of 1989, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement with the Pakistan. The case of the German Minorité list in Poland watch on the other hand that a disaffection of the ethnic electorate can occur to refer on nonethnic parties and more ideologically marked.

International affiliations

Many parties of minorities adhere to international regroupings parties:

Electoral trusts

Regroupings or electoral agreements for example took place in Poland of the inter-war period as well between Jewish parties as between parties Jewish and started from other minorities, and even between an ethnic party and a of the same party-brother ideological tendency, in fact the Jewish Bund and the Polish Socialist party with the local elections of 1939.

They also existed in Czechoslovakia of the inter-war period where certain parties of the German minorities (" of Sudètes " or " of Carpates ") and of the Hungarian parties presented a list " magyaro-allemande" with the legislative elections.

The democratic Rassemblement océanien (Wallisian and Futuniens) in New Caledonia thus adhered to one components Front of release national kanak and socialist, which enables him to have an elected official, whereas it would not only pass the electoral threshold of 5% while being presented.

With the legislative elections of 2005 in Bulgaria, it (itself a regrouping of 3 parties and 9 other organizations) belonged to the list " Coalition for Bulgarie" , formed around the Bulgarian Socialist party, whereas a list was only presented.

Exemption of the electoral threshold for the parties of the ethnic minorities

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the electoral Seuil minimum of 5% was adopted in the years 1950 to eliminate from the political scene an ethnic party, the Bloc of the Refugees (GB/BHE), which aimed at representing in the German political system the million refugees, moved and expelled German coming from the territories passed under Soviet control. On the other hand, Länder of the the Schleswig-Holstein and the Brandebourg introduced an exception for the parties representing a recognized ethnic minority, the Danish and the Frisons in the first case (the recipient while being the Südschleswigscher Wählerverband), the Sorabes in the second, where the Popular party sorabe was set up in order to profit from it.

This system was adopted, with alternatives, in certain news democracies of Europe, in Poland, Romania and Serbia. Another institutional technique setting-up with the same objective is the creation of reserved Sièges.

Diaspora parties

A subcategory of the parties of minorities is that of the parties which exist only in the internal political arena of minorities in Diaspora. The most obvious case is that of the sections abroad of national political parties (Democrats Abroad, Brussels & Europe Liberal Democrats, the Federation of the French from abroad of the PS, the Likoud - France etc), but it exists about it the different one which contribute for example to the elections organized for the Diaspora assemblies.

The French parties do not take part as such in the elections of the Parliament of the French from abroad (Higher ex-Council of the French from Abroad), but by the means of political associations like the Union of the French from Abroad (right-hand side) or the Democratic Association of the French from Abroad (left).

It goes from there more or less in the same way for the elections of the Comitati degli Italiani ale Estero , Comités of the Italians abroad, or the Councils of the Spanish residents.

For the period of Soviet occupation in Arménie Eastern, the Armenian parties Dashnak, Hentchak and Ramgavar had this statute of Diaspora parties thus, sometimes being able to reach parliamentary seats reserved for the Armenian community, the Lebanon and in Syria for example, or at least with seats in councils of district or municipal, with Marseilles for example where the party-brother of the Dashnak, SFIO of Gaston Defferre, reserved an eligible place with the Armenian Socialists in exchange of a support for his own lists.

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