| Revision as of 02:20, 4 August 2006 editIntangible (talk | contribs)7,421 edits recat← Previous edit |
Revision as of 21:40, 22 August 2006 edit undo205.188.117.68 (talk) {{Deletedpage}}Next edit → |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
|
|
{{Deletedpage}} |
|
Ethnic parties aim to represent an ethnic group in a political system, be it a sovereign state or a subnational entity. An alternate designation is 'Political parties of minorities', but they shouldn't be mistaken with ] or ] parties, whose purpose is territorial autonomy. |
|
|
|
|
|
==Historical ethnic parties== |
|
|
The oldest prototypes of ethnic parties are the Jewish parties of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, e.g. ], ], ], and the Swedish party in ], ] (SFP), all of them founded in the end of the 19th century or in the first decade of the 20th. |
|
|
|
|
|
== Ethnic parties and political ideologies == |
|
|
Ethnic parties may take different ideological positions. |
|
|
|
|
|
For instance, the parties competing for Jewish votes in interwar ] and ] had a range of different political views. There were Zionist parties (themselves divided into Revisionist, General or Labour parties), there was ] (an Orthodox religious party), the ] (Marxist) and the ] (liberal). |
|
|
|
|
|
In some political systems, party politics are mostly based on ethnicity, as in ] and its federal regions, in ], in ], in ], in ] or in ]. In ], 46 seats out of 71 are elected from ethnically-closed ], as there was in the pre-Israel ] Jewish Assembly, the ], with separate 'curiae' for ], ] and ], and ]. |
|
|
|
|
|
As a consequence, it would be somewhat irrelevant to classify some parties in these systems as 'ideological' (], ], ] etc.) and some others as 'purely ]', 'purely ]' or 'purely ]' parties. |
|
|
|
|
|
The SFP is a full-fledged member of the ], as well as the ], representing the Turkish minority in ], the ] SVP (grouping German- and Ladin-speaking inhabitants of Italian ] province) is a member of the Christian Democratic ], whereas the ], an ] party in ]/] is a member of the ], etc.. |
|
|
|
|
|
In interwar Poland, Jewish, German and Ukrainian parties never attracted all ], Germans and Ukrainians of whom some were members of 'national' ideological Polish parties, mostly the Socialist and Communist parties, who were considered more open-minded than the conservative or nationalist parties. |
|
|
|
|
|
== Ethnic parties and elections == |
|
|
Common lists or electoral agreements can be organized either between ethnic parties (Flemish parties ']'s for municipal elections in Brussels or ] in ], the coalition for the 2001 parliamentary elections in Bulgaria between the - mostly Turkish - ] and the Roma party ]) or between two parties having common ideological options beyond ethnic differences, as the Bund and the 'Polish' socialist party ] for the municipal elections in 1939. |
|
|
|
|
|
Some ethnic parties only take part in substatal electoral competition, thus making them somewhat invisible to outside observers: the SSW in Schleswig-Holstein, the German parties in ] and ], the ] parties in ]. |
|
|
|
|
|
It can occur that a single 'supra-ideological' party achieves, with varying shades of success, the representation of a whole ethnic group, as for the ] in ], the ] for Danes and ] in the German Land of ], the ] for Greeks in Albania, the ] for ] in Northeastern Italy, the ] for Turks in Bulgaria, the ]. |
|
|
|
|
|
In most cases, ethnic parties compete inside electoral systems where voters aren't compelled to vote according to ethnic affiliations and may vote too for 'non ethnic', 'transethnic' or 'supraethnic' ideological parties. In most Near Eastern Arab countries, the only such parties were the Communist parties, whose founding fathers and subsequent leaders came mostly from the Jewish, Armenian, Kurdish or Shi'ia minorities. The socialist movement in ] (present Northern Greece) during the last decade of the ] was divided across ethnic lines between the ] (who formed the majority of the population), the Bulgarian and Macedonian Slavs and the Greeks, but all groups united when it came to election time. |
|
|
|
|
|
== 'Intraethnic parties', or political parties inside diasporic communities == |
|
|
There is also a specifically diasporic type of political parties that could be labelled as 'intraethnic parties', i.e. parties that compete only inside the political sphere. |
|
|
|
|
|
The Jewish and Armenian (], ], or ]) parties belong to this category, as well as the international sections of national parties, such as the (U.S.) ] and ], the (British) ], the (French) Parti Socialiste's Fédération des Français de l'Etranger or the American and European branches of the Israeli ] and of the ] (Nationalist Party of China). |
|
|
|
|
|
There can also be political groupings representing members of a national community living aborad, such as the Association Démocratique des Français de l'Etranger (left-wing) and the Union des Français de l'Etranger (right-wing), both competing for seats in the ], or the various political lists competing for the ] (]). |
|
|
|
|
|
] |
|
|
|
|
|
] |
|
