Political Participation of Minorities

Abstract

The author briefs about the question as to the reason why one need political participation of persons belonging to minorities. He also equally addresses the issue of who should be able to participate in this process of political participation; this means obviously that he shall deal with the definition of the term 'minority', in particular whether only persons belonging to 'traditional', or 'autochthonous' or 'old' minorities should be included or whether also persons belonging to immigrant or other groups whose members have recently settled in the region concerned should, as 'new' minorities, be entitled to and, if so, to what extent political participation. The chapter then presents the various modalities of political participation or, in other words, how the political participation of minorities can be successfully implemented. Additional objective elements are the numerical inferiority of minorities and their non-dominant position. Keywords: 'new' minorities; 'old' minorities; immigrant; inferiority; political participation