Reserved Seats, Political Parties, and Minority Representation

Abstract

This article seeks to clarify the relationship between reserved seats filled through competitive elections, political parties, and substantive minority representation. It argues that the party affiliation of the minority representative moderates the impact of reserved seats on substantive representation since minority and party constituencies can cross-pressure a representative or, in the case of overlap, can allow her to cater to party and minority interests simultaneously. Drawing on empirical examples, the article first classifies party affiliations along the criterion of overlap between minority interests and party appeal into five categories: ‘coinciding ethnic’ parties, ‘multi-ethnic’ parties, ‘partial ethnic’ parties, ‘other ethnic’ parties, and ‘non-ethnic’ parties. Hypotheses about how these affiliations affect a reserved-seat representative's willingness to act for the minority are later developed, expecting a strong positive effect of the coinciding ethnic party, a weak positive effect for multi- and partial ethnic parties, a negative effect for other ethnic parties, and no effect for non-ethnic party affiliation.