What is an Ethnic Appeal? Policies as Metonymies for Ethnicity in the Political Rhetoric of Group Identity

Abstract

Ethnic identifications remain among the most consequential aspects of politics. Existing ‘constructivist’ models of ethnic politics rightly insist on the fluidity of individual identities, yet fail to problematize the types of appeal made to communities across cases. Collective action requires both personal identification and the clarification of the political meaning and appropriate expression of this identification, so simple references to group attributes are unlikely to suffice for mobilization. Given also that a notion of the politicization of ethnicity based on elites' strategy is central to studying the effects of institutions, power-sharing and electoral rules on inter-group relations, better understanding of what constitutes an ethnic appeal is necessary. This article derives a conceptual vocabulary and suggests a typology of political demands made on behalf of ethnic communities in multicultural democracies. Seemingly unobtrusive, these demands exhibit a structure within which claims about group authenticity and value are combined with rhetoric of rights and entitlement into arguments about representation and redistribution. Some policy positions are thus revealed as political metonymies for group identity. Analysing appeals in this fashion can aid case selection and hypothesis formulation, and contribute to tackling the long-standing issue of ‘coded’ references to race and ethnicity.