Abstract

In this paper, we investigated the impact of different institutions on ethnic minorities’ political participation. Based on the results of a hierarchical cross-country comparison, we found that individuals belonging to ethnic minorities were less likely to participate in national elections than members of the majority groups within the same country. We tested whether this negative effect of belonging to an ethnic minority group on political participation could be attenuated by inclusive institutions such as suffrage rights, horizontal power-sharing institutions (Proportional electoral system PR, effective proportionality, the number of government parties) or vertical power-dividing institutions in terms of federalism (subnational elections and subnational authority) attenuated the negative effect of belonging to an ethnic
minority group. The results of multilevel analyses showed that suffrage rights attenuate the negative effect of minority status on political participation. In contrast, power dividing enhances the negative effect of belonging to an ethnic minority group on political participation.