An ethnic party is a political party that overtly presents itself as the champion of one ethnic group or sets of ethnic groups. Ethnic parties make such representation central to their voter mobilization strategy. An alternate designation is 'Political parties of minorities', but they should not be confused with regionalist or separatist parties, whose purpose is territorial autonomy or independence.
Definitions
There are varied definitions of both ethnicity and ethnic parties.
Ethnicity
Kanchan Chandra defines ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by the belief of common descent. She rejects expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory). Jóhanna Birnir defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location."
Ethnic party
According to Donna Lee Van Cott,<blockquote>Ethnic party is defined here as an organization authorized to compete in local or national elections; the majority of its leadership and membership identify themselves as belonging to a nondominant ethnic group, and its electoral platform includes demands and programs of an ethnic or cultural nature.</blockquote>According to Kanchan Chandra,<blockquote>An ethnic party is a party that overtly represents itself as a champion of the cause of one particular ethnic category or set of categories to the exclusion of others, and that makes such a representation central to its strategy of mobilizing voters.
Ethnic parties and reserved seats
Some countries create reserved seats in their legislatures for ethnic minorities. In such a case, ethnic parties may primarily or solely compete to win these seats. Examples of this include the Independent Democratic Serb Party which competes for the Sabor's Serb reserved seats and the Maori Party, competing primarily in the Māori electorates.
'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 diasporic political sphere.
The Jewish and Armenian (Dashnak, Ramgavar, or Hentchak) parties belong to this category, as well as the international sections of national parties, such as the (U.S.) Republicans Abroad and Democrats Abroad, the (French) Parti socialiste's Fédération des Français de l'étranger or the American and European branches of the Israeli Likud and of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China).
There can also be specific political groupings representing members of a national community living abroad, such as the Association démocratique des Français de l'étranger - Français du Monde (left-wing) and the Union des Français de l'Étranger (right-wing), both competing for seats in the Assemblée des Français de l'étranger (fr), or the various political lists competing for the Comitati degli italiani all'estero (COMITES).
See also
- Ethnic nationalism
- Diaspora politics
- Ethnocracy