Karen Bird

THE POLITICAL REPRESENTATION OF VISIBLE MINORITIES IN ELECTORAL DEMOCRACIES: A COMPARISON OF FRANCE, DENMARK, AND CANADA

This article examines political representation among visible ethnic minorities in France, Denmark and Canada. Drawing from these cases, it proposes a general model for comparing patterns of visible minority representation. Three sets of factors—citizenship regimes, institutional features and interest constellations—interact to shape the political opportunity structure for ethnic minority representation. Because these factors vary across and within countries, the result is very different levels of representation from one country to another, as well as important local differences within each country. Configurations across these three factors also have an important impact on the electoral strategies of individual ethnic candidates, and determine the style and substance of ethnic representation in each country.

Ethnic quotas and ethnic representation worldwide

This article makes theoretical and empirical contributions towards understanding the form and function of ethnic quotas that are applied in various countries around the world. It advances a classification scheme for sorting through the broad variation in these electoral mechanisms. Initial exploration suggests that variation among ethnic quota schemes corresponds more with regime type, and less with differences in ethnic demography. Nevertheless, particular rules do operate differently in relation to ethnic diversity and inter-group conflict. Different rules also appear to have an impact on representational dynamics, including the capacity of minority ethnic representatives to exercise legislative influence on matters of concern to their community.

Racist Speech or Free Speech? A Comparison of the Law in France and the United States

In July 1972 the French parliament passed the Pleven Law to combat racism. This law provided criminal and civil remedies against racial discrimination and racist speech. It became illegal to incite racial hatred or to use language that was racially defamatory, contemptuous, or offensive.1 Under the Gayssot Law, passed in July 1990, it is illegal to deny publicly the occurrence of the Nazi Holocaust. Punishments for these offenses include fines, imprisonment of up to one year, suspension of electoral eligibility for up to five years, and publication of the courts decision in major daily newspapers at the expense of the guilty party. The Pleven Law has been applied regularly against racist agitators. In 1997 there were eightyeight convictions for racist speech with fines averaging 10,000 francs and prison sentences averaging two months, depending on the category of infraction. One of the most notable targets of the law has been Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right-wing National Front. Le Pen has been convicted and fined for racist speech on five occasions, and there have been dozens of convictions against other principal members of his party. The legislative response to racist speech has been quite different in the United States. American courts have generally interpreted the First Amendment as protecting the rights of groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis to hold rallies in which they advocate racial hatred and violence and to burn crosses or brandish swastikas in public places. Recently, however, this approach has come under some question. An increase in racist incidents and heightened sensitivity to such incidents in a multicultural society have aroused interest in regulating racist speech. In the late 1980s and early 1990s many U.S. universities adopted codes of conduct limiting racist and other kinds of hate speech, in an effort to create a more welcome climate on campus.2 Some cities also passed restrictions against racist speech. In June 1990 city officers of St. Paul, Minnesota, arrested a group of teenagers for burning a cross on a black familys front lawn and charged them with racially hateful conduct.3 One of the youths contested St. Pauls antiracist bylaw, arguing that it was in violation of his constitutionally protected right to free expression. The St. Paul ordinance was unanimously struck down by the Supreme Court, and many similar antiracist speech codes that had been adopted across the country were subsequently dismantled.4 At first glance, it would seem difficult to imagine more divergent legal responses

Intersections of exclusion: the institutional dynamics of combined gender and ethnic quota systems

Despite growing interest in the politics of intersectionality, applications in the domain of electoral reform and political representation have been slow, both in scholarship and on the ground. This paper develops a new avenue of inquiry into this issue. Focusing on 17 countries that employ quotas/reservations for both women and ethnic minorities in elections to national parliament, I show that there are rarely representational gains for those located at the intersection of the two quota mechanisms. This is because quotas for women and minorities are rarely “nested.” Rather they tend to operate independently, often through entirely separate contests to fill the parliamentary seats allotted to each group. Beyond developing a clearer specification of the rules and mechanical effects of dual quota systems, I apply a feminist institutionalist framework to gain greater insight into the informal dynamics that contribute to minority womens persistent under-representation in a variety of contexts. Finally, the paper sketches an agenda for transformative action and institutional reform to advance the political inclusion of ethnic minority women.

Sex (And Ethnicity) in the City: Affinity Voting in the 2014 Toronto Mayoral Election

Do women vote for women and men for men? Do visible minorities vote for minority candidates, and white voters for white candidates? And what happens when a minority woman appears on the ballot? This study tests for the presence of gender and ethnic affinity voting in the Toronto mayoral election of 2014, where Olivia Chow was the only woman and only visible minority candidate among the three major contenders. Our analysis, which draws on a survey of eligible Toronto voters, is the first to examine the interactive effects of sex and ethnicity on vote choice in Canada in the context of a non-partisan election and in a non-experimental manner. We find strong evidence of ethnic affinity voting and show that Chow received stronger support from ethnic Chinese voters than from other minority groups. Our results also reveal that gender was related to vote choice but only when connected with race.

Why So Few Women and Minorities in Local Politics?: Incumbency and Affinity Voting in Low Information Elections

Previous research has examined the effects of incumbency or affinity voting on the political representation of women and minorities. No study has considered the interaction of these two factors, even though there are good reasons to suspect that both may play a key role in voter choice. This study examines the joint effects of incumbency and gender and racial affinity voting in non-partisan and generally low information ward elections in the City of Toronto. Results reveal the absence of gender affinity effects, regardless of the presence of an incumbent, but that racial affinity is a factor in wards without incumbents.