Internal Ethnic Minorities, Plight, and Mechanisms for Their Protection

• In Event: Federalism in Action

Abstract

The internal ethnic minorities in the context of decentralisation are ethnic groups that have less political or economic power within a constituent unit of a state. Their minority status internally is the result of a territorial arrangement by a state that is meant to divide power between the center and the constituent units. This is done to give more power to some national minorities that make up majorities at a sub-national level. But giving more power to the ethnic groups that make up a majority within a constituent unit also creates new minorities within that constituent unit. Because people move due to trade or search for employment, among other reasons, it is hard to find a sub-national unit that is totally homogenous. These new minorities face ethnic exclusion similar to or even worse than what ethnic minorities face from the country-wide majority the national level before the territorial arrangement. The internal ethnic minorities are sometimes called "minorities within minorities," among other names.

Internal ethnic minorities are often defined as the distinction between groups which have power or don't have power within the constituent units of a state, the idea of minorities still doesn't have a universal definition. Because of this, it can be difficult to determine out who counts as a minority, especially when it comes to ethnic internal minorities. Some groups are not considered minorities because they are not "traditional" minorities. In other cases, it's because they are not citizens or are not "sufficiently" dominated to deserve the status. In the end, then, different minorities are discriminated against because they are not the right kind of minorities to different parties.

In a sense, the rights of minorities can be thought of as rights against the majority. Moreover, minorities are not all the same. As has already been said, a minority at the national level can be a majority at the constituent unit of the state. It is also important to keep in mind that the protection given to national minorities may affect how that minority interacts with other minorities within it when it is a majority. So, it's important to be aware of the different minorities at different territorial arrangements, to predict the problems that each group is likely to face (or is already facing), to come up with ways to protect the minorities, and to think about how protecting the minorities might affect how they interact with internal minorities and how to protect these internal minorities.

Author

• Christopher Ben Nyabira, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS)