The Quality of Divided Democracies

The Quality of Divided Democracies contemplates how democracy works, or fails to work, in ethno-culturally divided societies. It advances a new theoretical approach to assessing the quality of democracy in divided societies, and puts it into practice with the focused comparison of two divided democraciesEstonia and Latvia. The book uses rich comparative data to tackle the vital questions of what determines a democracy's level of inclusiveness and the ways in which minorities can gain access to the policy-making process. It uncovers a voicepolarization dilemma for minorities' inclusion in the democratic process, which has implications for academic debates on minority representation and ethnic politics, as well as practical implications for international and national institutions' promotion of minority rights.