In political science, minoritarianism (or minorityism) is a neologism for a political structure or process in which a minority group of a population has a certain degree of primacy in that population's decision making, [1] [2] with legislative power or judicial power being held or controlled by a minority group rather than a majority that is representative of the population.
Minoritarianism is most often applied disparagingly to processes in which a minority is able to block legislative changes in the presence of supermajority threshold requirements.[ citation needed ] For example, if a two-thirds majority vote in favor is required to enact a new law, an opposing minority of greater than one-third is said to have "minoritarian" powers.
Even in the case where minority control is nominally limited to blocking the majority with veto power (whether as a result of a supermajority requirement or consensus decision-making), this may result in the situation where the minority retains effective control over the group's agenda and the nature of the proposals submitted to the group, as the majority would be disinclined to propose ideas that they know the minority would veto.
Critics of this use of minoritarianism argue that the ability to block legislation is substantially different from the ability to enact new legislation against the will of the majority, making the analogy to unpopular "dominant minority rule" examples inappropriate.
Minoritarianism is sometimes used to describe rule by a dominant minority such as an ethnic group delineated by religion, language, or some other identifying factor.
Minoritarianism may also be used to describe some cases where appeasement of minorities by votebank politics is practiced. Examples include but are not limited to, Indian Muslims [3] and Francophone Canadians.
Supermajority decision threshold requirements are often found in small deliberative groups where these requirements are sometimes adopted in an attempt to increase protection of varied interests within the group. The requirements may be formally stated or may be unstated (for example, when an organization is described as having a "consensus culture").
A common criticism of consensus decision-making is that it can lead to a situation wherein a minority can block the will of the majority. Consensus advocates argue that this is a good feature—that no action is preferable to one without the consensus support of the group.
Attempts to resolve the dilemma through formal supermajority standards are generally discouraged by parliamentary authorities:
Some people have mistakenly assumed that the higher the vote required to take an action, the greater the protection of the members. Instead the opposite is true. Whenever a vote of more than a majority is required to take an action, control is taken from the majority and given to the minority. ... The higher the vote required, the smaller the minority to which control passes.
—from "The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure" by Alice Sturgis [4]
A dominant minority, also called elite dominance, is a minority group that wields political, economic, or cultural dominance in a country, despite representing only a subset of the overall population (a demographic minority).[ citation needed ] Dominant minorities are also known as alien elites if they are recent immigrants.[ citation needed ]
The term is most commonly used to refer to an ethnic group which is defined along racial, national, religious, cultural or tribal lines and that holds a disproportionate amount of power.
Christians in Sierra Leone are an example of minoritarianism. As of 2020, they make up 21% of population compared to 78% Muslims.
The Tutsi in Rwanda from 1884 to 1959 exerted minoritarian rule over the Hutu population.
From 1965 to 1979, the government of Rhodesia (later renamed Zimbabwe) was controlled by a white minority. During this period, Black Rhodesians faced institutional discrimination and had limited rights compared to their White counterparts.
South Africa was ruled by the apartheid regime from 1948 to 1994, wherein White South Africans wielded predominant control of the country although they were never more than 22% of the population. All non-white South Africans were subject to segregation and discriminatory laws, resulting in disparities in quality of life. [5]
In Liberia, African American-descended nationals (known as Americo-Liberians) settled in Liberia during the 19th century. Americo-Liberians were culturally disconnected from native Liberians, preferring Western-style wear, American food, Protestantism, and the English language. [6] They formed an elite that ruled as a de facto one-party state under the True Whig Party (TWP). The 1980 Liberian coup d'état overthrew the TWP administration, ending Americo-Liberian minoritarian rule.[ citation needed ]
During the Imperial period of Chinese history, China experienced minoritarian rule in two separate instances. The Yuan dynasty was founded by Mongols, and ruled over the majority-Han population of China from 1271 to 1368. [7]
The Qing dynasty took power of China in 1644 and ruled until 1912; this dynasty was formed by Manchus. Han Chinese were forced to assimilate to Manchu customs under the policy of Tifayifu , which demanded the Han people wear Manchu-syle clothing, and adopt the queue hairstyle. [8] [9]
Sunni Arabs in Ba'athist Iraq, the Alawite minority in Syria (since 1970 under the rule of the Alawite Assad family), have also been cited as 20th-century and early-21st-century examples.[ citation needed ]
The Qing dynasty, officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history. The dynasty, proclaimed in Shenyang in 1636, seized control of Beijing in 1644, which is considered the start of the dynasty's rule. The dynasty lasted until 1912, when it was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution. In Chinese historiography, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The multi-ethnic Qing dynasty assembled the territorial base for modern China. It was the largest imperial dynasty in the history of China and in 1790 the fourth-largest empire in world history in terms of territorial size. With over 426 million citizens in 1907, it was the most populous country in the world at the time.
Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to films, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes or renting hotel rooms. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Racial segregation has generally been outlawed worldwide.
China proper, also called Inner China, are terms used primarily in the West in reference to the traditional "core" regions of China centered in the southeast. The term was first used by Westerners during the Manchu-led Qing dynasty to describe the distinction between the historical "Han lands" (漢地)—i.e. regions long dominated by the majority Han population—and the "frontier" regions of China where more non-Han ethnic groups and new foreign immigrants reside, sometimes known as "Outer China". There is no fixed extent for China proper, as many administrative, cultural, and linguistic shifts have occurred in Chinese history. One definition refers to the original area of Chinese civilization, the Central Plain ; another to the Eighteen Provinces of the Qing dynasty. There was no direct translation for "China proper" in the Chinese language at the time due to differences in terminology used by the Qing to refer to the regions. Even to today, the expression is controversial among scholars, particularly in mainland China, due to issues pertaining to contemporary territorial claim and ethnic politics.
The Manchus are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) and Qing (1636–1912) dynasties of China were established and ruled by the Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China, forming the fourth largest ethnic group in the country. They are found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. Among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the population live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. There are a number of Manchu autonomous counties in China, such as Xinbin, Xiuyan, Qinglong, Fengning, Yitong, Qingyuan, Weichang, Kuancheng, Benxi, Kuandian, Huanren, Fengcheng, Beizhen and over 300 Manchu towns and townships. Manchus are the largest minority group in China without an autonomous region.
Sinicization, sinofication, sinification, or sinonization is the process by which non-Chinese societies or groups are acculturated or assimilated into Chinese culture, particularly the language, societal norms, culture, and ethnic identity of the Han Chinese—the largest ethnic group of China.
A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fundamental rights of a minority, but can also hamper efforts to respond to problems and encourage corrupt compromises at times when action is taken. Changes to constitutions, especially those with entrenched clauses, commonly require supermajority support in a legislature. Parliamentary procedure requires that any action of a deliberative assembly that may alter the rights of a minority have a supermajority requirement, such as a two-thirds vote. In consensus democracy the supermajority rule is applied in most cases.
In social choice theory, the majority rule (MR) is a social choice rule which says that, when comparing two options, the option preferred by more than half of the voters should win.
A dominant minority, also called elite dominance, is a minority group that has overwhelming political, economic, or cultural dominance in a country, despite representing a small fraction of the overall population. The term is most commonly used to refer to an ethnic group that is defined along racial, national, religious, cultural or tribal lines and that holds a disproportionate amount of power and wealth compared to the rest of the population.
Mongolia under Qing rule was the rule of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China over the Mongolian Plateau, including the four Outer Mongolian aimags and the six Inner Mongolian aimags from the 17th century to the end of the dynasty. The term "Mongolia" is used here in the broader historical sense, and includes an area much larger than the modern-day state of Mongolia. By the early 1630s Ligdan Khan saw much of his power weakened due to the disunity of the Mongol tribes. He was subsequently defeated by the Later Jin dynasty and died soon afterwards. His son Ejei handed the Yuan imperial seal over to Hong Taiji in 1635, thus ending the rule of the Northern Yuan dynasty in Inner Mongolia. However, the Khalkha Mongols in Outer Mongolia continued to rule until they were overrun by the Dzungar Khanate in 1690, and they submitted to the Qing dynasty in 1691.
A conquest dynasty in the history of China refers to a Chinese dynasty established by non-Han ethnicities which ruled parts or all of China proper, the traditional heartland of the Han people, and whose rulers may or may not have fully assimilated into the dominant Han culture.
Anti-Qing sentiment refers to a sentiment principally held in China against the rule of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1644–1912), which was criticized by opponents as being "barbaric". The Qing was accused of destroying traditional Han culture by enforcing policies such as forcing Han to wear their hair in a queue in the Manchu style. It was blamed for suppressing Chinese science, causing China to be transformed from the world's premiere power to a poor, backwards nation. The people of the Eight Banners lived off government pensions unlike the general Han civilian population.
The history of the Qing dynasty began in the first half of the 17th century, when the Qing dynasty was established and became the last imperial dynasty of China, succeeding the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The Manchu leader Hong Taiji renamed the Later Jin established by his father Nurhaci to "Great Qing" in 1636, sometimes referred to as the Predynastic Qing in historiography. By 1644 the Shunzhi Emperor and his prince regent seized control of the Ming capital Beijing, and the year 1644 is generally considered the start of the dynasty's rule. The Qing dynasty lasted until 1912, when Puyi abdicated the throne in response to the 1911 Revolution. As the final imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty reached heights of power unlike any of the Chinese dynasties which preceded it, engaging in large-scale territorial expansion which ended with embarrassing defeat and humiliation to the foreign powers whom they believe to be inferior to them. The Qing dynasty's inability to successfully counter Western and Japanese imperialism ultimately led to its downfall, and the instability which emerged in China during the final years of the dynasty ultimately paved the way for the Warlord Era.
The Mutual Defense Pact of the Southeastern Provinces was an agreement reached in the summer of 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion by Qing dynasty governors of the provinces in southern, eastern and central China when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded northern China. The governors, including Li Hongzhang, Xu Yingkui, Liu Kunyi, Zhang Zhidong and Yuan Shikai, refused to carry out the imperial decree promulgated by the Qing imperial court to declare war on 11 foreign states, with the aim of preserving peace in their own provinces.
The Qing dynasty in Inner Asia was the expansion of the Qing dynasty's realm in Inner Asia in the 17th and the 18th century AD, including both Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia, both Manchuria and Outer Manchuria, Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang.
Manchuria under Ming rule refers to the domination of the Ming dynasty of China over the greater region of Manchuria, including today's Northeast China and Outer Manchuria. The Ming rule of Manchuria began with its conquest of Manchuria in the late 1380s after the fall of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, and reached its peak in the early 15th century with the establishment of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission. With the dissolution of the Nurgan Regional Military Commission the Ming power waned considerably in Manchuria. Starting in the 1580s, Nurhaci, the Jianzhou Jurchen chieftain who had been a Ming vassal, began to take control of most of Manchuria over the next several decades, and in 1616 he established the Later Jin and openly renounced Ming overlordship with the Seven Grievances. The Qing dynasty established by his son Hong Taiji would eventually conquer the Ming and take control of China proper.
Manchuria under Qing rule was the rule of the Qing dynasty of China over the greater region of Manchuria, including today's Northeast China and Outer Manchuria, although Outer Manchuria was lost to the Russian Empire after the Amur Annexation. The Qing dynasty itself was established by the Manchus, a Tungusic people from Manchuria, who later replaced the Ming dynasty as the ruling dynasty of China. Thus, the region is often seen to have had a special status during the Qing and was not governed as regular provinces until the late Qing dynasty, although the name "Manchuria" itself is an exonym of Japanese origin and was not used by the Qing dynasty in Chinese or Manchu.
Americo-Liberian people, are a Liberian ethnic group of African American, Afro-Caribbean, and liberated African origin. Americo-Liberians trace their ancestry to free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans who emigrated in the 19th century to become the founders of the state of Liberia. They identified themselves as Americo-Liberians.
China was a monarchy from prehistoric times up to 1912, when a republic was established. The succession of legendary monarchs of China were non-hereditary. Dynastic rule began c. 2070 BC when Yu the Great established the Xia dynasty, and monarchy lasted until 1912 when dynastic rule collapsed together with the monarchical government. Various attempts at preserving and restoring the Chinese monarchy occurred during and following the Xinhai Revolution, but these regimes were short-lived and lacked widespread recognition.
The Qing dynasty (1644–1912) was the last imperial dynasty of China. The early Qing emperors adopted the bureaucratic structures and institutions from the preceding Ming dynasty but split rule between the Han and Manchus with some positions also given to Mongols. Like previous dynasties, the Qing recruited officials via the imperial examination system until the system was abolished in 1905. The Qing divided the positions into civil and military positions, each having nine grades or ranks, each subdivided into a and b categories. Civil appointments ranged from an attendant to the emperor or a grand secretary in the Forbidden City (highest) to being a prefectural tax collector, deputy jail warden, deputy police commissioner, or tax examiner. Military appointments ranged from being a field marshal or chamberlain of the imperial bodyguard to a third class sergeant, corporal or a first or second class private.
Tifayifu was a cultural policy of the early Qing dynasty as it conquered the preceding Ming dynasty. In 1645, the Tifayifu edict forced Han Chinese people to adopt the Manchu hairstyle, the queue, and Manchu clothing. The edict specifically applied to living adult men, who did not fall in the stipulated exceptions. In 1644, on the first day when the Manchu penetrated the Great Wall of China in the Battle of Shanhai Pass, the Manchu rulers ordered the surrendering Han Chinese population to shave their heads; however, this policy was halted just a month later due to intense resistance from the Han Chinese near Beijing. Only after the Manchu captured Nanjing, the southern capital, from the Southern Ming in 1645 was the Tifayifu policy resumed and enforced severely. Within one year after entering China proper, the Qing rulers demanded that men among their newly defeated subjects adopt the Manchu hairstyle or face execution. The Qing prince regent Dorgon initially canceled the order to shave for all men in Ming territories south of the Great Wall. The full Tifayifu edict was only implemented after two Han officials from Shandong, Sun Zhixie and Li Ruolin, voluntarily shaved their foreheads and demanded that Dorgon impose the queue hairstyle on the entire population.