Minority Representation and Reserved Legislative Seats The Logic of Strategic Play - Romania.

At least 32 nations currently utilize reservation of legislative seats for minority voices, whether by race, ethnicity, language, religion, or territory. Romania has among the most extensive and complicated arrangement of reserved seats, with 18 different ethnic minorities currently provided special parliamentary representation. The object of this paper is to add a dynamic dimension to the literature on the topic, asking two critical questions: how is it determined that there exists a valid ethnic minority deserving of recognition with a reserved seat? what are the benefits from receiving such a reserved seat? The paper understands a reserved legislative seat as a valuable possession over which rival claimants assert contested title. It explores the distributive politics inherent to reserved minority seats in Romania, examining the interaction of state incentives to avoid controversial decisions and group incentives to restrict competitive entry. It also explores the regime consequences resulting from the segmented allocation of minority benefits. The Romanian case provides useful data for the analysis of problems applicable far more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]