Il Parlamento come specchio: la rappresentanza parlamentare delle minoranze religiose nel diritto comparato

Parliament as a mirror: political representation of religious minorities in comparative perspective

Abstract

In countries marked by a strong ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious pluralism political representation proves to be highly problematic. One of the most contested issue, in particular, is the opportunity for parliaments to reflect the different social groups in similar proportions to those that exist in the wider population (so called descriptive representation or “mirror representation”). Comparative literature on minorities rights has mainly focused on political representation of ethnic and linguistic minorities, while less attention has been paid to religious minorities. The article aims to address the topic of guaranteed representation of religious groups by analysing specific institutional formulas and taking into account its most relevant theoretical implications.

Keywords: Descriptive representation; Pluralism; Religious minorities; Minority quotas; Consociational democracy.