Engineering inclusion: Assessing the effects of pro-minority representation policies

• Explores the impact of policies designed to advance minority representation.
• Examines 80 free democracies around the world.
• Reserved seats increase minority representation but do not aid ethnoregional parties.
• Reduced thresholds increase the votes and seats won by ethnoregional parties.
• Mauritius' best-loser system helps both minorities and ethnoregional parties.

In democracies, a constant tension exists between the stability and integrity of the community as a whole, and the desire to ensure minorities a voice in politics. Reserved seats and reduced thresholds are two common means by which ethnic minorities gain legislative seats, though little or no empirical work exists testing their efficacy in this regard. Combining multivariate analysis with in-depth case studies, this article shows that both reserved seats and lower thresholds increase minority representation, though reserved seats accomplish that goal more consistently. Reduced thresholds tend to increase the share of votes and seats won by ethnoregional parties but reserved seats do not. Additionally, Mauritius' unusual best-loser system aids both minorities and ethnoregional parties.