Ethnic diversity

Peace, T. and Meer, N. (2020) Ethnic diversity. In: Garnett, M. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of British Politics and Society. Series: Routledge international handbooks. Routledge. ISBN 9781138677937 (doi: 10.4324/9781315559247-13)

Abstract

This chapter provides an outline of how ethnic diversity affects political participation in Britain. It focuses on how ethnicity related barriers hinder political participation, before concluding that the political participation of ethnic and racial minorities is related to their political rights and the scale of their political representation. Ethnicity is a term that describes the real or imagined features of group membership, typically in terms of one or other combination of language, collective memory, culture, ritual, dress and religion, amongst other features. The necessity of forming such ‘ethnic’ trade unions was due to the lack of support from the British trade union movement. Ethnic minorities were also influential inside the Labour Party, exemplified by the ten-year ‘Black Sections’ movement that commenced in 1983 and was the most important campaign for representation and self-organisation within the party. The formal political participation of ethnic minorities by means of voting is, inevitably, premised upon their levels of electoral registration

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Peace, Dr Timothy
• Authors: Peace, T., and Meer, N.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9781138677937
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 The Authors
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy