The political representation of ethnic minorities with a non-western has been a policy issue for several decades in West-European immigration countries. In the context of the backlash against multiculturalism and the influence of right-wing populism, ethnic minority policy issues have become explicitly gendered. The position and particularly the emancipation of ethnic minority women has moved to the heart of the agenda of populist and conservative political parties, often as part of a nationalist or anti-immigrant program. In other words, a broad variety of political actors in terms of political ideology, gender and ethnicity are making ‘representative claims’ about ethnic minorities. This paper asks: who puts ethnic minority issues on the parliamentary agenda, how is this gendered and how did this change over time? Drawing on the Netherlands it analyses which parliamentarians have tabled parliamentary questions relating to the position ethnic minorities and examines their content and framing from 1986-2012.
