National Minority Women’s Political Participation in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia

Effective political participation of persons belonging to national minorities in the decision-making processes is a goal that has not yet been met in many European countries. It does not, therefore, come as a surprise that women belonging to national minorities are additionally and significantly underrepresented in political life of their host societies since inequality between women and men within minority communities is more prevalent. At the outset of the paper we are going to present the legal frameworks that do guarantee minority participation in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, as this requirement opens up for political engagement of both men and women belonging to national minorities in the politics. In order to establish challenges minority women are facing when accessing positions of power both in minority and public structures and what the role of minority civil society organizations and political parties in aggregating and promoting participation of minority women is, we are planning to interview up to five minority women in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. Thus, by adopting the intersectional perspective in the central part of the paper findings of semi-structured interviews will be analysed in each of the countries with women belonging to national minorities who have already demonstrated affiliation to political work and engagement. We are opting for this qualitative approach in explaining potential underrepresentation of minority women in political life of the three post-Yugoslav countries since gender disaggregated data on status of minority women in society is not being collected.