Intra-ethnic competition and cooperation within the ethnic Hungarian party systems of Romania, Serbia and Slovakia

Students of ethnic politics increasingly recognize that ethnic groups are not monolithic entities, and the statement that elections in divided societies amount to parallel ethnic censuses is no longer accepted as the state-of-the art. Although inter-ethnic aspects still dominate the research agenda of ethnic politics, more and more attention is dedicated to what is going on within the ethnic groups, to the dynamics of intra-ethnic competition. In line with this change of perspective, the outbidding thesis that dominated the literature on the internal political dynamics of ethnic groups has been significantly refined in the past decade. The emphasis is no longer on the inevitability of the phenomenon and its negative consequences on the stability of democracy, but rather on the conditions under which outbidding occurs or can be avoided, and the alternative strategies available for ethnic parties. Notwithstanding this, a rather neglected aspect of intra-ethnic party interactions remains the occurrence of electoral cooperation (as opposed to competition) between the parties standing for the same ethnic group or minority. In this paper I propose to address exactly this aspect, building on insights from three countries that host large Hungarian minorities: Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. There were significantly long periods in each of these countries when there was a single ethnic Hungarian party, able to secure the vast majority of the ethnic vote. Yet, the ethnic party scene became more fractionalized lately. As there are multiple parties competing for the limited pool of ethnic Hungarian voters, which define themselves and justify their strategies primarily in contrast to each other, I argue that it is reasonable to speak about “Hungarian minority party systems” in these countries. In this paper I propose a rational choice model of intra-ethnic competition and cooperation which takes into account besides the institutional setting of the countries (which, on its own, is unable to explain the occurrence or absence of electoral cooperation) also the strategies of the other parties, both mainstream and ethnic. While this draws heavily on electoral coalition theory (most importantly the work of Sona Golder), I argue that the situation of ethnic minority parties is special (as compared to the mainstream parties), for manifold reasons. First, the value put on cooperation is clearly higher. This stems not only from the thresholds of representation, which are obviously more difficult to meet if intra-ethnic competition occurs, but also from a belief shared (at least declaratively) by most of the rival minority elites that cooperation not only leads to more efficient interest-articulation by the minority, but it is also morally superior. Yet, successful electoral coalitions are rather the exception than the rule. Second, the strategies of Hungarian minority parties depend not only on the strategies of their competitors from the host-state, but also on what is going on in the party system of Hungary, as some of the Hungarian minority parties maintain very tight links to parties from the kin-state.