Descriptive representation and political participation

The series of ethnic conflicts in the Western Balkans over the 1990s involved primarily the constituent nations of the socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: serbs, croats, Bosniaks, and later, Albanians and macedonians. ethnic violence has equally affected other numerically smaller groups residing in the geographic areas affected by conflict between the dominant, de facto state-founding ethnic groups. The paper investigates the continuous importance of ethnic identity for political participation of non-dominant groups affected by the ethno-political dynamics of dominant groups in post-conflict croatia. Analyses of the political mobilisation of non-dominant groups in regions previously affected by conflict offer evidence that their ethno-political mobilisation reflects the continuous importance of identity-politics in the context of highly ethnicised institutions ensuring political representation at national and municipal levels.