Ethnicity as political cleavage: the political agenda of the Polish national minority in Lithuania

Abstract

This article examines the role of ethnicity in the formation of political cleavage and is based on the analysis of the political agenda of the Polish national minority in Lithuania after the re-establishment of the independent state in 1990. It analyzes the political performance of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (EAPL), an ethnic-based “niche” political party that tends to keep a monopoly over the representation of interests of the Polish minority in Lithuania and collects a vast majority of the votes of citizens of Polish origin. The article considers how specific in comparison to the titular nation the interests of the Polish national minority are, and how different in comparison to the political agendas of other political parties the political agenda of the EAPL is.

Keywords:

• Political representation of national minorities
• Polish national minority in Lithuania
• Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania