Minority Languages in Dictatorships: A New Measure of Group Recognition

What explains minority language recognition in dictatorships? In this paper, we argue minority language groups in authoritarian regimes are more likely to have their languages recognized when their interests are represented by a party in the legislature. Moreover, the level of recognition is greater. We test this argument using original group-level and time-variant measures of minority party in legislature and minority language policies for all Asian dictatorships from 1980 to 2000. The results are robust even when we shift the analysis to the country-level globally and account for possible spurious correlations.