A dominant minority, also called elite dominance, is a minority group that has overwhelming political, economic, or cultural dominance in a country, despite representing a small fraction of the overall population (a demographic minority). Dominant minorities are also known as alien elites if they are recent immigrants.
The term is most commonly used to refer to an ethnic group which is defined along racial, national, religious, cultural or tribal lines and that holds a disproportionate amount of power.
A notable example is that of South Africa during the apartheid regime, where White South Africans, more specifically Afrikaners, wielded predominant control of the country, despite never composing more than 22 per cent of the population.[citation needed] African American-descended nationals in Liberia, White Zimbabweans in Rhodesia, Sunni Arabs in Ba'athist Iraq, the Alawite minority in Syria (since 1970 under the rule of the Alawite Assad family), and the Tutsi in Rwanda since the 1990s have also been cited as current or recent examples.[citation needed]
(Minority rule, of less permanency than described above and without the race or ethnic basis, is often seen when a political party takes a majority of seats and the reins of governmental power although receiving fewer than a majority of votes in an election. Election by plurality is common in self described democracies despite this type of minority rule being imposed on a frequent basis.)
See also
- Colonialism, particularly exploitation colonialism and plantation colonies
- Elitism
- Herrenvolk democracy
- Middleman minority
- Minoritarianism
- Minority influence
- Model minority
- Neocolonialism
- Pseudo-secularism
- Tyranny of the majority
- World on Fire, a book that introduces the concept of "market-dominant minority"
Footnotes
References
- Barzilai, Gad. Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003). ISBN 978-0-472-03079-8
- Gibson, Richard. African Liberation Movements: Contemporary Struggles against White Minority Rule (Institute of Race Relations: Oxford University Press, London, 1972). ISBN 0-19-218402-4
- Russell, Margo and Martin. Afrikaners of the Kalahari: White Minority in a Black State ( Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979). ISBN 0-521-21897-7
- Johnson, Howard and Watson, Karl (eds.). The White Minority in the Caribbean (Wiener Publishing, Princeton, NJ, 1998). ISBN 976-8123-10-9, ISBN 1-55876-161-6
- Chua, Amy. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (Doubleday, New York, 2003). ISBN 0-385-50302-4
- Haviland, William. Cultural Anthropology. (Vermont: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1993). p. 250-252. ISBN 0-15-508550-6.