Minority language recognition and political trust in authoritarian regimes

Kao, Jay C.; Liu, Amy H.; Wu, Chun-Ying

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10659129221097148

Minority language recognition and political trust in authoritarian regimes

Citation

Kao JC, Liu AH, Wu CY. Minority language recognition and political trust in authoritarian regimes. Political Research Quarterly. 2023 Jun;76(2):622-35. DOI: 10.1177/10659129221097148

Abstract

While authoritarian regimes are often characterized by their civil liberty restrictions, some dictatorships acknowledge the ethnolinguistic diversity of their population. Are minorities in multiethnic authoritarian states more likely to trust the government when their language is recognized? In this paper, we argue while recognition of a group’s language improves trust in democracies through a substantive representation mechanism, the same cannot be said in authoritarian regimes. Instead, recognition is a mere symbolic gesture. Such window-dressing efforts call attention to the horizontal inequality between hegemon and minority groups—and such, minority language recognition is associated with negative political trust. We test our argument with the World Values Survey. By identifying which minority groups have been afforded linguistic recognition, we find evidence of a significant—but negative—link between recognition and political trust.