Group representation and procedural justice in multigroup decision-making bodies

Representation of groups in policy-making bodies is increasingly at the center of intergroup conflicts in plural societies. This paper proposes a social psychological approach to the issue of group representation which is based on procedural justice and intergroup-relations research and on cross-national analyses of constitutional arrangements. The allocation of representation is central in intergroup relations because it determines the relative control various groups have in important decision-making processes. It is, however, not the only determinant of control. After discussing the principles that people believe to be relevant in the allocation of representation, the paper presents a quantitative model describing how the distribution of control in two-group decision-making bodies varies as a function of both group representation and decision rule. This model is then extended to cases of multigroup decision-making bodies.