Political consequences of minority group formation

Given the global trend of increasing ethnocultural diversity and the outbre ak of nationalist movements based on cultural, linguistic, and territorial identities, this review focuses on social and political mechanisms that lea d to the emergence of minority group collective action. This kind of collec tive action is seen as a function of three necessary conditions: the format ion of distinctive social identities, the overcoming of free riding, and th e development of institutional structures promoting the demand for greater autonomy. The article examines the debates, theories, and empirical evidenc e concerning these three conditions. We conclude by noting that the most im portant impediment to progress in this field is the relative paucity of his torical and cross-national databases that are required to test many of the theories in the literature.