A concise review on comparative studies on the evolution of minority rights in the European and African context

Authors

Keywords:

minority rights, Africa, Europe, ethnicities, politics

Abstract

Minority rights refer to the privileges granted to a specific group of people within a particular region. These rights are provided for various reasons, including the fact that this group may have a smaller population compared to others from the same ethnicity or tribe. The topic of minority rights has been a point of dispute in both Europe and Africa. More so, determining who constitutes a minority and granting them rights is a complex and challenging task. The aftermath of colonialism has resulted in a mix of ethnicities living together in a single territory, making the discussion of minority rights particularly difficult in the African context. While progress has been made in Europe with regards to granting rights to minority groups, it is still not a straightforward process. Understanding the evolution of minority rights in both the African and European contexts is crucial to fully comprehending the issue of minority rights and how it somewhat differs from the African to the European context. This paper reviews the historical examination of the evolution of minority rights and presents a comparison of the differences in the way minority rights is understood and dealt with in the African and European contexts.

Downloads

Published

2023-09-18

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 3 (2023): Review of Socio-Economic Perspectives

Section

Research Articles

License

Copyright and Open Access Policy

The Review of Socio-Economic Perspectives (RSEP) is committed to the principles of open access and the widest possible dissemination of scholarly knowledge. The journal provides immediate and unrestricted access to all published content, enabling readers worldwide to freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, and link to the full texts of articles without financial, legal, or technical barriers.

RSEP supports the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which advocates free and unrestricted access to peer-reviewed scholarly research.

Copyright Ownership

Authors retain the copyright of their published works.

By submitting and publishing their manuscripts in RSEP, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive right to publish, reproduce, distribute, archive, index, and preserve the work in electronic and other formats for scholarly communication purposes.

The journal does not require authors to transfer copyright ownership to the publisher. Authors remain the legal copyright holders of their work after publication.

Licensing Policy

Beginning with Volume 2025, all articles published in RSEP are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, users are permitted to:

  • Read, download, copy, and redistribute the material in any medium or format;
  • Share the work with others;
  • Adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material;

provided that:

  • Appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and the journal;
  • A link to the license is provided;
  • Any changes made to the original work are clearly indicated;
  • The material is not used for commercial purposes.

The full license terms are available at:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

 

Previous Licensing Policy

Articles published before Volume 2025 were distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

The CC BY 4.0 license permits unrestricted use, distribution, adaptation, and reproduction in any medium, including commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source.

Articles published under CC BY 4.0 remain subject to the licensing terms that were in effect at the time of publication and are not retroactively relicensed.

Rights Retained by Authors

Authors retain the right to:

  • Share their published articles on personal websites, institutional repositories, and academic networking platforms;
  • Reuse parts or all of their work in future publications, books, teaching materials, and presentations;
  • Deposit the published version of the article in repositories without embargo;
  • Disseminate and promote their research freely.

Rights Granted to the Publisher

Authors grant RSEP the right to:

  • Publish and disseminate the work as the original publisher;
  • Archive and preserve the article permanently;
  • Include the article in indexing, abstracting, and database services;
  • Maintain the official version of record;
  • Promote and distribute the published work through journal platforms and scholarly communication channels.

Open Access Statement

RSEP is a fully open-access journal. All articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication without subscription fees or access restrictions.

No embargo period is applied. Readers may access and use published content in accordance with the applicable Creative Commons license.

The journal believes that open access increases the global visibility, accessibility, usage, and impact of scholarly research while promoting the free exchange of scientific knowledge.

License Consistency

To ensure transparency and compliance with international indexing standards, the licensing information displayed on the journal website, article metadata, PDF files, and publishing platforms will remain consistent and accurately reflect the licensing terms applicable to each published volume.