This book provides an in-depth multidisciplinary analysis of the major social and political processes affecting Hungarians in Romania after the overthrow of the Communist regime in 1989. The volume highlights the interdependence between the ethno-political strategies of minority elites and Romania's minority policy regime on the one hand, and social processes such as ethnic boundary making and ethnic stratification on the other. The chapters combine perspectives from a variety of disciplines including political science and the sociology of ethnic relations, supported by the findings of a broad array of empirical investigations carried out in Transylvania. It will therefore be of particular interest to scholars and students with a focus on minority politics, ethnic mobilization and nationalism, as well as researchers of ethnic relations, ethnic boundary making, social distances and ethnic inequalities.

This book addresses the impact of a range of destabilising issues on minority rights in Europe and North America. This collection stems from the fact that liberal democracy did not bring about the “end of history” but rather that the transatlantic region of Europe and North America has encountered a new era of instability, particularly since the global financial crisis. The transatlantic region may have appeared to be entering a period of stability, but terrorist attacks on the soil of Euro-Atlantic states, the financial crisis itself and other changes, including mass migration, the rise of populism, changes in fundamental political conceptions, technological change, and most recently the Covid pandemic, have brought increasing uncertainties and instabilities in existing orders. In these contexts, the book investigates the resulting difficulties and opportunities for minority rights. Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines who are engaged in work on various unstable orders, the book provides a unique and largely neglected perspective on present developments as well as addressing the pressing issue of the future of the minority rights regime at global, regional and national levels. This book will appeal to those with interests in minority rights, human rights, nationalism, law and politics.

Populism, Memory and Minority Rights is the flagship publication of the Tom Lantos Institute (TLI), a highly-regarded international human rights institute based in Budapest, Hungary. The publication provides a forum for discussion on crucial themes of global and regional importance on the accommodation of ethno-cultural diversity and related normative developments. It introduces TLI’s work in terms of its mandated issue areas, including Roma rights and citizenship, Jewish life and antisemitism, and Hungarian and other national minorities. The theoretical and empirical studies, commentaries, interviews, reports and other documents offer a unique source of information for libraries, research institutes, civil society actors, governments, intergovernmental organizations and all those interested in contemporary normative trends and debates in international minority protection.

This book explores the transformation and reinvention of conflict-generated diaspora groups’ politics in countries of residence. Numerous narratives link diasporas and conflicts: diasporas are seen alternatively as peace wreckers or peace makers, as products of forced migration related to conflicts, or as targets of securitization policies. “Transported conflicts” occurring within and between diasporas in their countries of residence, however, remain relatively underexplored, tend to be misunderstood, and often associated with “criminal” or “terrorist” activities. The chapters in this volume draw our attention to various interconnected temporalities explaining patterns of conflict transportation, such as the temps long of diasporic mobilisation, the here and now of what is happening in both host and home countries, and micro-temporalities and diasporans’ life trajectories. Finally, the contributions demonstrate that patterns, shapes and even occurrence of conflict transportation vary according to scale and space. Highly politicized forms of confrontation are not necessarily representative of everyday interactions between diaspora groups, which can entail discrete but tangible forms of cooperation and even solidarity. This edited volume calls for nuancing our approach to the links between diasporas and conflicts, to avoid falling into the essentialisation trap. The chapters in this book were originally published in Ethnopolitics.

This volume is a multi-dimensional analysis of Romania’s political, economic, cultural and societal transformation after 1989. It synthetically depicts the main stages of the processes of democratic transition and consolidation, as well as the subsequent phenomena of Europeanization, but also the series of more recent democratic setbacks that affected the Romanian society. The overall perspective is integrative, providing the reader with a balanced and complete understanding of Romania’s post-communist challenges without being spared of the most sensitive aspects. The volume gathers the contributions of some of the most distinguished experts in different sub-fields of transition studies, including political systems, societal transformations, minority rights, macro-economic dynamics, and foreign policy.

This open access book assesses Non-Territorial Autonomy (NTA) in terms of its practical capacity to support the linguistic, cultural, and educational rights of national minority groups across Europe. The fact that 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the coming into force of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities (FCNM) and European Charter for Regional and Minority languages (ECRML) makes this book especially timely and relevant. Its numerous detailed empirical studies, one of which uses FCNM reporting as a benchmark, give a picture of the extent (or otherwise) to which international minority rights standards are actually being realized through various NTA arrangements. In keeping with the principles laid out in these foundational documents, the contributions to this volume acknowledge that when it comes to the effective delivery of linguistic, cultural and educational rights, NTA is best regarded not as an alternative but as a complement to territorially based arrangements. David Smith holds the Alec Nove Chair in Russian and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. Ivan Dodovski is Professor in Critical Theory, and Dean of the School of Political Science at University American College Skopje, North Macedonia. Flavia Ghencea holds the Fundamental Institutions of Administrative Law Chair at the Faculty of Law and Administrative Sciences at Ovidius University of Constanta, Romania.

The increased engagement of states with their co-ethnics abroad has recently become one of the most contentious features of European politics. Until recently, the issue has been discussed predominantly within the paradigm of international security; yet a review of the broader European picture shows that kin-state engagement can in fact have a positive societal impact when it actually responds effectively to the claims formulated by co-ethnic communities themselves. Poland's Kin-State Policies: Opportunities and Challenges offers new insights into this issue by examining Poland’s fast-evolving relationship with Polish communities living beyond its borders. Its central focus is the Act on the Polish Card (generally known as Karta Polaka). Tracing policymaking processes and the underlying political agendas that have shaped them, the volume situates Poland’s engagement within broader conceptual and normative debates around kin-state and diaspora politics and explores its reception and impact in neighbouring states (Ukraine, Germany, Lithuania). The volume highlights how the issue of co-ethnics abroad is increasingly being instrumentalised, most especially for the purposes of attracting labour migration to resolve the demographic crisis in Poland. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Ethnopolitics.

Multiculturalism is not à la mode nowadays. It is attacked by both right-wing populists and mainstream politicians and leaders of liberal democracies. Indeed, conflicts surrounding cultural diversity and recognition are among the most salient issues in contemporary societies. Should liberal democracies recognise specific cultural rights of minorities? If so, should they grant rights only to indigenous national minorities or also to immigrants? Is such a recognition compatible with the basic liberal principle of state neutrality? Practical questions of this kind are in quest of sound theoretical foundations. Alan Patten’s approach to multiculturalism, developed in Equal Recognition (2014), is the most recent and prominent example of such an effort. Considered “the most important contribution to the philosophy of cultural diversity since Will Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship”, Patten’s work elaborates new and original conceptions of culture and liberal neutrality. It reasserts the case in favour of liberal multiculturalism and applies its theoretical framework to concrete contemporary issues, such as language rights, federalism, secession, and immigrant integration. This collection presents a critical review of Patten’s approach to cultural plurality. The critics question the overall normative strategy of Equal Recognition, its account of neutrality, especially with regards to language rights, its assumptions about democracy and, finally, its relevance to public policy debates. It will be of interest to political scientists, philosophers, and legal theorists, and will inspire students and politicians alike. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

In Assessing Multiculturalism in Global Comparative Perspective, a group of leading scholars come together in a multidisciplinary collection to assess multiculturalism through an international comparative perspective. Multiculturalism today faces challenges like never before, through the concurrent rise of populism and white supremacist groups, and contemporary social movements mobilizing around alternative ideas of decolonization, anti-racism and national self-determination Taking these challenges head on, and with the backdrop that the term multiculturalism originated in Canada before going global, this collection of chapters presents a global comparative view of multiculturalism, through both empirical and normative perspectives, with the overarching aim of comprehending multiculturalism’s promise, limitations, contemporary challenges, trajectory and possible futures. Collectively, the chapters provide the basis for a critical assessment of multiculturalism’s first 50 years, as well as vital insight into whether multiculturalism is best equipped to meet the distinct challenges characterizing this juncture of the 21st century. With coverage including the Americas, Europe, Oceania, Africa and Asia, and thematic coverage of citizenship, religion, security, gender, Black Lives Matter and the post-pandemic order, Assessing Multiculturalism in Global Comparative Perspective presents a comprehensively global collection that is indispensable reading for scholars and students of diversity in the 21st century.

In Moldova, the number of dual citizens has risen exponentially in the last decades. Before annexation, many saw Russia as granting citizenship to—or passportizing—large numbers in Crimea. Both are regions with kin majorities: local majorities claimed as co-ethnic by external states offering citizenship, among other benefits. As functioning citizens of the states in which they reside, kin majorities do not need to acquire citizenship from an external state. Yet many do so in high numbers. Kin Majorities explores why these communities engage with dual citizenship and how this intersects, or not, with identity. Analyzing data collected from ordinary people in Crimea and Moldova in 2012 and 2013, just before Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Eleanor Knott provides a crucial window into Russian identification in a time of calm. Perhaps surprisingly, the discourse and practice of Russian citizenship was largely absent in Crimea before annexation. Comparing the situation in Crimea with the strong presence of Romanian citizenship in Moldova, Knott explores two rarely researched cases from the ground up, shedding light on why Romanian citizenship was more prevalent and popular in Moldova than Russian citizenship in Crimea, and to what extent identity helps explain the difference. Kin Majorities offers a fresh and nuanced perspective on how citizenship interacts with cross-border and local identities, with crucial implications for the politics of geography, nation, and kin-states, as well as broader understandings of post-Soviet politics.