Diversity recognition and minority representation in Central and Southeast Europe: a comparative analysis

The need to handle ethnocultural diversity and the external pressures of Euro-Atlantic integration have led to the development of complex minority rights regimes in Central and Southeast European states. The aim of this paper is to perform a comparative analysis of the political representation dimension of these regimes, and to investigate how the regulations in this domain are related to the more general attitude of states toward diversity recognition and registration. For this purpose, we classify the states according to a series of variables concerning the manner in which ethnocultural diversity is recognized and portrayed, as well as the regulations concerning the representation of minorities, and identify patterns of their incidence. The formal-legal analysis of the constitutions, minority protection laws and of the electoral legislation of the included countries reveals a clear connection between the general attitude of the state toward diversity and the incidence of autonomies, and a less unequivocal, yet strong relationship in the case of minority representation in the national polity.     

The unbearable lightness of membership: Bulgaria and Romania after the 2007 EU accession

This paper focuses on the current political and socio-economic situation in the two most recent EU member states, Bulgaria and Romania. Overall, the post-accession period in both countries has been comparable to that in the East-Central European members that had joined the Union on 1 May 2004. However, there have been some significant differences in the post-accession path of Bulgaria and Romania, which set them apart from the rest of the EU-10, as well as among themselves. For instance, the problem of corruption has been a particularly salient theme for the political elites of both countries and it led to the paralysis of the cabinet in Romania during the first year of its membership and to the rise of powerful populist alternatives in Bulgaria. What has probably been even more distinguishing in the cases of Bulgaria and Romania is their apparent inability to swiftly deal with the political and social challenges emerging after accession, as well as to adequately respond to the process of Europeanization. The main reason for this has been the unfinished political and socio-economic transformation of both countries, accompanied by the consolidation of certain ‘reserve domains’, occupied by the former secret services and semi-mafia structures.     

The Special Needs of Victims of Torture or Serious Violence: A Qualitative Research in EU

Abstract

In recent years ongoing wars and serious violations of human rights have driven increasing numbers of people away from their homes, especially in the Middle East and Africa to countries in the European Union to seek asylum. It is estimated that between 5% and 35% of these asylum-seekers and refugees have suffered from torture or serious violence. Studies and practice have shown that an appropriate response to the special needs of victims of torture or serious violence contribute to reduce survivors’ suffering and provide properly international protection. EU legislation recognizes that such vulnerable individuals have special needs, but few of these needs have already been identified and recognized as such. This article reports on a qualitative study carried out in six EU countries - France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta and Portugal - to explore the special needs of victims of torture or serious violence who present among asylum-seekers, during the asylum request procedure, in reception, and throughout rehabilitation and social integration. The study aims to release into the academic community the results of a large policy and practice-oriented study.     

Introduction to the special section: minority politics and the territoriality principle in Europe

Territorial arrangements for managing inter-ethnic relations within states are far from consensual. Although self-governance for minorities is commonly advocated, international documents are ambiguously formulated. Conflicting pairs of principles, territoriality vs. personality, and self-determination vs. territorial integrity, along with diverging state interests account for this gap. Together, the articles in this special section address the territoriality principle and its hardly operative practice on the ground, with particular attention to European cases. An additional theme reveals itself in the articles: the ambiguity of minority recognition politics. This introductory article briefly presents these two common themes, followed by an outline of three recent proposals discussed especially in Eastern Europe that seek to bypass the controversial territorial autonomy model: cultural rights in municipalities with a “substantial” proportion of minority members; the cultural autonomy model; and European regionalism and multi-level governance.     

Regional Disparities in Central and Eastern European Countries: Trends,Drivers and Prospects

Growth in Central and East European countries (CEE) is territorially unbalanced, more so than in most other parts of the EU. The benefits of transformation in these countries have been unequally distributed among particular social groups and territories—with the emergence of highly educated and internationally successful professionals and entrepreneurs located mainly in metropolitan areas on the one hand, and structural unemployment, persistent poverty and social exclusion in peripheral regions on the other. These regional imbalances are characterised by a process of metropolisation that has privileged a handful of dynamic urban centres while exacerbating the structural problems of old industrial regions, vast rural areas and regions located on borders, and especially the EU's eastern borders. Different as they are in social, cultural and geographical terms, these declining or stagnating regions share general problems of economic peripherality and many negative effects of structural change, such as rural depopulation, ‘brain drain’, disinvestment and, frequently, below-average levels of socio-economic well-being. This polarised economic and territorial development within CEE poses challenges not only for the respective countries, but also for European cohesion.     

Compliance and non-compliance as sources of recognition: Slovakia and NATO

This article argues that there is a difference in what constitutes the sources of recognition prior to countries' membership in the Euro-Atlantic community represented by NATO and after countries become its members. While prior to membership, countries are recognized for their compliance with NATO standards and policies, upon membership countries get the opportunity to promote specific interests legitimately and may seek recognition via non-compliance with NATO mainstream.The paper explores this dynamic of recognition on the issue of Kosovo independence where Slovakia went from supporting NATO in its effort to protect civilians in Kosovo in the late 1990s to non-recognition of Kosovo in defiance of the majority of NATO member states less than a decade later. The crucial point proposed here is that there was a shift in how recognition by NATO worked prior to Slovakia's membership and upon membership in these frameworks. While prior to membership recognition was achieved by compliance and identification with NATO standpoints, policies and actions, upon membership, recognition is achieved by differentiation from these patterns. More generally, the study shows that NATO membership is a powerful source of conditionality in relation to future members and a powerful source of legitimacy in relation to current members' actions. While this has been discussed in the literature, the point here is that recognition in its various forms is an important driving force in these conditionality processes.     

Europe 2000: the future of the european union

The collapse of communism undoubtedly affects Europe. Rather than being allied by a negative force (the communist threat), European countries are now in the position to stress positive factors leading to coherence and alliance. The future of the European Union is the focal point of this special issue. Five dimensions are being analyzed and discussed: 1) regionalism and European integration, 2) monetary policy, 3) tax harmonization, 4) democratic legitimacy, and 5) social security.     

The Nationalisation of Post-Communist Party Systems

Party nationalisation, defined as the homogeneity of party strength across a country, has recently become a major issue in research. Even though territory is a salient political question in the post-communist countries in Europe, party nationalisation in these countries has been neglected by the literature so far. This article presents data on party nationalisation for 20 countries over the period 1990–2007. It shows that the nationalisation of party systems in post-communist democracies is closely related to the territorial structure of social divisions, except for cases where the electoral systems provide for a high degree of nationalisation, or where super-presidentialism inhibits the creation of strong nationalised parties.     

Economic Transformation Outside the Law: Corruption,Trust in Public Institutions and the Informal Economy in Transition Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

This article considers the role of the informal economy in Central and Eastern European post-communist countries. The informal economy is defined as the ‘black’ economy, which is monetised but outside the law (often illegal) on the one hand and the ‘household’ and ‘social’ economies which are non-monetised and non-legal in the sense that they are outside of legislation. The article shows that in some countries the black economy is very important for supporting household incomes (Serbia and Croatia) and in other countries the household or social economies are predominant (especially Romania and Ukraine). In a third group of countries the formal economy predominates over other economies (especially the Czech Republic and Hungary). The article goes on to look at what kinds of people participate in these different economies and concludes that whilst the household and social economies are a social safety net for the poor, the elderly and those in rural areas, the black economy is more likely to be an option for those who are already better off to improve their incomes. The article considers the implications of this for attitudes to the legitimacy of the public realm and finds that greater participation in the informal economy is associated with both loss of trust in public institutions and increased perception of corruption. Therefore it is hypothesised that economic activities that take place ‘outside the law’ could lead to a decline in confidence in the state, although there are important variations between countries.     

Ethiopian female labor migration to the Gulf states: the case of Kuwait

ABSTRACT

International labor migration is one of the most salient features of the modern globalized world. However, the phenomenon has its roots in some earlier periods in human history. Africa is traditionally a sending continent of all types of migrations, voluntary or forced. This study examines the above-mentioned issues through the mounting phenomenon of migration of single independent women in search for better economic, social, or political conditions across the boundaries of their home countries. In the past, African women migrants were only spouses or dependent family members. But as modernity swept most African societies, with rising unemployment rates, there is evidence everywhere in Africa that women labor migration is a growing phenomenon that deserves to be understood in the context of current gender-related research. This work explores these issues further, focusing on the experience of Ethiopian women labor migrants to Kuwait, within Gulf Cooperation Council, an area with a shared socio-economic background. In addition to numerous difficulties already facing labor migrants, Ethiopian women suffered greater degrees of gender-based violence, underpayment, and trafficking, to mention only few aspects of human rights violations. This situation could be attributed to the fact that most of these women fall under the category of unskilled and/or illiterate migrants, as irregular migrants who are employed within the private sector, outside the purview any legal or labor regulatory authorities.     

Introduction to the Special Issue: New Forms of Intolerance in European Political Life

This introduction summarizes the contributions to the Special Issue that focus on the spread of intolerant and racist discourses in Denmark, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Hungary. Through a comparative approach, the issue argues that what has been decisive in this process is the role played by mainstream political parties that perceive intolerance against the “other” as the natural outcome of the failure of previous tolerant policies on immigrants and minorities. Even if brought forward with different argumentation in each case, intolerance is introduced in all five countries as a principled position under the pretext of protecting European citizens’ rights.     

Rise of xenophobic nationalism in Europe: A case of Slovenia

The article focuses on rise of nationalism and xenophobia in Slovenia. It starts by considering the issue of unrecognized minorities in Slovenia (former Yugoslavia nations) that have no minority rights, despite being large groups, as many international organizations for the protection of minorities have pointed out. A particular issue in this relation for Slovenia is the ‘Erased’ – the individuals who did not acquire Slovenian citizenship when Slovenia seceded from federal Yugoslavia – and despite the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision, the Slovenian state has still not recognized their rights, which were violated in the post-independence period. The article also examines two other minorities in Slovenia, the Jews and the Roma. The article finds Slovenia to be a closed, non-globalised society which, in spite of its constitutional declaration to protect the rights of minorities and other national communities, is seeking to retain a politically and culturally homogeneous nation state.     

Grading greatness: evaluating the status performance of the BRICS

An impressive portfolio of case-study research has now demonstrated how and through what means the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries have sought higher social status. However, this field of research lacks systematic means of evaluating this status-seeking. This article fills this lacuna by developing a mixed-methods framework enabling scholars to zoom in and compare individual states’ relative status performance. Using diplomatic representation as a proxy for status recognition and comparing it to a country’s status resources (wealth), the framework indicates how successfully countries have generated recognition from the international society. The findings show that China’s economic ascent has been matched by increased recognition, and that South Africa enjoyed an almost immediate ‘status bounce’ following apartheid, turning it from a pariah to a significant overperformer. Russia should be understood as an ‘overperforming status-dissatisfied power’ while India’s status performance has been around ‘par’ for a country of its economic resources. Lastly, Brazil underperforms more than any of the other BRICS, especially since its democratic transition. The findings highlight considerable variance in the type and duration of gaps between status resource and recognition and suggests that rather than treating these as ‘inconsistencies’ awaiting correction, they can and should be accounted for by case study analyses.     

Counterterrorist Legislation and Respect for Civil Liberties: An Inevitable Collision?

The literature on counterterrorist measures often emphasizes the potential harmful effects of such measures on human rights and civil liberties. While recent research has examined the effects of counterterrorist legislation on the violation of physical integrity rights (e.g., torture and extrajudicial killings), no quantitative cross-national study has looked at the consequences for civil liberties. Still, case studies in a variety of countries suggest that counterterrorist legislation indeed leads to various infringements of liberties such as the freedoms of expression, religion, assembly, and movement. We conduct a cross-national time series analysis of counterterrorist legislation and consequent repression of civil liberties for the years 1976–2009. We find that the effects of legislation vary by levels of initial repression. Legislation has a negative effect on respect for civil liberties in countries with moderate levels of repression. However, this effect diminishes in non-repressive countries and reverses in countries with high levels of repression.     

Revising the Democratic Revolution--into the Americas

This article examines the claims of the democratic peace thesis by tracing the embedding of democracy in three countries: Nicaragua, Brazil and Colombia. In so doing it highlights the way in which the democratic peace that has spread in the post-cold war period has to be understood as part of a continued imperialist strategy by the core capitalist states and their dominant social forces in the modern world system. The meaning of democracy in this revolution is to promote and instill a form of corporate government that reinforces private power against human needs and rights. Nonetheless, this is an unstable strategy and the three examples considered here illustrate that this creates space for anti-capitalist opposition to organise and challenge this restricted conception of democracy.     

Poverty among the elderly in Sub-Saharan Africa and the role of social pensions

Drawing on household survey information, this study delineates the poverty profile of the elderly in 15 low-income sub-Saharan African countries which include countries with a high and low prevalence of the HIV-AIDS pandemic. The study shows that the poverty situation of the elderly living with children and the elderly-headed households is much worse than the average in many countries. The impact of providing a social pension to the elderly on group-specific and national poverty head-count ratios and poverty gap ratios, and its fiscal implications, are analysed. Simulating various plausible eligibility criteria and benefit levels, the study concludes that while the case for an universal (untargeted) social pension is weak, substantial welfare gains can be obtained at a low cost with a social pension targeted to the poor among the elderly.     

Social Movements and the Construction of Crisis Actors: Collective Responsibility,Identity, and Governance

This article examines the Europeanization of social movements following the European sovereign debt crisis. It develops a theoretical framework to measure degrees of social movement Europeanization, incorporating targets, participants, and issue frame dimensions of mobilization. Europeanization of social movements occurs when they collaborate with similar movements in other countries, claim a European identity, invoke Europe-wide solidarity, contest authorities beyond the state and ascribe responsibility for solving the crisis to European Union (EU). By targeting EU authorities, social movements may contribute to the construction of the EU as a crisis actor and through deliberative processes define the roles and identities of such actors.     

Reinventing Governance for Performance in South Asia: Impacts on Citizenship Rights

Abstract

In line with the global trend of “reinventing governance” based on market‐driven policies and structures, South Asian countries have adopted some major reforms in governance during the recent two decades. While this market‐led shift in governance is largely intended to enhance its performance in terms of greater efficiency and quality, there is a tendency to overlook its implications for the rights and entitlements of citizens in these countries. The article examines the basic tenets or features of this transition in governance, encompassing the replacement of public sector by private sector and the transformation of public management based on business principles. The main objective, however, is to examine the critical impacts of this new mode of governance on the political and social rights of citizens in South Asia. The article concludes by stressing the need for paying adequate attention to citizenship rights in pursuing such reforms in governance.     

Bolsa Família and democracy in Brazil

The conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme Bolsa Família (Family Allowance), introduced in Brazil in 2003, is one of the largest such programmes in the world. Bolsa Família has played a role in the recent reduction of poverty and income inequality in Brazil. But what has been its impact on democracy? An assumption in the literature on social policy, derived from the European experience, is that targeted programmes such as Bolsa Família divide citizens, erode trust between citizens and between citizens and the state, and weaken democracy. This article challenges that assumption, showing that there is considerable evidence that Bolsa Família has strengthened the citizenship rights of the poor and enhanced democracy. The Brazilian experience suggests that, in highly unequal developing countries under conditions of 21st-century capitalism, the argument that targeted social programmes will inevitably undermine democracy is incorrect.     

Coping with financial crises: explaining variety in regional arrangements

Financial regional arrangements vary across countries and change over time. Until recently, most economists and political scientists took the European model of monetary integration as the yardstick to which all other regional financial arrangements had to measure up in this article. It is argued that the Euro crisis provides an opportunity for scholars to adopt a different perspective that does not interpret the variety of financial arrangements merely as economic deficiencies caused by the incapacity or unwillingness of regions to follow the European model. Instead, the comparative study of monetary and financial regionalism has to account for the different factors that shape variations. These go from different levels of economic development, over regional political and economic preferences to historical processes which shape the institutional context and the constellation of interests and social forces. Such an approach, which integrates economic and political science approaches, de-centres the Euro model and opens up a new understanding of the global diversity of regional monetary and financial cooperation, and their potential to cope with financial crises.