Administrative Reform and Regional Development Discourses in Hungary. Europeanisation Going NUTS?

Starting from the empirical observation of high levels of absorption of EU cohesion funds but strikingly low levels of substantive change in regional cohesion, this essay offers a contextual analysis of regional development policies in Hungary. Based on theoretical frameworks dealing with Europeanisation, new regionalism and participative development, it explores the reasons for this observation by analysing the role of administrative and planning structures and of development discourses. The essay shows that the Europeanisation of regional development policy triggered several changes in the planning process and led to the partial inclusion of new actors. However, the main effect of this was a growing centralisation of development policy making. The essay explains this by pointing to the domestic political context and the historical foundations of regional development discourses of the conservative and leftist liberal parties. While there are overlaps between the discourses on both sides of the ideological divide, they are perceived as incompatible by political actors. Thus, it is argued that considerations of political power, rather than ideological nature, shape Hungarian regional and development policy and explain the incremental reform process.     

Multiculturalism,recognition and the “Kurdish question” in Turkey: the outline of a normative framework

Despite the ever-growing literature on various aspects of the Kurdish question in Turkey, there are practically no normative discussions of Kurdish demands for the public recognition of their identities. This is all the more startling given the ascendancy of philosophical accounts in the literature on minority rights. This article will try to redress the balance by proposing a normative framework that could be used to justify Kurdish demands for recognition, drawing on the broader debates that revolve around Charles Taylor's seminal conceptualization of “the politics of recognition”. In this context, I will identify nationalism, a strategy used both by the state to suppress demands for recognition and by the minorities to put forward these demands, as the most serious hurdle in the way of the democratic resolution of the “Kurdish question” in Turkey and promote a form of recognition-based multiculturalism that (a) respects the basic rights of all citizens, not only those in whose name the said claims are made, but also those of the members of the majority against which the claims are voiced; (b) leaves room for alternative values or conceptions of the good life.     

Creating and contesting meanings of place and community in the Ylay Talaa Valley of Kyrgyzstan

Formal schooling was virtually non-existent before the Soviet power in nomadic Kyrgyzstan, as communal life and learning was organized informally at the household and clan level. During the Soviet period, however, educational success became an avenue to a new form of upward social and geographical mobility, and the school provided new and prestigious positions for local teachers and administrators. This paper explores how the externally imposed Soviet collectivization policies reshaped the understandings and meanings of place and community during the twentieth century, a reshaping that centrally involved redefining education and the importance of ‘the school’. In the post-Soviet period, the utility of secondary and higher education in local and national labour markets has diminished, as has the power and prestige of educators. Yet the appeal of education lingers on. The authors seek to document these claims using oral histories, ethnographic interviews and participant observations in the Ylay Talaa Valley of the Kyrgyz Republic.     

European Union enlargement: Power distribution implications of the new institutional arrangements

Abstract. It is argued that enlargement challenges institutional balances and in particular relative powers of national actors within the European Union (EU). This article concentrates on the impact of future enlargement (with the current negotiating 12 candidates) on power distribution in the Council of Ministers of the European Union and the European Parliament based on the decisions taken at the Nice Summit in December 1800. It uses the Shapley-Shubik and Banzhaf indices to evaluate past and emerging power distributions in both the Council and in the Parliament. A brief section on Turkey (the thirteenth, non-negotiating, official candidate) is included to evaluate its possible impact in the case of admission to the Union.