Aidan McGarry

The dilemma of the European Union’s Roma policy:

Roma are one of the most discriminated and marginalized groups in the European Union (EU). The EU has emerged as a potential ally for the transnational Roma community as it possesses normative power when espousing values such as inclusion, yet is able to elaborate policy at a supranational level which has supremacy over domestic policy. Thus far EU Roma policy has failed to address the complex issues facing Roma owing to inadequate policy interventions. This can be explained by the policy choices open to the EU which appear to be built on diametrically opposed foundations, posing a dilemma for EU policy-makers. This article focuses on the redistribution/recognition dilemma which EU institutions must negotiate in order to address economic and cultural injustices. For their part, transnational Roma activists have demanded the creation of an EU Roma Strategy which could address the needs and interests of Roma across the Union.

The Roma voice in the European Union: between national belonging and transnational identity

This article examines the response of Roma activists to the Italian Roma crisis in 2007 and 2008. The Roma community has become targets of discriminatory policies in Italy, such as forced evictions and ethnic profiling by the authorities, which construct Roma as distinct from the Italian nation. Roma activists increasingly circumvent national political structures and instead regard the European Union (EU) as an ally in redressing discriminatory policies in member states. In the absence of a kin state to lobby and advocate on their behalf, Roma activists, working in the transnational political context, articulate their voice and demands to the institutions of the EU. In doing so, they construct a transnational identity which on the one hand reifies Roma to a homogeneous group, whilst on the other hand contributes to the idea that Roma are not a constitutive component of the dominant nation. This article uses the Italian Roma crisis as a particular episode in which transnational Roma activists responded to a nationally based crisis and explores the impact of this on issues of national belonging.

Roma as a political identity: Exploring representations of Roma in Europe:

This article explores some of the myriad representations of Roma in Europe and argues that this proliferation makes it more difficult for policymakers to formulate coherent interventions, for academics to agree on a common conceptual language and for the majority to understand the inter-connected problems facing Roma communities. ‘Representations’ refers to how the community is understood by itself as well as by others. Whilst no community retains an uncontested image of itself and its identity, Roma communities have little or no control over how they are represented in the public sphere. Usually, representations of Roma originate and are sustained by non-Romani actors including international organisations, national governments and the majority. Of course, Roma communities have attempted to influence how they represent themselves externally to challenge negative stereotypes and internally, to raise a political consciousness and foster solidarity. Relatedly, the political representation of Roma is particularly important due to their weak political positioning in local, national and transnational contexts but also because it highlights the disparity between contested questions of who Roma are and devising policy interventions to address socio-economic and political exclusion. This article discusses a select number of prevalent Roma representations and links the representation of Roma identity to the public presence and agency of Romani communities.

Ethnic Group Identity and the Roma Social Movement: Transnational Organizing Structures of Representation

There have been attempts to detail the representation of the Romani community with a focus on both the domestic and transnational political context; however, less is known about how Roma create organizing structures of representation and the role of these structures within the broader social movement. This article seeks to add to this growing research by analysing Roma representation in the transnational political context, as well as unpacking the relationship between ethnic group identity and shared interests. By understanding that ethnic group identity and shared interests are intertwined in the case of Roma, we can begin to understand the numerous challenges faced by the Roma social movement, particularly those relating to political participation and adequate representation. First it is necessary to establish some common ground in ontological categories and conceptual definitions. “‘Roma’ is the name increasingly used by academics, activists, and politicians to refer to a wide variety of communities predominantly occurring in Central and Eastern Europe that have adopted different groups and sub-groups over time.” The creation of the endonyme of “Roma” is important in that naming oneself is a crucial component of a social movement and represents the elaboration of a collective identity. It should not be assumed, however, that the endonyme “Roma” is unproblematic. Roma are extremely heterogeneous and house diverse communities such as Sinti, Manush, and Lovari, amongst others, each with their specific culture and interests. Although these communities are diverse, they share the same history in that their name has traditionally evoked negative connotations from the rest of society. It is this shared persecution which has led to alliances with the Traveller community in Western Europe. Furthermore, as Vermeersch elaborates: “the introduction of the term ‘Roma’ reflects an attempt to break away from this social stigma and to produce a more positive image of themselves as a single ethnic group occurring in different countries.” Particularly after the collapse of communism, Roma became subject to pronounced discrimination and persecution, sometimes spilling into violence, murder and pogroms as Roma found themselves cast as scapegoats as structural

Unpacking the Roma Participation Puzzle: Presence, Voice and Influence

The idea that Roma communities need to be included in public life is rather uncontroversial, widely accepted by Roma activists, academics and policy-makers in national and transnational political contexts. But, what do we mean by participation? Are we talking about formal political structures or do we refer to the capacity of ordinary Roma to have a presence in public life? The right to participation for minorities is specified by international norms but is interpreted differently in national contexts. Nevertheless, participation alone is not enough, thus minorities require ‘effective’ participation given that the utilitarian principles of liberal democracy means that groups such as Roma will always be outvoted. This article is based on the conviction that addressing the multiple and inter-connected issues facing Roma communities across Europe requires the participation of Roma in social, economic and political life. Whilst the article acknowledges the structural barriers which inhibit attempts to foster the integration of Roma communities, it does consider different conceptions of political participation including presence, voice and influence and how these are understood by the European Union and its member states with regards to Roma.

The Politicization of Roma as an Ethnic “Other”: Security Discourse in France and the Politics of Belonging

Since the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union (EU) in 2007, the situation of the Roma community has taken on a much higher profile, forcing the EU to take action on its most marginalized and discriminated minority group. The increased attention on Roma issues has been caused by regressive policies that have targeted Roma in a number of EU member states leading to calls by Roma activists and human rights groups for the EU to intervene. This chapter focuses on the political discourse elaborated by French authorities during the summer of 2010 when Roma migrants were explicitly targeted, marked as security threats, and returned to their home states, notably Romania. The security discourse elaborated by French authorities transformed Roma into an ethnic “other” who did not belong in France and facilitated a context in which their expulsion could be understood. However, this initiative by and large backfired politically, and France found itself the subject of intense opprobrium from the European Commission, as well as numerous domestic actors. At the same time, this “French exception” created a crisis in the EU that hastened the elaboration of the EU Framework for National Strategies on Roma Inclusion in 2011 (hereafter “EU Framework”), effectively making Roma a member state responsibility.

Players and arenas: strategic interactionism in social movements studies

Abstract This ‘Authors Meet Critics’ symposium focuses on two books edited by Jan Willem Duyvendak and James M. Jasper, Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest and Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged. Both books make bold attempts to develop and apply a strategic interactionist perspective in social movement studies by focusing on the interplay of micro and macro processes and decision-making in a range of protest movements. Critical interventions from Aidan McGarry, Robert J. Davidson and Guya Accornero raise a number of questions relating to the core arguments of the books, the key findings and the conceptual advances. Duyvendak and Jasper then address these challenges by drawing attention more acutely to the role of agency in social movements and highlighting significant critiques of the current state of the art in social movement scholarship.

Immigration and Integration Policies: Assumptions and Explanations

Migration is one of the key issues in contemporary European politics and society, placing high on the political agenda in local, national, and transnational political contexts, and widely debated in the media. All European states must grapple with the challenges posed when people move across borders. However, little is known about the relationship between the construction and elaboration of political discourse and its impact on institutions and actors associated with immigration, as well as the lives and everyday realities of frequently vulnerable migrant populations. This book engages with politics and political discourse that relate to and qualify immigration in Europe. It brings together empirical analysis of immigration both topically and contextually, and interprets such empirical evidence with the use of policy and discursive analyses as methodological tools. Thematically, this volume focuses on how discourse and politics operate in issue areas as varied as immigrant integration and multilevel governance, Roma immigration and their respective securitization, the uses of language in determination of asylum applications, gendered immigrants in informal economy, perceptions of integration by the migrants, economic interests and economic nationalism stimulating immigration choices, ideology and entry policies, and asylum processes and the institutional evolution of immigration systems.

Roma in Europe: The politics of collective identity formation

paralysis since 2006 is probably not as straightforward as McEvoy suggests. One may also add that an analysis of the discussions surrounding government formation and structure in the late 1990s, when Bosnia had in fact a co-chairmanship of the council of ministers, might have yielded some further insight. Finally, the instruments international actors had at their disposal in the three cases varied dramatically, ranging from direct imposition and suspension to diplomatic negotiations and arm-twisting. This raises the question about the analytical limits of the compliance framework used in the study. But putting such suggestions aside, it is precisely the comparative nature that makes this book an important contribution to our understanding of institutional design in post-conflict polities.