Andras Laszlo Pap

Racism and Police Stops: Adapting US and British Debates to Continental Europe

Findings from an international research programme on police stops in Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain are reviewed in the context of British and US debates on racism in police stops, and in particular the concepts of ethnic/racial profiling, disproportionality and institutional racism. The research uses surveys and qualitative interviews to examine the experiences of Roma in all three countries and of immigrants in Spain. The article finds evidence of ethnic/racial profiling in police decisions to stop. However, this does not translate into aggregate ethnic disparities in stops (disproportionality) in Bulgaria and Hungary where it can be measured. This is because ethnic disparities are driven also by structural factors that are independent of ethnic profiling. Different kinds of institutional racism are also suggested by the poorer treatment of ethnic minority populations during stops and by evidence of under-policing of Roma-only communities in Bulgaria.

Chapter 6: Constitutional Identity? The Hungarian Model of Illiberal Democracy

By connecting to ongoing scholarly discussions on conceptualizing “illiberal democracy” and analyzing the phenomenon of the anti-democratic backlash in post-2010 Hungary, this chapter seeks to provide a description and an analysis of the “Hungarian model of illiberal democracy.” It is argued that the “Hungarian illiberal democracy” is not a construct of constitutional philosophy; nor is it a principle for constitutional design or something characteristically illiberal within the interpretative framework of political theory. Rather, it is a tool to channel, define, and dominate general political discourse and provide a discursive framework for political identification and ideologically biased (yet divergent and ad hoc) legislation. The morphosis of this Hungarian model of illiberal democracy manifests itself normatively through value preferences expressed in the new constitution as well as in a quasi-normative political declaration that serves as a manifesto for the new political community it envisages.

Ethnicization and European Identity Policies: Window-Shopping with Risks

AbstractThe politics of identity is a controversial and ardent topic in contemporary constitutional theory. As this paper is intended to show, East-European minority politics may provide an interesting angle to the study of this sensitive and complicated issue. The dilemma is the following: It is the Murphy-law of prejudice that when it comes to the maltreatment of members of various ethnic groups no serious definitional or recognition-difficulties arise. It is because when it comes to discrimination or ethnic hostility, it is always the daily practice of the majority that will define membership in the discrete and insular minority group. Defining qualification requirements therefore to minority groups seems to pose difficulties only in the context of minority-identity based preferences. This anomaly is however more then of theoretical jurisprudential interest, as in some cases the entire effectiveness of the aimed minority protection schemes may depend thereon. It is fearful that having a post-communist mentality towards state policies with an ethnicized system of preferences, due to the lack of political cultural and public moral restraints, these preferences will simply be seen as services provided by the (alienated, thus for no sympathy or co-operation eligible) state. What seems to be in the centerfold of East European minority politics is thus “ethnocorruption”, that is the utilizing and misusing of remedial measures for private and from the legislators intentions independent means. In this paper, following a constitutional semantical analysis of the minority identity,the demons of ethnocorrpution will be demonstrated through a comparative assessment of a case study of a Hungarian legislation and its possible progeny.

Ethno-racial identity (politics) by law: “Fraud” and “choice”

Following an introduction to the changes in how ethno-racial identity is conceptualized in the social sciences and humanities by the destabilization of categorical frameworks, the author looks at how law reacts to these discussions and paradigm shifts, and argues that legal and administrative approaches face severe linguistic and conceptual limitations by operating within a “choice” and “fraud” binary. The article then questions if the free choice of identity exists as a principle of international minority protection law, a legal field that arguably represents a global political and ethical consensus. The author makes two claims. First, according to the basic tenet of legal logic, a proper right to free choice of identity allowing people to opt out of racial, ethnic, or national (minority) communities would necessitate the freedom to opt in to the majority or to any chosen group. The second claim, however, is that international law would not actually construct an approach to opting in. Thus, the right to free choice of identity is not an autonomous, sui generis right under international law.