Annette Freyberg-Inan

Post-communist state measures to thwart organized labor: The case of Romania

This article supplements the literature on post-communist trade unions with an account of how state measures can affect union strength in post-communist Europe. The authors focus on the case of Romanian trade unions, which is exceptional in post-communist Europe in that it is possible to rule out lack of protest capacity as a cause for weakness of policy influence: Romanian unions have maintained a high protest capacity throughout the transition. However, this protest capacity has translated into influence over national economic policy and labor-relevant legislation only throughout the 1990s, and much less so in the 2000s and beyond. The authors examine the reasons for the trade unions’ diminishing influence over national policies and observe a refinement of government measures to render protest ineffective. Key measures include a reduction of the unionized labor force, especially in protest-prone sectors, the de-coupling of plant-level protests from national mobilizations, the granting of selective concessions dividing organized labor, and, more recently, efforts to employ legal changes and state agencies to apply pressure on union leaders.

Public administration reform in the context of European integration: continuing problems of the civil service in Romania

This article examines the role played by European integration in the public administration reform process in Romania, with a focus on the relations between elected political elites and the civil service. It addresses the question whether the constant interaction between EU institutions and the Romanian public administration, supported by the technical nature of accession negotiations and the process of adoption of the acquis communautaire, has led to a greater assertion of the bureaucratic elements of the public administration vis‐à‐vis the political elites. It finds that progress toward such bureaucratization as well as toward greater professionalization and independence of the civil service has been uneven and limited. The EU’s weak involvement in public administration reform in Romania has left underlying power structures largely untouched, and is criticized for not tackling core structural causes of the slow pace of reform located within the public administration itself.

Enforcing consensus? The hidden bias in EU democracy promotion in Central and Eastern Europe

Democracy is a primary export norm of the European Union (EU). It has also played a key role in the conditionalities that have governed the accession processes of new member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The EU has often been accused of offering little guidance regarding the specifics of desirable democracy models and the means of their consolidation. But are these accusations justified? In the first part of this article a detailed examination of European Commission opinions and reports reveals that it has consistently promoted a specific model of democracy in future member states. It shows a strong bias in favour of Lijpharts model of consensus democracy, which is indiscriminately advocated for prospective member states. The second part of the article draws attention to the serious obstacles which exist in the region to the realization of this model. We question the wisdom of the Commissions one-size-fits-all democratic model given these obstacles and the real-life diversity of political contexts in the region.

Religious minorities in Turkey : Alevi, Armenians, Assyrians and the struggle to desecuritize religious freedom

This book considers the key issue of Turkey’s treatment of minorities in relation to its complex paths of both European integration and domestic and international reorientation. The expectations of Turkey’s EU and other international counterparts, as well as important domestic demands, have pushed Turkey to broaden the rights of religious and other minorities. More recently a turn towards autocratic government is rolling back some earlier achievements. This book shows how broader processes affect the lives of three important religious groups in Turkey: the Alevi as a large Muslim community and the non-Muslim communities of Armenians and Assyrians. Drawing on a wealth of original data and extensive fieldwork, the authors compare and explain improvements, set-backs, and lingering concerns for Turkey’s religious minorities and identify important challenges for Turkey’s future democratic development and European path. The book will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of minority politics, contemporary Turkish politics, and religion and politics.

Europe May Be Done with Power, but Power Is Not Done with Europe: Europe During an Era of American Unipolarity and of Relative Decline

Since the end of the Cold War, realism has received little serious attention within the European International Relations literature and has been dismissed as insufficient to explain the most important developments and events in Europe and the world. We argue that this treatment has been unfair. In fact, we consider realism a powerful theory that explains broad, long-term patterns of state behavior, as well as systemic outcomes. The key contribution of realism is its understanding of the constraining and enabling role of the international distribution of power, which represents a decisive initial sorting stage for the choices that states can make. However, in line with neoclassical realist authors, we argue that to explain and predict state behaviour more precisely, the domestic distribution of power, ideas, interests, and institutions need to be taken into account. In any case, power disciplines states and other actors when their leaders fail to adequately recognise their place in the international system. Unlike rival theories, the attention of realists to the impact of the disproportionate power of the United States on the international system allows them to explain a series of developments: the end of the Cold War; the transformation of the global order; the lack of major power conflict; and the re-emergence of inter-state competition in Europe and globally. We conclude by emphasizing the importance of considerations of power for policymaking within Europe.

Securitization and Desecuritization of Minority Rights

Where minority rights are primarily framed as having strong implications for state security, they are securitized. When they are instead discussed in reference to other values (such as democracy or human rights), and when societal actors representing other than security interests dominate their contestation, they are desecuritized. This chapter provides an overview of how Turkey has dealt with its (religious) minorities. It reveals a background of strong securitization of minority rights emerging from the last decades of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of the Turkish Republic. It then shows how EU accession negotiations have provided an impetus toward a desecuritization process already begun in the 1980s, which however remains incomplete and far from irreversible.

The Ambivalent Situation of Turkey’s Armenians: Between Collective Historical Trauma and Psychological Repression, Loyal Citizenship and Minority Status, Social Integration and Discrimination, Assimilation and Self-assertion

Unlike the other groups studied in this book, the Armenians have official minority status according to the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). The democratization and improvement of minority rights stimulated by the EU accession process, and corresponding rise in pluralism and empowerment of NGOs, have enhanced the visibility of the Armenian community and the perceived legitimacy of its demands. Yet, despite recent encouraging reforms, there are still many grievances relating, for example, to lack of restitution of confiscated properties, shortage of priests, limitations to self-government in schools and churches, discrimination regarding employment in the civil service and the right to hold political office, anti-minority rhetoric in school textbooks, and difficulties with the restoration and protection of Armenian churches and historical sites.

European Integration and Minority Rights

This chapter explains how minority rights have been addressed in European politics and how the EU has used accession conditionality to advance minority rights in candidate countries like Turkey. The chapter shows that although the EU has made the protection of minorities an explicit criterion for accession, it has not provided unequivocal leadership on minority rights. This ambiguity has supported differences across candidate and member countries. The second part of the chapter provides an overview of how the EU has evaluated Turkey’s progress in the field of minority rights by analyzing the Commission’s annual regular reports from 1998 to 2015. This reveals a pattern of mixed and partial progress that has recently stalled.

The Alevi, the AKP Government and the Alevi Initiative

This chapter discusses the paradoxical relationship of the Alevi community with the Turkish state and covers the awakening among the Alevi community during the 1990s. The EU-supported democratization reforms led to the removal of some restrictions on Alevi political participation and an expansion of human rights and freedoms. The Alevi community became more vocal in the expression of their demands. However, the chapter shows many grievances still remaining. The limited progress is a result of a number of factors, including the mutual mistrust between the Alevi community and the Sunni Islamic AKP government, the entrenched dispute between the two sides as to whether Alevilik is a sect of Islam or a cultural community, as well as deeply rooted social prejudices.

General and Comparative Analysis

The survey whose results are discussed below was conducted by the authors and their team in different regions and cities of Turkey between 2011 and 2013. As it focused on the situation of minorities, not only people from the city of Istanbul were surveyed but especially those from other regions where most members of the target groups live. The questionnaires used comprised 91 questions, most of which were similar or identical across the groups, while each questionnaire also contained some group-specific questions. As the remainder of our data collection, also the survey focused on the Alevi, the Syriacs (or Assyrians), and the Armenians. It thus encompassed a large religious minority, the Alevi; a smaller scientifically neglected Christian minority, the Syriacs; and the Armenians, a minority which is politically very sensitive due to the 1915 events.