Timofey Agarin

Which is the Only Game in Town? Minority Rights Issues in Estonia and Slovakia During and After EU Accession

Abstract Post-communist transition went hand in hand with the European integration process. Much of the literature on EU accession focuses on the rational decision to implement a set of European norms into domestic legislation pre-accession. It is often concluded that once EU membership is achieved, states succumb their rationality and act on the basis of internalised norms. The paper claims that the past literature overlooks the wider framework within which policy-makers operate before and after the accession, namely domestic sovereignty over policy-making and implementation. Tracing the policy dynamics in the area of minority rights in Estonia and Slovakia, we demonstrate that the European integration ushered greater domestic control over policy implementation on minority issues in two states exposed to a heavy dose of conditionality. As we observe, both states have consolidated their state- and nation-building policies referencing EU conditionality in the course of accession and later EU membership to assert centrality of domestic objectives for policy-making and implementation.

Civil society versus nationalizing state? Advocacy of minority rights in the post-socialist Baltic states

Strong civil society provides individuals with arenas to bring their interests to the attention of policymakers. In so doing, civil society organizations (CSOs) can support state policies, but can also criticize policies. This paper argues that most minority rights advocacy CSOs in the Baltic states have little say in the crafting of policy and are compartmentalized into the existing agendas, with only a few groups able to evaluate policies independently. It concludes that the Baltic civil society is weak because the CSOs working on minority issues ask policymakers either too much, or too little. The findings suggest that policymakers quell criticism of their work from the side of the CSOs by ignoring their activities. Alternatively, by funding the CSO that shores up the state agenda, policymakers delegate their responsibilities to civic actors, keep critical voices from public debates and claim that their policies have the full support of a vibrant civil society. This paper investigates the options available for civil society actors to relate to policymakers in a nationalizing state by drawing on the data collected in 77 semi-structured interviews with the CSOs working with Russian and Polish minorities in the Baltic states between 2006 and 2009.

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.

Romanians in Western Europe: Migration, Status Dilemmas, and Transnational Connections

The first plane to arrive in London Luton from Romania on January 1, 2014 brought Victor Spirescu to the UK for the first time in his life. As the young man was later to find out, he would be followed by the press throughout January, would become a “kind of celebrity,” lose two jobs as a result, and would later hide from the media that portrayed him as a “typical” Romanian labor migrant. On that gloomy morning in Luton, however, 145 other Romanians disembarked the same plane to return to their work and life in England. In fact, the NHS, the state-run UK health service, employs more doctors from Romania than from Australia or New Zealand. If anything, this indicates that although migration from Romania might have been at the center of a media frenzy around the turn of the year 2013/2014, Romanian migrants have lived in Western Europe for a long time. Many of them have set up lives and families in their adopted countries, while others have returned back to Romania, as Remus Gabriel Anghel reports in his book.

Travelling without moving? Limits of European governance for Romani inclusion

The European Unions commitment to citizen participation in policymaking and implementation reflects a wider concern for securing Europes ‘unity in diversity’. However, across its member-states, individuals belonging to the diverse linguistic, ethnic and social groups often referred to as ‘Roma’ find themselves excluded from political, social and economic participation in countries where they live. The past decade saw the appearance of a more concerted approach to improve the participation of individuals belonging to these groups in social and economic processes. This article examines what it refers to as the European Governance for Romani inclusion (EGRI), assessing policy steps undertaken at the European institutional level towards Romani inclusion and the tools for policy implementation. The paper concludes that the EGRI has offered only limited opportunities for the marginalised Roma to redress their exclusion.

Where have all the environmentalists gone?: Baltic Greens in the mid-1990s

In the wake of Perestroika, environmental issues stood out in the eastern Baltic Sea region as being behind the forces successfully mobilizing mass support for independence movements. At the time, these forces challenged the supremacy of the central apparatus to decide on issues of high concern to citizens, which allowed for an initial dialogue between the Soviet state and society. Arguably, mass movements in the then Soviet Baltic republics strongly opposed the extensive model of using natural resources and urged the authorities to account for the ecological repercussions of the Soviet path to economic modernization. However, the tide of environmental protest receded after the Baltic states gained independence from the Soviet Union (SU) and many issues which had mobilized citizens just months earlier lost their prominence altogether. By the mid-1990s, political, economic and social changes further curtailed civic engagement, including environmental initiatives, within the societies of the Baltic states. This essay analyses the views of those Baltic residents who support parties with an environmental agenda and of those involved in ‘Green’ activism. The essay seeks to provide an explanation for an overall decline of popular interest in ‘Green’ politics and activism in the Baltic states by investigating the world views, individual environmental action, and support for environmental policies across the region. Relying on the data collected during the second round of the World Values Survey (WVS), I investigate whether Baltic respondents who support environmental parties

Resident Aliens? Explaining Minority Disaffection with Democratic Politics in the Baltic States

Commentators and scholars alike recognize the important role political dissatisfaction plays in the process of regime change. A considerable body of literature has used dissatisfaction with a regime and distrust in political institutions to explain political dynamics during democratizations initial phase, yet these indicators are rarely used to assess disaffection with politics in established democratic regimes. Recent research on the post-communist region has established that citizens demonstrate high levels of political alienation, and that ethnic minority communities in particular are widely dissatisfied with democratic politics, institutions and regimes. This paper uses the 2004 data from the New Baltic Barometer to analyse individual-level disaffection with politics among the minorities in the Baltic States and explores the structural roots of such disaffection. The paper draws upon interviews with political representatives of minority communities in order to understand their perceptions of opportunities to participate in decision-making. Building on quantitative and qualitative analysis, the paper concludes that disaffection with politics among both the mass of ethnic minorities and their elite groups is best explained by the misrepresentation of minority interests in post-communist Baltic polities.

Angels with dirty faces? European identity, politics of representation and recognition of Romani interests

The contradiction between acknowledgement of cultural differences and their accommodation in public has been a constant theme in studies of diverse societies. This review essay discusses five volumes that grapple with questions of Romani inclusion and the problems Roma face across Europe. The volumes under review point to problems faced by Romani communities and analyse the various legal, political and social challenges that situation of the Roma poses to institutions of contemporary societies. The essay reviews the challenging nature of the status of Roma as we move away from the one-sided towards more reciprocal relationship engagement of state with society in general, and the multiply excluded groups, in particular. The essay finds that the role Roma play in these relationships is either over-, or under-estimated by the literature, largely as a result of limited opportunities to acknowledge and, in effect, accommodate Roma who are rarely understood as actors in their own right.

Flawed Premises and Unexpected Consequences: Support of Regional Languages in Europe

This article discusses the relationship between three language communities in Europe with variant levels of official recognition, namely Kashub, Sorb, and Silesian, and the institutions of their host states as regards their respective use, promotion, and revitalization. Most language communities across the world campaign for recognition within a geographic/political region, or on the basis of a historic/group identity to ensure their languages use and status. The examples discussed here illustrate that language recognition and policies resulting therefrom and promoting official monolingualism strengthen the symbolic status of the language but contribute little to the functionality of language communities outside the area. As this article illustrates, in increasingly multilingual societies, language policies cut off its speakers from the political, economic, and social opportunities accessible through the medium of languages that lack official recognition locally.

Citizenship and Collective Identity in Europe

became increasingly common over generations, respondents still tended to marry other Hispanics: ‘In my sample, it is most common that women marry a coethnic, which consolidates their racial identity as Mexican American’ (p. 121). This chapter reveals how Mexican-Americans confirm or dilute their heritage through their marital choices, and Vasquez cleverly refers to marriage as a critical ‘bump’ in ‘bumpy-line’ assimilation processes (92, 121). Because of its success in summarising theories of assimilation, this methodologically rich book would be a tremendously useful selection for anyone interested in assimilation, migration and ethnographic studies. Even though its data-set is not the most easily generalised, Mexican Americans across Generations contributes greatly to migration and assimilation debates for a number of reasons; the generational component of the author’s research uncovers how Mexican immigrants, their children and their grandchildren are incorporated, yet also discusses why there is so much variability in the process. In order to explain that variance, Vasquez focuses on gendered and racial identity within Mexican-American families. Furthermore, by discussing intermarriage, Vasquez shows how racial identities within migrant families (particularly middle-class ones) can shift from one generation to the next. Overall, this is an impressive contribution to debates on migration, assimilation and race. Vasquez has definitely found her niche in the literature.