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The paper analyses the implementation of the principle of equitable representation in North Macedonia. It examines existing consociational theory and the elements of consociationalism. It attempts to answer the question whether the theory supports the adequate representation of minorities in respect of the promotion and protection of their rights. The focus of the paper is on the instrument called "Balancer calculator" (балансер калкулатор) - an instrument used to set employment thresholds in the public administration in North Macedonia. This instrument strives towards the principles of equitable representation, set within the Constitution and the Ohrid Framework Agreement, additionally regulated by the relevant law and bylaws. In practice, this instrument is used to balance representation of the ethnic communities in public administration and to improve their position in general. The paper gives a critical approach to the implementation process since the tool is not adequately set or implemented. These come from its abuse as a purely calculative instrument, putting the numbers of the represented groups in first place, apart from the need of merit-based requirements; its inability to address the needs of smaller ethnic communities; and its ambiguity and irrelevance coming from the non-existent legal clarification of the communities' identity markers. The paper does not offer options, but it opens discussion upon these questions whose answers may help towards the creation and establishment of more relevant policies for representation of minorities within public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Galician is a minority language spoken in Galicia, an autonomous region in northwestern Spain. This paper will provide some basic data on the evolution of the sociolinguistic situation of Galician. It will consider the dynamics of change and revitalisation of the language and will examine the linguistic policies that underpin them. In 1981, the Statute of Autonomy of Galicia was approved, establishing the co-official status of Galician. In 1983, the Galician Parliament passed the Law on the linguistic normalisation of Galicia, which laid the ground for the language policies of successive autonomous governments. After four decades, there are several symptoms that the language policy is inadequate for promoting Galician, based on a non-confrontational model centred on the teaching and learning of Galician and the promotion of its literary and cultural prestige. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and in some cases exacerbated the already precarious education of Roma children in Ukraine. This study aims to understand how the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the education of Roma children by taking a wider look at structural issues affecting the Roma community. Using mixed methods in the form of interviews with stakeholders and a survey, this paper will engage in the larger structure-agency debate through the lens of Ogbu's cultural-ecological theory, Foster's enhancements of it, and Crenshaw's idea of intersectionality. The results show that between March 2020 and June 2020 the most vulnerable people in society were the ones most negatively impacted by the lockdowns and secondary effects of the pandemic. Underlying structural issues, underfunded and segregated schools with non-inclusive curriculums, intergenerational inequality, the digital divide, language barriers, intersectionality, and the pandemic's negative impacts on Roma parents are some of the causes that Roma families reported as barriers which keep Roma children from being able to access education. However, with the agency Roma individuals have, they chose how to respond to structural oppression. This paper also demonstrates the harmful impacts of stereotypes that deem a culture to be innately resistant to education. Throughout this paper, there is a nuanced discussion which engages with previous research and theories and applies them to the new data, in order to provide a general understanding of topics that have not been heavily researched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deconstructs the definition of genocide provided for by Article II of the Genocide Convention with a view to assessing whether an expanding scope of the crime is possible. The current definition of genocide does not seem to correspond with the original conception of the term, which finds its roots in Raphael Lemkin's writings, the "father" of the Genocide Convention. Lemkin envisaged three forms of genocide, namely physical, biological, and cultural, so as to convey a concrete idea of the number of faces that genocide could show over time. The drafters of the Genocide Convention largely discussed the three-dimensional structure of genocide, which, in the end, did not reach a consensus when pondering the inclusion of a cultural component within the so-called crime of crimes. This notwithstanding, there are still some remnants of the cultural dimension within the current definition of genocide, although it reads differently as initially envisioned. In addition, this paper introduces the reader to some of the examples that in recent years have dealt explicitly or implicitly with the question of 'cultural genocide', whose definition has never been clearly determined. This is certainly problematic inasmuch as there is no unanimity in the scope of the term, as was evidenced throughout the discussions which preceded the adoption of the Genocide Convention. Broadly speaking, the notion of 'cultural genocide' appears to refer to an intent to destroy, entirely, or partially, the cultural traits which characterise the modus vivendi of a certain group, encompassing both tangible and intangible attributes. In this regard, this article also considers different alternatives which might circumvent the strict definition of genocide in order to subsume similar offences against the cultural characteristics of a group within other serious crimes under international law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the cultural dynamics of Fidesz's kin-state policies achieved in Romania between 2015 and 2020, particularly in the enclave of Szeklerland. In recent years, Fidesz's external policies constructed a transborder "synthetic home" connected to Hungary by memory spaces. Consequently, this study investigates how the ethnocultural reproduction and redefinition of the Hungarian heritage in Romania has evolved under these influences. To understand Fidesz's ethnic parallelism, this article studies Fidesz's overseas financial assistance for Hungarian cultural heritage and the actions of long-distance Hungarian nationalists from Romania. By analysing the lieux de mémoire from Szeklerland and the activities of political agents, this paper reveals how public spaces are nationalised under a Hungarian identity. This paper also shows that the dialectic of lieux, in the case of minorities separated from their homeland, features both a restorative process and commemorative rhetoric of a positive past. Finally, this paper reveals that lieux de mémoire are instrumental when synthetically reconstructing the lost home through religious and nationalist revivals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights key barriers to the accessibility of basic education among pastoralist communities in Tanzania. It addresses the existing policy requirements in provision of basic education and the mismatch with actual practices which create a dilemma as far as learning for children in pastoralist communities is concerned. A number of factors have been addressed, which include inappropriate cultural values among parents in pastoralist communities as well as other systemic factors. Pupils' dropout, conflicts, the long distance to school and inappropriate learning environments have been mentioned as some of the inhibitive factors influencing inequalities in accessing basic education in pastoralist communities in Tanzania. Overall, this paper interrogates the existing paradox between policy statements and the actual strategies for providing basic education among vulnerable minority pastoralist pupils. This article recommends deliberate investment and prioritisation of the learning agenda for minority children in pastoralist communities. Specific emphasis should be placed on the utilisation of technology by establishing mobile digital learning solutions to cater for the learning needs of children in these communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This main focus of this article is to elaborate on the personal dimension of the mandate of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Using interviews with the HCNMs, other interlocutors and studies on HCNM's conflict prevention practice, the article profiles the individual and professional backgrounds of the six past and present HCNMs: Max van der Stoel, Rolf Ekéus, Knut Vollebaek, Astrid Thors, Lamberto Zannier and Kairat Abdrakhmanov. It looks at some of the common and distinct elements of the HCNMs' experience in a so-called mutual accommodation between the post and the post-holder's personality and background over the last three decades of existence of the institution (1993-2023). How one takes ownership of the mandate and the persona created? How does one operates including through the quiet diplomacy approach? The paper finds that the political clout and the profile of the post-holder matter in upholding a strategic approach to conflict prevention that captures the critical connections between the security and human dimensions of conflict prevention. At the same time, it acknowledges that the evolving political and security environment demands adaptations and that there are there are limits to what one person may achieve without a cooperative and supportive environment. A key challenge remains, however, regarding making use of existing possibilities for the HCNM to engage and relatedly, the willingness or capacity of the post-holder to take calculated risks in order to focus on the HCNM core mandate of conflict prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and in some cases exacerbated the already precarious education of Roma children in Ukraine. This study aims to understand how the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the education of Roma children by taking a wider look at structural issues affecting the Roma community. Using mixed methods in the form of interviews with stakeholders and a survey, this paper will engage in the larger structure-agency debate through the lens of Ogbu’s cultural-ecological theory, Foster’s enhancements of it, and Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality. The results show that between March 2020 and June 2020 the most vulnerable people in society were the ones most negatively impacted by the lockdowns and secondary effects of the pandemic. Underlying structural issues, underfunded and segregated schools with non-inclusive curriculums, intergenerational inequality, the digital divide, language barriers, intersectionality, and the pandemic’s negative impacts on Roma parents are some of the causes that Roma families reported as barriers which keep Roma children from being able to access education. However, with the agency Roma individuals have, they chose how to respond to structural oppression. This paper also demonstrates the harmful impacts of stereotypes that deem a culture to be innately resistant to education. Throughout this paper, there is a nuanced discussion which engages with previous research and theories and applies them to the new data, in order to provide a general understanding of topics that have not been heavily researched.

This paper deconstructs the definition of genocide provided for by Article II of the Genocide Convention with a view to assessing whether an expanding scope of the crime is possible. The current definition of genocide does not seem to correspond with the original conception of the term, which finds its roots in Raphael Lemkin’s writings, the “father” of the Genocide Convention. Lemkin envisaged three forms of genocide, namely physical, biological, and cultural, so as to convey a concrete idea of the number of faces that genocide could show over time. The drafters of the Genocide Convention largely discussed the three-dimensional structure of genocide, which, in the end, did not reach a consensus when pondering the inclusion of a cultural component within the so-called crime of crimes. This notwithstanding, there are still some remnants of the cultural dimension within the current definition of genocide, although it reads differently as initially envisioned. In addition, this paper introduces the reader to some of the examples that in recent years have dealt explicitly or implicitly with the question of ‘cultural genocide’, whose definition has never been clearly determined. This is certainly problematic inasmuch as there is no unanimity in the scope of the term, as was evidenced throughout the discussions which preceded the adoption of the Genocide Convention. Broadly speaking, the notion of ‘cultural genocide’ appears to refer to an intent to destroy, entirely, or partially, the cultural traits which characterise the modus vivendi of a certain group, encompassing both tangible and intangible attributes. In this regard, this article also considers different alternatives which might circumvent the strict definition of genocide in order to subsume similar offences against the cultural characteristics of a group within other serious crimes under international law.

This paper explores the everyday experiences, perceptions, and practices of Kosovo Serbs residing in the rural fabric of Southeast Kosovo with regard to security-related issues. Building on previous qualitative social research conducted in Central Kosovo, it particularly investigates how local responses of ordinary Serbs reflect a certain pragmatic performativity in the face of Kosovo Albanians. In-depth interviews and focus groups were held with locals, while field observation was conducted to construct locally nuanced knowledge about the relations between ordinary Serbs, their identity, and the surrounding landscape. Similar to the Central Kosovo study's findings, the results confirm that in Southeast Kosovo, local Serbs neither displayed nor unfolded forms of vernacularism or disloyalty toward Kosovo Albanians. Conversely, they were found reflecting on potential creative solutions for tackling poverty and underdevelopment in the hope of avoiding replications of post-1999 Kosovo War ideologies emanated by respective national media coverages and political rhetoric. Moreover, it is argued that security experts have de facto overlooked untapped processes of present-day interethnic coexistence and resilience between Serbs and Albanians in the rural fabric by largely giving salience to the tense atmosphere in the Serb-majority urban clusters of North Kosovo. In fact, results also show that Kosovo Serbs pragmatically perform an account of quotidian practices for restoring a sense and self-image of 'personhood' in the eyes of the 'ethnic other'. Employing a research approach that aimed at avoiding unnecessary ethnicisation, this paper sheds light on a peace potential and true civic responsibility that emerged spontaneously from Kosovo Serb voices. Overall, the paper lays the ground for debating the notion of 'personhood' as a lens through which to unravel inconspicuous yet present interethnic coexistence in post-conflict Kosovo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situated at the junction between the field of ethnic politics, security studies, and migration, this paper analyses processes of (de)securitisation in Northern Ireland. The country is characterised by its violent past, consociational power-sharing institutions, experience with periods of political instability, and the recent arrival of several thousand people from other EU and non-EU countries. As a case study, Northern Ireland epitomises the problems of divided societies and the challenges posed by the presence of competing nationalisms in multinational and ever more diversifying countries. This paper applies the concept of (de)securitisation to analyse the extent to which past conflicts and tensions have been overcome; uncovering who or what is perceived as a threat, according to which terms, and how this affects majority-minority relations. To conduct the analysis, I adopt the Copenhagen School understanding of securitisation as a speech act. I use a qualitative methodology, examining (de)securitising discourses that emerged in the party programmes of the main political forces which won seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2017 and in previous elections since 1998. I look at the evolution and transformation of such discourses since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 to today, bringing to light the different security narratives that characterise Northern Ireland concerning the divisions and relationship among its communities and the broader issue of diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights key barriers to the accessibility of basic education among pastoralist communities in Tanzania. It addresses the existing policy requirements in provision of basic education and the mismatch with actual practices which create a dilemma as far as learning for children in pastoralist communities is concerned. A number of factors have been addressed, which include inappropriate cultural values among parents in pastoralist communities as well as other systemic factors. Pupils’ dropout, conflicts, the long distance to school and inappropriate learning environments have been mentioned as some of the inhibitive factors influencing inequalities in accessing basic education in pastoralist communities in Tanzania. Overall, this paper interrogates the existing paradox between policy statements and the actual strategies for providing basic education among vulnerable minority pastoralist pupils. This article recommends deliberate investment and prioritisation of the learning agenda for minority children in pastoralist communities. Specific emphasis should be placed on the utilisation of technology by establishing mobile digital learning solutions to cater for the learning needs of children in these communities.

This article explores the cultural dynamics of Fidesz's kin-state policies achieved in Romania between 2015 and 2020, particularly in the enclave of Szeklerland. In recent years, Fidesz's external policies constructed a transborder “synthetic home” connected to Hungary by memory spaces. Consequently, this study investigates how the ethnocultural reproduction and redefinition of the Hungarian heritage in Romania has evolved under these influences. To understand Fidesz's ethnic parallelism, this article studies Fidesz's overseas financial assistance for Hungarian cultural heritage and the actions of long-distance Hungarian nationalists from Romania. By analysing the lieux de mémoire from Szeklerland and the activities of political agents, this paper reveals how public spaces are nationalised under a Hungarian identity. This paper also shows that the dialectic of lieux, in the case of minorities separated from their homeland, features both a restorative process and commemorative rhetoric of a positive past. Finally, this paper reveals that lieux de mémoire are instrumental when synthetically reconstructing the lost home through religious and nationalist revivals.

Languages are subject to increasingly complex market conditions. This presents opportunities and challenges for sustainable development within minority communities, given tensions between identity and profit, particularly within regional tourism. Through a social sustainability lens, this article compares the opportunities and challenges for sustainable linguistic and cultural practices across two contexts: Cornish and Silesian. It seeks to answer the extent to which these cultures are sustainable, and how their futures could look. We focus on two distinct yet broadly interrelated themes, predominantly within Cornwall and Silesia: (old and new) media and commodification. For commodification, we also integrate a dialogue on Cornish-Mexican and Silesian-Texan heritage. Whilst we see the increased presence of old media in both Silesian and Cornish, there appear to be challenges - across both contexts - in terms of new media resourcing. Whilst commodification is a dynamic present across both contexts, it seems to have accrued more momentum in Cornwall than Silesia. In diverse ways, both cultures appear to show different commodification dynamics in the Mexican and Texan overseas communities, when compared with Cornwall and Silesia. In concluding, this article poses questions around the increased visibility of small languages and cultures: how they may be made more visible without falling into the trap of misrepresenting communities' culture(s) and language(s). Reaching across sites helps us sketch avenues for future exploration and policy innovation. The focus on sustainable growth kindled by this paper is important to empower minority communities, scope out new possibilities, and ensure long-term conservation of minority futures both within and beyond Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers an analysis of a post-conflict policy document: 'The Concept on strengthening of the national unity and inter-ethnic relations in the Kyrgyz Republic', as a policy driven by values of multiculturalism based on international standards. The paper problematizes the relationship between the norms of multiculturalism and the politics of nationalism in Kyrgyzstan using field data collected in 2015. This paper will argue that the 'Concept' adopted by the Kyrgyzstani government is a top-down project, rather than a community-owned and community-shared project. It does not consider broad public opinion and does not enjoy public support for most of policy ideas contained in it. The paper critically studies the values behind the 'Concept', which were aimed at engendering inter-ethnic cohesion and observance of minority rights, against the political reality of interethnic relations on the ground. Informed by key literature on nationalism in post-Soviet Central Asia, the paper concludes that Kyrgyzstan's 'uneasy' management of diversity speaks more broadly to the issue of 'titular ethnicization' in post-Soviet Central Asia, and questions the applicability of the idea of multiculturalism in the post-Westphalian nationstate reality, especially in post-conflict or conflict-prone settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, heightened anti-Roma rhetoric became noticeable across much of Europe. This article focuses on the narrative according to which Roma communities represented a threat to public health and which will be analysed through the lens of the theoretical work on moral panics. The empirical data used in this paper was obtained in the framework of a project investigating the impact of the pandemic on Roma communities in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine, between March-June 2020. Using the literature on moral panics as a framework of interpretation, this article aims to shed light on the processes leading to high levels of social consensus as to the threat to public health posed by Roma communities in these countries. To do so, it outlines the narratives disseminated in mass media, as well as the subsequent narratives and policy responses employed by public authorities, showing how the latter legitimised the alarming reports publicised by the former, engendering a strong societal response which conformed with the framework of a moral panic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the collapse of Yugoslavia, the supranational Yugoslav identity disappeared and was replaced by strengthened national identities. While some states of the former Yugoslavia have rediscovered their Europeanness, others have further strengthened their national identity. This paper answers the question of whether, three decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, a so-called "regional identity" still exists among the former Yugoslav states (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo). The authors set the initial hypothesis that belonging to a regional - in this case, Balkan - identity is more pronounced in the five candidate (Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia) and potential candidate countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and Kosovo) for European Union (EU) membership than in Slovenia and Croatia, which have become EU Member States. Hence, this article will provide insight into "regional identity" and the banality of "Balkanism" reproduced in state media. By examining articles on national online news portals, we will examine the linkage between symbols and deixes in media and their role in creating national and regional identity. This analysis will confirm our initial hypothesis that the term "regional identity" is much more prominent in the media of the EU candidate countries, than in those states which are already members of the EU. By analysing everyday nationalism in the media - a gap that exists in academic research - we aim to open up a discussion that can lead to some solutions for overcoming the identity dilemmas of the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Census and register questionnaires are prepared to obtain general information on society, and their disaggregated findings guide policy makers, economic planners, and researchers. However, their general focus does not necessarily provide information on ethnicity related to health status. Why would this interrelated data be important? The identification of disaggregated ethnic data can be utilised in understanding and eliminating ethnic health disparities. Ethnicity-related demographic data provides extra information about public health for at least two purposes. The first identifies the health needs and special health markers of diverse ethnic groups; the second points out ethnic-related inequalities in healthcare (Villarroel et al., 2018). On the other hand, this method of data collection may easily lead to discrimination and the misuse of data. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed explanation of why Hungary has chosen to prioritise neutral approaches to ethnic classification over public health interests. It will explain why the Hungarian concept of ethnicity is based on personal affiliation, and provides an insight into the ethnic composition of the country. This includes information on which social, historical, and political constraints have shaped the method of ethnic classification, how granularity is incorporated into the ethnic classification system, and how the data gathered on ethnicity relates to the actual number of people who belong to ethnic minority groups. This is especially in the case of one particular ethnic group, the Roma, for whom ethnicity-based data collection could serve as a proactive tool for easing health disparities in the country, as testified by previous studies carried out over the past fifty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the cases of the three small, stateless, city-regional nations of Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country in the period after September 2014. Since the referendum on Scottish independence, these nations have, depending on their unique contexts, engaged differently in democratic and deliberative experimentation on the "right to decide" their futures beyond being referential (pluri)nation(al)-states in the UK or Spain. Most recently, the Brexit referendum has triggered a deeper debate on how regional and political demands by these nations could rescale the fixed (pluri)nation(al)-states' structures while even directly advocating for some sort of "Europeanization". Based on a broader research programme on comparing city-regional cases titled 'Benchmarking City-Regions' (www.cityregions.org), this paper argues that the differences in each of these three cases are noteworthy. Yet, even more substantial are their diverse means of accommodating smart devolutionary strategic pathways of selfdetermination through political innovation processes among pervasive metropolitanization responses to a growing "post-national urbanity" pattern in the European Union. Ultimately, this paper aims to benchmark how Scotland, Catalonia, and the Basque Country are strategically moving forward beyond their referential (pluri)nation(al)-states in such a new European geopolitical pattern that can be called "post-national urbanity" by formulating devolution, and even independence, in unique metropolitan terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand the post-Communist religious transformations that determine the process of questioning and shifting religious identity among Yezidi women from Armenia and Georgia. We discuss gender and religiosity in relation to the internal and external social and political context as influenced by Soviet atheism. The status of women among Yezidis is constructed by traditional religious norms and societal structures, which are influenced by the ideological politics (Communism, post-Communism) of the state of residence. Our findings show that Yezidis, like other religious communities in post-Soviet Armenia and Georgia, are actively involved in the institutionalization of religious norms. The institutionalization of religion within transitive society seems to have the potential to lead to a decline in trust, resulting in the establishment of new institutions, the separation of personal attribution and religious normative practices, and serves as a catalyst for questioning and changing religious identity. In particular, the article aims to understand how post-Communist religious transformations have re/shaped the identity of Yezidi women from Georgia and Armenia, as well as how the internal and external social contexts impact this course of action. We argue that changing political ideologies (Communism, which granted rights to Yezidi women), the pluralization of religiosity, and the systematization of religious norms pushed Yezidi women to question their religious identity, which was permitted after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and circulates the social norms (caste system, religious restrictions, the status of women) of Yezidism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses a peculiar practice that exists in Portugal, which consists of displaying ceramic frogs at the entrance of shops and restaurants in order to keep Roma customers away--taking advantage of the negative connotation of frogs in the Romani tradition. Aiming to contribute to the discussion of a topic that is not widely explored in literature, this research looks at the use of ceramic frogs from the perspective of International Human Rights Law, based on descriptive legal and factual analysis. The view presented here is that this practice is an indirect form of discrimination in the access to places open to the public, and that the Portuguese state is currently breaching its international obligations to protect and fulfil that right, under Articles 2 and 5(f) ICERD. Furthermore, this paper explores the relation of this practice with the prohibition of apartheid and segregation, under Article 3 ICERD, as well as its roots in antigypsyism, systemic racism, and other interdisciplinary concepts. In that respect, this research finds that, by allowing this practice to persist, the Portuguese state is breaching its obligations under Article 3 ICERD. This article ends by trying to contribute to possible legislative and policy solutions to this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the political regime change in post-Soviet Russia on the country's strategy of diversity management. The paper will start with an overview of possible government responses to diversity. In this conceptual framework, the paper will follow the evolution of the place envisaged for diversity in the country's political identity and political institutions in the post-Soviet period. The study will propose a periodization based on contrasting responses of the state to the diversity challenge in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. The political regime change correlated with the shift in the political institutional model from a multinational federation towards a nation-state. The new vision of political identity was reflected in the strategies of diversity management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, policy approaches toward old minority languages (i.e., 'regional' minority languages) and new minority languages (i.e., 'immigrant' languages) are different. This is seen in language policy throughout much of the continent. And yet this distinction between speakers who belong to old minorities and those who belong to new minorities can be questioned, or at least the existence of distinct policy approaches for both groups when dealing with their languages. This paper will argue that if the ultimate goal of social policies - such as language and translations policies - is to bring about a more inclusive state, it may be helpful to think about speakers of old minorities and new minorities not as being essentially different in terms inclusion, but as having specific contextual needs which may or may not be the same. To do so, the paper will focus on the United Kingdom as an example of how things are and how they might be different. In particular, the paper will consider policies regarding translation, which must of necessity arise whenever the state makes choices about language that affect a multilingual population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the indirect impact of populist radical right parties on the securitisation of asylum policy. The theoretical foundation of the paper draws on classic theories of securitisation, expanding them to the field of (forced) migration and combining them with theories on indirect policy impact. In a two-step analysis, this article firstly investigates changes to asylum law in Austria and Germany from 2015 to 2016, using a policy analysis. The case studies include populist radical right parties with and without parliamentary representation. Thus, the resulting stage model also accounts for gradation of the influencing factor. In the first step of the analysis a securitisation of the policy field is revealed in both cases; however, it appears to a stronger degree in Austria. The results are then related to the strength of the populist radical right parties, operationalised as poll ratings, and to election dates to capture the behaviour of government parties under growing electoral competition. In Austria, the securitisation of asylum law could be attributed to the increasing strength of FPÖ, while the results for Germany are ambiguous. Accordingly, the results suggest that securitisation of asylum policy is more likely when populist radical right parties experience strong support from the electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines ethnic minorities' coalition-building within and across nationstates - a phenomenon largely neglected by the existing literature on ethnic relations and by migration and diaspora studies alike. Besides discussing different types of existing minority coalitions at the local, state, and international levels, this papers evaluates how accounting for the relational interplay among ethnic minorities could possibly contribute to our understanding of interethnic relations and democratization processes, and suggests possible directions for future research, while using a number of examples, both in historical and contemporary settings, from Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa in order to illustrate the main points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines opportunities and possibilities for national minority councils (NMC's) to serve as a channel for dialogue and cooperation between national minorities, governmental authorities and non-governmental organisations within the Republic of Serbia and across this state. The main objective of this paper is to review the constitutional and legal framework of trans-ethnic cooperation in Serbia. In order to achieve this, I am analysing the constitutional and legal status of NMC's, and their competences and role in the trans-ethnic cooperation in Serbia and across it. The model of trans-ethnic cooperation and its functioning in practice is analysed especially within the case study of the Slovak NMC in Serbia. The previous framework of cooperation was restricted by the decision of the Serbian Constitutional Court in 2014. Remaining opportunities and possibilities for NMC's in trans-ethnic cooperation are not fully used in practice. There is no systematic cooperation of the Slovak NMC with other organisations of ethnicities within and across Serbia. Trans-ethnic cooperation is not so common and is conducted usually on an ad hoc basis. Nevertheless, the existing institutional and legal model for trans-ethnic cooperation is relatively good. NMC's can and should be active agents fostering trans-ethnic cooperation in and beyond Serbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a prevailing perception in Kosovo that minority rights are nothing but 'ad hoc compromises' that were paid in return for Kosovo statehood. This paper presents a two-fold argument. First, although Kosovo has ensured the legal entrenchment of 'group-differentiated rights' for minority communities in Kosovo, implementation of those rights remains weak. Second, ethnic relations between majority and minority communities living in Kosovo is understood through an essentialist perspective of ethnicity, which encouraged both Albanian and Serbian leaders in Kosovo to take an ethnic approach to politics in order to preserve their power, presenting themselves as the 'true' defenders of their ethnic group. This paper concludes that the main impediment to minority communities enjoying the highest democratic standards is not Kosovo's legislation but its implementation, which illustrates the unwillingness of the political leadership and institutions to meaningfully embrace minority rights as an existential necessity for Kosovo society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a comparative analysis of two Uyghur diasporas in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. It examines the identity development of the Uyghurs while elaborating on the key issues of ethnic identity, its external and internal contestation and negotiation. This aims to answer the following research questions: What are the identities of Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey? How, if at all, have these identities been changing since the collapse of the Soviet Union? And how do Uyghurs balance the notions of ethnicity, nationalism, religion and possibly political ideology? To examine identity development of Uyghurs in Turkey, I rely on primary data collected through participant observation and informal interviews with Uyghur refugees from China. For Uyghurs in Kyrgyzstan, I mostly rely on primary data collected through surveys and interviews. This study finds that both diasporas have strong ethnic nationalist sentiments. Yet, in Kyrgyzstan, Muslim (for some, Salafi Muslim) identity is replacing the formerly primary role of ethnic identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the members of national minorities in the Danish- German border region are protected and empowered. This is done through an analysis of the institutions and mechanism with which the state and land governments preserve the minority culture in the region today. The article uses as point of reference the 2005 OHCHR Plan of Action: Protection and Empowerment, which states that human rights are best protected when people are empowered to assert and claim their rights. The OHCHR plan further claims that, while human rights are universally accepted theoretically, there exists an implementation gap in practice. This article shows that this is not true for the Danish-German border region. The first part of the paper outlines the meaning of the expressions "protection" and "empowerment" as they are used in the OHCHR plan. The analytical part later shows how national minorities in the Danish- German border region are "protected" and "empowered" by the Danish and German governments. The paper further describes the mechanisms for the protection and empowerment of both minorities in the region, and how the institutions promoting minority cultures are organized and structured. The case study is well-suited to show how the theoretical empowerment of national minorities can be transformed into genuine minority empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the performance of memory and forgetting through the urban palimpsest that is the Old Bridge (Stari Most) in Mostar, BiH. Drawing on the results of qualitative fieldwork done in the city in 2009/10 a framework is established to analyze the site through two axes: one as an object seeped in history and commemoration; and the other through its representation (pre-/post-destruction, monument for reconciliation). Through these axes, the paper aims to understand the role that architecture or form plays in performing urban memory and forgetting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores some socio-psychological factors that might be indicative of the willingness of young people to establish post-conflict intergroup relationships in the city of Vukovar in Croatia. It is based on a study involving 254 students (132 male and 122 female) from the University of Vukovar and high schools, who identified themselves with one of the two ethnic groups associated with the conflict in Croatia; Croats (N = 165) and Serbs (N = 89). Participants completed a questionnaire on perceived parental communication, styles of adolescent conflict management within the family, their sense of victimhood, and their propensity towards reconciliation with youth belonging to the out-group. As expected, results confirm that sense of victimhood, referring to the loss of or damage to one's house and to personal losses and threats to one's own life or to the lives of significant others, is associated with negative emotions towards youth belonging to the out-group and less propensity towards reconciliation. Moreover, results show that perceived constructive parental communication is associated with higher propensity towards reconciliation among youth belonging to the out-group. Interestingly, the results suggest that young people who perceived their parents using constructive and non-aggressive relational communication (versus those who are verbally aggressive) seem to have a greater propensity towards reconciliation even when the young people in question experienced a high sense of victimhood. The paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the findings for improving communication and enhancing understanding between groups in post-conflict areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU in the Western Balkans has been significantly engaged in the promotion of improved minority protection in the framework of its political criteria for accession. Despite the EU's involvement in these policies, the question of how external pressures have affected and interacted with domestic institutional and policy changes is still not well understood. This paper sheds light on this debate by examining the interactions between the EU and national actors in the case of the Republic of Macedonia in relation to minority policies. The theoretical and methodological approach for this research largely follows the work of Hughes, Sasse and Gordon on the Eastern enlargement. The paper argues that political conditionality should be understood as a process encompassing both its formal and informal elements and emphasizes the problems of analysing minority conditionality as an independent variable. The analysis is focused on two examples: the adoption of the law on the use of languages and the policy of equitable representation of non-majority communities. The paper tracks and explains developments in EU conditionality in relation to minority protection over time through document analysis and interviews with various stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between citizenship, participation, cultural and socio-economic rights of minorities in Montenegro by focusing on the divergence between policies and their implementation. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it combines insights from law with ones from social and political studies. The paper is divided into three sequential analytical sections. The first section focuses on the definition of minorities in Montenegro, examining the relation between the status of minority and citizenship. The second section relates the previously analyzed concepts of citizenship and minority to representation and participation. It seeks to examine electoral legislation within the framework of 'authentic representation' of minorities, enshrined in the 2007 Constitution of Montenegro. The final section assesses minority access to cultural (group) and socio-economic (individual) rights. The section brings forward the argument that, despite the existing legal guarantees, many of these rights are too complex to realize in practice, particularly those related to language and education in one's own language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After daringly adopting federalism based on ethnicity, Ethiopia has, since 1991, been empowering minority communities within ethnically designated territories. With the clear advantages of territorial solutions, the management of extreme ethnic pluralities through territorial approaches alone has proved a daunting task. Complementing territorial autonomy, the region of Benishangul Gumuz has opted to inculcate elements of non-territorial features in order to manage its regional diversity. This paper investigates the pros and cons of these measures and what it means for a federal arrangement that heavily relies on the matching of ethnicity with territory. It concludes that, even though non-territorial measures being undertaken are steps in the right direction, their full-fledged implementation has severely been curtailed by legal inadequacies and the political practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roma Inclusion has become one of the flagships of the twenty-first century EU policies. In 2011, the Framework for Roma Integration Strategies marked the launch of a structured and targeted approach towards the inclusion of the most marginalized and vulnerable minority in Europe, which at the same time does not constitute a single coherent group. The acknowledgement that the 10-12 million people dispersed all over the continent are not only in need of targeted support but that they are also man-power predominantly lost to the European economy became the driver behind the policy changes. The new centralized approach was designed with the aim to overcome the scattered and inefficient efforts implemented the European countries in the past. The goal of the EU was to guide and synchronize the efforts of the national governments and to support each one of them to develop, plan and implement strategies for integration of Roma under the common Framework. Applying policy analysis models to examine the EU policies for Roma integration, the current paper analyses the potential efficiency and positive impact of the adopted approach. The aim of the text is to focus the attention of policy and decision makers on possible shortfalls that would eventually hamper the positive transformation of societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns how three organisations, namely the Council of Europe, the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) including its High Commissioner on National Minorities, have addressed the issue of the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Slovakia. The organisations have issued recommendations to the governments of Hungary, Romania and Slovakia regarding how to treat these sizeable minorities, and paper looks into these recommendations to see what the 'ideal minority policies' of the three organisations have looked like. It is argued that the organisations started from rather different perspectives, but during the 1990s increasingly converged in their views. This was due to a large degree to the process of EU enlargement, which started in 1997. As the EU held relatively little expertise on the question of national minorities, it relied extensively on the positions of the other two organisations. The advent of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities drafted by the Council of Europe also provided a common standard for the three organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to analyse the phenomenon of devolution in Moldova and the features of political discourse regarding the reintegration of the country in the context of existing design models for solving the Transnistrian issue and optimizing relations with Gagauzia, which still leave much to be desired. To understand the specifics of the discourse on devolution models and the shaping of the territorial structure of the country, Gagauzia and Transnistria will be considered in a comparative perspective. The Gagauz gambit played out by foreign interests and the Transnistrian trophy make devolution process quite challenging in the Republic of Moldova, being vulnerable to various types of propaganda attacks and provocations from inside and outside the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the development of the autonomy in South Tyrol (Italy). It traces its path from a minority protection instrument contested by the Italian-speaking majority population to being viewed as a necessary precondition for an efficiently managed region with peaceful cohabitation of all three linguistic groups (German, Italian, Ladin). Using official statistical and survey data as well as previous scholarly research, the article argues that the autonomy is now consolidated and enjoys broader acceptance than ever before among all linguistic groups; South Tyrol has therefore reached a state of consolidated regionalism. However, nationalist and separatist ideas are on the rise in many European countries, and South Tyrol does not constitute an exception. By contextualizing South Tyrolean separatists with other separatist movements in Europe, the article will try to show that support for secession is low in South Tyrol, and even if an official referendum was possible, a pro-separatist outcome would be far from secure. Meanwhile, Austria, being the kin-state of South Tyrol's German-speaking population, is discussing different means for establishing closer ties with the German community in South Tyrol, e.g. granting Austrian double citizenship to German- and Ladin-speaking South Tyroleans. An analysis of the recent developments and the potential pitfalls of such provisions will therefore constitute the final part of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dayton Accords are the peace agreement that ended the three-and-a-half-year war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The agreement was reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and was formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995. While the Dayton Accords ended the war, they had another function and purpose as well; they sought to construct a country that all warring factions (Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs) could call home. The Dayton Accords created the consociationalized political, governmental, and judicial structures in Bosnia as we know them today. The constitutional system designed by Dayton has effectively stopped the country from slipping back into war, but is viewed by scholars and experts as very flawed and as a major factor as to why Bosnia and Herzegovina has still not moved on from ethnic discord twenty-three years after the war. One of the major concerns that remains is that the Dayton constitution requires that the seats in two key institutions, the three-member presidency and the parliamentary House of Peoples, be equally divided amongst the constitutive peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs). This legally disallows members from the country's 17 officially recognized minority groups from holding office. The European Court of Human Rights has issued three rulings on this matter, citing that these limitations are violations of human rights and that Bosnia and Herzegovina must change its constitution to enfranchise minorities politically, which still has not happened. This paper explores the overall impact of the disenfranchisement of the country's consociationalized system on its minorities, why the constitution has not changed, and what may happen soon as Bosnia and Herzegovina has had its application accepted for European Union membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, heightened anti-Roma rhetoric became noticeable across much of Europe. This article focuses on the narrative according to which Roma communities represented a threat to public health and which will be analysed through the lens of the theoretical work on moral panics. The empirical data used in this paper was obtained in the framework of a project investigating the impact of the pandemic on Roma communities in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine, between March–June 2020. Using the literature on moral panics as a framework of interpretation, this article aims to shed light on the processes leading to high levels of social consensus as to the threat to public health posed by Roma communities in these countries. To do so, it outlines the narratives disseminated in mass media, as well as the subsequent narratives and policy responses employed by public authorities, showing how the latter legitimised the alarming reports publicised by the former, engendering a strong societal response which conformed with the framework of a moral panic.

This paper explores the performance of memory and forgetting through the urban palimpsest that is the Old Bridge (Stari Most)in Mostar, BiH. Drawing on the results of qualitative fieldwork done in the city in 2009/10 a framework is established to analyze the site through two axes: one as an object seeped in history and commemoration; and the other through its representation (pre-/post-destruction, monument for reconciliation). Through these axes, the paper aims to understand the role that architecture or form plays in performing urban memory and forgetting.

This paper explores some socio-psychological factors that might be indicative of the willingness of young people to establish post-conflict intergroup relationships in the city of Vukovar in Croatia. It is based on a study involving 254 students (132 male and 122 female) from the University of Vukovar and high schools, who identified themselves with one of the two ethnic groups associated with the conflict in Croatia; Croats (N=165) and Serbs N=89). Participants completed a questionnaire on perceived parental communication, styles of adolescent conflict management within the family, their sense of victimhood, and their propensity towards reconciliation with youth belonging to the out-group. As expected, results confirm that sense of victimhood, referring to the loss of or damage to one's house and to personal losses and threats to one's own life or the lives of significant others, is associated with negative emotions towards youth belonging to the out-group and less propensity towards reconciliation. Moreover, results show that perceived constructive parental communication is associated with higher propensity towards reconciliation among youth belonging to the out-group. Interestingly, the results suggest that young people who perceived their parents using constructive and non-aggressive relational communication (versus those who are verbally aggressive) seem to have a greater propensity towards reconciliation even when the young people in question experienced a high sense of victimhood. The paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the findings for improving communication and enhancing understanding between groups in post-conflict areas.

This paper examines the relationship between citizenship, participation, cultural and socio-economic rights of minorities in Montenegro by focusing on the divergence between policies and their implementation. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it combines insights from law with ones from social and political studies. The paper is divided into three sequential analytical sections. The first section focuses on the definition of minorities in Montenegro, examining the relation between the status of minority and citizenship. The second section relates the previously analyzed concepts of citizenship and minority to representation and participation. It seeks to examine electoral legislation within the framework of 'authentic representation' of minorities, enshrined in the 2007 Constitution of Montenegro. The final section assesses minority access to cultural (group) and socio-economic (individual) rights. The section brings forward the argument that, despite the existing legal guarantees, many of these rights are too complex to realize in practice, particularly those related to language and education in one's own language.

The EU in the Western Balkans has been significantly engaged in the promotion of improved minority protection in the framework of its political criteria for accession. Despite the EU's involvement in these policies, the question of how external pressures have affected and interacted with domestic institutional and policy changes is still not well understood. This paper sheds light on this debate by examining the interactions between the EU and national actors in the case of the Republic of Macedonia in relation to minority policies. The theoretical and methodological approach for this research largely follows the work of Hughes, Sasse and Gordon on the Eastern enlargement. The paper argues that political conditionality should be understood as a process encompassing both its formal and informal elements and emphasizes the problems of analysing minority conditionality as an independent variable. The analysis is focused on two examples: the adoption of the law on the use of languages and the policy of equitable representation of non-majority communities. The paper tracks and explains developments in EU conditionality in relation to minority protection over time through document analysis and interviews with various stakeholders.

Census and register questionnaires are prepared to obtain general information on society, and their disaggregated findings guide policy makers, economic planners, and researchers. However, their general focus does not necessarily provide information on ethnicity related to health status. Why would this interrelated data be important? The identification of disaggregated ethnic data can be utilised in understanding and eliminating ethnic health disparities. Ethnicity-related demographic data provides extra information about public health for at least two purposes. The first identifies the health needs and special health markers of diverse ethnic groups; the second points out ethnic-related inequalities in healthcare (Villarroel et al., 2018). On the other hand, this method of data collection may easily lead to discrimination and the misuse of data. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed explanation of why Hungary has chosen to prioritise neutral approaches to ethnic classification over public health interests. It will explain why the Hungarian concept of ethnicity is based on personal affiliation, and provides an insight into the ethnic composition of the country. This includes information on which social, historical, and political constraints have shaped the method of ethnic classification, how granularity is incorporated into the ethnic classification system, and how the data gathered on ethnicity relates to the actual number of people who belong to ethnic minority groups. This is especially in the case of one particular ethnic group, the Roma, for whom ethnicity-based data collection could serve as a proactive tool for easing health disparities in the country, as testified by previous studies carried out over the past fifty years.

With the collapse of Yugoslavia, the supranational Yugoslav identity disappeared and was replaced by strengthened national identities. While some states of the former Yugoslavia have rediscovered their Europeanness, others have further strengthened their national identity. This paper answers the question of whether, three decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, a so-called “regional identity” still exists among the former Yugoslav states (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Kosovo). The authors set the initial hypothesis that belonging to a regional – in this case, Balkan – identity is more pronounced in the five candidate (Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia) and potential candidate countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and Kosovo) for European Union (EU) membership than in Slovenia and Croatia, which have become EU Member States. Hence, this article will provide insight into “regional identity” and the banality of “Balkanism” reproduced in state media. By examining articles on national online news portals, we will examine the linkage between symbols and deixes in media and their role in creating national and regional identity. This analysis will confirm our initial hypothesis that the term “regional identity” is much more prominent in the media of the EU candidate countries, than in those states which are already members of the EU. By analysing everyday nationalism in the media – a gap that exists in academic research – we aim to open up a discussion that can lead to some solutions for overcoming the identity dilemmas of the region.

Events surrounding the replacement of a Soviet bronze statue in spring 2007 in Tallinn and subsequent international tensions between the EU and Russia marked a low point in inter-ethnic relations between Russian-speakers in Estonia and ethnic Estonians in recent years. This raises the question of how successful current integration efforts directed towards Russian-speakers have actually been. The paper analyzes the development of the Estonian State Integration Programme (SIP) 2000-2007 from its earliest moments in the 1990s to its current form. It is argued that although its theoretical basis is well grounded, the programme does not account for minority integration needs systematically. Instead it follows a unidirectional action-plan, targeting Russian-speakers without a prior needs-assessment at grass-root level and insufficient minority participation during the drafting and implementation period. Furthermore, the paper highlights the influence the legal-restorationist concept maintains on the implementation of the SIP which partly has the effect of re-enforcing inter-ethnic alienation.