Volume 26 Number 2 April 2000

Special issue: Ethnic conflict and migration policies in Europe
Guest editor: Cristiano Codagnone

Will Kymlicka
Nation-building and minority rights: comparing East and West [Abstract]

Guiseppe Sciortino
Toward a political sociology of entry policies: conceptual problems and theoretical proposals [Abstract]

Hassan Bousetta
Institutional theories of immigrant ethnic mobilisation: relevance and limitations [Abstract]

Andrea Kriszan
The Hungarian Minority Protection System: a flexible approach to the adjudication of ethnic claims [Abstract]

Cristiano Codagnone and Vassily Filippov
Equity, exit and national identity in a multinational federation: the 'multicultural constitutional patriotism' project in Russia [Abstract]

Dirk Jacobs
Multinational and polyethnic politics entwined: minority representation in the region of Brussels-Capital [Abstract]

Valery Stepanov
Ethnic tensions and separatism in Russia [Abstract]

Abstract Until quite recently, the area of ethnocultural relations has been surprisingly neglected by Western political theorists. For most of this century, ethnicity was viewed by political theorists as a marginal phenomenon that would gradually disappear with modernisation, and hence was not an important topic for forward-looking political theorists. As a result, even into the mid-1980s, there were very few political philosophers working in the area. The question of the rights of ethnocultural groups, however, has moved to the forefront of Western political theory in the last few years. The aim in this article is to describe this emerging literature on the normative principles for managing ethnocultural diversity in a liberal democracy, and to consider whether it has any applicability to ethnic conflict in Eastern and Central Europe. The goal is not to propose the unrealistic transplanting of institutions and policies from the West to the East, but rather to outline some of the interesting recent work done by Western political theorists, and to see whether any of it is relevant to selected cases of ethnic politics in ECE, including those analysed in the Ethnobarometer annual report.
Keywords: Nationalism; Ethnic relations; Migration; East-West, Political theory
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 183-212, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

Toward a political sociology of entry policies: conceptual problems and theoretical proposals
Giuseppe Sciortino

Abstract This article presents a critical survey of the state of the current research on immigration policies. The first part highlights the social and disciplinary changes that have recently made ‘immigration policy’ a legitimate topic of social inquiry. It is argued that we are currently witnessing a fairly large wave of studies of the topic and that there is evidence of initial attempts to move from idiosyncratic case histories to theoretically-informed frameworks. The second part surveys the main conceptual framework currently employed to make sense of such policy fields. The article also argues that most of such frameworks end up taking for granted that it is possible to ‘extend’ to immigration policy the basic toolkit employed in relation to other better-known policy domains. Moreover, the study of immigration policies has not yet paid adequate attention to the underlying policy-making, frequently ending up taking at face value the accounts of the actors involved. The third part highlights selected features of immigration policy that are distinctive of such a field.
Keywords: Immigration; Political sociology
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 213-228, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

Institutional theories of immigrant ethnic mobilisation: relevance and limitations
Hassan Bousetta

Abstract Using an institutional framework analysis, this article aims to explain patterns of mobilisation among immigrant ethnic minorities. The first part of the argument is comprised of a critical discussion and conceptual deconstruction of interpretative models of political opportunity structures. This assessment of the relevance and limitations of available institutional explanation emphasises four central problems that call for refinement. The second part consists of an alternative framework. The main argument posits that our understanding of ethnic politics is biased by an overemphasis on institutional channels of political demands and by an underspecification of internal differentiation within immigrant ethnic communities at both the level of strategy and of identity. An alternative understanding of the field of ethnic politics within European cities may take as its point of departure what may be labelled the infra-political dimension of ethnic processses. While the argument primarily takes the form of a conceptual discussion, the example of the recognition of a representative organ for Moslims in Belgium is presented as an illustration of infra-political mobilisation.
Keywords: Ethnic communities; Ethnic politics; Muslims
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 229-245, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

The Hungarian Minority Protection System: a flexible approach to the adjudication of ethnic claims
Andrea Krizsán

Abstract This article describes and analyses the major institutional pillars and the basic underlying normative principles of the Hungarian minority protection system. After a brief overview of the basic characteristics of the various national and ethnic minorities and of the development of the minority protection system, the article discusses the basic inspiration for such a system and its institutional pillars and then proceeds to illustrate two major contentious issues that have characterised the development of Hungarian minority protection system from its beginnings in 1990s to the present. The first is the problem of officially defining the boundaries of ethnic and national groups. The second concerns the demand for special representation rights for minorities in the Parliament. The article then proceeds to measure the Hungarian case against available normative models in the light of concrete examples of ethnic politics. It is argued that the Hungarian experience supports the case for ‘soft’ and flexible institutions in the field of minority protection to provide for the democratic adjudication of ethnic claims, that is to say institutions that are capable of channelling the debates and deliberations on inevitably contentious issues.
Keywords: Hungary; Minority rights; Ethnic politics
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 247-262, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

Equity, exit and national identity in a multinational federation: the 'multicultural constitutional patriotism' project in Russia
Cristiano Codagnone and Vassily Filippov

Abstract The broadly-defined field of ethnic politics in today's Russia is characterised by a complex and frequently intertwined web of ethnic claims and contentious issues that span entry, equity and exit, all set against a background of the attempted construction of a new overarching idea of the national community. This article focuses on the state approach to issues of equity and exit. More specifically, it describes and analyses the current attempts to deconstruct the Soviet legacy and build a new policy approach to deal with the so-called 'nationalities', and on the concomitant struggle to elaborate a new civic conception of the national community, as these efforts are manifested at the official level of constitutional provisions, laws and policy documents but also in the writings of some Russian scholars. Such endeavours culminated in June 1996 with the adoption of the policy document entitled 'Conception of the State National Policy of the Federation of Russia' and of the 'National-Cultural Autonomy' Act. The parallel processes of restructuring the institutional and policy approach to ethnocultural diversity and of building a new conception of the national community are the two very interconnected sides of the ambitious and difficult goal of establishing what we call the 'multicultural constitutional patriotism' project. The article shows and argues that such a process, though in principle valuable, is inherently controversial and contradictory due to two factors: the inherited ethno-federalism and the ambiguous and ambivalent position of ethnic Russians and their identity in such a project.
Keywords: Russia, Nationalities question; Ethnic identity
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 263-288, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

Multinational and polyethnic politics entwined: minority representation in the region of Brussels-Capital
Dirk Jacobs

Abstract During the 1990s, issues of immigrant entry and equity have increasingly become intertwined with the dominant political cleavage that exists between Dutch- and French-speaking Belgians and with related claims for group-differentiated rights. This is particularly the case in the bilingual region of Brussels-Capital where both the Flemish and the Francophone community have jurisdiction and where 30 per cent of the inhabitants are non-nationals. Political incorporation of the foreign population into the polity could tip the power balance between the national communities. The issue of minority representation has thus become a rather contentious issue. This article examines how these multinational and polyethnic politics are increasingly interlocked.
Keywords: Belgium; Brussels; Right-wing extremism; foreigners
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 289-304, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

Ethnic tensions and separatism in Russia
Valery Stepanov

Abstract Inter-ethnic tension and exit claims threaten to become the main problem facing the Federation of Russia, as well as the Newly Independent States. It is well known that in the 1990s Russia, and the post-Soviet space in general, has played host to various forms of tension and open conflict of an ethnic character. As documented by several authors (e.g. Codagnone 1997; Khazanov 1995; Kremenyuk 1994; Olcott et al. 1997; Tishkov 1997) these have ranged from grassroots inter-ethnic clashes and pogroms (as in 1990 in the Ferghana and Osh regions of, respectively Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) up to outright attempted secession with armed conflict as in Chechnya (Russia), Abkhazia (Georgia) and Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan), with countless instances of contentious issues remaining at the level of political disputes and/or social antagonism somewhere in between these two types of violent conflicts. The dissolution of the Soviet Union has led to a large-scale redefinition and creation of 'boundaries' – here defined in their widest possible concrete and metaphorical sense, that is to include state borders and intra-state administrative ones, the delimitation of citizenship, and the strengthening of the Soviet created cleavage between 'titular' and non-'titular' nationalities. This means that various instances of conflict/tensions can be identified within all the three clusters of entry (i.e. ethnic Russians’ struggle for citizenship in Estonia and Latvia); equity ( i.e. demand for cultural rights and more equitable integration by ethnic Germans in some Russian regions); and exit (the countless instances of separatism). This article focuses on the ethnic tension and conflict present in the Russian case by first developing an overview of broadly-defined inter-ethnic tensions. This is followed by a more specific focus on the separatism of the 'national’ republics of Russia.
Keywords: Russia; Chechnya; Secessionism; Ethnic conflict
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 305-332, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)

Central secession: towards a new analytical concept? The case of former Yugoslavia
Daniele Conversi

Abstract Political literature customarily defines secession as a movement developing in the periphery against the centre. This article questions this common assumption by raising the possibility that secession may be propelled by the centre. A working definition of 'central secession' (or 'secessionism by the centre') will be limited to those cases where a powerful nationalist movement operates from within the core or dominant nation(ality). The focus will be on the break-up of Yugoslavia – the disintegration of which was consistently and widely perceived as a conflict of secessionist republics opposed by, and confronted with, a unitary state. A brief geo-political excursus of recent secessionist movements will serve to highlight the singularity of the Yugoslav ‘model’. In the case of Serbia, the rhetoric was adamantly unitarian, anti-secessionist, even anti-nationalist. It emphasised the defence of territorial integrity at all costs. In this way, the centre could cast itself as the spotless saviour of the country's integrity versus a 'treacherous' periphery. In fact, the hidden agenda of the regime was ethnic separation – of Serbs from non-Serbs.
Keywords: Yugoslavia; Serbia; Political theory
(Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 26 No. 2: 333-355, © 2000 Taylor and Francis Ltd.)