Minorities Of Europeanization

Zsuzsa Csergö is Associate Professor and Head of the Political Studies Department at Queen’s University in Canada. She is also the President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN). Her research addresses questions of nationalism, democratization, and the influence of EU integration on state-minority relations in post-Cold War Europe. Ada-Charlotte Regelmann is a Project Manager at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, focusing on the social inclusion of marginalised groups in European societies. Previously, she was a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, and Maynooth University, Ireland. Her research explores the impact of Europeanisation on nation-state-building and social integration in post-communist Europe.

What are the societal effects of Europeanization? How successful is the EU’s project to create an overarching European identity representative of all its citizens, transcending national boundaries, and including those previously excluded as national minorities? This study addresses these questions by adapting the Social Identity Theory’s (SIT) concept of “social identity” to the discussions of “European identity,” offering a novel approach that remedies previous definitional and ontological problems of the term. The conceptualization of a “European social identity” is generated here to invite a reconsideration of conventional understandings of how minorities’ group identities are formed. Presenting itself as a challenge to nations and nationality, the European integration process has yet to achieve its supra-national ideal, falling instead into the trap of nationalizing those who are subsumed under the category of minorities in practice—arguably because of a faulty theoretical understanding of the term. The new “Others” of Europeanization have been chosen specifically to emphasize, despite the EU’s “united in diversity” rhetoric, the marked lack of united destiny and common heritage of selected European nationals. Among these new Others, Russophones in the Baltic states, the Roma people, populations of the Western Balkans, immigrants and guest workers, and Muslims residing in European countries have all been excluded from Europe’s new social identity. Through in-depth historical analysis, this book aims to correct this problem, providing both European studies and broader political science literatures with a new understanding of minorities that is more dynamic both in practice and theory.

Katharina Crepaz investigates how two-dimensional ('top-down' and 'bottom-up') Europeanization processes affect minority communities by using a comparative approach, encompassing cases from both „old" (pre-2004) and „new" EU member-states. The author thereby bridges two dichotomies made in the literature so far, and outlines how Europeanization takes place in non-acquis areas. She does so by looking at four very different case studies: the German-speaking minority in South Tyrol/Italy, the Bretons in France, the German minority in Silesia/Poland, and the Italian minority in Istria/Croatia.

The issue of minority rights is highly contested in both member and candidate states of the European Union. Compared with other policy areas, the Europeanization process in minority rights is much slower and more problematic. Turkey, though, differs from the majority of the member states by showing positive development, although admittedly it is still characterised by both accelerations and slowdowns. This book examines how minority protection, as a highly sensitive and controversial issue, is promoted or constrained in the EU’s neighbourhood, by focusing on the case of Turkey. It draws on current external Europeanization theories and suggests a rationalist model comprising both the role of the EU and also domestic factors. It integrates two models of external Europeanization provided by Schimmelfennig and Sedelmier (2005), i.e. the external incentives and lesson-drawing models, and the framework of the pull-and-push model of member state Europeanization by Börzel (2000), to derive a comprehensive model for external Europeanization. The book argues that the push by EU conditionality and the pull by domestic dissatisfaction are influential in promoting change. Without one or the other, domestic change remains incomplete, as it is either shallow or selective. Focusing on the Turkish case, the book enhances the theoretical understanding of external Europeanization by shifting focus away from EU conditionality to voluntarily driven change, and by providing a theoretical model that is applicable to other countries. It will therefore be a valuable resource for students and scholars studying minority rights and Turkish and European ethnic politics.

The Europeanization of National Policies and Politics of Immigration is the first cutting-edge volume presenting a comparative empirical investigation on the impact of the EU on migration policy at national level. Revealing striking differences, this collection examines traditional member states, new member states as well as non-member states.

The Europeanization of National Policies and Politics of Immigration is the first cutting-edge volume presenting a comparative empirical investigation on the impact of the EU on migration policy at national level. Revealing striking differences, this collection examines traditional member states, new member states as well as non-member states.

In the recent Eastern enlargement, the EU has put particular minority conditions for the accession of the candidate countries. It has used membership incentive to promote minority norms and principles in the candidate countries. The state in question recorded important legislative changes which promote the level of minority protection and which would not have been possiblewithout the EU's conditionality. All candidate countries have engaged in a large scale process of transformation and approximated their human rights to European practices. Turkey also became the target of the EU's minority conditionality. Since Turkey was given candidate status at the Helsinki Summit in 1999, reform process in the field of minority rights has gained important momentum; Turkey has taken important steps in linguistic, property and religious rights of the minority groups and complied with the EU's minority norms. As such, the EU has appeared to be main catalyst in accelerating Europeanization of minority norms in Turkey. Despite the fact that the steps taken so far are far-reaching, the reform process has suffered from an important problem of endurance. Europeanization of minority norms in Turkey is not smooth and steady. Important ups and downs and halts and restarts occurred in the reform process. It is not possible to talk about constant process of Europeanization in minority norms in Turkey. This irregularity in the Europeanization process begs the question of how different dynamism in terms of the degree and pace of minority reforms can be accounted for Turkey. In this respect, this book intends to explore internal and external factors that are responsible for the variation in the reform process. The study is centered on the EU's norms and conditionality as main variables. It aims to find out whether conditionality or normatively induced factors explain continuity and change in domestic change concerning minority protection in Turkey. By assessing explanatory power of norms and conditionality in Turkey's case, the book contributes academic discussions concerning Europeanization of candidate countries and policy convergence.

Considers the complications of race, religion, sexuality, and gender in Europeanizing from below