ethnopluralism: panacea for east central europe?
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Ethnopluralism: Panaceafor east Central Europe?Rasma KarklinsPublished online: 19 Aug 2010.
To cite this article: Rasma Karklins (2000) Ethnopluralism: Panacea for eastCentral Europe?, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity,28:2, 219-241, DOI: 10.1080/713687469
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Nationalities Papers, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2000
ETHNOPLURALISM: PANACEA FOR EAST CENTRALEUROPE?
Rasma Karklins*
Worldwide, ethnopolitics takes on various shapes. Yet, while politics involvingethnicity can be either con� ictual, competitive, or cooperative,1 analysts typicallyfocus either on instances of con� ict or ignore the multiethnicity of states by stickingto “the comfortable integrationist presumptions of the 1950s.”2 All too rarely doesone � nd analyses of policies that work in dif� cult situations. This global trend isintensi� ed in the case of Eastern Europe. As this region has suffered instances ofethnic politics gone wrong—most recently in the former Yugoslavia—many analystsassume that constructive approaches to ethnic relations are impossible, even thoughthey are needed more than ever. Here, I outline a model of ethnopolitics which isboth democratic and constructive, has been used in East Central Europe in the past,and has potential for the future. In presenting the case for ethnopluralism, I outlinea promising alternative to ethnic con� ict or neglect.
Ethnopluralism as presented here is a coherent policy model that goes beyond adhoc arrangements and notions of minority rights. Its essence is to focus on all groupsinvolved and to foster civic unity while safeguarding ethnic identities, typically byguaranteeing minority group self-expression in some spheres. As argued by pluralistthinkers, comprehensive ethnic mixing and homogenizing can be problematic innon-immigrant multiethnic societies, whereas providing a framework for the stablepreservation of distinct identities can promote overall integration.3 Pluralist thinkingis paradoxical in that it assumes that diversity, clustering, and the creation of someboundaries can help to promote national unity. As expressed by one author,“probably the only means of preserving cultural and consensus values, and the onlymeans of integration in the long term, is through local autonomy in the short term.Separation promotes a sense of security from which there can be cooperativetransactions between communities, leading � nally to a higher degree of functionalcooperation, if not integration.”4 Thus, in practice, ethnopluralism involves a two-track policy that needs to be � ne tuned in each case: one policy track maintains thecultural space and identity of each community, while the other track enhances acommon culture and values it as a tool of state building and formation of a civicnation.
The speci� c forms of pluralist ethnic expression vary. In East Central Europe, theemphasis has been on language pluralism, cultural and religious autonomy, andnominal and symbolic self-assertion. Of the various forms of ethnopluralism, lan-
ISSN 0090-5992 print; 1465-3923 online/00/020219-23 Ó 2000 Association for the Study of Nationalities
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guage pluralism probably is the most conducive to ethnic stability in the region, evenmore so since variants of territorial autonomy suffered a setback with the dissolutionof the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.5 East Central Europe has a traditionof multilingualism. The strength of language pluralism is that it represents a policyof both practical and symbolic inclusion. By joining distinct cultural spaces with theuse of a common language for civic discourse and for interaction in joint sociopolit-ical domains, states can fashion win–win situations in ethnopolitics. Languagepluralism has great potential in preventing ethnic polarization. Language is the onedimension of ethnic identity that most easily allows the reconciliation of severalidentities, since people can speak multiple languages, and several languages can beused parallel to each other in education and social life. Also, implementing anaccommodating solution to ethnic demands in one sphere, such as language, oftenhas a spillover effect to other spheres of ethnic relations.
Geographically, my main focus is on East Central Europe, de� ned to includeHungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and the Baltic states.6 There are twomain reasons for this regional focus. For one, some of these countries have a legacyof ethnopluralism, for example Estonia and Czechoslovakia during the interwarperiod. More importantly, these countries present the most successful examples oftransition from communism to democracy to date. As I shall argue, ethnopluralismis closely linked to a democratic system of government and the transition fromcommunism by itself has promoted ethnopluralism through regime change. Sec-ondly, these countries are exploring democratic approaches to ethnopolitics, and arepressured to do so by international bodies such as the OSCE (Organization forSecurity and Cooperation in Europe). The general model that already is beingadopted in the Baltic states and elsewhere comes close to what I call ethnopluralism.Therefore, it is important to specify its assumptions and dynamics.
I shall � rst outline the ethnopluralist model and its underlying theoretical andpolitical assumptions. The next section focuses on the rationale of why ethnoplural-ism is a promising policy for East Central Europe. This is followed by a discussionof the weaknesses of the policy. After that I provide some illustrations of ethnoplu-ralism in action. It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into details ofcontemporary East European minority policies, but it is important to refer to someworking examples.
The Ethnopluralist Model
Ethnopolitics differs depending on whether ethnic identity in a speci� c context is anindividual or group phenomenon.7 If the focus is on the individual, the core concernis the ethnic nondiscrimination of individuals, as, for example, in the United States.If, however, ethnic identity is group based and the survival of a culture is seen asde� ning equal rights, then the ethnopolitical focus shifts to how states accommodate
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such identities. Many misunderstandings can be avoided if the differences betweenminority situations is recognized: while in some contexts, ethnic claims focus on theright to assimilate into the dominant culture and to integrate into its institutions, inother contexts minorities emphasize the right to have their distinct cultures andinstitutions recognized. The latter is typically the case with minority nations orhistorically rooted national minorities. As noted by Will Kymlicka, immigrants “arenot asking to set up a parallel society, as is typically demanded by nationalminorities.”8
Group-based ethnopolitics revolves around the extent to which a state accommo-dates diversity. Pluralists argue that national minorities have concrete cultural,political and economic stakes as well as symbolic and emotional concerns. It is futileto ignore such issues in the hope that they will go away. Ethnonational interestsclearly emerge in crisis situations, as for example when Czechoslovakia broke up,9
but they are always present in one form or another. Ethnopluralism assumes thatpolicies of neglect, assimilation, or repression are likely to lead to a backlash. Itassumes that every communal group, as a group, wants to retain its identity, has theright to do so, and will � ght to do so. To avoid the latter, and to create civicconsensus, pluralists argue that, parallel with creating a joint identity, policy makersneed to grant convincing guarantees for the retention of distinct identities. This basicassumption is similar to that made by consociationalists such as Arend Lijphart, butas discussed below, there are crucial differences as well.
Pluralists argue that some minority rights need to be recognized in the publicsphere and not relegated to private life. Some “private” and individual ethnicinterests are inherently tied to group rights, for example the right to cultural identity.Language and other cultural practices survive only in regular communal interactionwith some institutional backing. If speakers of a minority language are in closeproximity with a larger language group, this marginalizes them and eventually leadsto the extinction of their language, unless such a language minority is protected.Interaction with a language majority tends to undermine minority language use andthus language rights. This is the main argument in support of group cultural rights,for example the dominance of one language in certain institutions or in a designatedterritory such as in speci� c Swiss cantons or the province of Quebec. Equalindividual rights are insuf� cient to guarantee real equality if more than one cultureis to be preserved, or if there has been systematic discrimination against one group.A collective right may take precedence in such a context.10
Some states deal with minority rights directly, and, whether they acknowledge itor not, all states do so indirectly. As I argue below, the type of political system itselfhas indirect consequences for how national minorities can express themselves. Inaddition, each state has policies directly dealing with issues of interest to ethnicgroups, such as language or education. Sometimes these policies are an unspeci� edpart of general cultural policies, but if group identities are recognized, these policiesare openly pronounced.
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Students of cultural pluralism emphasize the group as a social reality and necessityin many ways. Thus Crawford Young notes that, although equality and freedom arethought of as “commanding principles as applied to individuals, empirical realitysuggests that their mobilizing force, particularly in the political � elds de� ned bycultural pluralism, is located at the group level.”11 Recently, Will Kymlicka hasargued that minority group rights are in fact a liberal value and “that individualfreedom is tied to membership in one’s national group; and that group-speci� c rightscan promote equality between the minority and majority.”12 All this has specialmeaning in East Central Europe, since all cultural groups and nations have been aminority in one or other context or time. The role of minority and majority havechanged so often that all national groupings feel culturally vulnerable. Ethnoplural-ism also safeguards weak majorities, which is an added bene� t that establishednations in the West rarely worry about.
”Pluralism” has many de� nitions. When applied to ethnic groups, some de� nitionsare idiosyncratic, for example Furnivall’s application of the term to the colonialworld.13 Others use the concept “ethnic pluralism” or “plural society” simply todenote the existence of multiethnicity.14 Jacqueline C. Simpson notes the differencebetween pluralism and heterogeneity: “Heterogeneity describes the existence ofmultiple societal components sharing one set of social institutions; pluralism de-scribes the situation of multiple cultural enclaves, each with its own set of socialinstitutions.”15 She outlines six ways how governments may implement culturalpluralism: (1) legal recognition and differentiation of people, (2) focus on grouprewards rather than individual merit, (3) structural separation, (4) cultural differen-tiation, (5) area exclusion, and (6) language policy.16 The core principle of demo-cratic ethnic pluralism is that it recognizes and accommodates distinct communities.Yet at the same time it does so by emphasizing common civic values. Ethnopluralismviews the safeguarding of communal distinctions as a means toward civic inte-gration. Thus, certain “groups … keep separate schools, community organizationsand a distinct identity while sharing certain over-arching values, institutions andidentity with the rest of society.”17
This thinking rests on several assumptions about ethnic and national identity. Forone, it assumes that recognizing and constructing boundaries is a crucial aspect ofethnic identity formation and retention,18 both in the concrete and symbolic sense.Yet pluralist thinking on the interaction between groups as well as between groupsand the state has a paradoxical side: While it seems to emphasize particularism andclearly de� ned borders, pluralism argues that these are the premises of true multieth-nic integration. In other words, it asserts that joint identities at a state level candevelop only if existing valued identities are safeguarded rather than undermined.Ethnopluralism assumes that multiple identities can exist side by side, or on differentlevels of sociopolitical interaction. Individuals and groups can form a new identitywithout losing what they are, i.e., identity is not zero sum, but can be just theopposite when existing group identities are used as building blocks of unity.19 Rather
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than trying to melt ethnocultural groups into a new cultural and political whole, apolicy of ethnopluralism af� rms the distinctiveness of ethnic groups in order to bindthem into a political whole. In value terms, ethnopluralism views difference as beinginspiring, and rejects sameness as a form of impoverishment.
Clearly, speci� c values and beliefs about ethnicity are crucial underpinnings ofethnopluralist institutional arrangements. The art of ethnopluralist statesmanship is toachieve national harmony by careful structural design as well as the fostering of apolitical culture that uses diversity to cement civic unity. The concept of “civilsociety” implies the latter, and it refers less to any and all social groupings than toassociations that interact in a civil manner and are concerned about the polity as awhole. And, since the whole is dependent on the parts, participants in a civil societywelcome other groupings and their contributions. Thus, although there is diversity inethnic or social identity, there is a shared civic identity.
While arguing that multiple identities can and should be accommodated, ethnoplu-ralism also assumes that identities are transformed over time, especially in theconstruction and strengthening of a joint civic identity. Identity is seen as a socialgiven that is formed by policy, good or bad. Thus the model is not anchored inmaintaining � xed identities, as is sometimes criticized in the case of consociational-ists,20 but rather views identities as � exible. Importantly, new forms of combinedidentities should be free to develop gradually and on their own. Policymakers candevelop positive incentives for movement toward stronger joint identities, but the useof negative incentives or force is bound to back� re sooner or later.
Ethnopluralism focuses on the formation of a joint civic identity as the bridgebetween distinct cultural identities and spheres of life, but these are distinct spheres.Some of them are private and communal, while others involve the public realm. Acore political issue concerns the pattern of integration in public institutions such asschools, army units, and administrative of� ces: does a multiethnic state mix peoplein common institutions, or does it provide some parallel institutions, or a mixing ofboth, depending on domain? The � rst pattern is re� ected in France’s assimilationistapproach to nation building, the second example is that of consociationalist patternsused in Switzerland and Belgium, and the third re� ects an ethnopluralist approach.A pluralist strategy of national integration involves the mixing of different types ofintegration by social sphere; for example, combining a fully homogenizing socioeco-nomic sphere with separate spaces for subcultures, or schools with different lan-guages of instruction. Pluralists think of a state, polity, and society as consisting ofmany separate domains, each integrated in its own way. Some domains are morehomogeneous than others.What matters is that the whole be balanced harmoniously.
The design of institutional pluralism depends on the given characteristics of eachcase and what the players involved feel to be most appropriate. Institutionalautonomy results from policy—for example the granting of minority schools—but itis in� uenced by spatial demographic dispersion and socioeconomic differentiation.Here I emphasize cultural autonomy because it appears to be best suited for East
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Central Europe, but other ethnopluralist arrangements can focus on territorial,political, or administrative autonomy. One added advantage of the ethnopluralistmodel is that its assumptions closely coincide with those underlying integration aspursued by the European Union, a union that all East Central European states aim tojoin. In the EU, the goal of broader economic and other integrative ties is held inhigh esteem, but without paying the price of undermining existing and at timesfragile national and cultural identities.
Why Ethnopluralism in East Central Europe?
There are six major reasons why ethnopluralism holds promise for East CentralEurope: (1) it has historical precedents, (2) it � ts the prevailing categorical under-standing of ethnicity, (3) the idea of ethnic self-expression is legitimate, (4) itaccommodates “new” minorities as well as “new” majorities, (5) ethnopluralism � tsthe transition from a communist to a democratic regime, and (6) policy alternativesare poor.
(1) Ethnopluralism is suitable for the region because it has historical precursors.As noted by Uri Ra’anan, “acknowledging that various separate nationalities existside by side with a single citizenship is in line with the historic traditions of theregion.”21 Although this is rarely recognized, East Central Europe has provided itsown model of pluralist ethnopolitics. Early in this century, the Austrians Karl Rennerand Otto Bauer theorized that extensive cultural autonomy would depoliticizenational cleavages.22 They also recognized that it was often impossible to drawterritorial federal boundaries between nationalities and therefore advocated a corpo-rate form of federalism for self-de� ned cultural communities. The key principle isthat non-territorial groupings who wish so are given collective rights. Decisionmaking and administrative power on matters of education, culture, and the arts isdevolved to national councils. The councils are to be elected by self-declaredmembers of cultural communities from the entire territory.23
This model found practical application in interwar Latvia and Estonia, especiallyin the form of publicly funded minority school systems.24 As noted by ArendLijphart, “interwar Estonia’s cultural autonomy for national minorities still stands asa model for non-territorial federalism.”25 Estonia followed Renner’s model mostclosely in that it developed elected cultural councils, most successfully so in the caseof the German and Jewish minorities.26 Other precedents focusing on legallyguaranteed cultural rights were provided by the Minority Treaties sponsored by theLeague of Nations.27 Speci� c cases involved all of Eastern Europe as well as Austria,Upper Silesia, the Aaland Islands, Turkey, and Iraq.28 In the postwar period, the sameidea has been applied to the 1960 Constitution of Cyprus,29 and partly in Belgium inregard to Brussels.
Further back in history, the principle of minority group self-administration wasapplied to religious groups. Thus the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth allowed
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considerable administrative latitude to the Jewish community until 1764,30 andhistorically other European rulers have similarly permitted Jews to administer theiraffairs according to their own laws and traditions.31 As early as the � fteenth century,broad self-administration through the millet system was applied to all non-Muslimcommunities of the Ottoman Empire, including Jews and the Greek Orthodox andArmenian Catholic churches. Additional millets for Roman Catholics, Protestants,and Uniates were recognized in the nineteenth century. Besides speci� cally religiousconcerns, these councils administered schools and dispensed law in family matterssuch as marriage, divorce, and inheritance.32
While the idea that minority communities should be allowed to administer theirown affairs was originally applied to religious groups, Renner and Bauer extendedit to cultural groupings. They saw cultural and religious communities as being similarin that they can persist even if members are geographically scattered, as long as theyare eager to participate.33 It was innovative to conceive of cultural autonomy on apersonal rather than territorial basis, and it was also new to link institutionalizingminority autonomy to individual preference, for example in the choice of schools.While this may not seem unusual from the perspective of an American society withmany individual and private cultural initiatives, it is unusual in the statist societiesof Eastern Europe. In states that tend to overregulate society, the granting ofindividual choice and group self-administration in any sphere represents a demo-cratic impulse.
(2) Policies work only if their assumptions � t the case, and any ethnic policy needsto � t its given context in order to succeed. It is important to realize that theessentialist and group-based understanding of ethnic identity that dominated in thenineteenth and early twentieth century still prevails in the eastern and central part ofEurope. There, the dominant understanding of ethnicity as a natural phenomenon wasformed by local followers of Herder. Ethnic identity is seen to be rooted in culture,particularly languages, as well as a distinct approach to life in the sense of“mentality” as it is understood in those cultures.34 Nominal and symbolic identity issimilarly signi� cant, as are folkloristic traditions.35 In sum, there is a broadly heldview that ethnic groups and nations are distinct and this distinctiveness should beallowed to express itself.36 While Western social scientists may have a point whenarguing that ethnicity is an artifact imagined by cultural and political leaders forinstrumental reasons,37 the essentialist view of cultural, religious, historical, andemotional links within communities38 remains strong in East Central Europe,“imagined” or not. Politically, this is what matters.
As noted by Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, ethnicity is “a tendency bypeople to insist on the signi� cance of their distinctiveness and identity and on therights that derive from this group character.”39 In Eastern Europe, insistence onethnic identity as a signi� cant objective marker remains strong.
(3) The political twin of the idea of cultural self-expression of peoples is the ideathat cultural nations should be congruent with political nations, e.g., the core
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proposition of modern nationalism.40 This was one of the revolutionary democraticmessages of the nineteenth century. At that time the liberal credo supported minoritygroup rights and self-determination. To cite Will Kymlicka, “it was a common tenetof nineteenth-century liberalism that national minorities were treated unjustly by themultinational empires of Europe, such as the Habsburg, Ottoman, and Tsaristempires. The injustice was not simply the fact that the minorities were deniedindividual civil and political liberties, since that was true of the members of thedominant nation in each empire as well. The injustice was rather the denial of theirnational rights to self-government, which were seen as an essential complement toindividual rights, because ‘the cause of liberty � nds its basis, and secures its roots,in the autonomy of a national group.”’41 By the time of World War I, the quest fornational self-determination was widely legitimized and led to the formation ofindependent Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, etc.
Although the right to national self-determination was primarily applied to nations,the underlying principles implicitly legitimized all struggles for ethnic self-rule. Thisposed the dilemma of where and how to draw the line, how to support democraticself-rule yet oppose rampant separatism. One way to reconcile the contradictoryimpulses of self-rule and territorial integrity was to grant extensive minority rights,and the League of Nations did make this one of its priorities. The internationalcommunity was reluctant to return to these policies after World War II due to themisuse of minority rights claims by Hitler, but in the 1990s the tide was turningagain,42 especially in admonitions to the post-communist region. Bodies such as theCouncil of Europe, the European Union, and OSCE have pressured East Europeangovernments to develop a pluralist approach to ethnopolitics. It is also noteworthythat whenever international organizations assert the rights of minorities they implic-itly de� ne them as collective entities with group rights. Also, they implicitly assumean objective and essentialist ethnic identity for these groups, thus reinforcing the EastEuropean tendency to objectify ethnicity.
(4) Comparison rests on recognizing differences. East Central Europe differs fromWestern Europe in that most inhabitants hold traditional views about nationalidentity and the rights derived from them.43 The nation state still forms the prevailingideal, partly because most nations in the region never had a chance to engage in statebuilding as fully as in other parts of Europe. Importantly, even numerical majorities(for example the Slovaks) feel that they have been kept from “building” their ownnation due to historical subjugation by regional empires. Such views need to be takenaccount of in policy design. National and ethnic frustration is also rooted in thephenomenon of contemporary minorities previously belonging to hegemonic cultures(such as the Hungarians in Slovakia). As noted by Donald Horowitz, majoritiesbecome minorities and minorities become majorities with changing ethnic borders,44
and borders have changed often in Eastern Europe, most notably so at the end ofWorld War I, during and at the end of World War II, and at the end of the Cold War.“New” minorities resulting from shifts of borders or the collapse of empires have an
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even more pronounced “essential” identity than historical minorities in that they havedeveloped cultures, a strong psychological sense of self and a sense of historicalinjustice. New minorities constitute a very speci� c ethnopolitical context that needsto be accommodated.
In sum, Eastern Europe is characterized by a backlog of unsatis� ed ethnonationalconsolidation among current minorities as well as majorities. By providing distinctinstitutional space for both minority and majority cultures, ethnopluralism presentsan opportunity for reconciling the growth impulses of both sides.
(5) In the context of transition from communist regimes, one cannot viewethnopolitics in isolation: one needs to identify links between change of regime andchanging ethnic politics. I argue that a pluralist polity reinforces ethnopluralism and,vice versa, democratic ethnopluralism reinforces a pluralist democracy. Just as thebreak-up of the historical European empires was linked to the quest for self-rule byminority nations, so was the collapse of the internal and external empire of the SovietUnion. Again, one can explain this in terms of underlying political principles andstructures.
The link between pluralist group politics and democratic ethnopolitical arrange-ments is twofold. There is a direct link in that democracies typically favor someethnic pluralism in their structures and political culture. In addition, self-rule isgranted indirectly by the basic pluralist make-up of the polity. Thus, pluralism in thevertical distribution of power in democracies means that considerable authority restswith lower levels of government such as provinces, cities, or local authorities. If suchunits are dominated by a minority, there is some de facto ethnic pluralism withoutit being formally named. The same applies to the horizontal structuring of politicalpower: The higher a regime’s level of group and individual autonomy, the greater thescope of effective ethnic pluralism.45
One illustration of this implicit ethnopluralism is that a democracy does notregulate book publishing and therefore ethnic groups are free to publish booksre� ecting their culture. In contrast, communist states control all publishing and thusthere is a systemic constraint on ethnic cultural autonomy. A similar exampleconcerns the religious side of ethnicity. In most democracies, the separation of stateand church means that churches organize religious life freely and thus religion doesnot become an ethnopolitical issue. In contrast, communist systems combat religionand in doing so undermine religiously in� uenced expressions of ethnic identity.Policies such as state control over marriage ceremonies and other rituals and theoutlawing of certain holidays undermine the free expression of religious—andethnic—identities.
By their nature, communist regimes limit minority self-rule both indirectly anddirectly. The Communist Party’s monopoly of power negates alternative political orsocial groupings, including ethnic ones. While at times making nominal concessions,the party speci� cally outlaws the pursuit of ethnic interests. Whenever individualcommunists violated this Leninist rule they typically were purged as “bourgeois
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nationalists,”46 and autonomous social groups, be they as innocuous as folkloreensembles, were either persecuted or coopted. In sum, group pluralism is a crucialcharacteristic that sets democracies apart from communist systems.
I de� ne democracy as being above all a political system with many alternative andmutually balancing centers of power. This includes the notion of separation ofpowers, the devolution of authority to lower levels of the state or local municipali-ties, the role of political parties and the electorate, and space for the in� uence ofmanifold independent political, economic, and social groups. In essence, pluralistsde� ne the exemplary state as one where public authority devolves to a plurality ofgroups. To guarantee the rights of individuals, it is essential to fortify the rights ofassociations. Individuals are helpless against the monolithic power of the state andtherefore power has to be pluralized.47 Pluralism is a way to contain the abuse ofstate power and empower various groups and communities.
In a polity based on pluralism, ethnic power centers also have a constructive roleto play. As with all pluralism, ethnopluralism is democratic in that it accepts multiplecenters of values and in� uence. The self-organization of ethnic groups is part of civilsociety, and civil society has a crucial role in democracy building, as was rediscov-ered in the 1980s � rst by social theorists in Eastern Europe and then by Westerners.48
Furthermore, the literature on democratization emphasizes that even limited socialpluralism is crucial for a successful transition to democracy, precisely because itcreates alternative power centers and leaders. Groups independent of state controlhave to emerge.49 Indeed, the collapse of communist regimes shows that autonomousmovements such as Solidarnosc, Charter 77, and the Popular Fronts of Lithuania,Latvia, and Estonia were crucial actors in democratization. In line with the argumentabove, their advocacy of pluralism indirectly promoted the autonomy of nationalminorities, and many also made this an explicit point on their agendas.50 Notsurprisingly, “a plethora of ethnically based organizations quickly sprang to life ineach country, representing both the majority and minority populations.”51
When the revolutions of 1989 occurred, pluralism was recognized throughoutEastern Europe as a crucial goal.52 Various democratic movements assumed that ifthey succeeded in establishing a new system, the rights of individuals, nations, andethnic groups would be safeguarded by democracy itself. In light of ethnic tensionsin some democracies, this assumption may appear naive. It may be more appropriateto propose that democracy is a necessary but not a suf� cient condition for ethniccon� ict resolution.53 Yet the type of democratic structures and culture can make adifference, and pluralist democracy is better able to deal with multiethnicity than aredemocracies that are based on majority rule, the principles of liberal individualism,and central state power. “Pluralism is strongly anti-statist in its basic principles”54 yetat the same time it opposes extreme individualism and egotism and is based on aconception of social solidarity and the complex interplay of interests, in which the“state is an organ of social co-ordination.”55 Such a model of the state canaccommodate communal groupings based on ethnic ties and kinship solidarity
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without having to make it a speci� c policy issue. Yet even direct ethnopluralisticaccommodation of minority quests is easier when a state has more levels and forumsfor group self-expression.
(6) Another argument for ethnopluralism in East Central Europe is the weaknessof alternative strategies. The core demographic fact is that, while distinct nationsform the basic multinational mosaic of the region, smaller groups are dispersedacross it as well. Therefore, most states are bound to include minorities even if theywere to redraw state borders, which is a highly controversial option. Another way tochange ethnic demography is voluntary resettlement. Emigration from East Europeanstates and the former USSR, especially of Germans, Jews, and Poles, has beenoccurring throughout the postwar period.56 Since the 1980s, the out-migration ofGermans and Jews has been especially pronounced. Yet while individual emigrationis a human right, at present organized population exchanges are politically unaccept-able. Thus a proposal in 1997 by prime minister Meciar that Slovakia and Hungaryexchange their Hungarian and Slovak minorities, was angrily rejected by Hungary.57
The partition of states is another option to accommodate claims of minorities, butafter the break-up of the USSR,58 Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia this process seemsto be close to reaching its limit. Also, while most of the new post-communist statesemerged peacefully, violence has marked other quests for national independence.Violent attempts to deal with multiethnicity recently experienced in the formerYugoslavia include notorious acts of “ethnic cleansing” including expulsion andextermination. Besides being normatively unacceptable, such policies rarely lead tolasting peace.
There are two other democratic alternatives to ethnopluralism which are dif� cultto apply to Eastern Europe. Donald Horowitz suggests that ethnic con� icts becontained by structural means such as carefully designed electoral systems that makepoliticians seek multiethnic support.59 This strategy worked spontaneously during theinitial post-communist transition, when bipolar electoral choice led to broad coali-tions that included minorities. Recently, the trend has been in the opposite directionas new proportional electoral systems have been encouraging the formation ofethnically based political parties. Yet, some recent research suggests that this can beakin to an ethnopluralist con� ict management technique, because it can triggercooperation among ethnic groupings,60 especially if a minority party can play the roleof king maker, as it recently has in Bulgaria (see below).
Another possibility is to follow the example of states such as France or Israel andimplement a “control model”61 or “ethnic democracy”62 whereby one nationalityclearly dominates all public spheres, including education and culture. While someEast European politicians may feel tempted to follow these examples, such modelsare built on different historical foundations and political contexts than those found inthe region and are unlikely to work. Indeed, assimilation is likely to be counterpro-ductive if it is involuntary and targets people who have an essentialist view ofethnicity, as is the case among most East Europeans. Assimilation policies often have
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the opposite effect of the one intended, in that they antagonize minorities, escalatetheir cultural demands, and undermine civic integration. Forcible assimilation or thedenial of the existence of ethnic minorities has been pursued by many states, butpluralist approaches have proven to be more effective in the long run.63 What’s more,cultural pluralism � ts the Zeitgeist, something to which Balts and other East CentralEuropeans eager to join the West are sensitive.64
Assimilation can also be a two-edged sword for the dominant nation. While thehegemony of a majority culture may provide some nationalist satisfaction, one canhardly “nationalize” minorities instantaneously.65 This exposes the majority cultureto minority in� uences that may or may not be welcome. For this reason manymajority groups have also rejected assimilation. What’s more, policies of assimi-lation typically trigger protests of kin states. In Eastern Europe this has been the casewith protests by Hungary, Serbia, and Russia66 in regard to their ethnic kin inneighboring states, and there is no lack of other examples. In sum, it is dif� cult to� nd viable alternatives to ethnopluralism.
Weaknesses of Ethnopluralism
The challenge of ethnopluralism is that it can easily go wrong. If carried too far, therights of groups can undermine the integration and even integrity of states. This iswhy political liberals have wavered on how to treat national minorities. While thereis a liberal tradition of support for the self-rule of all peoples, postwar liberals oftenhave rejected collective rights. Similarly, the international community was disen-chanted after World War II with minority laws as promoted by the League of Nationsbecause they seemed to have allowed the misuse of minority protection by anaggressive National Socialist Germany. A partial reversal began only in the 1990s asthe Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) adopted declarationson minority rights and established a High Commissioner on National Minorities in1993.67
Minority rights are dualistic in nature, as they can either enhance support for anation’s common goals or accomplish the exact opposite. Experience has shown thatthe accommodation of diversity can be a path to both civic unity and divisiveness.68
Various political thinkers differ as well in their views about the civic consequencesof cultural pluralism. As summarized by Esman,69 some analysts assume that distinctgroupings necessarily mean fragmentation that has harmful effects on a polity. Otheranalysts call this thesis simplistic and argue that one needs to distinguish betweensubcultural awareness and political enmity.70 Yet the perception of ethnic politicalbehavior as dysfunctional in a modern democracy is widely held. Robert Dahl, forone, argues that while “subsystem autonomy” in institutional or economic termshelps maintain polyarchy, this is not true for ethnocultural differences because theyare inherently more divisive. He is opposed by other analysts who argue thatdifferent types of pluralism tend to fortify each other.71
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Furthermore, there is tension between group-based policies and the individuallyoriented Western liberal-democratic tradition. As noted by John Armstrong, theSoviets had a relatively easy time of discrediting the demands of their minorities inlight of the tension between group rights and individual rights in Western normativetheory.72 The emphasis on group rights distinguishes plural democracies from liberaldemocracies,73 and liberals fear that group distinctions lead to discrimination. Yetinternational practice shows that policies that involve differentiating people on thebasis of language, religion, or indigeneity may have either a discriminatory oranti-discriminatory intent. The decisive issue is the purpose and effect of differen-tiation.74 Cultural autonomy can serve either integration or segregation, and thereforeone needs to carefully examine each context of policymaking and the wishes of thegroups involved. But this is true for other minority policies as well: all policies canbe based on constructive or nefarious motives.
Another argument against ethnopluralism is that the recognition of group rightscan undermine the equality of individuals. While ethnopluralism may promote theequality of groups, and with it some types of individual equality, it may also decreasesome opportunities by creating barriers to mainstream culture and community. Suchtradeoffs must be evaluated in each situation. The essence of a pluralist approach isto be aware of undesired outcomes and to carefully balance support for distinctive-ness with the nurturing of common values.
Any public acknowledgment of ethnic identity inherently objecti� es it and ignoresambiguities due to mixed parentage or due to subjective inclinations. While culturalautonomy promotes the non-assimilation of groups, there might be individuals whowish to assimilate or who have a bicultural identity. Such individuals should have afree choice of af� liation. Also, minority groups or subgroups may prefer differentpolicies over time. Therefore ethnopluralist arrangements need to recognize thatnationalities are neither homogeneous nor static, and need to accommodateintragroup divisions and dynamics by providing more individual choice. Ethnoplural-ism is � exible in this regard in that it only speci� es certain principles and approachesto ethnopolitics. It does not come up with set rules such as consociationalism doeswith its emphasis on elite consensus in a grand coalition, the proportionality ofappointments, extensive federalism, and a minority. Arend Lijphart has presented aconsociational model of ethnopluralism both theoretically and empirically.75 Whilehighly revealing and a great contribution to pluralist theory, consociationalist think-ing has been criticized for too much emphasis on the role of elites, the role ofconsensus at the expense of democratic give and take, and “segregationist orien-tation.”76 Also, consociationalism assumes the � xed identities of groups and main-tains them. The pluralist view is based on notions of multiple identities that aretransformed over time, but only by gradual and consensual means. As noted,language is most suitable for such an approach because a multilingual environmentallows different languages to be used simultaneously in some joint domains and inparallel substructures.
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Ethnopluralism in Action
Although the concept of ethnopluralism has been rarely used in post-communistEastern Europe, policies connected with it have been applied relatively broadly,especially in the � rst phase of transition toward democracy. As argued above,ethnopluralism is linked to a pluralist political system, and signi� cant progresstoward that was made when the reformers started to take power in 1989. Concur-rently, new policies directed especially at minorities were developed as well. Here Ishall shortly survey illustrations from Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, and Bulgaria.
Having themselves been minority nations within the Union of Soviet SocialistRepublics, Estonia and Latvia were at the forefront of general and ethnopoliticaldemocratic reform from below. Early on, the Popular Fronts of Estonia and Latviamade every effort to include members from all ethnic groups, and at the same timeinitiated close contacts with the Democratic Movement in Russia and elsewhere.Both before and after they came to power, the Estonian and Latvian Popular Frontsemphasized the need to reinstitute the cultural autonomy arrangements pioneered bytheir interwar parliamentary predecessors.77 As early as 1989 concrete policies wereinitiated, such as the opening in Riga of the � rst Jewish public school in the entireregion and assistance in the organization of cultural societies for numerous ethnicgroups, most prominently Russians, Poles, and Jews.78
While the interwar legacy of minority cultural autonomy was deliberately used asa referent for the ethnopluralist policies of post-Soviet Latvia and Estonia,79 theSoviet legacy of leaving behind a large settler community inadvertently urged thesame approach. Retaining an extensive Russian-language educational system parallelto Estonian and Latvian institutions was a sine qua non for retaining ethnic peace.During the Soviet era Slavic settlers were part of the Russian-speaking majority ofthe USSR who were sent to the Baltic republics as members of the privileged eliteand of the political and cultural majority. Most did not learn the local languages andhave had dif� culty doing so after the restoration of Estonia’s and Latvia’s indepen-dence. They never expected to live outside of the Soviet Union or Russia and havebeen wary of accepting minority status, as illustrated by a survey undertaken inEstonia in February 1993. When asked, “Do you think you belong to a nationalminority?” 40% of Russian respondents said no, 38% said yes, and 22% found itdif� cult to say.80
Clearly the Soviet-era immigrants to Latvia and Estonia who have not returned toRussia and other countries of previous residence81 represent an unusual ethnopoliticalsituation. While these “new minorities” have claimed extensive rights in variousspheres, the self-administration of Russian schools, colleges, and other culturalinstitutions was seen as crucial. Thus, a detailed study of Latvia’s policies shows thatan extensive public school system in minority languages is a linchpin of ethnicpeace.82 Polish schools have also been founded, as well as the only Ukrainiansecondary school on the territory of the former USSR outside of the Ukraine.
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Educators have been trying to resurrect multilingual education as it existed duringthe prewar period, when general education was available in eight languages: Latvian,German, Russian, Yiddish (as well as Hebrew), Polish, Belorussian, Estonian, andLithuanian.83
In light of the unusual minority context that post-Soviet Latvia and Estonia � ndthemselves in, ethnic relations have been more peaceful than many analysts pre-dicted.84 In large part this is due to the explicit and de facto policies of ethnoplural-ism that provide the new Russian minorities autonomous cultural space. This is trueespecially in Estonia, where Russians and Estonians live side by side, interacting attimes, but mostly inhabiting separate worlds. This segmentation also characterizesmedia consumption, as most of the recent settlers not only are disinterested inindigenous language media, but largely ignore local Russian media as well, prefer-ring to read Moscow newspapers and watch central television.85 The latter, of course,can have negative consequences, as it undermines the formation of a joint civiccommunity, especially on issues where Russian media promote opposite points ofview to those held by the majority of Latvian and Estonian citizens. Yet, on balance,Latvia’s and Estonia’s policies of cultural pluralism and the gradual civic integrationof non-citizens have worked.
Ethnopolitics is interactive: state policies matter, but so do the goals and self-identi� cation of minority nationalities. While this can be seen in the Baltic, the sameis true in regard to Hungarian minorities. During the political transition in bothSlovakia and Romania, the Hungarians de� ned themselves as national communitiesand “were convinced that democratic sovereignty required the of� cial status of theHungarian language in their ‘national’ space (the regions and localities whereHungarians had historically lived) and envisioned an institutional structure thatwould enable Hungarian minority members to live their lives, as fully as possible, inHungarian.”86 Yet during the initial democratic revolution in Czechoslovakia, Hun-garian minority leaders emphasized the priority of regime change. In 1989–1990,the dissident Committee Protecting the Rights of the Hungarian Minority, later theHungarian Civic Party, was active in changing the communist regime. Similar to theBaltic Popular Fronts, this group did support minority rights, but its main goal wasthe democratization of Czechoslovakia, arguing that democracy and integration intothe European Union and other Western institutions were the best way to assure allkinds of rights.87
As I have argued above, the pluralization of political systems was indeed aprecondition for safeguarding the interests of minorities, but once this preconditionwas met, politics shifted into a new stage of explicit development of ethnic policies.The � rst issue of how the Czech and Slovak nations could renegotiate their positionswithin Czechoslovakia ended with the “velvet divorce” of peaceful separation at theend of 1992. This meant that the second important ethnonational issue, the positionof the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, was put into an entirely new context.88 Whilethe Hungarians had been a minority since 1918, the Slovaks changed from being a
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minority within Czechoslovakia to the new majority in Slovakia. In this newposition, they perceived that their own claims to strengthening their national identityhad priority. The governments headed by Meciar pursued a nation-state model thatinterpreted Hungarian minority rights as a limitation of Slovak sovereignty. Inresponse, Hungarians escalated claims for autonomy. The constitutional de� nition ofa Slovak state as a culturally conceived Slovak nation and the declaration of Slovakas a “state language” prompted Hungarian protests.89 The spiraling of demands andantagonism on both sides was based on an unfortunate zero-sum perception ofethnopolitics which assumed that if one group “wins” the other group necessarily“loses.”
Between 1992 and 1998, escalating pressures and unhappiness on both sidesundermined ethnopluralist cooperative values and beliefs. At times, political circum-stances have improved the Hungarian position, such as when Hungarian politicalparties played a role in the coalition politics of the government. Thus, in early 1994,Hungarian minority political support for the short-lived Moravcik government led topromises of concessions on so-called “alternative education.” This bilingual alterna-tive to the prevalent Hungarian minority school system was held in suspicion byHungarians, who saw it as a thinly veiled assimilative policy.90 The Hungarianminority similarly gained new political leverage in the fall of 1998 when itsuccessfully formed an electoral coalition with numerous Slovak democratic forcesto oust the Meciar government.
Bulgaria presents an even more poignant example of a political party representinga national minority taking on the role of king maker in the formation of coalitiongovernments. It is also a dramatic example of the reversal of highly repressivepolicies under the old communist regime to accommodation after transition towarddemocracy. Between 1984 and 1990, the Bulgarian communist regime engaged in anintense forced-assimilation campaign against its Turkish minority, including theforced change of personal names and destruction of all signs of Turkish culture.91
This repressive policy back� red in that minority awareness of the Turks’ ownidentity intensi� ed rather than diminished.92 The fall of communism brought achange of Bulgarian policies in an ethnopluralist direction, albeit with some ironictwists. Institutionally, the main domain for the expression of Turkish minorityidentity has been in a political party, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF),even though Bulgaria’s constitution disallows political parties based on ethnicity,religion, or race. The political power of this party as king maker in various coalitiongovernments since 1991 has been disproportional. Yet while powerful in centralpolitics, the MRF has not aimed at political autonomy for the Turkish and Muslimminorities, but instead aims at cultural autonomy and having the national minoritiesof� cially recognized as such.93 Signi� cantly, the leaders of MRF also have embodiedthe values underlying ethnopluralism in that they “have stressed the ideals ofconsensus and cooperation instead of confrontation to solve the pressing problems ofthe country.”94
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As noted, it is beyond the scope of this article to examine various minorityarrangements in Eastern Europe in detail, but it should be mentioned that Hungarytoo has moved in an ethnopluralist direction by creating a network of state-supportedand autonomous local governments. While all minorities in Hungary have pro� tedfrom this, this is especially true for the largest group, the Roma.95 Recent events inMacedonia have similarly illustrated the promise of pluralist ethnopolitical arrange-ments.96
Conclusion
Ethnopolitics in East Central Europe is not hopelessly con� ictual. There are histori-cal and contemporary cooperative and integrative examples that I call ethnoplural-ism, understood primarily as extensive cultural and educational pluralism. It is aconstructive historical legacy that has been revived since the communist collapse.Due to local characteristics such as the proclivity to essentialize ethnic identity, thisapproach is more promising than other democratic approaches to ethnicity. Bysafeguarding the identities of minorities, as well as majorities, it accommodates theidentity-building impulses of all sides while allowing the formation of a joint civicnational identity. A pluralist approach recognizes multiple identities and the dynamicnature of identity and takes this as the basis for policy design. In effect, ethnoplural-ism allows one to square the circle by reconciling what appear to be mutuallyexclusive policy imperatives. The constructive role of an openly pluralistic policy ispinpointed by the statement that “the stability of culturally plural societies isthreatened not by communalism per se, but by the failure of national institutionsexplicitly to recognize and accommodate existing communal divisions and inter-ests.”97
In part, ethnopluralism in contemporary East Central Europe is pursued openly,but often it is used without explicit programmatic backing. It is important to makethese policies more explicit because the nurturing of values in its support are crucialif the policy is to work over the long term. There is a need to foster a political culturethat sees ethnic politics as being non-zero-sum, e.g., it is possible to design policiesin which all sides are winners. Nation building without destroying pre-existingcommunities is crucial.
Language policy is especially useful in ethnopluralist policy. The use of severallanguages parallel to each other or exclusively in speci� c domains is possible, andclearly shows that ethnic identity can be pursued in non-zero-sum ways. More thanany other facet of ethnic and national identity, language allows for the simultaneousaccommodation of several group claims, and at the same time the formation of acommon language. A pluralist language policy can mean that minority languageshave priority in certain forums, for example local school systems or autonomousregions, but that a majority language is used in joint forums. While having concretepolicy value, such an approach also enhances joint values.
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The idea that unity can be based on diversity and pluralism emphasizes that everygroup has rights, but also aims at an inclusive civic identity. Culturally diversegroups can coexist amicably and traditional nations need not feel threatened byminorities. Moreover, the deliberate accommodation of diversity can make it asource of political pride and consensus.
Yet the crux of the matter is that ethnoplural arrangements in East Central Europewill work only if the politicians crafting the new polities are successful in balancingthe two types of nationhood they have to deal with: the political nation de� ned as acivic community, and one or several ethnic communal entities. Proposed solutionscannot rely on simplistic general rules but must be grounded in an empiricalassessment of the situation in each state.
NOTES
* Parts of the research for this paper were supported by grants from the United States Institutefor Peace and the East European Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center for InternationalStudies.
1. Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework (New York: Columbia Univer-sity Press, 1981), p. 84.
2. Crawford Young, “The Temple of Ethnicity,” World Politics, Vol. 35, No. 3, 1983, p. 656.Early optimism about the simplicity of nation building in the developing world soon led toanalyses pinpointing its complexities; for example, Cynthia H. Enloe, Ethnic Con� ict andPolitical Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973).
3. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Society (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); andRasma Karklins, Ethnopolitics and Transition to Democracy: The Collapse of the USSR andLatvia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).
4. John Burton, Con� ict: Resolution and Prevention (New York: St Martin’s, 1990), p. 140.5. Andre Liebich, “Nations, States, Minorities: Why is Eastern Europe Different?” Dissent, Vol.
42, 1995, pp. 313–317.6. Similar policies may be useful in the Balkans or other close neighbors—for example,
Romania or Ukraine—but discussing this goes beyond the focus of this paper.7. Vernon Van Dyke, “The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political Theory,”
World Politics, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1977, pp. 343–369.8. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 15; Michael Walzer, “Pluralism: A Political Perspective,” in WillKymlicka, ed., The Rights of Minority Cultures (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995),pp. 139–155.
9. Sharon Wolchik, “The Politics of Ethnicity in Post-Communist Czechoslovakia,” EastEuropean Politics and Societies, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1994, p. 158.
10. Raymond N. Morris and C. Michael Lanphier, Three Scales of Inequality: Perspectives onFrench–English Relations (Don Mills, Ontario: Longman Canada, 1977), p. 10; Van Dyke,op. cit., p. 365; Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Phillipson, eds, Linguistic Human Rights(Berlin: Moutone de Gruyter, 1995).
11. M. Crawford Young, “The National and Colonial Question and Marxism: A View from theSouth,” in Motyl, Alexander, ed., Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities, (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 77.
12. Kymlicka, op. cit., p. 69.
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13. Jacqueline C. Simpson, “Pluralism: The Evolution of a Nebulous Concept,” AmericanBehavioral Scientist, Vol. 38, No. 3, 1995, p. 459; on the innumerable de� nitions of pluralismsee also ‘Traditions in Pluralist Thought’, special issue of International Political ScienceReview, Vol. 17, No. 3, 1996.
14. For example, George A. De Vos, “Ethnic Pluralism: Con� ict and Accommodation,” in LolaRomanucci-Ross and George De Vos, eds, Ethnic Identity: Creation, Con� ict, and Accommo-dation (Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 1995), pp. 5–28.
15. Simpson, op. cit., p. 463, referring to W. W. Gordon, “Models of Pluralism: The NewAmerican Dilemma,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.454, 1981, pp. 178–188.
16. Simpson, ibid., pp. 463–464.17. Sammy Smootha and Theodore Hanf, “Con� ict-Regulation in Deeply-Divided Societies,” in
John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, eds, Ethnicity (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996), p. 332.
18. Frederick Barth, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of CulturalDifferences (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969).
19. Compare also Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990).
20. Arend Lijphart rejects this and states that while in the short run consociationalist institutionsdo indeed strengthen distinctiveness, the latter decreases in salience in the long run as mutualacceptance increases. Lijphart, op. cit., p. 228.
21. Uri Ra’anan, “The Nation-State Fallacy,” in Joseph V. Montville, ed., Con� ict and Peace-making in Multiethnic Societies (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), p. 15.
22. Theodore Hanf, “Reducing Con� ict through Cultural Autonomy: Karl Renner’s Contribu-tion,” in Uri Ra’aanan et al., eds, State and Nation in Multi-Ethnic Societies (Manchester:Manchester University Press, 1991), p. 40.
23. John Coakley, “Approaches to the Resolution of Ethnic Con� ict: The Strategy of Non-territorial Autonomy,” International Political Science Review, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1994, p. 300.
24. Dietrich A. Loeber, “Language Rights in Independent Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,” in S.Vilfan, ed., Ethnic Groups and Language Rights, Vol. 3 (New York: New York UniversityPress, 1993), pp. 221–249.
25. Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government inTwenty-One Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 84.
26. Coakley, op. cit., p. 307; he cites excellent primary sources.27. For a review of the protection of minorities by the League of Nations, see Oscar I. Janowsky,
Nationalities and National Minorities (with Special Reference to East-Central Europe) (NewYork: Macmillan, 1945), pp. 110–192.
28. C. A. Macartney, National States and National Minorities (London: Oxford University Press,1934).
29. Carl J. Friedrich, Trends of Federalism in Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger, 1968),p. 124.
30. Coakley, op. cit., p. 299.31. Ruth Lapidoth, Autonomy: Flexible Solutions to Ethnic Con� icts (Washington: United States
Institute of Peace, 1996), p. 37.32. Coakley, op. cit., p. 299; also Uri Ra’anan, “Nation and State: Order out of Chaos,” in
Ra’anan, State and Nation, pp. 3–32.33. Various contributions in Ra’aanan, State and Nation. Choice is crucial: “personal autonomy
has a great advantage over territorial autonomy: As mentioned, it usually applies only topeople who opt to be members of the group for which it is established. Territorial autonomy,
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on the other hand, may apply to all the inhabitants of a certain region … including some whomay resent it.” Lapdoth, op. cit., p. 39.
34. Juliet Langman, “Expressing Identity in a Changing Society: Hungarian Youth in Slovakia,”in Laszlo Kurti and Juliet Langman, eds, Beyond Borders: Remaking Cultural Identities inthe New East and Central Europe (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 111–131.
35. This is my own summary, but compare, for example, F. M. Barnard, Herder’s Social andPolitical Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965),pp. 58–67, 173–177.
36. Compare George Klein and Milan J. Reban, eds, The Politics of Ethnicity in Eastern Europe(Boulder: East European Monographs, 1981); Peter F. Sugar, ed., Ethnic Diversity andCon� ict in Eastern Europe (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1979); George Schop� in,“Nationalism and Ethnicity in Europe, East and West,” in Charles A. Kupchan, ed.,Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1995), pp. 37–65.
37. Compare especially Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Re� ections on the Originand Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), p. 12 and passim.
38. Compare Anthony H. Richmond, “Ethnic Nationalism: Social Science Paradigms,” Inter-national Social Science Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1, 1987, pp. 3–18.
39. Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, “Introduction,” in Nathan Glazer and Daniel P.Moynihan, eds, Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1975), p. 3.
40. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 43.41. Kymlicka, op. cit., p. 50, citing Ernest Barker, National Character and the Factors in its
Formation (London: Methuen, 1948), p. 248.42. Catherine Brolmann et al., eds, Peoples and Minorities in International Law (Dordrecht:
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers), 1993.43. Compare, for example, Janusz Bugajski, Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe (Armonk, NY: M.
E. Sharpe, 1994), p. xiii and passim; Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between theTwo World Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974).
44. Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Con� ict (Berkeley: University of California Press,1985), p. 178.
45. This argument follows Karklins, Ethnopolitics and Transition to Democracy, especiallychapter 2; a different analysis of links between ethnopolitics and the break-up of the federalcommunist states is presented by Carol Skalnik Leff, “Democratization and Disintegration inMultinational States: The Breakup of the Communist Federations,” World Politics, Vol.51,No. 2, 1999, pp. 205–235.
46. Walker Connor, The National Question in Marxist-Leninist Theory and Strategy (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 533–580.
47. Henry S. Kariel, “Pluralism,” in Daniel L. Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the SocialSciences, Vol. 12 (New York: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 164–169.
48. Karklins, Ethnopolitics and Transition to Democracy, chapter 5; Giuseppe Di Palma,“Legitimation from the Top to Civil Society: Politico-Cultural Change in Eastern Europe,”World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 1, 1991, pp. 49–80.
49. Daniel H. Levine, “Paradigm Lost: Dependence to Democracy,” World Politics, Vol. 60, No.3, 1988, p. 388; Juan Linz, “Transitions to Democracy,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 13, No.3, 1990, p. 152.
50. Jan T. Gross, “Poland: From Civil Society to Political Nation,” in Ivo Banac, ed., EasternEurope in Revolution (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992); V. Stanley Vardys,“Sajudis: National Revolution in Lithuania,” in Jan Arveds Trapans, ed., Toward Indepen-dence: The Baltic Popular Movements (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 11–24.
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51. Bugajski, op. cit., p. xx. The volume presents excellent accounts of individual ethnic groups,including the Roma, asking for collective rights such as recognition of their group name,schools, language rights, and some forms of autonomy.
52. Gale Stokes, Three Eras of Political Change in Eastern Europe (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1997), p. 151.
53. This formulation was used by Ashutosh Varshney in a seminar discussion at the WoodrowWilson Center, July 1991.
54. Paul Q. Hirst, “Introduction,” in Paul Q. Hirst, ed., The Pluralist Theory of the State (London:Routledge, 1989), p. 2.
55. Ibid., p. 28.56. Hundreds of thousands of Germans and Jews have been emigrating from the former USSR
and Eastern Europe since the early 1970s, and in the 1950s many Poles were resettled toPoland from the territories annexed by the USSR in 1939. Compare Joseph B. Schechtman,European Population Transfers, 1939–1945 (New York: Russell & Russell, 1971), andnumerous articles on Jewish and German emigration.
57. Jane Perlez, “Slovak Leader Fans a Region’s Old Ethnic Flames,” New York Times, 12October 1997, p. 3.
58. For an argument that the break-up of the USSR was both the collapse of an empire and thefailure of a state, see Mark R. Beissinger, “Demise of an Empire-State: Identity, Legitimacy,and the Deconstruction of Soviet Politics,” in Crawford Young, ed., The Rising Tide ofCultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pp. 93–115.
59. Donald L. Horowitz, “Ethnic Con� ict Management for Policymakers,” in Montville, op. cit.,pp. 115–139.
60. Frank S. Cohen, “Proportional versus Majoritarian Ethnic Con� ict Management in Democra-cies,” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 30, No. 5, 1997, pp. 607–630.
61. Ian Lustick, “Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism versus Control,”World Politics, Vol. 31, No. 3, 1979, pp. 325–344.
62. Smootha and Hanf, op. cit., passim. Compare also Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship andNationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992);Yoav Peled, “Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship: Arab Citizens ofthe Jewish State,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 86, No. 2, 1992, pp. 432–443.
63. William Safran, “Non-separatist Approaches Regarding Ethnic Minorities: Positive Ap-proaches and Ambiguous Consequences,” International Political Science Review, Vol. 15,No. 1, 1994, pp. 61–80.
64. Priit Jarve and Kornelija Jurgaitiene, “Multiculturalism in American Universities: A Lessonfor the Baltics?” Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and SocialSciences, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1993, pp. 345–356.
65. For an interesting argument about “nationalizing” policies in Eastern Europe, compare RogersBrubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ch. 4.
66. As noted by the former Swedish prime minister, by 1994 the issue of Russians in Latvia andEstonia had moved to the center stage of Russia’s foreign policy. Carl Bildt, “The BalticLitmus Test,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 5, 1994, p. 80.
67. Kymlicka, op. cit., pp. 4–5, 57.68. Philip Gleason, “Pluralism and Assimilation: A Conceptual History,” in John Edwards, ed.,
Linguistic Minorities, Policies and Pluralism (London: Academic Press, 1984), pp. 221–257,especially p. 239.
69. Milton J. Esman, “The State and Language Policy,” International Political Science Review,Vol. 13, No. 4 1992, pp. 381–396.
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70. William Safran, “Ethnicity and Pluralism: Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives,”Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, Vol. 18, Nos 1–2, 1991, pp. 1–12; also G.Bingham Powell, Jr, Social Fragmentation and Political Hostility: An Austrian Case Study(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1970), pp. 3–5.
71. Safran, ibid., p. 8 refers to Dahl’s Polyarchy.72. John A. Armstrong, “Assessing the Soviet Nationalities Movements: A Critical Review,”
Nationalities Papers, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1991, p. 11.73. Vernon Van Dyke, Human Rights, Ethnicity, and Discrimination (Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1985).74. Ibid., p. 194.75. Lijphart, op. cit., p. 88 and passim.76. Paul Dixon, “Consociationalism and the Northern Ireland Peace Process: The Glass Half Full
or Half Empty?” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1997, p. 23; for othercriticisms, see Paul Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (London:Sage, 1991), pp. 333–348.
77. Toivo Raun, “Ethnic Relations and Con� ict in the Baltic States,” in W. Raymond Duncan andG. Paul Holman, Jr, eds, Ethnic Nationalism and Regional Con� ict: The Former Soviet Unionand Yugoslavia (Boulder: Westview, 1994); also Andrejs Plakans, The Latvians (Stanford:Hoover Institution Press, 1995).
78. Juris Dreifelds, Latvia in Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1996;Karklins, Ethnopolitics and Transition to Democracy, pp. 90–115, 141–165.
79. The 1992 Constitution of Estonia mentioned cultural autonomy in articles 6 and 50.80. Aksel Kirch, “Russians in the Baltic States: To Be or Not to Be,” Journal of Baltic Studies,
Vol. 24, No. 2, 1993, p. 180.81. Between 10% and 20% of this population have left, mostly in 1990–1992. Elmars Vebers,
“Demography and Ethnic Politics in Independent Latvia: Some Basic Facts,” NationalitiesPapers, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1993, pp. 179–194; Aksel Kirch, ed., The Integration of Non-Estoni-ans into Estonian Society: History, Problems, Trends (Tallinn: Estonia Academy Publishers,1997).
82. Rasma Karklins, “Ethnic Integration and School Policies in Latvia,” Nationalities Papers,Vol. 26, No. 2, 1998, pp. 283–302.
83. Royal Institute of International Affairs, The Baltic States (London: Oxford University Press,1938), pp. 33–35; Detlef Henning, “Die Sprachenpolitik und die Gewahrleistung des Bil-dungswesens nationaler Minderheiten in Lettland,” in Boris Meissner et al., eds, Der Aufbaueiner freiheitlichdemokratischen Ordnung in den baltischen Staaten (Hamburg: BibliothecaBaltica, 1995), pp. 257–289.
84. Anatol Lieven, for one, has revised his gloomy predictions about increasing ethnic con� ictin the Baltic states. Response to questions, “Nation-Building in the Baltic States” Conference,University of Chicago, 2–4 May 1996. See also David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: TheRussian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1998).
85. Vebers, op. cit., pp. 179–194; Kirch, op. cit.86. Zsuzsa Csergo, “Parallel Institutions? Language and the Contestation of Institutional Space
in Romania and Slovakia,” paper delivered at the convention of the APSA, Boston, 3–7September 1998, p. 20.
87. David Lucas, Ethnic Bipolarism in Slovakia, 1989–1995 (Seattle: Henry M. Jackson Schoolof International Studies, 1996), pp. 22–23.
88. The Hungarians were close to unanimous in rejecting the dissolution of the Czechoslovakfederation. Lucas, op. cit., p. 11.
89. Csergo, op. cit., p. 46.
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90. Lucas, op. cit., p. 13, 16.91. Mary Neuburger, “Bulgaro-Turkish Encounters and the Re-imaging of the Bulgarian Nation,”
East European Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1997, p. 6.92. Ali Eminov, “The Turks in Bulgaria: Post-1989 Developments,” Nationalities Papers, Vol.
27, No. 1, 1999, pp. 31–55; Ivan Ilchev and Duncan M. Perry, “Bulgarian Ethnic Groups:Politics and Perceptions,” RFE/RL Research Report, Vol. 2, No. 14, 1993, pp. 35–41.
93. Petya Nitzova, “Bulgaria: Minorities, Democratization, and National Sentiments,” Nationali-ties Papers, Vol. 25, No. 4, 1997, p. 733.
94. Eminov, op. cit., p. 51.95. Compare Zoltan Barany, “Orphans of Transition: Gypsies in Eastern Europe,” Journal of
Democracy, July 1998, pp. 142–156.96. Compare Steven L. Burg, “Preventing Ethnic Con� ict: Macedonia and the Pluralist
Paradigm,” Meeting Report, East European Studies, Woodrow Wilson Center, 19 February1997.
97. Robert Melson and Howard Wolpe, “Modernization and the Politics of Communalism: ATheoretical Perspective,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 64, No. 4, 1970, p. 1130.For a similar point, see Kenneth D. MacRae, “Theories of Power-Sharing and Con� ictManagement,” in Montville, op. cit., pp. 93–94.
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