Political Participation
Political Participation Programme
Political Participation of Minorities has been ECMI’s leading topic over the past few years and here the Centre has been able to establish a certain reputation of unique competence.
At the Copenhagen meeting of the European Council in 1993, the European Union committed itself not only to the enlargement of its membership but also to ensuring that applicant states seek to guarantee the respect for and the protection of minorities. The decision to make explicit reference to the protection of minorities as a criterion for inclusion was prompted by the remarkable upsurge of ethnic politics after the breakdown of communism in the early 1990s and the consequent turn towards ethnic identification as a framework for political mobilization, sometimes with bloody consequences.
To promote the stability of its neighbouring countries, most of which possessed significant minority populations, the EU initiated a process of integration which included a plethora of membership criteria, explicit and implicit conditionalities, and adherence to international norms and instruments of minority protection which sought to ensure the consolidation of democratic and inclusive governance. Nevertheless, while much attention has been paid to cases of violent ethnic mobilization, much less attention has been paid to instances of ethnic mobilization that have aimed to promote peaceful representation through inclusion in the normal political process.
ECMI examines the question of the effectiveness of existing instruments and the emergence of novel mechanisms to promote the participation of members of ethnic minority groups in public life within the overall framework of European Union enlargement. The primary focus of this programme will be on the participation of ethnic minorities in conventional forms of political activity in the acceding and candidate countries, it will also seek to highlight the extent to which political participation has evolved outside these conventional arenas, such as through ethnic minority mobilization and civil society organizations. ECMI seeks to deepen our understanding of the ways in which minority identity impacts on political participation and democratic institutions in the EU accession countries at the local, sub-regional and national levels.
Through extensive research projects ECMI examines the political processes that are shaping the ways in which ethnic minority communities in candidate countries are developing strategies for participation in, and influencing democratic institutions, as well as enhancing the understanding of policy makers and practitioners of the mechanisms and processes which have best contributed to peaceful and effective political mobilization within minority communities.
Since intergovernmental organizations and the EU accession process have played a significant role in shaping the framework to ensure the rights of minorities in general, and the right to effective participation in public life in particular, ECMI seeks to assess the impact of these external actors in enhancing the participation of minorities and in shaping institutions and structures which seek to give a voice to the interests and concerns of minority communities.
Research Projects
OMC Programme *
Meskhetian Turks Project *
Framework Convention *
Complex Power-Sharing *
Language Politics in Transition Countries *
Implementation of Minority Rights Standards *
Political Participation
Ethnic Democracy in Europe *
Evaluating Policy Measures for Minority Languages *
Support for Minority Languages in the European Union *
Educational Policy and Minorities: Pilot Project Ukraine *
Minority Governance Concepts *
