Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe

Book review: Language Revitalisation and Social Transformation

Wes Lindinger — 2023-08-23

National Minorities and Global Crises

Ruairidh Tarvet — 2023-08-23

Since 2015, a series of high-impact global crises has sent shockwaves across Europe. From the so-called migrant crisis of 2015, through the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, national minorities have, like their majority counterparts, seen considerable changes to their lives and lifestyles as a result of measures taken by the national executives in their host countries. It is possible that significant changes to border control and the increased importance of nation-state action in times of crisis have affected the ways in which national minorities understand themselves vis-à-vis their host and kin-states. By reviewing recent media comments and academic research, this article hypothesises that these international crises have pushed national minorities away from local identities and towards more national and European discourses. As a commentary, this article encourages future exploration of this hypothesis in other minority communities across Europe.

‘Celtic Meets Slavic’: The Social Sustainability of Cornish and Silesian Heritage in Europe and Overseas

Katy C Humberstone — 2023-05-10

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

Dithering Between Consultation and Consensus – Whereto with Advisory Bodies for Indigenous Peoples?

Bertus de Villiers — 2023-04-25

The establishment of permanent, national consultative bodies for Indigenous Peoples is rare, but insight can be gained from comparative experiences such as the Sámi Parliament of Finland, previous advisory bodies for Aboriginal People in Australia, and more recently progress by the Khoisan in South Africa. Advisory bodies for Indigenous Peoples at the national level are often the victim of competing expectations. Governments tend to approach advisory bodies as fora for consultation on terms that are, in essence, dictated by government with the outcome being little more than non-binding recommendations, whilst Indigenous Peoples seek a form of co-government arrangement whereby there is some legal or policy requirement for their advice to be actively sought and sincerely considered, even if such advice is not legally binding. Four questions are the subject of this article: (1) how should an advisory body be composed; (2) what should be the policy or functional areas on which consultation must take place; (3) what is meant by an obligation to consult or to negotiate; and (4) can laws or policies be judicially challenged if there was a failure to consult, or if there is a failure to give effect to the advice received from the advisory body? The conclusion is reached that the enforceability of good faith negotiation or consultation obligations is principally found in the conduct and goodwill of governments, rather than by way of judicial review and oversight. Courts are unlikely to evaluate the substance of negotiations whereby the merit or reasonableness of proposals and counter-proposals become a matter for judicial consideration. Courts have, however, shown a greater willingness to consider procedural aspects of consultation such as the actions, behaviour, and conduct of the parties during the course of consultation, but with acknowledgment that at law good faith consultation does not necessarily imply a veto; it does not legally mandate an agreement; and it does not preclude a party standing firm in its position. It is noted that even in those cases where courts have enforced consultation obligations, actual consultation is usually directed at local projects that involve access to traditional lands, and not to general consultative rights or duties at a national level about national socio-economic policies.

The Human Rights Action Plan and Turkey’s Non-Muslim Minorities

Utku Özer — 2023-08-23

On March 2021, Turkey’s President announced a new Human Rights Action Plan (HRAP), supported by the Council of Europe, to reform the judiciary system and strengthen democratic participation. Although the rights claims of Kurds and Alevis have been prominent, HRAP mentions neither by name. Instead, it includes articles about improving the rights of religious minorities by fighting discrimination and hate, to advance pluralism, revising the Foundations Law regarding the establishment and election of boards of directors of non-Muslim community associations, and providing leave for religious holidays regardless of faith. Given the current distrust between non-Muslim groups and the Turkish state, this study analyzed the political attitudes of Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities to understand how they develop creative solutions to protect their rights. To do so, we interviewed Armenian deputies in Turkey’s parliament and prominent figures from the Greek-Orthodox, Armenian, and Jewish communities, and also reviewed the minority deputies’ parliamentary work in depth between 2015 and 2021. We found that HRAP was widely discussed by both minority and opposition parliamentary deputies. However, they did not strongly welcome any of its provisions because the government had previously ignored or delayed their demands.

Analysis of the Systems for Representation of Minorities in Public Administration

Natalija Shikova — 2023-08-23

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