Hungarian cultural autonomy in Vojvodina from the 1974 Socialist Constitution to the 2009 Statute of Autonomy: path dependence dynamics against the reversal of minority policies

Abstract

Applying a historical institutionalist theoretical perspective to the ethnic minority policy domain, the article attempts to explain why state policies toward minorities may be difficult to reverse once introduced. Focusing on a case study of the cultural status of the Vojvodina Hungarian minority in Serbia, the article attempts to find out the forms taken by self-reinforcing dynamics associated with minority-related policies, once they are de-institutionalized. The paper deals with the evolution of the concept of Hungarian cultural autonomy in Vojvodina in the context of the transition from the socialist framework of minority rights protection, applied in the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina under the 1974 Constitution, to the system established by the Law on National Councils of National Minorities and the Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina adopted in 2009, after the interim period of state centralization in the 1990s. The Vojvodina case study exemplifies the costs faced by governments aspiring to reverse these policies and allows the identification of path-dependent factors behind the collective action processes related to the main principles of these policies, and conditions that allow these principles to outlive the abolishment of respective institutional arrangements, persist across radical political and social changes over time, and re-emerge at later historical stages, in new institutional settings.

Keywords:

• historical institutionalism
• cultural autonomy
• path dependence
• Vojvodina Hungarians
• Serbia minority policies

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that helped to develop the theoretical framework for this paper.

Notes

According to the 1948 census, the Province was majority Serb (841,246, or 50.6%). Nevertheless, minorities accounted for a huge share of its population: Hungarians were the second-largest national group, accounting for 428,932 (25.8%). Other largest groups were Croats (134,232, or 8.1%), Slovaks (72,032, or 4.3%), Romanians (59,263, or 3.6%), Germans (31,821, or 1.9%), Montenegrins (30,589, or 1.9%), and Rusyns (22,083, or 1.3%).

According to the 1991 census, 64.33% of “managers” (members of assemblies, administrative staff, functionaries of executive institutions, managers of enterprises, etc.) in Vojvodina were Serbs, 6.14% Montenegrins, 8.98% Yugoslavs, 0.7% Bunjevci, 11.03% Hungarians, 0.68% Romanians, 0.8% Ruthenians, 1.58% Slovaks, 2.99% Croats, etc. See Samardžic´ (108).

Statistical data on the network of cultural institutions in Vojvodina in the socialist period is presented in Samardžic´ (108).

Statistical data based on the sample taken after the 1992 federal elections is presented in Ho´di (142).

The concept of autonomy went beyond the standards of the 1974 Constitution, as it demanded territorial autonomy for predominantly Hungarian-populated municipalities in North Bačka. This idea proved to be unviable in the long run: beside leaving some two-fifths of Vojvodina Hungarians beyond the borders of the proposed territorial autonomy, the project was disapproved of by all the nationwide political forces and remained unfeasible.

A splinter of the VMDK, founded in 1995, that took over the lead in Vojvodina Hungarian politics.

The first Vojvodina Hungarian party, VMDK, in the mid-1990s gave rise to two splinters, VMSZ and VMDP. While the reasons of the split were not related to program goals, the main distinction between the parties was a stronger adherence of the VMSZ to the autonomy of Vojvodina and its ability to establish a strategic cooperation with Serbian and Vojvodinian political forces. Since the second half of the 1990s, the VMDK and the VMDP, focused mostly on purely ethnic goals, became gradually eclipsed by a more civically-minded VMSZ that gained a nearly uncontested monopoly over the Hungarian electorate. In 2008, the three parties' agreement to unite into the Hungarian Coalition on the basis of the Joint Concept of Autonomy demonstrated that no significant divergences existed in the parties' political platforms.

Lipset and Rokkan's (1967) work on political parties in Europe exemplifies this dynamic.

See e.g. the declaration made by the leader of the LSV, Nenad Čanak, with respect to Hungarian territorial autonomy (“Nenad Čanak: Statut je nastavak”) .

The electoral assembly was composed of Hungarian deputies of federal, republican or provincial parliaments belonging to the minority community and authorized by the ministry of national and ethnic communities.

Hungarian Coalition. A Magyar Koali´cio´ autono´miakoncepcio´ja. Subotica/Szabadka, Mar. 2008.

Notably, the leading role of the VMSZ in drafting the Law on National Councils resulted in a considerable similarity to the respective law passed in Hungary in 1993. Besides, as in Hungary, and in line with the general ambivalence of the classical NCA model with regard to the definition of membership in a minority community, defining the electorate for the minority councils in Serbia became a fraught issue. The Serbian law left the registration for elections of minority councils with the free will of individuals belonging to the minority, whereas a minor Hungarian party VMDP demanded from the Ministry of Interior that all the members of the minority community would be put on the electoral lists according to census data. In the long run, the registration of members of the Hungarian minority for the elections of national councils was organized by the VMSZ.