Minority rights activism beyond borders: the synergies between deliberation and strategic action

Abstract

This article conceptualises the influence at play in the cross-border promotion of minority rights, and offers insights into how this influence can be strengthened and made more principled. In the international socialisation literature, such influence tends to be analysed through competing explanatory and normative frames centred on strategic action and deliberation. However, I contend the enactment of egalitarian institutional change frequently involves a productive interplay between each mode of action, with cost–benefit calculations enhancing communicative reasoning, and vice versa. Moreover, while the success-oriented behaviour of strategic action represents a departure from the deliberative tenet that political outcomes should emerge through an assessment of what everyone could reasonably accept, I contend strategic action can still be justified from a deliberative standpoint whenever it compels actors in positions of strength to be receptive to the claims of actors in positions of weakness. I illustrate these arguments through the case study of minority rights activism, discussing the transnational pathways for rights reform within the context of the EU and beyond.

Keywords:

• Deliberative democracy
• minority rights
• transnational advocacy networks
• conditionality
• rational choice
• EU

Notes on contributor

George Vasilev is a lecturer in politics. His research explores the application of deliberative democracy in the fields of conflict resolution, multiculturalism, and transnational activism. He is author of the book Solidarity across Divides: Promoting the Moral Point of View (Edinburgh University Press, 2015).

Notes

1. Similar critiques are offered by Deveaux (2003), Warren (2007), and Calvert (2013), who also argue against excluding self-interest and strategic intent from the boundaries of legitimate political action.

2. For an example of such activism in relation to the Roma in eastern Europe, see Bakker (2003, 166) and Kymlicka (2007, 220).