Europeanization and Collective Rationality in Minority Voting

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how European integration shaped minority electoral strategies, which constitute the primary form of political mobilization among minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. Comparing six cases in five new member states of the EU – Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia; Russian‐speakers in Estonia and Latvia; Poles and Russian‐speakers in Lithuania – we find that minority voters across the region pool electoral resources behind specific political parties considered most likely to pursue minority interests; regardless of how they began organizing politically in the early 1990s. We identify three aspects of Europeanization with important indirect impact on these developments.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are thankful for research assistance by Alexandra Liebich, Jeremy Ladd, Philippe Roseberry, and Ognen Vangelov. We are also thankful for very helpful feedback from the anonymous reviewers and editors of this journal, as well as from scholars who read earlier versions of the manuscript, including Timofey Agarin, Donald L. Horowitz, Szabolcs Pogonyi, Olga Talal, Jennie Schulze; and members of the 2017 Comparative Politics workshop at the Political Science Department at George Washington University.

FUNDING

Part of this research was funded by a Standard Research Grant titled “The Cohabitation of Nationalism and Transnational Integration in Post-Communist Europe,” provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes

1. Council of Europe 1995. The FCNM calls for “[t]he Parties [to] create the conditions necessary for the effective participation of persons belonging to national minorities in cultural, social and economic life and in public affairs, in particular those affecting them” (CoE 1995, Article 15). Other articles in the FCNM cover minority rights in most areas of minority collective concern (e.g., education, use of minority language in public, private, administration, the media) and refer to various territorial models of multiculturalism, specifically bi- or multilingualism. Not all EU member states, including CEE countries, have signed and ratified the FCNM.

2. All documents can be accessed on the OSCE website in the section devoted to the work of the Office of High Commissioner for National Minorities, http://www.osce.org/hcnm.

3. On different categories of parties representing ethnic interests, see Gunther and Diamond 2003; Horowitz 1985; Kitschelt 2001.

4. For a discussion of how minority rationality is conditioned by structural asymmetry in majoritarian states, in the context of ethnic contestation, see Varshney 2004.

5. Csergő conducted several rounds of interviews in Brussels (European Parliament), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia; Regelmann conducted several rounds of interviews in Estonia and Slovakia.

6. Figure 2 focuses only on minorities included in this study, compared to each state’s majority population, as reported in official census data drawn from government statistics websites. Regarding Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the tables include numbers for ethnic Russians rather than the broader category of Russian-speakers (which also includes smaller minorities, such as Belarusians, Ukrainians, Armenians, and other Soviet-era migrant groups).

7. For the significance of electoral systems in state–minority relations, see Horowitz 2003; Lijphart 2004.

8. Interview with Valeria Jakobson, NGO activist and researcher at the University of Tartu, Tallinn, April 17, 2009.

9. Interview with Vadim Poleshchuk, legal analyst for the Legal Information Center for Human Rights (2009), assistant to Jana Toom, member of the European Parliament (2015), Tallinn, December 18, 2009, and March 20, 2015.

10. RE has sent one or two Russian-speakers to parliament.

11. Interview with Nikolai Karayev, journalist and Russian activist; Tallinn, May 23, 2013; Interview with Triin Vihalemm, Estonian sociologist (University of Tartu); Tallinn, May 22, 2013.

12. Interview with Rafik Grigorjan, NGO activist, Tallinn, May 18, 2010.

13. Interview with Olga Sõtnik, member of parliament for the Center Party, Tallinn, August 4, 2009; March 20, 2015. Interview with Aleksandr Dusman, chairman of the Ida-Virumaa Integration Roundtable and of the Jewish Community in Estonia, Kohtla-Järve, December 16, 2009, and March 17, 2015

14. Elections and Referendums 1992–2014. Estonian Electoral Committee: http://vvk.ee/past-elections; accessed July 15, 2016.

15. Interview with Sõtnik 2009 and 2015; interview with Mikhail Kõrvalt, member of Tallinn City Council for the Center Party (2010), deputy mayor of Tallinn (2015) Tallinn, May 19, 2010, and March 18, 2015.

16. SDP catapulted a Russian-speaker, Jevgenii Ossinovski, to ministerial positions in 2014 and 2016 as well as to SDP party chairman. The parliamentary faction of the Reform Party also includes an ethnic Russian, Deniss Boroditš, who moved from Center to Reform in 2012. About efforts to sway Russophone voters away from Center, see also http://rus.err.ee/173912/reformisty-nadejutsja-chto-socdemy-smogut-otbit-russkie-golosa-u-centristov.

17. Interviews with Vadim Poleshchuk, legal analyst for the Legal Information Center for Human Rights (2009), assistant to Jana Toom, member of the European Parliament (2015), Tallinn, December 18, 2009, and March 20, 2015.

18. Interview with Andrej Berdnikov, political scientist and Russian activist in Latvia; Riga, May 16, 2014. Interview with Deniss Hanovs, historian, professor in the Communication Studies Department, Riga University; Riga, May 15, 2014.

19. Interview with Boris Kolchanov, researcher, Latvian Centre for Human Rights; Riga, May 16, 2014.

20. Interview with Hanovs 2014; interview with Olga Procevska, social scientist and Russian advocate in Latvia; Riga, May 18, 2014. For a discussion of concerns about Russia’s involvement in the Baltics before the Ukraine crisis, see also Schulze 2010.

21. Results for DAHR presidential candidates were similar.

22. Interview with Anna Horváth, vice mayor of Cluj, March 24, 2016.

23. Interview with Sabin Gherman, founder of the Transylvania–Banat League (2000), Cluj, March 24, 2016.

24. Although DAHR remained in parliamentary opposition, it signed a cooperation agreement with the new government on January 21, 2017. See the text of the agreement here: http://www.dahr.ro/uploads/fileok/dok/PARLIAMENTARY%20COLLABORATION%20AGREEMENT.pdf, accessed on March 22, 2017.

25. For literature on Hungary’s trans-sovereign nationalism, see Brubaker 1996; Csergő and Goldgeier 2004; 2013; Jenne 2007; Waterbury 2010; Pogonyi 2011.

26. Interview with Ol’ga Gyárfasová, social scientist, Institute for Public Affairs (IVO) think tank, Bratislava, April 14, 2008. Interview with József Berényi, member of parliament for the Hungarian Coalition Party, Bratislava, June 30, 2009.

27. Interview with Edit Bauer, member of the European Parliament from Slovakia, Brussels, May 15, 2013.

28. Interview with Zoltán Bara, international secretary for the Hungarian Coalition Party, Bratislava, September 21 and 24, 2009.

29. Interview with Andrius Kubilius, Lithuanian politician (Homeland Union), prime minister from 2008 to 2012; Vilnius, May 9, 2014. Interview with Priit Järve, Estonian political scientist, senior non-resident associate, European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI); Vilnius, May 9, 2014.

30. Electoral results of minority parties are compiled from information provided by the Lithuanian Electoral Commission, http://www.vrk.lt, accessed September and October 2015.

31. Tomaszewski’s vision about Lithuania’s future triggers significant controversy. In 2015, President Daria Grybauskaite labeled him “pro-Kremlin” for his party’s approach to the Russia–Ukraine conflict (www.baltictimes.com/protest_votes_reshape_lithuanian_politics, accessed September 18, 2015).

32. Interview with Jaroslav Narkevič, deputy speaker of the Lithuanian parliament, member of parliament from EAPL, Vilnius, May 9, 2014.

Additional information

Funding

Part of this research was funded by a Standard Research Grant titled “The Cohabitation of Nationalism and Transnational Integration in Post-Communist Europe,” provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.