Europeanization of Kin-Citizenship and the Dynamics of Kin-Minority Claim-Making: The Case of Hungary

Abstract

This article explores the implications of kin-citizenship policies on trans-border minority claim-making. To demonstrate the implications of kin-citizenship for minority claim-making strategies, the article investigates how Hungary’s introduction of extraterritorial citizenship and voting rights has affected the claim-making potential of Hungarian minority parties in the neighboring countries. The article argues that, contrary to existing theories, increased kin-state activism through extraterritorial citizenship does not necessarily lead to the radicalization of minorities, but it does compromise the mobilization potential and claim-making strategy of trans-border political actors in their home-states. The article also shows that increased kin-state activism does not necessarily increase interstate and interethnic tension.

Notes

^1. Minority mobilization and minority claim-making are intertwined and interdependent processes. Political mobilization is the organization of individuals by political elites through formal institutions and informal means connected with a political cause. These formal and more informal strategies include rapid group-creating movements as well as longer-term mobilization projects. Minority mobilization refers to the mobilization of individuals qua members of a putative ethnic or national minority by elite agents who claim to advocate the interests of the minority group. Thus, minority mobilization is contingent on political claims that are put forward by the mobilizing elites in the name of the minority they claim to represent. Making claims on behalf of a putative minority is a performative group-creating political process. Individuals are transformed into politically active members of a specific minority group through elite driven claim-making. Without the formulation of group-specific claims, no mobilization is possible, and, vice versa, the mobilization of a specific cohort of individuals implies that the mobilizing elites can put forward claims on behalf of the individuals as members of the putative group. Minority mobilization and minority claim-making are the two sides of the same coin. Minority claim-making should be understood as a group-making mobilization effort along ethnic/national groupist narratives (see Jenne 2007, 10–15). Successful mobilization entails that the addressed individuals start to advocate the claims that are put forward on their behalf (see MacAdams et al., 34). Although it is an elite-driven project, mobilization and successful claim-making are conditional on the availability of favorable political opportunities and structures.

^2. In the article, kin-state activism is used as an umbrella term to denote the institutions as well as informal strategies of kin-state actors targeting trans-border kin minorities. Kin-state activism includes policies that are intended to empower kin-minorities in their home-states as well as institutions that are intended to strengthen the interaction between the external kin population and their kin-state. See Pogonyi et al. 2010; Csergő and Goldgeier 2013.