Divided Nationhood and Multiple Membership: A Framework for Assessing Kin-State Policies and Their Impact

Abstract

This article uses an expanded notion of divided nationhood and the framework of multiple membership to assess the impact of kin-state policies on national minority communities in the European neighbourhood. Drawing upon the key cases of Hungary and Poland, the article presents the challenges faced by states that position themselves in relation to a multifaceted set of external populations within and outside of Europe that can claim national membership, including recent emigrants, older diasporas, as well as kin minorities in neighbouring states. The second aspect of this framework focuses on the impacts of kin-state policies made by the governments representing divided nations on the national minority communities that are their target. This is done by conceptualizing minorities as embedded within the condition of multiple membership, which highlights the opportunities and the pitfalls in having access to the political, economic, and cultural community of the kin-state while striving to maintain the coherence of the minority community and assert minority rights at home.

Notes

1 Fearon and Laitin (1996) famously argued that interethnic cooperation relied on strong intraethnic policing and sanctioning regimes that were weakened by ‘too frequent’ interethnic interactions (p. 723). However, their model relied on a model assuming high and constant inter-group tensions, and the lack of inter-ethnic networks in everday life.

2 The liberalization of the EU visa regime for Ukraine in 2017 has also increased cross-border mobility.