minorities

LGBT rights and EU accession process in Southeast Europe

Katja Kahlina
LGBT YU

As the case of on-going transformations of sexual citizenship in post-Yugoslav space shows, globalization and EU-isation open up a space for introducing positive practices related to sexual citizenship into the local contexts. However, as this case also reveals, the improvement of citizenship policies may easily be instrumentalised by different actors involved at the national and international arenas. Thus, more attention should be paid to the ways in which LGBT rights intersect with other discourses and relations of power on the global and local levels.

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally published in the CITSEE working paper series and is available for download here.

Romani subaltern in the context of transforming post-Yugoslav citizenship regimes

Julija Sardelić
Romani flag

Romani minorities in the post-Yugoslav space had uneven access to citizenship, which was specific to their socio-economic and also culturally stigmatised condition as the Subaltern, who was not able to voice its plight or it was ignored. Romani individuals who were positioned as non-citizens at their place of residence were in the most unfavourable position. However, even those minority individuals, who were able to access citizenship at their place of residence, found themselves in uneven position in comparison to other citizens. All post-Yugoslav states, also due to the dialogue with international organisations and EU integration processes, introduced legislation for minority protection, which included also Romani minorities. However, in most cases (excluding Slovenia), Romani minorities were included into the generic legal acts on minority protection, which did not recognise the fact that they are culturally stigmatised as well as have a different socioeconomic position than most other minorities. 

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally  published in the CITSEE working paper series and is available for download here.

Citizenship and nationhood in Bulgaria

Dimitar Bechev
Bulgarian presidency

Citizenship legislation and the associated administrative practices highlight several key points. First, membership in a supranational entity such as the EU has far-reaching effects, erasing to some degree the distinction between citizens and non-citizens but also making Bulgaria a more attractive proposition for various “third-country nationals”. Second, the provision of citizenship via naturalisation has broadened rent-seeking opportunities and exposed institutional weakness, a painfully familiar story in post-communist Bulgaria. Third, and most important, citizenship continues to oscillate between civic and more ethnicised notions. 

To understand the roots, evolution and workings of citizenship, along with the norms and practices of inclusion and exclusion in present-day Bulgaria one must look back to history. As elsewhere in South East Europe, Bulgaria’s approach to national identity and citizenship reflects the country’s path from Ottoman rule to independent statehood.

Rolling back history: The Romanian policy of restoration of citizenship to former citizens

Costica Dumbrava
Romanian citizenship

The Romanian policy of restitution of citizenship to former citizens has mixed justifications and complex implications. Invoking the moral obligation of the state to undo historical wrongs, post-communist leaders attempted to recreate the pre-war national community by restoring citizenship to people who were left outside the borders after the Second World War. This generated critical reactions from the neighbouring countries where former Romanian citizens live, particularly Ukraine and Moldova.  Although officials insisted that the policy was not driven by ethno-nationalists ideals, recent amendments that restrict the entitlement to the restoration of citizenship to former citizens through birth suggest a nationalist conception of citizenship that is defined primarily in terms of organic ties established through birth.

“It is not citizen Dumitrescu from [the Moldovan city of] Cahul who has decided to lose his [Romanian] nationality, it’s Stalin who has decided for him.”

Romanian president, Traian Basescu

CITSEE studies on “Citizenship after Yugoslavia” published by Routledge

citsee book

This book is the first comprehensive examination of the citizenship regimes of the new states that emerged out of the break up of Yugoslavia. It covers both the states that emerged out of the initial disintegration across 1991 and 1992 (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Macedonia), as well as those that have been formed recently through subsequent partitions (Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo).

CITSEE is pleased to announce that Routledge has recently published the volume “Citizenship after Yugoslavia” edited by Jo Shaw and Igor Štiks

Never Turkish enough: Struggles over citizenship and national identity in Turkey

Kerem Öktem
Turkish flag

One could argue that the AKP’s neo-Islamist policies of de-secularisation and the return of religion in the public space has helped to furnish with full citizenship rights the religiously conservative mainstream, which the Kemalist modernisers had kept from power. And indeed, the growing number of religious men and women in every-day life, in the economy and in public service suggest a process of reconciliation between the state and the conservative middle-classes. This new coalition has also brought some conservative Kurds, who have renounced secular Kurdish nationalism, into the fold of a more Islamic Turkey. Yet neither secular Kurds and Turks, nor the Alevis, members of a non-Orthodox Muslim community, see themselves represented by this new hegemonic alliance. In terms of every-day citizenship, they feel discriminated against, excluded from public tenders and government services.

For the fleeting observer, the Republic of Turkey had long been a place of certainty when it came to issues of citizenship and national identity: its people constituted a proud, secular nation, with an ostensibly distant Islamic heritage but a clearly Europeanised political elite.

The Janus face of Slovenian Citizenship

Tomaž Deželan
A statue on a Ljubljana bridge

The citizenship regime in Slovenia can seem to have two faces. For those who focus on its numerous malfunctions, the citizenship regime seems xenophobic, even apartheid-like. By contrast, those who focus on the initial determination characterise the system as progressive and civic.

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally published in the CITSEE Working Paper Series and is available for download here.

Macedonian Citizen: ‘Former Yugoslav’, Future European?

Ljubica Spaskovska
Old train station in Skopje

Citizenship in the former Yugoslav and the Macedonian context is yet to have its dimensions of status, rights and equality strengthened and its dimension of membership/belonging weakened in importance.

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally published in the CITSEE Working Paper Series and is available for download here.

Kosovo: between a ‘political club’ and a ‘divided house'

Gëzim Krasniqi
A motive from Pristina

Citizenship has been a central issue in Kosovo’s state-building agenda, which aims to serve as a link between a war-torn community of people and a new polity based on principles of equality and all inclusiveness, and as a tool of political integration within the new political entity, which aims at replacing ethnic, religious and social divisions.

This is an extended summary of a longer paper that was originally published in the CITSEE Working Paper Series  and is available for download here.

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