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Dynamics of Party Politics, Electoral Competition and Cooperation Within the Hungarian Minorities of Romania, Serbia and Slovakia

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Dynamics of Party Politics, Electoral Competition and Cooperation Within the Hungarian Minorities of Romania, Serbia and Slovakia Dynamics of Party Politics, Electoral Competition and Cooperation within the Hungarian Minorities of Romania, Serbia and Slovakia Submitted to Central European University, Political Science Department in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By István Gergő Székely Supervisor: Prof. Zsolt Enyedi Budapest, Hungary April 30, 2014. DECLARATION I hereby declare that no parts of this thesis have been submitted towards a degree at any other institution different from CEU. I hereby declare that this thesis contains no materials previously written and/or published by any other person, except where appropriate acknowledgment is made in the form of bibliographical reference. István Gergő Székely April 30, 2014. _____________________ Signature Abstract Intra-ethnic political dynamics are a rather neglected topic in political science, ethnic groups and minorities being regarded most of the time as unitary actors. This dissertation aims to contribute to the dismantling of this obviously oversimplifying perspective through an analysis of the political divisions of the Hungarian minorities of Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. For this purpose the thesis blends the triadic nexus of nationalisms of Brubaker with the toolkit of research on ethnic and ethnoregionalist parties. It proposes a framework of analysis that is innovative primarily because of the central role attributed to external actors (the kin-state) and to the relative weight of different types of party-voter linkage mechanisms (especially to the clientelistic potential of the parties) in party competition. Building on this framework, the dissertation aims to explain why more radical party appeals were less successful in the case of the Hungarian minorities and why intra-ethnic electoral cooperation is rather the exception than the rule in the case of these communities. Taking into consideration the absence of institutionalized power-sharing in the studied countries, I argue that the key to the more moderate parties’ electoral success lies precisely in their higher clientelistic capacity, as states are more ready to provide access to the national patronage system than to transform themselves into multi-national states. A minority party can maintain high clientelistic capacity primarily by participation in power in the host-state, however, this is conditional on the moderation of ethnopolitical demands. Being excluded from power, the more radical intra-ethnic challengers are unable to counterbalance the clientelistic potential of the moderates, as they can rely almost exclusively on the aid of the kin-state. However, the magnitude of the latter has gradually fallen behind that of the resources accessible in the host-state. The dependence on host-state resources has important consequences on the incidence of intra-ethnic cooperation too. The incentives of the moderates to cooperate with their more radical counterparts are reduced not only by the need to keep the ethnic coalition minimal, but also because cooperation with the radicals decreases their overall chances of access to resources, due to the resistance of the majority elites. This argument explains why ethnic minorities are often unable to overcome their electoral strategic coordination problems. I go on to argue that this model of interactions between majority and minority elites is better understood as a mixed model of incorporation also entailing softer elements of cooptation and control, than as informal power-sharing. The more moderate minority elites accept this model in order to maintain their access to resources and implicitly their dominant position within the electorate, while for the majority elites this represents a cost-effective solution avoiding the radicalization of the minority. The thesis also analyses the differences between the electorates of the rival minority parties, provides an account about the interrelatedness of party preferences across the borders (in the case of the newly enfranchised Hungarian dual citizens), and includes an analysis of successful and failed instances of electoral competition between minority parties, which once again confirm the very significant impact of the kin-state, but also the importance of both programmatic and strategic differences between the parties. Acknowledgements First of all, I would thank my supervisor, Zsolt Enyedi, for guiding me through the process of assembling this dissertation, for his always critical but constructive attitude towards my work, and for convincing me that it can be done. I also benefitted to a great deal from the feedback of other professors from CEU, especially Erin Jenne and Carsten Schneider, who provided useful input on previous versions of some parts of this dissertation. I would also like to thank Zsuzsa Csergő and László Öllös for commenting on a very early draft of this thesis. I would like to thank CEU for the financial assistance provided for the field research and for participation at a summer school, where one critical element of this thesis took shape in my mind. I am indebted to a great deal to many of my friends, colleagues and former professors who also deal with similar research topics, with whom I had very inspiring conversations about issues related to my thesis, and who helped me with ideas, information and encouragement: Nándor Bárdi, Levente Salat, István Horváth, Miklós Bakk, István Székely, Tibor Toró, Tamás Toró, Zoltán Bognár, Special thanks go to Tamás Kiss, Gergő Barna, Ábel Ravasz and Igor Kiss for sharing their data with me, and to Daniel Bochsler, Edina Szőcsik and Christina Zuber for the good times and insightful conversations we had about each-other’s research at some really memorable conferences. Without them, this dissertation could not have been written. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for making it possible for me to arrive here, and for patiently supporting me throughout all these years. And of course, to Ági, for going with me through all the ups and downs of the whole process. Table of contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Why focus on intra-ethnic political fragmentation and competition? ........................................... 2 Literatures addressed and contribution ........................................................................................ 5 Methodological aspects ............................................................................................................... 11 Overview of the thesis ................................................................................................................. 13 Chapter 1. The Hungarian minorities: national minorities and external diasporas ................... 16 Ethnic groups with adjectives ..................................................................................................... 16 Minorities ................................................................................................................................... 18 National minorities ................................................................................................................ 21 Diasporas – external minorities ................................................................................................ 27 Conclusion: a dual perspective - national minorities and external diasporas................................ 33 Chapter 2. Ethnic parties, (ethno-)regionalist parties, minority parties ...................................... 38 Ethnoregionalist parties .............................................................................................................. 38 Ethnic parties .............................................................................................................................. 43 Ethnic parties as clientelistic machines ..................................................................................... 47 Insights for the parties of national minorities in Central and Eastern Europe ........................... 50 Chapter 3. Theories of ethnic party competition and cooperation .............................................. 59 Ethnic outbidding ........................................................................................................................ 59 Alternatives to outbidding ............................................................................................................ 61 New party formation ................................................................................................................ 62 Consequences of outbidding .................................................................................................... 64 The success of outbidding ........................................................................................................ 66 Power-sharing and intra-ethnic dynamics .................................................................................... 67 An alternative argument for moderation ...................................................................................... 72 Consequences on intra-ethnic cooperation ................................................................................... 77 A mixed model of minority incorporation ..................................................................................... 78 Chapter 4. Classifying the parties of the Hungarian minority - the analytical framework ........ 83 Programmatic goals ...................................................................................................................
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