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Home , Aleksandra Jerkov, Assembly of Vojvodina, Hungarian Coalition, Olena Papuga, Potisje, Rein Lang

VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY

Leonas Tolvaišis

POLITICAL PARTIES AND ETHNIC MINORITY POLICIES, 1991-2011: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF 'S AND 'S RUSSIANS

Doctoral dissertation Social science, political science (02S)

Kaunas 2012 UDK 323.15 To-69 The dissertation was prepared at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Vytautas Magnus University, 2012. Academic Supervisor:

Prof. Dr. Stefano Bianchini (University of Bologna, social sciences, political sciences, 02S).

ISBN 978-9955-12-766-6

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to my first academic supervisor, Professor Algimantas Prazauskas, whose lectures and expertise motivated me to specialize in ethnopolitics. I am also grateful to my PhD supervisor Professor Stefano Bianchini for providing me with unique opportunities for professional engagement in the area of Balkan studies and field research in the Balkans. Special thanks to coordinators of receiving institutions and experts on minority issues for their help during my internship periods in the countries covered by the present research: Estonia – Professor Vello Pettai, Faculty of Government and Politics, University of ; Kristina Kallas, Institute of Baltic Studies, ; Serbia – Professor Fuada Stanković, Centre for Advanced European Studies and Research, University of ; Dr. Zsolt Lázár, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, . I would also like to thank the Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy of Vytautas Magnus University, particularly Professor Ineta Dabašinskienė, Dr. Andžej Pukšto and Inga Černiauskaitė for their generous support and cooperation in enabling the present research to be conducted abroad. In addition, I thank all interviewed respondents and experts that agreed to participate in the present research, and Professor Carolyn Kadas for fast English language assistance.

3 CONTENTS

CONTENTS ...... 4 List of abbreviations...... 6 List of tables ...... 8 INTRODUCTION...... 9 Research problem and relevance...... 9 Objective, research questions and tasks ...... 14 Research novelty and relevance ...... 15 Research theses...... 16 Methods...... 16 Structure ...... 17 Literature overview ...... 18 1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...... 26 1. 1. Political parties and public policy shaping...... 26 1.2. Party policy inertia and resistance to change...... 40 1.3. Party policy change ...... 49 1.4. Historical institutionalism as an explanatory framework ...... 58 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ...... 61 3. THE CASE STUDY OF SERBIA’S HUNGARIANS...... 67 3.1. Ethnic cleavage in the Serbian party system ...... 67 3.1.1. Stances on ethnic minority policies in Serbian political parties’ programs...... 67 3.1.2. The intra-party structure of ethnic minority policy formulation ...... 83 3.1.3. The ethnic aspect of parties’ ideational dimension ...... 89 3.2. Political parties and ethnic minority policies in Serbia ...... 107 3.2.1. Critical junctural moments for ethnic minority policies at the outset of Serbia’s multi-party system...... 107 3.2.2. Political parties and the regional legal framework of minority rights protection in ...... 116 3.2.3. Political parties and Hungarian cultural autonomy in Serbia ...... 132 4. THE CASE STUDY OF ESTONIA’S RUSSIANS...... 138 4.1. Ethnic cleavage in the Estonian party system ...... 138 4.1.1. Stances on ethnic minority policies in Estonian political parties’ programs...... 138 4.1.2. The intra-party structure of minority policy formulation ...... 147 4.1.3. The ethnic aspect of the parties’ ideational dimension...... 155 4.2. Political parties and ethnic minority policies in Estonia ...... 163

4 4.2.1. Critical junctural moments for ethnic minority policies at the outset of Estonia’s multi-party system...... 163 4.2.2. Political parties and citizenship policies in Estonia...... 166 4.2.3. Political parties and language policies in Estonia ...... 179 4.2.4. Political parties and education policies in Estonia ...... 186 4.2.5. Political parties and state integration policies in Estonia ...... 190 4.2.6. Political parties and Russian cultural autonomy in Estonia...... 200 CONCLUSIONS...... 205 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 210 APPENDICES...... 227 Appendix 1. List of the persons interviewed...... 227 Appendix 2. Structure of the semi-structured interview questionnaire ...... 229

5 List of abbreviations

CPE – of Estonia DS (Serb. Demokratska Stranka) – Democratic Party (Serbia) DSS (Serb. Demokratska Stranka Srbije) – Democratic Party of Serbia G17+ – (political party, Serbia) GSS (Serb. Građanski Savez Srbije) – Civic Alliance of Serbia DOS (Serb. Demokratska Opozicija Srbije) – Democratic of Serbia EEE (Est. Eesti Ettevõtjate Erakond) – Estonian Entrepreneurs’ Party EER (Est. Erakond Estimaa Rohelised) – Estonian EKE (Est. Eesti Koonderakond) – Estonian Coalition Party EKRE (Est. Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond) – Estonian Conservative Party ELDP (Est. Eesti Liberaaldemokraatlik Partei) – Estonian Liberal Democratic Party EME (Est. Eesti Maarahva Erakond) – Estonian People’s Union EML (Est. Estimaa Maaliit) – Estonian Country Union ERL (Est. Eestimaa Rahvaliit) – People’s Union of Estonia ERR (Est. Estimaa Rahvarinne) – Popular Front of Estonia ERSP (Est. Eesti Rahvusliku Sõltumatuse Partei) – Estonian National Independence Party EVP (Est. Eesti Vasakpartei) – Estonian Left Party EU – European Union HK – ICTY – International Criminal Tribunal for the former IRL (Est. ja Res Publica Liit) – Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (political party, Estonia) JUL (Serb. Jugoslovenska Ujedinjena Levica) – Yugoslav United Left KE (Est. Eesti Keskerakond) – LCS – League of Communists of Serbia LCY – League of Communists of Yugoslavia LDP (Serb. Liberalna Demokratska Partija) – Liberal Democratic Party LSV (Serb. Liga Socijaldemokrata Vojvodine) – League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina ND (Serb. Nova Demokratija) – New Democracy (political party, Serbia) ONPE (Rus. Obyedinyonnaya Narodnaya Partiya Estonii) – Estonian United People’s Party OLPE (Rus. Obyedinyonnaya Levaya Partiya Estonii) – Estonian United Left Party PA (Rus. Predstavitel’skaya Assambleya) – Representative Assembly PYeE (Rus. Partiya Edinstva Estonii) – Party of Estonian Unity

6 RBPE (Rus. Russko-Baltiyskaya Partiya Estonii) – Russian Baltic Party of Estonia RDD (Rus. Russkoe Demokraticheskoe Dvizhenie) – Russian Democratic Movement RE (Est. Eesti Reformierakond) – RF – Russian Federation RNSE (Rus. Russkiy Natsional’nyi Soyuz v Estonii) – Russian National Union in Estonia RPE (Rus. Russkaya Partiya v Estonii) – RPYe (Rus. Russkaya Partiya Edinstva) – Russian Party of Unity RSV (Serb. Reformska Stranka Vojvodine) – Vojvodina Reform Party SDE (Est. Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond) – Social Democratic Party (Estonia) SFRY – Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia SNS (Serb. Srpska Napredna Stranka) – Serbian Progressive Party SPO (Serb. Srpski Pokret Obnove) – SPS (Serb. Socijalistička Partija Srbije) – Socialist Party of Serbia SRY – Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia SRS (Serb. Srpska Radikalna Stranka) – SRSJ (Serb. Savez Reformskih Snaga) – Alliance of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia VMDK (Hung. Vajdasági Magyarok Demokratikus Közössége) – Democratic Fellowship of Vojvodina Hungarians VMDP (Hung. Vajdasági Magyar Demokrata Párt) – Democratic Party of Vojvodina Hungarians VMSZ (Hung. Vajdasági Magyar Szövetség) – Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians UJDI (Serb. Udruženje za Jugoslovensku Demokratsku Inicijativu) – Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative

7 List of tables

Table 1. Ethnicity-related cleavage dimension in the Serbian party system, p. 106;

Table 2. Russian representation in the Estonian , p. 149;

Table 3. Political parties and Estonian citizenship legislation, pp. 167-170;

Table 4. Political parties and legislation, pp. 180-181;

Table 5. Political parties and Estonian education legislation, p. 187;

Table 6. Political parties and legislation related to the 2007 crisis, p. 199;

Table 7. Political parties and minority status-related legislation, p. 202.

8 INTRODUCTION

Research problem and relevance

Since the disintegration of the and Yugoslavia, one of the inherent peculiarities of contemporary party systems in many of their former component republics been the long-term impact of ethnopolitical mobilization. This process accompanied the formation of party systems and strongly impacted the policy attitudes and practices of major political parties in the area of ethnicity-related policies. As the transition toward a multi-party system occurred simultaneously with the disintegration of the said socialist multiethnic federations along ethnic lines, a considerable degree of ethnification of politics portended to impose ethnicity as one of the fundamental political cleavages within many of the emerging party systems, with important implications for numerous ethnicity-related aspects of policies, particularly ethnic minority policies. In states characterized by a considerable degree of ethnic heterogeneity, the politicization of ethnicity at the very outset of the democratic transition tended to generate discrepancies between official ethnic policies and social realities. A crucial factor which emerged at the turning point of political transformation, the ethnic dimension not only manifested a tendency to correlate with other relevant cleavages in society, but also a notable capacity to affect various aspects of official state policy and related institutional designs, as well as the agendas of key political actors and policy makers. This peculiar ethnic dimension within the party systems which emerged is particularly relevant given the important role played by political parties in structuring policies in modern democratic states. By channeling and institutionalizing mass support for particular policies and playing a crucial role in legislature, political parties shape policy outcomes in powerful ways. In the earliest stages of post-communist European states’ democratization, ethnicity was found to be the only cleavage salient enough to be immediately transformed into party platforms1. Considering the role of political parties and the party system in imposing checks and structure on society, ethnicity is likely to have become an important element in the structure of political cleavage in these states. This assumption raises a number of questions with regard to the ethnic dimension in the structure of party systems of post-communist European states and its implications for ethnic minority policies. What impact has the redefinition of ethnopolitical settings in the states that emerged from multiethnic socialist federations left on the attitudes of

1 Crawford, Keith. East Central European politics today: From chaos to stability? Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press and St. Martin’s Press, 1996. 9 crucial political actors and policy makers toward ethnic policies and on their actual policy practices, and what long-term implications could it have for ethnic minority integration patterns and social cohesion in these states? To what extent has this kind of ethnicized transition toward a multi-party system structured ethnic minority policies in these states along ethnic or civic lines? The dimension of ethnic cleavage within a party system, reflected in party programs and policy agendas, could imply different answers to these questions, reflected in political parties’ divergent policy attitudes toward ethnicity-related issues, and, respectively, different policy practices in ethnic minority-related policy areas (language, citizenship, education, etc.). A related question concerns the peculiarities of policy making by political parties in the area of ethnic policies in terms of durability or proneness to change of party policies over time. Does the ethnic dimension of the nation-wide political cleavage structure, expressed in the said difference in party policy attitudes and practices, persist over time, and what factors could condition its change? An important set of theories dealing with the role of political parties in policy making attributes a series of features to them, which are believed to determine policy outcomes in relevant ways. These features are: a relative immutability of party policy stances, path- dependency, resistance to change and perpetuation of existing policy paths over time. Thus, historical institutionalist theoretical tradition assumes that political parties are particularly path- dependent in their policies: once set along a particular path, their policies are difficult to reverse2. In contrast, theories stressing the office-seeking nature of political parties (particularly rational choice theory) argue that party policies are instrumental in their quest for power. Parties are thus expected to adjust their policies to the goal of getting or remaining in power3. These contrasting interpretations of party policies suggest different implications for any policy field. If party policies are path-dependent, their policies will heavily depend on their history, or previously chosen policy path. If parties are primarily guided by a rational power- seeking calculus, a dynamic political environment can be expected to impart more mutability to party policies over the course of time.

2 Von Beyme, Klaus. Political Parties in Western Democracies. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. 3 Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper & Row, 1957, p. 28; Schlesinger, Joseph. “Political Careers and the Party Leadership.” Edinger, Lewis (ed.). Political Leadership in Industrialized Societies. Studies in Comparative Analysis. New York, London, Sydney: John Wiley and Sons Inc; Panebianco, Angelo. Political Parties, Organization and Power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 270-273; Seiler, Daniel-Louis. “Note sur les partis politiques dans les pays de l’Europe du sud-est”. Milacic, S. (ed.). Démocratie constitutionelle en Europe Centrale et Orientale. Bilans et Perspectives. Bruxelles: Bruylant, 1998, p. 227. 10 In any case, the peculiarity of the relationship between the two phenomena – (1) the political party with its peculiar role in shaping policies and (2) ethnicity as a factor of political cleavage – still remains an underresearched area when it comes to ethnic minority policies. Thus, the available empirical evidence with regard to party policy path dependence and mutability deals overwhelmingly with other policy areas. Meanwhile, party policy-making dynamics in the field of ethnic minority policy, besides having the potential to stand out against the overall background of state policies due to the intrinsic peculiarity of the phenomenon of ethnicity, has remained beyond the scope of available research. The two bodies of literature still remain separate, and deal either with party policies in other areas, or with ethnic policies from the perspective of host states rather than focusing specifically on the role of political parties in structuring policies. Thus the current research overlooks the common point of juncture that could explain the impact of political parties in the ethnic minority policy paths of states that emerged from multiethnic socialist federations. The present dissertation aims to bridge this gap, focusing on policy attitudes and practices of political parties in the area of ethnic minority policies, and their proneness to persistence and mutability over time. The two-decade-long period that has passed since the introduction of multi-party systems in European post-communist states allows us not only to evaluate the legacy of the processes of ethnic mobilization in ethnic minority policies pursued by political parties, but also to test the proneness of parties’ ethnic policies to path-dependence and reversibility over time. Particular attention is thus paid to the empirical observation of circumstances, under which a reversal of once chosen state minority policy paths (regardless of their minority-inclusive or exclusive nature) occurs. In addressing this important and underresearched question, the present dissertation relates it to the distinctive features of policies pursued by political parties. The research questions are thus concerned with the unique aspects of party policies in the area of ethnic minority policies. The peculiar institutional nature of political parties is suspected to have direct implications for state minority policy paths. The dissertation attempts to explore the relationship between the phenomena of political parties and ethnicity with a twofold approach, addressing both the impact of ethnicity on shaping the cleavage structure of the nation-wide party system and the way in which the peculiar institutional nature of political parties shapes the latter’s approach to ethnic minority policy issues, resulting in concrete policy practice and policy outcomes that correlate with political party program attitudes on ethnic issues. The selection of two case studies – one from the post-Yugoslav Balkan context and another from the post-Soviet Baltic setting – is intended to respond to the research questions.

11 Although seemingly different in a number of aspects that make up the general ethnopolitical contexts of the two states, the two states chosen for the present research – Serbia and Estonia – satisfy the key validity requirement for the present research: the origins of the of both states’ contemporary party systems date back to periods of strong ethnicity politicization that could not but affect, in one way or another, the policy attitudes and policy practices of the major political parties in these states. Of all the states that (re-)emerged on the map of Europe in the early 1990s, Estonia is perhaps the most eloquent example of a nation-state that defined its identity in explicit ethnic primordialist terms, with resulting implications for all ethnicity-related policy areas. This development is the outcome of a powerful popular movement for national independence which in the long run gave rise to the country’s major political parties. The practical implementation of the conception of political membership had clear ethnopolitical implications, resulting in socioeconomic stratification overlapping with ethnic divisions. Throughout the past two decades, Estonia’s minority policies and the situation of the country’s Russian community has been the subject of extensive research. Nevertheless, the potential for research of this case study is still far from being exhausted. From the huge amounts of literature existing on the topic, an assessment of the role played by political parties in developing ethnic minority policy so far has been missing. Besides, the topic’s relevance is manifested by the fact that up until 2007 the scholarly literature and the state authorities had largely overlooked the potential for country’s Russian community to spontaneously mobilize. The public debate on integration and reconsiderations of the current policy path began only after the 2007 “Bronze Soldier crisis”, precisely when this PhD research commenced, thus contributing to its timely relevance. In the Balkans the conflict between the principles of ethnic nation-state and heterogeneous ethnodemographic composition was at the core of Yugoslavia’s violent disintegration. The emergence of a multi-party system in Yugoslavia (both in its constituent republics and on the federal level) was accompanied by ethnicity-related conflicts that gradually escalated into the wars of Yugoslav disintegration. The ethnopolitical issues at the core of the conflicts of that time have not completely faded away, but still stir up contradictions in the ongoing political and scholarly debates in most states that emerged in the wake of the demise of Yugoslavia. The present dissertation is concerned specifically with the case of Serbia, focusing on the policy attitudes and practices of the country’s political parties with regard to the specific issue of the autonomy of the province of Vojvodina and its peculiar regime of minority rights protection, with its relevant implications for the province’s biggest Hungarian minority. The topic’s relevance is demonstrated by the fact that the adoption of Vojvodina’s Statute of Autonomy and

12 a number of related laws aimed at the reinstatement of the province’s autonomy and the resulting impact on minorities’ rights protection are recent developments that occurred in the midst of the process of elaboration of the present dissertation (in 2009) and has not yet received much scholarly attention. Moreover, there has been little research done on the topic of Serbia’s Hungarian minority because it has been overshadowed by other Balkan ethnopolitical problems. In both the above-mentioned post-communist states, their contemporary multi-party systems emerged simultaneously with fundamental ethnopolitical processes which not only defined the political identity and policy stances of major political parties, but changed state borders and overturned previous ethnopolitical balances. This research represents a comparative analysis of the role of political parties in shaping ethnic minority policies over the two decades, from the outset of multi-party systems to the present, with a specific focus on path dependence and mutability of party policy stances and practices over time, as well as factors underlying party policy inertia or party policy changes in the sphere of ethnic policies.

Object

Ethnic minority policies4 pursued by political parties (both ethnic parties and mainstream nation-wide parties).

Topic

The peculiarities of the evolution of political party policy attitudes and policy practices in the area of ethnic minority policies in Estonia and in Serbia, with a particular focus on party policy path-dependence, policy changes and policy reversibility.

4 By ethnic minority policies, we refer to policies aimed at identifying and meeting the most important policy needs manifested by a considerable part of the minority group. In my dissertation, I apply a bottom-up approach that bases the evaluation criteria on the degree of mutability of policy stances and policy practices of political parties, and pays particular attention to the most relevant needs identified by the minority community itself (the most reliable sources for identifying such policy needs are provided by sociological researches and surveys). The analytical lens chosen for the present dissertation enables the comparison of party policies pursued in the area of ethnic minority policy without limiting the comparison to certain policy areas. Instead, it enables the exploration of overall approaches of political parties to those ethnic minority policy issues that gained relevance in the wake of the introduction of multi-party system. This approach to policies is justified in this dissertation, as it is focused on the ethnic-civic dichotomy that overlaps with party approaches to most policy areas, as the research results show. Another analytical dimension regards prospects of the reversal of minority policies that may equally apply to any policy area. 13 Objective, research questions and tasks

The focus of the dissertation and the basis for comparing the cases of Hungarians in Serbia (the Vojvodina Hungarians)5 and Russians in Estonia is the objective of defining and explaining the degree of proneness to path dependence and reversibility prospects of party policies in the area of ethnic minority policy over time, relating the degree of stability of the ethnic cleavage dimension within the party system to the persistence of party policy attitudes and policy practices in ethnic minority policy. The study is based on the following research questions: RQ1: What is the long-term impact of the salience of ethnopolitical issues at the outset of multi-party system on policy attitudes and policy practices of political parties? RQ2. How is an eventual proneness of political party policy attitudes and policy practices to path dependence related to reversal prospects of state minority policies? RQ3. What are the limitations of party policy-making in the sphere of ethnic minority policies? The following research tasks have been set out in order to achieve the objective: – analyze the available theoretical elaborations on the role and peculiarities of political parties in the policy shaping process, considering the specificity of ethnic policy, and choose an explanatory framework for analyzing the political parties’ role in shaping ethnic minority policies; – assess the degrees of persistence and change in ethnic minority policy agendas of Serbia’s and Estonia’s political parties6 set in official party program documents over the 20-year period, identifying key incentives to party policy change and assessing the parties’ reactions to them in terms of persistence or mutability of party policy attitudes; – analyze the intra-party frameworks of ethnic minority policy formulation of Serbia’s and Estonia’s political parties; – identify the ethnic aspect of ideational dimension of Serbia’s and Estonia’s political parties, reflected in ethnicity-related values manifested in discourse on ethnic minority policies;

5 The terms “Serbia’s Hungarians” and “Vojvodina Hungarians” are used completely interchangeably in the dissertation, as Serbia’s entire Hungarian population is territorially concentrated exclusively in Vojvodina. Nevertheless, the two-decade-long participation of Hungarian deputies in the country’s national parliament, their active participation in the nation-wide legislative process as well as the existence of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians’ office in Belgrade enables us to consider Vojvodina Hungarians as a factor in Serbian nation-wide politics, thus fully justifying the term “Serbia’s Hungarians”. 6 The sample of parties covered by the present research is based on Sartori’s notion of “relevant parties” that includes only parties represented in parliament. Sartori, Giovanni. Parties and Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 120. 14 – assess the degrees of persistence and change in policy practices of Serbia’s and Estonia’s political parties over the 20-year period in the identified key policy areas, crucial for Serbia’s Hungarian and Estonia’s Russian minorities, identifying key incentives to party policy change and assessing the parties’ reaction to them in terms of persistence or mutability of party policy practices.

Research novelty and relevance

The novelty of the present research lies in several dimensions, aimed at bridging the gap between the theories of ethnicity and theories dealing with party policy making, by offering new insights into the relationship of the phenomena of ethnicity and political parties, as provided by the two case studies analyzed in the dissertation. The research thus provides a novel approach by bringing together in a single piece of research the ethnic minority policy area and theoretical perspectives on political party policy making. For ethnicity studies, this research is an attempt to analyze ethnic minority policy paths from the perspective of political parties. By expanding the available theoretical knowledge of political parties to the area of ethnicity, the research attempts to test the extent to which political parties are prone to perpetuate, alter or reverse their ethnic policy lines over time. This innovative analytical lens, focused on the proneness of party ethnic policies to path dependence and policy reversibility prospects, is likely to shed new light on ethnic minority policies, enabling us to assess policy prospects and give policy recommendations. For studies of political parties, the research is novel due to its specific focus on ethnic cleavage within the party system. The durability of this cleavage, expressed in party policy practices, is explored over time, drawing on the two decades of experience of the selected case studies, distinguishing critical juncture moments, or incentives to alter party policies coming from the external environment, and evaluating the parties’ reactions to these incentives. Another novel dimension is the attempt to draw overarching parallels between different subregions of post-communist Eastern, Central and Balkan Europe, distinguishing similar features of seemingly distant cases which allow for the comparison of ethnic minority policy dynamics along unusual lines that researchers thus far have overlooked. The present research is based on a comparative approach and brings together two party systems that experienced a comparable impact of ethnification of politics at their outset (one case from the post-Yugoslav Balkan and another from the post-Soviet Baltic settings).

15 Research theses

1. Historical institutionalism explains a considerable degree of stability and inflexibility in political party policy stances and policy practices in the sphere of ethnic minority policies in post-communist European states over time, as the salience of ethnopolitical issues at the outset of multi-party system produced long-standing ethnicity-based political cleavages, running along diverging policy attitudes and policy practices of political parties. Once set along a particular track, party policies are prone to path dependence and are hard to reverse. 2. The proneness of political party policy attitudes and policy practices to path dependence in the sphere of ethnic policy causes considerable difficulties of reversal of state minority policies. 3. Party proneness to path dependence in the sphere of ethnic minority policies implies limitations of party policy-making in terms of policy expertise, minority involvement and policy efficiency, suggesting a need to empower non-party based ethnic minority-representative institutions with policy expertise within the ethnic minority policy network.

Methods

The present empirical research is based on qualitative methods. The comparative research design is based on the methodology of comparing “most different” cases that may result in similar outcomes7. Analysis of academic literature is provided in the chapter dealing with theoretical models, studies in ethnopolitics and party policies relevant for the present research. Analysis of legal acts and parliament stenograph records is provided in the sections dealing with ethnic minority policies pursued by political parties. Analysis of interview data and secondary sources, party programs and official documents is applied in the sections presenting the stances of political parties on ethnic minority policies. The empirical research is based on the following sources: Documentation: state legislation, official documents of political parties containing strategic policy agendas, and other official documents. Archival records: stenographic records, minutes of parliamentary sessions, and voting results on minority-related legislation are available for the Estonian case only.

7 Burnham, Peter, Karin Gilland, Wyn Grant, and Zig Layton-Henry. Research Methods in Politics. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 58. 16 Interviews: primary sources collected during periods of field research in Serbia and Estonia are semi-structured in-depth interviews with relevant politicians of minority and nation- wide parties, as well as experts dealing with ethnic minority issues in state, non-governmental and academic institutions. Supporting documents: academic literature, public opinion survey data, and archives of daily press materials. The unavailability of parliament stenograph records and detailed voting results for the case study of Serbia’s Hungarians has been compensated by means of interviews and secondary sources. The list of interviewed persons, chosen by targeted selection, is enclosed in Appendix 1 of this dissertation. The questionnaire of semi-structured interviews is enclosed in Appendix 2. The lack of secondary sources on political parties’ role in shaping minority policies in Serbia was compensated by means of collecting primary sources on Serbia’s major political parties (both mainstream and ethnic minority parties). For the case study of Serbia’s Hungarians, the selection of respondents attempted to cover all relevant nation-wide and ethnic Hungarian parties8. The selection of respondents is focused on the leaders of ethnic Hungarian parties as well as the leaders of provincial branches of mainstream political parties in Vojvodina, as the nucleus of the political life of Vojvodina Hungarians is concentrated on the provincial level. Given the availability of sources on intra-party minority-related policies in Estonia, due to limited resources of individual research, the selection of interviewees for the case study of Estonia’s Russians is limited to minority politicians (covering all parties with minority representatives in the Parliament at the time this research was conducted) and public figures active in the sphere of minority policies. The targeted selection of interviewees in Estonia included the most active minority politicians in the area of minority policies at the time the research was carried out.

Structure

The work is structured around the research tasks. The first chapter presents theoretical elaborations on the peculiarities of party policy shaping, its links with theories of ethnicity, nationalism, and explanations of party policy inertia

8 The SPS and the LDP refused to participate in the research. Their program documents and policy practices are analyzed on the basis of available documents. 17 and changes. This chapter attempts to ground the research methodology in an appropriate theoretical explanatory framework. The second chapter explains the methodology of comparative research based on the most different cases. The third and the fourth chapters are dedicated to the case studies of Serbia’s Hungarians and Estonia’s Russians respectively, each structured into sections. The first section is dedicated to the ethnic cleavage within the party system, structured into subsections. The first subsection traces the evolution of party policy attitudes on ethnic minority policy issues in official party program documents. The second is dedicated to intra-party frameworks of ethnic minority policy formulation. The third subsection complements the structure of the ethnic cleavage dimension within the party system by focusing on the ideational dimension of party discourse on ethnic policy issues. The second section deals with party policy practices in key ethnic minority policy areas, with a focus on legislative changes enacted by parties. Conclusions are presented in the last part.

Literature overview

During the third wave of democratization that affected Eastern and Central Europe after decades of communist rule, political parties in emerging multi-party systems established themselves as powerful political actors and attempted to take over the traditional functions performed by parties in established democracies, including policy formulation and enactment9. From the huge amount of theoretical literature produced in established demicracies, thematic dimensions relevant for the present research include political parties’ functions of public policy formulation and enactment; party policy changes over time; and ethnic minority policy shaping by political parties. When applying theoretical assumptions about political parties’ public policy shaping in Eastern and Central European countries, a crucial distinction has to be kept in mind between these countries and established Western democracies. Namely, most Western party systems at their outset did not experience the influence of ethnopolitical mobilization processes such as

9 White, Stephen, Judy Batt, and Paul G. Lewis. Developments in East European Politics. London: Macmillan, 1993; Evans, Geoffrey, and Stephen Whitefield. The Bases of Party Competition in Eastern Europe: Social and Ideological Cleavages in Post-Communist States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996; Hofferbert, Richard (ed.). Parties and Democracy: Party Structure and Party Performance in Old and New Democracies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998; Kitschelt, Herbert, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslaw Markowski, and Gabor Toka. Postcommunist Party Systems. Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 18 those that took place in post-communist countries. In addition, the experience of post- communist European countries raises the issue of representation of ethnic minorities in terms of ethnic minority policy-shaping by the nation-wide parties that emerged out of the processes of ethnopolitical mobilization. Despite the lack of a universal theory of party behavior in the realm of policy-shaping, crucial questions addressed by the present research can still be distinguished in the great variety of party studies in established Western democracies. These are: what are the factors behind party policy formulation, and what factors underlie party policy changes? In an attempt to answer these questions, different research traditions in established Western democracies offer various assumptions, concepts and party typologies. The following paragraphs single out theoretical approaches considered relevant for the present research. Structural functionalist authors Almond and Holt, drawing on the principal functions of parties such as interest articulation, aggregation, political socialization, communication and recruitment, stress party policy inertia and stability over time10. Still, the ability of this approach to explain policy changes was limited. Classifying parties into policy-oriented, office-oriented and vote-oriented ones can be useful for assessing the nature of party ethnic policies, their relative mutability and resistance to change over time. Downs put forward the rational choice assertion that “parties formulate policies in order to win elections”11. In contrast, critics of rational choice theory, Gunther, Montero, Green and Shapiro, stressed the obvious existence of party attitudes toward policies. According to this group of authors, parties aspire to win elections in order to formulate policies12. Strøm modified the rational choice theory, paying more attention to constraints imposed on parties by the external environment13. However, these theoretical assumptions are based on examples taken from a limited number of Western countries. Meanwhile, the link between these assumptions and the empirical evidence from new Eastern and Central European democracies in the area of ethnic policies has remained under-addressed by the literature.

10 Almond, Gabriel A. “A Functional Approach to Comparative Politics.” Almond, Gabriel A, and James S. Coleman (eds.). The Politics of Developing Areas. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960; Holt, Rinehart E. “A Proposed Structural-Functional Framework.” Charlesworth, James C. (ed.). Contemporary Political Analysis. New York: The Free Press, 1967. 11 Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper & Row, 1957, p. 28. 12 Green, Donald P. and Ian Shapiro. Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory. A Critique of Applications in Political Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994; Gunther, Richard, José Ramón Montero, and Juan Linz (eds.). Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 13 Strøm, Kaare, and Wolfgang C. Müller. “Political Parties and Hard Choices.” Müller, Wolfgang C. and Kaare Strøm (eds.). Policy, Office, or Voters? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 19 The theory of social cleavages developed by Lipset and Rokkan focused mainly on electoral behavior and voting patterns14. Following Lipset and Rokkan, a number of authors found voting patterns to be anchored along cleavage lines over decades15. An underresearched area opens when it comes to policy-shaping by parties (particularly ethnic minority policy- shaping by parties, addressed in this dissertation). From all the works on the formulation of public policies and parties’ participation in parliament and government, systematic comparative studies of party policy dynamics and changes over time have been rare even in established Western European democracies. Although the body of literature is not specifically focused on ethnic policies specific to post-communist European countries, available studies still give us important insights on party policy changes, as they reveal a considerable degree of stability in party policy attitudes. Thus, Ian Budge’s article “A New Theory of Party Competition” examined party policy changes between elections in 20 countries16. Budge explains the stability of party policy stances with the uncertainty of the political environment, which does not allow party elites to predict how changes in party attitudes could affect their success in elections17. Similar arguments on party policy stability are put forward by James Adams, who analyzed Great Britain, and the USA in his book “Party Competition and Responsible Party Government”18. Likewise, Burt analyzed party policy changes, arguing that parties project their policy course, relating them to other parties’ stances19. Adams, Clark, Ezrow and Glasgow found that electoral success prompts

14 Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan (eds.). Party Systems and Voter Alignments. New York, The Free Press, 1967. 15 Rose, Richard (ed.). Electoral Behaviour: A Comparative Handbook. New York: The Free Press, 1974; Bartolini, Stefano, and Peter Mair. Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; Franklin, Mark, Tom Mackie, and Henry Valen. Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; Evans, Geoffrey (ed.). The End of Class Politics? Class Voting in Comparative Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999; Karvonen, Lauri, and Stein Kuhnle (eds.). Party Systems and Voter Alignments Revisited. London: Routledge, 2001; Gunther, Richard, and José Ramón Montero. “The Anchors of Partisanship: A Comparative Analysis of Voting Behaviour in Four Southern European Democracies.” Diamandouros, P. Nikiforos, and Richard Gunther (eds.). Parties, Politics and Democracy in the New Southern Europe. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2001. 16 Budge, Ian. “A New Theory of Party Competition: Uncertainty, Ideology and Policy Equilibria Viewed Comparatively and Temporally.” British Journal of Political Science 24 (1994): 443-67. 17 According to Budge, certain intra-party processes favor policy alteration, such as the need to balance between hardcore and moderate voters and the need to react to changes in the external environment. Likewise, Adams in his article “Party Competition and Responsible Party Government” claims that parties tend to avoid approaching too closely rival parties’ stances, which contributes to the perpetuation of policy attitudes over time. In turn, Burt emphasizes the tendency of parties to place their core ideologies in the overall context of probability distribution before every election, delimiting the range of acceptable changes. 18 Adams, James. Party Competition and Responsible Party Government. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. 19 Burt, Gordon. “Party Policy: Decision Rule or Chance? A Note on Budge’s New Spatial Theory of Party Competition.” British Journal of Political Science 27 (1998): 647-58. 20 parties to strengthen their current policy course, whilst electoral failure is likely to engender alterations in party policy paths20. These findings correlate with the arguments of the institutionalist theoretical school, a broader theoretical approach that attributes a considerable degree of stability to institutions. Although institutionalist assumptions are pertinent to studies of parties, studies of party policies from the perspective of historical institutionalist notions of path dependency and critical juncture have been scarce. It can be concluded that there is a general lack of research on the shifts in ethnic minority policy attitudes and practices within all component-parties of a party system over time. Large comparative studies, encompassing all policy areas and tracing party policy changes over time, lack a particular focus on ethnic minority policies with micro-level evidence based on field research21. Literature on institutional change also lacks a particular focus on ethnic minority policies, where application of its analytical tools (path dependency and critical junctures) could be particularly promising. Likewise, studies on ethnic minority policies in post-communist countries make only occasional mention of parties’ role in shaping particular policy paths. These works offer no systematic study of the fundamental contribution of parties to shaping particular policy paths. The study by V.Ilić and S.Cvejić “Nationalisam in Vojvodina” presents a survey conducted among Vojvodina’s inhabitants of different ethnic backgrounds in 1995, raising a series of issues crucial for the present study, such as the ethnic-civic cleavage manifested by various social strata of the population, spreading channels of ethnic ideas, socioeconomic inequalities correlating with ethnic differences, and ethnic group preferences with regard to a variety of social phenomena22. The study leads to the central issue of this dissertation: what are the implications of ethnic-civic cleavage and of an overlap between socioeconomic and ethnic cleavages for ethnic minority policy-making by political parties? B.Todosijević in his study “Minority Political Parties and Ethnic Voting in ” reveals a significant degree of ethnification of politics in Vojvodina, Serbia and Yugoslavia23. Analyzing the dimensionality of political party preferences at local elections in 1996 and the

20 Adams, James, Michael Clark, Lawrence Ezrow and Garrett Glasgow. “Understanding Change and Stability in Party Ideologies: Do Parties Respond to Public Opinion or to Past Election Results?” British Journal of Political Science 34 (2004): 589-610. 21 Benoit, Kenneth, and Michael Laver, Party policy in modern democracies. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2006. 22 Ilić, Vladimir, and Slobodan Cvejić. Nacionalizam u Vojvodini. : Gradska narodna biblioteka “Žarko Zrenjanin”, 1997. 23 Todosijević, Bojan. 2002. “Minority Political Parties and Ethnic Voting in Subotica.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol.8, No.3, Autumn 2002: 95-109. 21 strength of ‘ethnic voting’ in a sample of respondents from Subotica, he found ethnic cleavage to be fundamental in a three-dimensional structure of party preferences, differentiated according to (1) civic orientation, (2) majority nationalist and pro-regime orientation, and (3) pro-minority orientation, where ethnic voting characterizes the latter two orientations. However, the structure of political space is drawn according to voters’ perceptions only, as the author examines the link between ethnic background and party preferences. An important aspect falling outside the scope of the study is ethnic cleavage within the party system, as expressed in parties’ programs and ethnic minority policies in concrete areas. The book by J.Komšić “Chances of Multiculturalism and Temptations of Ethnic Demicracy” presents the origins of civic-ethnic cleavage in Vojvodina mostly from a sociological point of view, covering only ethnic Hungarian parties24. M.Samardžić in his book “Minority Situation in Vojvodina” addresses minority-related policies only from the perspective of minority parties and the Serbian government’s official proposals throughout the 1990s25. The genesis of minority-related policies and the contribution of political parties were not addressed in the two extensive volumes edited by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1996 and 2007, covering a wide range of minority-related topics26. J.Komšić, D.Pantić and Z.Slavujević in their study “Main Party Cleavage Lines and Possible Directions of Political Alignment in Serbia” analyze historical ethnic and other cleavages in the mass consciousness of Serbian citizens as determinants of the layout of the party system, and political parties’ program stances on crucial issues for the country’s development after the 2000 regime change, as well as providing guidelines for party typology. Concrete party policies naturally fall outside the scope of this study27. The ethnic policy-related attitudes of the major Serbian political parties in the 1990s are presented in the study by J.Bazić “The Serbian Question: Political Conceptions for the Solution of the Serbian National Question”28. S.Orlović in his book “Serbia’s Political Life Between Partitocracy and Democracy”, in an exhaustive presentation of political processes in Serbia, has a chapter on ethnic minority parties,

24 Komšić, Jovan. Šanse multikulturalizma i iskušenja etnodemokratije. Subotica: Otvoreni univerzitet, 1997. 25 Samardžić, Miroslav. Položaj manjina u Vojvodini. Beograd: Centar za antiratnu akciju, 1999. 26 Macura, Miloš, and Vojislav Stanovčić (eds.). Položaj manjina u SR Jugoslaviji. Beograd: SANU, 1996; Stanovčić, Vojislav. Položaj nacionalnih manjina u Srbiji. Beograd: SANU, 2007. 27 Komšić, Jovan, Dragomir Pantić, and Zoran Đ. Slavujević. Osnovne linije partijskih podela i mogući pravci političkog pregrupisavanja u Srbiji, Beograd: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Institut drustvenih nauka, 2003. 28 Bazić, Jovan. Srpsko pitanje: političke koncepcije rešavanja srpskog nacionalnog pitanja. Beograd: Službeni list SCG, Institut za političke studije, 2003. 22 without putting the genesis of ethnicity-related policies into the perspective of the whole party system29. The peculiarity of studies on Vojvodina Hungarians in the two past decades lies in the fact that a considerable part of these studies have been written by the political elite of local ethnic parties, the most prominent representatives of which have been interviewed during the present research. Works by Pall, Bela and Korhecz give the perspective of ethnic Hungarian parties on ethnic minority policies in Vojvodina30. Publications by local Hungarian NGOs (the most prominent being Argus led by A.Bozoki) document the sociopolitical situation of Vojvodina Hungarians31. The Estonian case especially received heightened attention on the part of scholars of ethnicity. From the countless studies dealing with various aspects of Estonian ethnopolitics, several address directly or indirectly the topic of the present research. The study most directly related to the topic of the present research is the article by K.Hallik “Ethnopolitical stances in party programs and electoral platforms”, presenting the stances of the major Estonian political parties before the 1992 and 1995 parliamentary elections32. The study of D.Laitin: “Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad” deals with patterns of adaptation of Estonia’s Russians to the new socio-political realities in the early 1990s, providing a source on the sociopolitical background of Estonia’s Russians33. E.Berg’s PhD thesis “Estonia’s North-Eastern Periphery in Politics: Socio-Economic and Ethnic Dimensions”, defended at the in 1999, analyzes the state’s nationalizing policies in Estonia and the electoral behavior of the Russian community. Microprocesses within political parties that underlay ethnicity-related policies remain outside the scope of this work34.

29 Orlović, Slaviša. Politički zivot Srbije između partokratije i demokratije. Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 2008, p. 308-349 30 Korhecz, Tamás: Otthonteremtőben a szülőföldön. Újvidék: Forum, 2009; Csorba, Béla. Ceruza vagy Cenzúra. Publicisztikai írások. Hatodik Síp Alapítvány, 1995. 31 Bozóki, Antal (ed.). A vajdasági magyarság helyzete 2007. Újvidék: Árgus, Verzál, Vajdasági Magyar Kisebbségjogi Civil Egyesület, 2007; Bozóki Antal. Magyarok a Vajdaságban: válogatott írások 2001-2007. Újvidék: Árgus, Verzál, Vajdasági Magyar Kisebbségjogi Civil Egyesület, 2007; Bozóki Antal (ed.). Alkotmány és (állam)polgári jogok: szöveggyűjtemény. Újvidék: Árgus, Verzal, 2009. 32 Hallik, Klara. “Rahvuspoliitilesed seisukohad parteiprogrammides ja valimisplatvormides.” Heidmets, Mati (ed.). Vene Küsimus ja eesti valikud. Tallinn: Tallinna Pedagoogiaülikool, 1998. 33 Laitin, David D. Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998. 34 Berg, Eiki. Estonia’s North-Eastern Periphery in Politics: Socio-Economic and Ethnic Dimensions. PhD thesis defended at the University of Tartu in 1999. 23 A.Semjonov in his article “Estonia: nation-building and integration – political and legal aspects”, by giving an extensive analysis of the genesis of Estonian ethnicity-related policies from the beginning of transition, creates a basis for further inquiry into the microprocesses taking place in political parties in relation to minority policies and orientation toward the minority electorate35. The volume “The challenge of the Russian minority: emerging multicultural democracy in Estonia”, edited by M.Lauristin and M.Heidmets, deals with Estonia’s nationalizing policies, integration challenges and emerging civic identity36. However, all these macrolevel issues lead toward the central question of the present thesis without addressing it directly: what are the microlevel processes within parties that generate minority policies and condition the ethnic cleavage within the party system? V.Pettai and K.Hallik in their article “Understanding processes of ethnic control: segmentation, dependency and cooptation in post-communist Estonia” trace the genesis of Estonian ethnicity-related policies from the emergence of rival nationalist movements in 1987- 1990 till the institutionalization of what the authors deem “the regime of ethnic control” over the Russian minority37. Covering the most crucial developments in the area of minority policies, the paper gives incentives for further inquiry into political parties’ contributions to formulating and enacting ethnic minority policies. Another relevant source for sociopolitical background is represented by the study by A.Astrov “Arbitrary Community: Minority Policies or Minor Politics?”38.. Dedicated to exploring the underlying causes of the conflict between the Estonian government and the Russian community in April, 2007, Astrov’s book provides an elaborate theoretical framework and abundant empirical evidence for his argument that the sporadic outburst of mobilization of Estonia’s Russians can be considered a manifestation of overall discontent with limited opportunities for Russians to express themselves in Estonian politics and society. An analysis of voting patterns of non-Estonians is presented in the chapter “The participation of non-Estonians in Estonian social life and politics” written by K.Kallas for the Estonian Human Development Report 200739. This data could complement the findings of the

35 Semjonov, Aleksei. 2002. Estonia: nation-building and integration – political and legal aspects. Kolstø, Pål (ed.). National Integration and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Societies: the Cases of Estonia and Moldova. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002, pp. 105-157. 36 Lauristin, Marju, and Mati Heidmets (eds.). The challenge of the Russian minority: emerging multicultural democracy in Estonia. Tartu: Tartu University Press, 2002. 37 Pettai, Vello, and Klara Hallik. 2002. “Understanding processes of ethnic control: segmentation, dependency and cooptation in post-communist Estonia”. Nations and Nationalism. 8 (4): 505-529. See also Pettai, Vello. 2007. “The construction of state identity and its legacies: legal restorationism in Estonia”. Ab Imperio. 3: 1-23. 38 Astrov, Aleksandr. Samochinnoe soobshchestvo: politika men’shinstv ili malaya politika? Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2007. 39 Kallas, Kristina. 2008. The participation of non-Estonians in Estonian social life and politics. Heidmets, Mati 24 present research, shedding light on the electoral aspect of ethnicity-related cleavage within the Estonian party system. The data of the Estonian Human Development report dedicated to the socioeconomic opportunities of Estonia’s Russians, along with works of the Institute of Baltic Studies in Tallinn, constitute an important body of literature providing background information on Estonia’s Russian community. The limited effects of EU conditionality on the ethnic minority policies of the Estonian state are presented in the article by V.Pettai and K.Kallas “Estonia: Conditionality amidst a Legal Straightjacket”40. The present dissertation adopts a micro-level approach, analyzing the impact of EU conditionality on ethnic minority policy attitudes and practices of political parties. The literature review reveals that a series of studies dedicated to the case studies deal with relevant aspects adjacent to the object of the present research (political parties’ contribution to formulating and enacting ethnic minority policies), without, however, addressing it directly. The past two decades saw the proliferation of academic works on ethnopolitics in Lithuania as well. The works produced by Lithuanian authors deal with a wide range of issues starting from contributions to theories of ethnicity to factors underlying cohesion in multiethnic states41. Still, there were no attempts to analyze ethnic minority policies from the perspective of policy-shaping by political parties. The Institute for Ethnic Studies at the Lithuanian Social Research Centre, the most prominent research institution specialized in ethnicity, has a clearly sociological profile. Research on ethnic distance, equal opportunities of ethnic minorities, social integration and adaptation of ethnic groups, are reflected in the Institute’s publication “Ethnicity Studies”42. Likewise, studies dedicated to the issues of Baltic Russians take a sociological approach. These studies provide important sociological and cultural background. However, the impact of political parties on the legislative dimension of ethnic minority policies has not been the focus of ethnicity scholars. The present dissertation thus appears to be the first work in Lithuania that deals with ethnic minority policies in post-communist European states from the perspective of political parties’ contribution to shaping particular policy paths.

(ed.). Estonian Human Development Report 2007. Tallinn: Eesti Koostöö Kogu, pp. 55-63. 40 Pettai, Vello, and Kristina Kallas. Estonia: Conditionality amidst a Legal Straightjacket. In Rechel, Bernd. Minority Rights in Central and Eastern Europe – A failure of conditionality? London: Routledge, 2009, pp. 104- 118. 41 Jokubaitis, Alvydas. “Kodėl tauta nėra įsivaizduojama bendruomenė?” Problemos 2006, pp. 9-17; 1. Prazauskas, Algimantas. 1997. “Slagaemye gosudarstvennogo edinstva.” Pro et contra 2(2): 20-33. 42 Etniškumo studijos. Baltijos jūros regiono rusai: mažuma ir valstybė, 2007/2; Leončikas, Tadas. “Asimiliacija šiuolaikinėje Lietuvos visuomenėje: švietimo sektoriaus pasirinkimas”. Ethnicity Studies 2007, Vol. 1; Leončikas, Tadas. Assimilation in contemporary Lithuanian society: Choosing the language of education. Vilnius: Socialinių tyrimų institutas, Eugrimas, 2007; Kasatkina, Natalija, and Tadas Leončikas. 2005. “Ethnic Groups in Contemporary Lithuania: Dimensions of Adaptation.” Political Science: Scientific Papers of University of Latvia, vol. 680, pp.86-100. 25 1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

1. 1. Political parties and public policy shaping

The analysis of any aspect of public policy has to take into account its relation to the fundamental social cleavages existing in a particular state43 and identify sources of political power that impact the policy-shaping process in this particular area. Firstly, as the main actors in the electoral process, the parliament and the executive, political parties can be defined as a key element of the state power structure. Representatives of ruling parties, as a rule, hold key positions in parliament and government. The formation of a government depends on election results and distribution of votes among parties. Party competition often underlies presidential elections as well. Political activity outside parties runs the risk of marginalization. Secondly, in a representative democracy, political parties act as primary intermediaries between citizens and the state. Sartori considers parties a key representative and instrumental structure between society and power44. Parties can be considered both the outcome and the form of representation of various social groups’ interests45. By claiming to represent and advocate wider societal interests, parties formulate public policy agendas46. In other words, parties’ representative function implies that their policy programs reflect interests existing in a significant part of the society. In turn, democratic procedures provide possibilities, by means of electoral competition of party programs, to pave the way for policies that reflect the will of a considerable part of citizens. To a certain extent (although with important reservations) election outcomes may reflect the distribution of policy preferences in the society. In articulating policy agendas, parties introduce order in the society by institutionalizing political cleavages, and providing institutional structures for individuals, groups and interest associations. Thus, parties are key actors that shape political institutions, direct their activities, shape fundamental policy guidelines and enact legislation in a particular policy area. As key actors in electoral processes, parties (if they win the elections) constitute parliament and the government, gaining important leverage in the organization of the entire state. Once in parliament, parties are responsible for policy enactment: they influence the decision-making process by proposing and

43 Lipset, Seymour Martin and Stein Rokkan (eds.). Party Systems and Voter Alignments. New York, The Free Press, 1967. 44 Sartori, Giovanni. Parties and Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. 45 Michels, Richard. Political Parties. A Sociological Study of the Organizational Tendencies in Modern Democracies. New York: The Free Press, 1962; Eldersveld, Samuel J. Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964. 46 Klingemann, Hans-Dieter, Richard I. Hofferbert, and Ian Budge. Parties, Policies, and Democracy. Boulder: San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, p. 20. 26 adopting laws. In turn, parties of the parliamentary opposition provide criticism and alternative policy options, putting checks on the ruling parties. It is notable that policy-shaping is present in one way or another in all available classifications of party types and functions. To begin with, four out of seven functions of political parties identified by Diamond and Gunther are relevantly related to policy-shaping47. Three of these can be called representative functions carried out by the parties. Parties represent various social groups and advocate their interests. Then, parties structure policy choice options by means of structuring competition along various policy issues, programs and directions. Finally, parties aggregate interests into wider electoral or ruling coalitions. The fourth, the procedural or institutional function – forming and maintaining government –has direct implications for particular policy courses, following out of the first three functions. Thus the party function directly related to policy-shaping is public policy formulation. Moreover, interest articulation and aggregation is supposed to lead to the introduction and enactment of legislative changes. Communication, mobilization and socialization functions of parties also have important implications for subsequent policy-shaping. Related functions of parties are political socialization and communication48. Parties help voters to distinguish policy options on offer. Even mobilizing electoral support has an important policy dimension: parties offer voters a policy agenda, which they are supposed to implement if elected to office, or to maintain as an alternative, if in opposition49. Representation of ethnic group needs can have important implications for the country’s stability: as numerous examples across the world show, unrepresented ethnic groups are more prone to recurring to unconventional means of voicing their political claims. If ethnic issues remain salient and both ethnic and nonethnic parties prove limited representation of an ethnic group, the latter can demonstrate loss of interest in participating in elections and look for alternative, nonelectoral forms of political participation (exit, protest and violence).50

47 Other functions include recruiting and nominating candidates for elections; mobilizing the electorate to lend support to party candidates and foster electoral participation; and integrating citizens into the state and its political process. See Diamond, Larry, and Richard Gunther. “Introduction.” Diamond, Larry, and Richard Gunther (eds.). Political Parties and Democracy. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, p. xiv. Other authors also distinguish the allocation of resources by parties. Easton, David. The Political System, New York: Knopf, 1953. 48 Almond, Gabriel A., and Powell, G. Bingham, JR. Comparative Politics. A Developmental Approach. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966; Caramani, Daniele, and Simon Hug, “The Literature on European Parties and Party Systems since 1945: A Quantitative Analysis.” European Journal of Political Research 33 (1998): 497-524. 49 Epstein, Leon D. “The Scholarly Commitment to Parties.” Finifter, A. W. (ed.). Political Science: The State of the Discipline. Washington: American Political Science Association, 1983. 50 Lijphart, Arend. Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977; Lijphart, Arend. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in 36 Countries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999; Lake, David A., and Donald S. Rothchild. Ethnic Fears and 27 In shaping minority-related policies, parties are important as channels of legislative representation of their voters’ policy preferences and sources of policy expertise. Typically, ethnic minority representation in a democracy has two available venues: ethnic minority parties and mainstream (nation-wide) parties. The party’s representativeness is contingent on its capacity to access government, which may be achieved by means of influencing policy within a ruling coalition, aligning with the government, or having a sufficient representation in the legislature in order to voice the group’s claims. Thus, the ethnic group can exert influence over policymaking by means of access to government, which can be achieved either by an ethnic party’s joining a , exerting influence on a minority government, or with the ethnic group’s representation in government through a nonethnic party51. For studying parties’ impact on public policies, a classification that contrasts policy- seeking parties with vote-seeking and office-seeking parties is relevant52. The first party type denotes parties committed to shaping and enacting particular policy courses, whereas vote-seeking and office-seeking aims for them are instrumental to the goal of policy-seeking53. Authors emphasizing vote- and office-seeking aspect of parties tend to view party policy agendas as subordinated to goals of maximizing votes and getting to power54. Starting from Downs, the claim of rational choice theory, which attributes to parties predominantly vote- maximizing and office-seeking aspirations, was contrasted by empirical findings based on the experience of west European established democracies, where parties frequently showed policy orientation and were not ready to alter policy stances in exchange for better electoral chances. Empirical evidence from established west European democracies reveal that party leaderships are often policy-oriented and tend to resist policy changes meant to increase the party’s electoral fortunes55. Parties tend to alter their policy attitudes in response to public opinion, but only in

Global Engagement: the International Spread and Management of Ethnic Conflict. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998; Petersen, Roger Dale. Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 51 Birnir, Jóhanna K. Ethnicity and Electoral Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 19-59. 52 Müller, Wolfgang, and Kaare Strøm. Policy, Office, or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 53 Klingemann Hans-Dieter, Richard I. Hofferert, and Ian Budge, Parties, Policies, and Democracy, Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, p. 7; Pedersen, Helene Helboe. “Policy-seeking parties in multiparty systems: Influence or purity?” Party Politics, November 2010; vol. 16, 6, pp. 737-754; McMenamin, Iain and Anna Gwiazda. 2011. “Three roads to institutionalisation: Vote-, Office- and Policy-seeking explanations of party switching in Poland.” European Journal of Political Research 50 (6): 838-866. 54 Epstein, Leon D. Political Parties in Western Democracies. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967, p. 101-104. 55 Huber, John. “Parliamentary Rules and Party Behavior during Minority Government in France.” Muller, Wolfgang, and Kaare Strom (eds.). Policy, Office, or Votes? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 258-78; D’Alimonte, Roberto. “Party Behavior in a Polarized System: The Italian Communist Party and the Historic Compromise”, in: Ibidem; Muller, Wolfgang, “Decision for Opposition: The Austrian Socialist Party’s Abandonment of Government Participation in 1966”, in: Ibidem, pp. 172-91. 28 cases when support for the party obviously decreases. In turn, the parties that experience electoral success tend to perpetuate the existing policy path56. Policy alteration and reversal is more likely to occur as a result of a party’s electoral defeat, when a change in party leadership is more likely (SPS in Serbia after 2000). Policy-oriented leadership may alter policies if it is the only chance to get to office so as to gain access to decision-making (the unification of RPE with SDE in Estonia in 2012). Policy alterations in the wake of electoral misfortunes seem to lend support to rational choice assumptions. Empirical evidence from Eastern Europe seems to provide more support for rational choice claims57. Cadre politics, influenced by parties, has important implications for policy enactment. By participating in the allocation of ministerial and other public offices, parties tend to field them with their members. In extreme cases the state apparatus can turn into a clientelistic resource for a party which allows it to reap political benefits by allocating public offices according to party allegiance58. For the present research it is important to note that in certain post-communist states the preconditions for partitocratic leanings have been registered59. The above-said dominance of party loyalty principle over individual initiatives could further limit opportunities of generating policy change within the party framework. In relation to the overall specificity of party policies in post-communist Europe, it should be said that the social, cultural and political circumstances around parties’ genesis and evolution are crucial for understanding the impact of parties on policies, as well as directions and the degrees of stability or alterability of policy paths over time. Most theoretical elaborations on political parties draw on the experience of established democracies. The peculiarity of “third

56 Adams, James, Michael Clark, Lawrence Ezrow and Garrett Glasgow. “Understanding Change and Stability in Party Ideologies: Do Parties Respond to Public Opinion or to Past Election Results?” British Journal of Political Science 34 (2004): 589-610. 57 Goati, Vladimir. Izbori u SRJ od 1990. do 1998. Volja građana ili izborna manipulacija. Beograd: CeSID, 2001, p. 164. 58 The notion of partitocracy emerged in , where the ruling Christian Democratic party penetrated the state apparatus with its clientelist network for decades. Partitocracy denotes the domination of political parties over constitutional institutions of the state, the fusion of party, state and economic elites into political-economic networks characteristic of patronage, clientelism and corruption, the colonization of public administration, mass media, culture etc. by the party(-s) and de facto structuring participation in public life along party affiliation, where access to offices is often conditioned by party membership. Political parties occupy state institutions and generally impede occupational advancement within the society. Kitschelt, Herbert. The radical right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995, p. 161. 59 In post-communist states (a notable example is Serbia), parties still retain their influence in the nomination of candidates for public offices. Partitocracy in Serbia can be derived from particular constitutional and legal solutions and observed in political culture, parties’ supplying cadres for public administration, enterprises and services, education, health service, benefiting thus from a transitional economy’s inability to absorb surplus labor force and the fact that the state remains the main employer. In usurping state institutions and public property, parties pursue policies that suit their financial sponsors’ interests. See Orlović, Slaviša. Politički život Srbije: između partokratije i demokratije. Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 2008. 29 wave democracies” has to be taken into consideration when applying theoretical assumptions based on Western experience in post-communist settings. Since the 1960s parties in the West have increasingly lost control over material resources and nominations to public office. These two resources had been traditional sources of party influence. The development of public administration, trade unions, the welfare state, and progressive reforms weakened parties’ control over public office60. These developments inspired literature on party decline, which emphasized the existence of alternative organizations (interest and pressure groups, social movements, mass media, academic researchers) that provided opportunities to articulate interests in a non-party framework. This circumstance could have important implications for ethnic minority policy networks, as the existence of specialized expertise institutions (academic institutions, minority and civic NGOs, etc.) is relevant for the development and assessment of the ethnic minority policy path. It is nevertheless notable that parties in west European countries managed to withstand the challenges of party decline: no sufficiently strong alternative to political parties in terms of recruiting leaders or organizing government has emerged, even in the West. Political parties still perform the important function of interest aggregation, and retain their key role in political decision-making, organizing elections, forming parliament and the executive, and shaping policy by participating in drafting legislative amendments and subsequently voting on them. Once in power, parties have the opportunity to direct the legislative process along their program guidelines, as well as to adopt laws that fit their interests and bring them public benefits. One of first challenges faced by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the transition from one-party communist system was the establishment of political parties, the formalization of political aims into party programs and their translation into concrete policies. With the democratization of formerly communist Eastern, Central and Southeastern European states, newly established or restored political parties have been key actors in the democratic transition. They aspired to carry out the traditional functions of political parties, typical for established democracies. These functions included the representation of social interests, electoral mobilization, recruiting and candidating their members for public office, forming governments, and, most importantly for our topic, the formulation of policy agendas61.

60 Fiorina, Morris P. “Parties and Partisanship: A 40-Year Retrospective.” Political Behavior, Vol. 24, No. 2, Special Issue: Parties and Partisanship, Part One (Jun., 2002), pp. 93-115. 61 White, Stephen, Judy Batt, and Paul G. Lewis. Developments in East European Politics. London: Macmillan, 1993; Evans, Geoffrey, and Stephen Whitefield. The Bases of Party Competition in Eastern Europe: Social and Ideological Cleavages in Post-Communist States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996; Hofferbert, Richard (ed.). Parties and Democracy: Party Structure and Party Performance in Old and New Democracies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998; Kitschelt, Herbert, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslaw Markowski, and Gabor Toka. Postcommunist Party Systems. Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. 30 Nowadays, political processes in the post-communist states of Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe are dominated by political parties. This circumstance has important implications for public policy. Broad anti-communist coalitions united many social and political streams into “umbrella” fronts. As these fronts did not manage to build up a common program, organizational, social and political infrastructure, they got fragmented into political parties. In this context, an important peculiarity of post-communist states is the relative salience of ethnic cleavage, against the overall backdrop of other underdeveloped cleavages (such as labor vs capital and often fused and scarcely identifiable left-right cleavage)62. Another peculiarity of post-communist European states is a continuity (succession) of former regime (communist) elites, reorganized into political parties. Differences in approaches to ethnic issues, existing between former communist forces and protagonist parties of the new political order, introduce another relevant cleavage dimension with important implications for the development of ethnic policies. In addition, a horizontal historic-ethnic cleavage dimension is complemented by a vertical one, denoting differences between the ethnic and civic orientation within every ethnic group. Thus, ethnicity-related cleavage portended to become a strong long-term characteristic of the party systems that emerged in the wake of post-communist transition. As party decline has not occurred in the post-communist states of the “third wave of democratization”, negative features of party organization are still likely to have important implications for ethnic minority policy paths. These are hierarchical organizational structure, party discipline, and the prevalence of collective principles over individual attitudes which limit opportunities to formulate a policy agenda that contradicts the general party line. On the other hand, these aspects can be attenuated by the fact that multiple governance levels (local, regional, national, and supranational) complicate the process of maintaining coherent party stances on policies. It can have especially relevant implications for ethnic policies, when a party apparatus is distributed across ethnically heterogeneous areas. Fundamental political change is a two-way process: it may make parties adapt to new circumstances, but parties are also active generators of change. Possible implications of the above-said organizational features of parties for party policies, policy path dependence and policy changes with application to the ethnic minority policy area, will be discussed in the following sections.

62 Crawford, Keith. East Central European politics today: From chaos to stability? Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press and St. Martin’s Press, 1996. 31 In the present dissertation, ethnic minority policies refer to the legislative dimension of public policy in selected ethnic minority-related areas, identified in respective chapters. In terms of the policy cycle63, the dissertation deals with the stages of policy agenda setting, policy formulation and adoption. The policy agenda setting stage is dealt with in the chapters dedicated to party programs. In the chapters devoted to the impact of ethnic parties on shaping ethnic minority-related legislation in selected areas, the analysis is focused mostly on the stages of policy formulation and adoption. The policy implementation stage is touched upon to the extent to which it is relevant for policy efficiency analysis. The focus on decision suggests devoting the main attention to parties’ contribution to elaborating and enacting minority-related legislation. The system of laws is a fundamental element of public policy. In providing a framework for identifying ethnic minority rights, legislation determines social, economic and political opportunities for members of minority communities in the host state. Ethnicity-related cleavage within the party system is delineated by stable patterns of divergences in political parties’ attitudes toward key legislation on ethnic minorities. Referring to ethnicity-related cleavage in the party system, the present work draws on Sartori who proposed analyzing party systems through the lens of social cleavage dimensions. Namely, Sartori introduced social cleavages as a criterion for characterizing party systems, distinguishing between moderate and polarized pluralism64. The present work applies these insights to the area of ethnic minority policies, focusing on the impact of ethnic cleavage within the party system on policy outcomes. Considering ethnic cleavage a dimension of interaction between political parties, it can be analyzed in relation to the notion of the party system. Rae defined a party system as a network of competitive relations between parties65, while the typologies of party systems offered by Duverger and Sartori define the party system as a system of interactions that emerge from inter- party competition66. The party system is based on relationships between parties, on forms of reaction of every single party to other parties. Generally, parties’ interaction and competition occur in several dimensions: electoral, parliamentary, and overall societal. Since the present work is concerned with ethnic minority policies, it is limited to inter-party relations in the ethnic

63 Howard, Cosmo. “The Policy Cycle: a Model of Post-Machiavellian Policy Making?” The Australian Journal of Public Administration, September 2005, pp. 3-13; Althaus, Catherine, Peter Bridgman, and & Glyn Davis. The Australian Policy Handbook. 4th edition. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2007. 64 Sartori, Giovanni. Parties and Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 291. 65 According to Rae, a party system is not a mere aggregation of parties, individuals, institutions and activities. Instead, it denotes competition between parties in the framework of the political system. Rae, Douglas W. The Political Consequencies of Electoral Laws. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967, p. 47. 66 Duverger, Maurice. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State. New York: Wiley, 1954. Sartori, Giovanni. Political Parties and Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. See also Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper & Row, 1942. 32 minority policy area. Hence, stable patterns of inter-party interaction during the stages of policy formulation and enactment are referred to as ethnicity-related cleavage within the party system. The sample of parties covered by the present research is based on Sartori’s notion of “relevant parties” that includes only parties represented in parliament67. Sartori bases his party relevance criteria on a party’s electoral power, its ideological compatibility, and coalitional capacity, or the potential of conditioning other parties, entering ruling coalitions and influencing the decision-making process. In the present work, these criteria are taken into consideration when choosing interview respondent samples. In terms of ethnic minority policy making opportunities provided by political parties, it is important to stress that generally, the interaction of political parties as institutions with their individual party members is explained differently by various theories. Namely, behaviorism, rational choice theory, normative, or sociological institutionalism and historical institutionalism interpret differently the influence of political parties on the policy choices of their individual members and, conversely, the impact of individual members on party policies. The behaviorist theoretical school argued that individuals’ actions and policy choices are not significantly constrained by either formal or informal institutional rules68. Behaviorist theoreticians focused on informal relationships within and outside formal state and government institutions, arguing that these relationships, and not the institutions themselves, are the real sources of political power and political behavior. A particular role was attributed to individuals’ political behavior, their social backgrounds and informal processes of power distribution. Behaviorist arguments tended to reduce political processes to aggregate outcomes of atomized individual political behavior, ignoring the possible impact of institutional schemes and norms69. Moreover, in viewing political actions through the lens of rational calculus, the behaviorists downplayed the possible effect of rules and other institutional constraints on political behavior and policy outcomes. The behaviorist view of political processes as run by atomized individuals came under severe criticism by the new institutionalist theory, which elaborated assumptions that more effectively explain the role of political parties in structuring policy making70. Institutionalism, a fundamental theory of political science, is concerned with the structural impact of laws, rules and regulations on political processes. New institutionalism and its schools

67 Sartori, Giovanni. Parties and Party Systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 120. 68 Rhodes, Rod A.W. “The Institutional Approach.” Marsh, David, and Gerry Stoker (eds.). Theory and Methods in Political Science. London: Macmillan, 1995, pp. 48-50; 69 March, James G., and Johan Olsen. 1984. “The New Institutionalism: Organisational Factors in Political Life”. American Political Science Review 78: 734-49; Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1989. “Studying Institutions: Some Lessons From the Rational Choice Approach”. Journal of Theoretical Politics 1: 131-147. 70 Lowndes, Vivien. 1996. “Varieties of New Institutionalism.” Public Administration 74: 181-97; Shepsle, op.cit. 33 (normative/sociological, historical, empirical etc.) were inspired by a renewed recognition of collective action processes that bring together individuals in society. New institutionalism regarded political actors as situated in an institutional environment. Thus, Shepsle called institutions “the social glue”71, a concept that was missing from the behaviorist atomistic theory. Over time new institutionalist theories became one of the leading approaches in political science. Nevertheless, different schools of new institutionalism (rational choice and historical institutionalism) offer different accounts of the impact political parties as institutions may have in structuring individual actors’ political behavior and choices in policy making. Rational choice theory views the interaction of parties and their individual members as a two-way process, where not only do parties shape the political behavior of their members, but so do the latter with regard to the former. Individual actors find parties while in pursuit of their rational goals, and aspire to shape, change and adapt them to their goals. Before introducing the rational choice theoretical assumptions with regard to peculiarities of political party policy making, it might be useful to review the main points in which key notions of rational choice theory – such as utility maximization, reduction of transaction costs, rational cost-benefit calculus – are consonant with the logic suggested by a number of leading theories of ethnicity. A parallel review of these theories could help to better understand the specific role political parties may play in shaping ethnic minority policies. Namely, the constructivist approach to ethnicity, particularly its instrumentalist strand, views a series of ethnopolitical phenomena through the prism of ethnic elites pursuing political goals and formulating an ethnic policy agenda for their own benefit, and exploiting mass sentiments to convince the target group that mobilization around these goals will bring benefits to the whole group72. Constructivist authors go so far as to attribute to institutional structures and political competition the power of shaping ethnic identities73. Bates even defines ethnic

71 Shepsle, op.cit., p. 134. 72 Horowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1985, p. 5. 73 Constructivist authors attribute a crucial role to elites in creating nations (initiating the process of nation- building through social construction of identities) and provoking ethnopolitical mobilization. Anderson and Gellner were among the first modern authors to stress the role of modernization and industrialization in fostering the formation of nations and, subsequently, awareness of ethnicity-based inequalities (“ethnic learning”) through literacy, mass media, communication, social mobility, transportation and urbanization. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. New York: Verso, 1991; Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983; Haas, Ernst B. Nationalism, Liberalism, and Progress: The Rise and Decline of Nationalism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997; Deutsch, Karl W. 1961. “Social Mobilization and Political Life.” American Political Science Review. 55 (3): 493-514; Newbury, Catharine. The Cohesion of Oppression: Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda, 1860-1960. N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1988, p. 15; Barth, Frederik. “Introduction.” Barth, Frederik (ed.). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference. Boston: Little Brown and Company, p. 9-38; Kasfir, Nelson. 1979. “Explaining Ethnic Political Participation.” World Politics 31(3): 365-484; Brass, Paul. Language Religion and Politics in North India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974; Laitin, David. Hegemony and Culture. Chicago: University of 34 groups as “rational coalitions formed to compete for scarce goods within the context of social changes brought about by modernization”74. The most important effect of modernization is thus considered to be awareness of economic inequality, which fosters competition over scarce resources among ethnic groups75. Empirical research found that economic development tends to generate inter-ethnic competition76, whereas the labor market in ethnically heterogeneous countries tends to be ethnically segmented77 and prone to competition along ethnic lines78. Fearon, Horowitz and Posner tended to derive ethnic identification directly from various kinds of utility maximization79. In its most radical versions, constructivist and instrumentalist lines of reasoning deny to ethnicity any intrinsic value, seeing it as a “way of organizing the pursuit of interests”80 which are not related to ethnicity. By the same token, the interests that drive the domain of ethnic policies can be defined as utility maximization. The individual pursuit of the maximization of life chances may include desires for material goods, security and power. Political elites may be described as utility maximizers as well, pursuing political power as the guarantee of their “life chances”. Karl Deutsch provides an alternative explanation, noting that ethnicity possesses a unique potential for lowering transaction costs in terms of language or cultural distance81. Transaction cost arguments inspired economic theories attempting to find out why ethnicity often forms the basis of economic networks. Instrumentalist theory sees ethnicity not as a cause of conflict, but as a mere by-product of manipulation by elites engaged in the struggle for power, economic resources, etc. and aspiring

Chicago Press, 1986; Pandey, Gyanendra. The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992; Posner, Daniel. The Institutional Origins of Ethnic Politics in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Waters, Mary C. Ethnic Options. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990; Fearon, James, and David Laitin. 2000. “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity”. International Organization. No. 54 (4): 845-877. 74 Bates, Robert H. “Modernization, Ethnic Competition and the Rationality of Politics in Contemporary Africa.” Donald Rothchild and Victor Olorunsola (eds.). State vs. Ethnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas. Boulder: Westview, 1983, p. 152. 75 Connor, Walker. 1973. “The Politics of Ethnonationalism.” Journal of International Affairs. 27 (1): 1-21. 76 Mousseau, Demet Y. 2001. “Democratizing with Ethnic Divisions: A Source of Conflict?” Journal of Peace Research. 38 (5): 547-567; McKay, James. 1982. “An Exploratory Synthesis of Primordial and Mobilizationist Approaches to Ethnic Phenomena”. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 5 (4): 395-420. 77 Bonacich, Edna. 1972. “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: the Split Labor Market.” American Sociological Review. 37 (5): 31-51. 78 Olzak, Susan, and Joane Nagel. Competitive Ethnic Relations. Orlando: Academic Press, 1986, p. 37-47. 79 Fearon, James D. 1999. What is Identity (as we now use the word)?http://www.stanford.edu/~jfearon/papers/iden1v2.pdf, accessed 2 August 2011; Horowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1985, p. 82; Posner, Daniel N. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 11-12. 80 Chandra, Kanchan. 2006. “What is Ethnic Identity and Does It Matter?” Annual Review of Political Science 9: 397-424. 81 The modern state pursued cultural homogeneity for the sake of efficiency, whereas minorities resisted when the costs of learning the dominant language outweighed the benefits. See Deutsch, Karl W. Nationalism and Social Communication: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Nationality. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1966; Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983. 35 to hide the real reasons of conflict82. Such arguments were invoked to explain the genocide in Rwanda and the civil war in Yugoslavia83. Masses follow the elites, subject to the manipulative power of mass-media, expecting their share of economic or political benefits84. Hechter explained ethnic group aspirations for culturally distinctive collective goods (for example, state institutions), which reflect cultural practices (language, modes of production, and religion)85. In terms of managing ethnopolitical problems, this line of thought stresses the historical and institutional reasons behind nationalist upsurge86 and suggests containing the conflict- instigating psychological processes and social forces that underlie nationalism87. Turning back to the rational choice assumptions with regard to political parties, we may note that these argue that institutions in general and political parties in particular are created in order to facilitate collective action and to reduce its transaction costs88. Party members are united by the common pursuit of goals and related benefits. A rational cost-benefit calculus keeps the party together, whereas its members share common strategic aims. The primary role in political parties belongs to individual actors who exploit the institutional framework provided by the party to maximize their utility. Rational choice theory regards actors as rational utility maximizers with preferences with regard to social states89, but their behavior, although based on rational calculus and self-interest seeking, is strongly conditioned by internalised rules based on adaptation to experience. Thus, political choices are significantly influenced by the institutional

82 Brass, Paul R. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison. London: Sage, 1991, p. 111; Brass, Paul R. Theft of an Idol. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997; Fearon, James D. and David D. Laitin. 2003. “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.” American Political Science Review 97(1): 75-90; Leoussi, Athena S. Encyclopedia of Nationalism. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2001, p. 84. 83 Mueller, John. 2000. “The Banality of Ethnic War.” International Security 25(1): 43-71. 84 Chandra, Kanchan. 2005. “Ethnic Parties and Democratic Stability.” Perspectives on Politics 3(2): 235-252; Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. 1998. “On Economic Causes of Civil War.” Oxford Economic Papers 50(4): 563-73; Brass, Paul R. Theft of an Idol. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997; Fearon, James D. and David D. Laitin. 2000. “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity.” International Organization 54 (4): 845-77. 85 Hechter concludes that the salience of ethnic identity and individual identification with an ethnic group is the strongest when ethnicity has implications for an individual’s social status and economic prosperity. The impossibility of quitting the group fosters aspirations to revise group rankings. In elaborating his theory of cultural division of labor, Hechter argues that ethnic solidarity is contingent on the role of cultural markers in influencing individuals’ economic prospects. See Hechter, Michael. Containing Nationalism. New York: Oxford University. Press, 2000, p.24; Hechter, Michael. Principles of Group Solidarity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. 86 Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; Brubaker, Rogers. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Bunce, Valerie. Subversive Institutions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Revenge of the Past. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993. 87 Hechter, Michael. Containing Nationalism. New York: Oxford University. Press, 2000; Horowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1985. 88 Shepsle, Kenneth. “Rational Choice Instituionalism.” Rhodes, Rod A. W., Sarah A. Binder, and Bert A. Rockman (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Political Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 23-38. 89 Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1989. “Studying Institutions: Some Lessons From the Rational Choice Approach.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 1, p. 140. 36 environment which structures actors’ behavior according to formal and informal rules and interiorized practices. The impact of the party as an institutional environment on individual members’ choices is expressed in terms of rules, available alternatives and expectations with regard to other co- members’ actions. Thus, the party environment provides individual members with predictable information about the behavior of other members, and by enforcing this pattern, may influence policy outcomes90. In this way individuals and their political behavior are constrained by the institutional environment, shaped by formal and informal party rules. Applied to the ethnic policy realm, this would imply that individual policy-making initiatives introduced within the party are not likely to significantly contradict the general party policy line in the sphere of ethnic policies, mostly because the party environment tends to level the policy orientations of its individual members. In extreme cases, individual party members would abstain from or fail to initiate policy amendments that are likely to encounter opposition by party leadership and most co-members. From the rational choice theoretical perspective, policy-makers’ individual behavior is assumed to be largely conditioned by the pursuit of political power, resources and preferred institutional roles through the maximization of votes91. However, rational choice theory fails to explain alternative forms of behavior of politicians and bureaucrats92. Placing too much emphasis on utility maximization, this theory ascribes to individuals nearly mechanical features of reacting to their institutional environment with the intention of drawing benefits, instead of analyzing actual choices of individual actors within a particular institutional environment, such as a political party93. Several other institutionalist schools are worth mentioning. Resource dependence theory94 and the theory of strategic action95 stress the importance of power and control over resources as factors underlying institutional dynamics. Transferred to the area of ethnic policies, this approach would prompt the question of under which circumstances and for which reasons are political parties formed? What individual and group interests underlaid the founding of political parties in the late communist period, particularly

90 Hall, Peter A. and Rosemary Taylor. 1996. “Political Science and the Three Institutionalisms.” Political Studies 44: 936-957. 91 Dunleavy, Patrick. Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991. 92 Self, Peter. Government by the Market? The Politics of Public Choice. London: Macmillan, 1993. 93 Hay, Colin, and Daniel Wincott. 1998. “Structure, Agency and Historical Institutionalism.” Political Studies 46: 951-57. 94 Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik. The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. New York: Harper and Row, 1978. 95 Fligstein, Neil, and McAdam Doug. 2011. “Toward a General Theory of Strategic Action Fields.” Sociological Theory 29:1-26. 37 given that the political agenda of the leading political parties of that time was dominated by factors related to ethnic mobilization. These questions are addressed by another set of theories on ethnicity that offer explanations of the power of ethnicity in pursuing political, economic and other resources. Ethnicity, due to its visibility, resistance to change and cultural cohesiveness, is easier to organize and consolidate when pursuing the effective exclusion of outsiders from the process of selective distribution of resources96, maintaining discriminative regimes (such as American slavery), etc. The factor of unequal distribution of the benefits of modernity97 is elaborated by theories of relative deprivation, which claim that ethnicity becomes salient when it correlates with social, economic and political inequalities that occur over time98. This explains the stability of ethnically diverse countries that have mechanisms for the equal distribution of political and economic resources (e.g. Switzerland, the USA, and Tanzania). The group of authors that emphasizes struggles over resource distribution as the underlying cause of nationalism suggests focusing on the distribution of material resources as a way of managing ethnopolitical problems99. The relative aspect of deprivation is crucial: people subjectively feel discontent over the loss of previously possessed resources or positions, or protest if others gain something they do not gain in terms of economic resources, political rights, etc. Thus people are susceptible to the deterioration of their conditions over a prolonged period; besides, they tend to compare their situation with that of other groups. Differential patterns of deprivation along ethnic lines are more likely to create a mobilizational basis for political leaders’ appeal to ethnicity, than absolute deprivation that affects the whole of the society. However, the literature on ethnicity largely does not attempt specifically to translate these insights into the area of political party policies and to test the possible impact of party institutional dynamics on ethnic policies.

96 Chandra, Kanchan. Why Ethnic Parties Succeed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Posner, Daniel N. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 97 Melson, Robert, and Howard Wolpe. 1970. “Modernization and the Politics of Communalism: A Theoretical Perspective.” American Political Science Review. 64 (4): 1112-30; Bates, Robert H. 1974. “Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 6 (4): 457-84; Brass, Paul R. 1976. “Ethnicity and Nationality Formation.” Ethnicity 3: 225-41; Horowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, p. 101. 98 Gurr, Ted R. Minorities at Risk. Washington: U.S. Institute for Peace Press, 1991; Gurr, Ted R. Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970; Horowitz, Donald. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, G.A.: University of California Press, 1985, pp. 99-100. 99 Treisman, Daniel. After the Deluge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999; Woodward, Susan. Balkan Tragedy. Washington, DC: Brookings, 1995. 38 In turn, sociological institutionalism and historical institutionalism seem to provide useful theoretical tools for explaining policy choices that are generated in a particular institutional context (within political parties), but there have been few attempts to apply these insights to the ethnic policy area. Nevertheless, a review of these arguments is necessary for their subsequent application to the case studies in the present dissertation. Sociological institutionalists argue that institutions (both their normative and ideational dimensions) provide individual actors with normative orientations, moral templates and reference frames with a more or less flexible degree of interpretation and application100. Further developing these arguments, historical institutionalism appears to bridge the contradictions of rational choice theory, behaviorism and normative institutionalism, as it shares the main assumptions of these theories without sliding into reductionist extremes with regard to either accounting for atomized individuals operating independently from the institutional context, or, vice versa, the deterministic view of the prevalence of party environment over individual actors’ choices. Generally, the historical institutionalist perspective leaves actors more space for individual decisions in formulating policies while operating in an institutional environment laden with constraints. Instead of overemphasizing utility maximization in a given institutional context, historical institutionalists attribute to institutions in general, and to political parties in particular, the role of shaping individual policy choices by means of constraints placed upon individual actors: the reactions of actors to various situations are shaped by the “logic of appropriateness”101, i.e., limited by the actors’ institutional positions and responsibilities. In the historical institutionalist view, political parties are situated at junctures between (1) structure and actor and (2) past and present102. Parties thus are something more than the aggregate of their members. As an independent environment structured by formal and informal rules, they have a certain pre-set influence over any actions or policy choices undertaken in the sphere of their control. Historical institutionalism shares the rational choice assumption that individual actors’ choices are strategically motivated103. But unlike rational choice theory, historical

100 Scharpf, Fritz. Games Real Actors Play: Actor Centred Institutionalism in Policy Research. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997, p. 36; DiMaggio, Paul, and Walter Powell. The New Institutionalism in Organisational Analysis. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991; Hall, Peter A. and Rosemary Taylor. 1996. “Political Science and the Three Institutionalisms.” Political Studies 44: 936-957. 101 March, James G., and Johan Olsen. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organisational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press, 1989 p. 22; Koelble, Thomas A. 1995. “The New Institutionalism in Political Science and Sociology.” Comparative Politics 27: 221-244. 102 Katznelson, Ira. 1998. “The Doleful Dance of Politics and Policy: Can Historical Institutionalism Make a Difference?” American Political Science Review 92: 191-197. 103 Zysman, John. 1994. “How Institutions Create Historically Rooted Trajectories of Growth.” Industrial and Corporate Change 3: 277; Thelen, Kathleen. 1999. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 374-77. 39 institutionalism stresses parties’ proneness to institutional inertia in policy making, arguing that the institutional environment created by the party takes precedence over the actual concept of rationality. In a broader sense, the historical institutionalist school sees the institutional world (in all its dimensions – political, social and economic) as too complex to be controlled or at least understood by an individual104, not to speak of rational utility maximization. With regard to political parties, historical institutionalist theoreticians argue that rational behavior takes particular forms in particular institutional environments, such as a political party’s environment. Thus, emphasizing the historical contingency of policy changes, historical institutionalist authors focus on parties’ capacity to shape policy choices made by individuals, rather than regarding them as an outcome of individual choices. Traditionally, historical institutionalism has sought empirical explanations for regularities, based on continuous observations of social and political realities105. This emphasis on micro- level empirical observation can be helpful in tracing policy evolution over time and determining why certain ethnic minority policy options were preferred over others. Historical institutionalist analytical tools can be useful in attempting to explain policy choices generated in a particular institutional context, represented by political parties. Summing up the theoretical elaborations reviewed above, we can conclude that their contradictions regard different interpretations of the interrelations between the political party as an institution and individual actors in the policy making area. This contradiction implies two closely related relevant questions: what reasons could explain political parties’ institutional inertia in the ethnic policy area and what could drive policy changes on the part of political parties? The following two sections are dedicated to these issues.

1.2. Party policy inertia and resistance to change

Various theoretical approaches explain differently continuity and change in party policies over time, but all theories converge in the assessment that political parties are prone to having their present and future constrained by their past. The degree of mutability of party policies over time is strongly related to the notion of institutional strength. The distinction made between strong and weak institutions can fully apply to political parties. Namely, strong parties limit the capacity of individuals or interest groups to

104 Koelble, Thomas A. 1995. “The New Institutionalism in Political Science and Sociology.” Comparative Politics 27: 235. 105 Thelen, Kathleen, and Sven Steinmo. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Perspective.” Thelen, Kathleen and Sven Steinmo (eds.). Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 10; Hay, Colin, and Daniel Wincott. 1998. “Structure, Agency and Historical Institutionalism.” Political Studies 46: 951-57. 40 exercise influence upon them, whereas weak institutions are themselves susceptible to influence by individuals or interest groups. Put differently, strong actors possess the capacity to reshape weak parties, adapting them to serve their interests, while strong parties and their policies resist influence by individual leaders and the external environment. In terms of effects on policies, therefore, policy articulation within an established political party would face the institutional constraints, expressed in formal and informal rules, presented in the previous section. Most accounts of strong institutions refer to established democracies106. Party policies in Western Europe are particularly resistant to personal influence exercised by individual leaders, whilst in “weak” parties of non-democratic regimes, constraints are non-institutional, as expressed by the informal power of leaders, rather than institutional, as expressed in rules and values. While a focus on the overall degree of institutionalization of political parties remains beyond the scope of this dissertation, the research is concerned specifically with the persistence of ethnic cleavage within party systems, reflected in party attitudes toward ethnic minority policies and policy practice. According to rational choice theory, the persistence of parties after their creation is due to their uncertainty-reducing107 function and the possibility of their members to benefit from the reduction of transaction costs. Rational choice theory is thus concerned with equilibrium of rational calculus and institutional constraints. Rational choice institutionalism emphasizes the institutional rules of the social game, or the constraints that shape human interaction108. According to this interpretation, parties are scripts that constrain behavior. Characterized by persistence, regularities and patterns, parties

106 Barnett, William P. and Glenn R. Carroll. 1995. “Modeling Internal Organizational Change.” Hagan, John (ed.). Annual Review of Sociology 21: 217-36; DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell. 1983. “The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields.” American Sociological Review 48: 147-160; Stinchcombe, Arthur L. “Social Structure and Organizations.” March, James G. (ed.). Handbook of Organizations. New York: Rand McNally, 1965, pp. 142-193. 107 This argument is particularly relevant with regard to ethnicity. The relational theory, formulated by Hale, views the very phenomenon of ethnicity as aimed at uncertainty reduction. Ethnicity may play a special role in cognitive categorization due to its discernibility, considerable difficulty in changing it, its relevance for social interaction, its coinciding with perceptions of a shared destiny, and its correlation with socioeconomic divisions. Ethnic cleavages, thus, possess the potential for dividing the population by socioeconomic criteria, division of labor and territorial settlement. Ethnic symbols, historically charged with particular meanings and related to the group’s common origin or the past “common fate“, may be particularly efficiently attached to the “rules of thumb” that facilitate categorization regarding the group’s future “common fate”. Such importance can be imposed by the social environment or political elites – e.g., in terms of resource distribution. The most extreme historical examples of such categorization are provided by the official policies of ethnicity-based apartheid. See Hale, Henry E. The Foundations of Ethnic Politics: Separatism of States and Nations in Eurasia and the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 108 Katznelson, Ira, and Barry Weingast. “Intersections between Historical and Rational Choice Institutionalism.” Katznelson, Ira, and Barry Weingast (eds.). Preferences and Situations. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005; Hinich, Melvin J. and Michael C. Munger. Analytical politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997; Laver, Michael John. Private Desires, Political Action: An Invitation to the Politics of Rational Choice. London: Sage, 1997; North, Douglass D. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990; Shepsle, Kenneth. 1979. Institutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models. American Journal of Political Science 23: 23-57. 41 provide “scripts for political processes”109. Under normal conditions, actors are unwilling to change their behavior, as this would unsettle the equilibrium in which multiple expectations of interdependent actors are involved. Parties are based on “equilibrium ways of doing things”110, or rules of the game defined by the actors themselves on the basis of rational behavior, coordinated with the behavior of others. Consolidated over time, stable strategies are based on expectations with regard to the roles of different actors and actions to be taken111. This persistence has to do with a strong link between the selection (election or appointment) of people to institutions (party offices; elected bodies) and the goals of those that select them112. The median voter theorem defines the election winner as the candidate whose policy package is the closest to the most-preferred policy of the average voter113. Attitudes of the electorate are relevant in determining the potential policy packages whose proponents get to institutions. In turn, the normative institutionalist theoretical perspective emphasizes the norms and values that underlie institutions. Individual political behavior is thus influenced by the institutional context represented by the political party which shapes “values, norms, interests, identities and beliefs”114 and influences actors’ interaction with institutions in the policy making process115. Political parties fit perfectly into broad definitions of institutions provided by the new institutionalist theoretical school. In line with the above-presented role played by parties in policy making, parties are characterized by “a stable, recurring pattern of behavior”116, or “standard operating procedures and structures that define and defend interests”117. As seen from the second definition, policy stability is directly related to parties’ feature of embodying values. Values create rules, norms, perceptions and routine procedures that, in turn, altogether influence the behavior of individual policy makers by defining their range of appropriate

109 Shepsle, Kenneth A. “Rational choice institutionalism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions, eds. Rod Rhodes, Sarah A. Binder, and Bert A. Rockman. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 23-38. 110 Kenneth A. Shepsle. Interpretations of Institutions. In: Rhodes, Rod A. W., Sarah A. Binder, and Bert A. Rockman. The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 26. 111 Calvert, Randall. 1995. “Rational actors, equilibrium, and social institutions.” Knight, Jack, and Itai Sened (eds.). Explaining Social Institutions. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995, pp. 57-95. 112 Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Alastair Smith, Randolph Siverson, and James Morrow. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. 113 Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1979. “Institutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models.” American Journal of Political Science 23: 23-57. 114 March, James G., and Johan Olsen. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organisational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press, 1989, p. 17. 115 Thelen, Kathleen, and Sven Steinmo. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Perspective.” Thelen, Kathleen and Sven Steinmo (eds.). Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 14-23. 116 Goodin, Robert. “Institutions and Their Design.” Goodin, Robert (ed.). The Theory of Institutional Design. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 22; Huntington, Samuel. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968, p. 12. 117 March, James G., and Johan Olsen. 1984. “The New Institutionalism: Organisational Factors in Political Life.” American Political Science Review 78: 738. 42 actions118. Individual members have to adapt their actions to internal values and norms of the party, which can narrow down their available options and limit their policy choices. Such institutional conditionality is referred to as the “logic of appropriateness”, based on the parameters set by institutional values and norms, which, in turn, lay down behavioral expectations, encourage party members’ behavior which is in line with these values and norms, and sanction behavior that contradicts them119. Policy making by political parties can be significantly influenced by this logic of appropriateness, thus showing trends of path dependence, where history seems to require the perpetuation of the existing policy path120. Normative institutionalism thus sees overall political behavior and policy choices made by individual party members as shaped, conditioned, constrained and directed by the party that embodies the institutional environment in which individual actors operate. Not only do the parties shape, direct and constrain political behavior, choices and decisions of its members in the realm of policy making, but they possess the capacity to shape their actors’ perceptions with regard to policies in particular areas. Established norms, customs and practices, the main elements of any institutions, are particularly relevant for understanding policies pursued by political parties and explaining their “socializing” capacity with regard to their members’ political behavior and policy choices. In a similar vein, Krasner, likening institutions operating in the political world to stable molecules and compounds, stresses the importance of formal and informal institutional constraints that shape individuals’ behavior121. Formal constraints include documented norms, values, objectives and compliance procedures122, whilst informal constraints are internalized123 standard and taken-for-granted practices, policy patterns based on enduring beliefs, normative orientations and attitudinal culture, policy legacies, codes of appropriate behavior in particular policy areas, conventional relationships and routines based on a party’s internal cultural tradition124, often implicit (to the point of an actor’s unawareness of his choices being affected

118 March, James G., and Johan Olsen. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organisational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press, 1989, p. 21-26. 119 Peters, B. Guy. Institutional Theory in Political Science. London: Continuum, 1999, p. 30. 120 March and Olsen, op.cit., p. 118. 121 Krasner, Stephen D. 1984. “Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics.” Comparative Politics 16: 228. 122 Hall, Peter A. Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 19. 123 Levi, Margaret. “A Logic of Institutional Change.” Cook, Karen S., and Margaret Levi (eds.). The Limits of Rationality. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990, p. 409; Sanders, Elizabeth. “Historical institutionalism.” Rhodes, Rod A. W. et al. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 39-55. 124 DiMaggio, Paul, and Walter Powell. The New Institutionalism in Organisational Analysis. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991, p. 39-55. 43 by his socialization in the party)125, but in practical terms no less important and powerful than the formal ones126. The said informal rules constitute an ideational dimension of political parties. Notably, all these formal and informal rules contain an element of path dependence and self-reproduction, which can explain the persistence of particular party policy lines over time. Accordingly, party proneness to path dependence, along with a key role of political parties in formulating the policy agenda, can explain the crucial role played by political parties in the persistence of particular policy paths. Besides exercising institutional constraint or obligation, political parties create power and seek to accumulate it127. They organize policy making processes in such a way that power is allocated between actors in a significant way, defining the degree of influence that individual actors or groups of actors have over policy outcomes. Thus, parties, like any other institutions, create incentives and disincentives for individual preferences and choices. These incentives and disincentives are represented by norms (set in party programs), and by ideational codes and power resources. Political parties are thus a particularly promising field of study in the area of ethnic policies, as they represent a link between the institutional world and the ideational realm, consisting of values and discourse128. Historical institutionalism, a separate strand of new institutionalism, is focused on the historical legacies that significantly impact the future129. In explaining the institutional constraints created by political parties, historical institutionalism suggests to focus on parties’ past. Key notions of historical institutionalism are path-dependency, critical junctures, positive feedback, ideational entrepreneurs, and the relationship between actors and both normative and ideational institutional structures. Historical institutionalist theories claim that, once institutionalized, a particular policy regime is difficult to change, as it generates self-reinforcing path-dependent processes related to institutions, policies, adaptive expectations of individuals, the development of political and

125 Hall, Peter, and Rosemary Taylor. “Political science and the three new institutionalisms.” Sołtan, Karol E., Eric M. Uslaner, Virginia Haufler (eds.). Institutions and Social Order. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1998; Hall, Peter, and Rosemary Taylor. 1998. “The potential of historical institutionalism: response to Hay and Wincott.” Political Studies 46(9): 58-62. 126 North, Douglass D. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 36. 127 Levi, op.cit., p. 407. 128 For general elaborations, see Campbell, John. “Mechanisms of Evolutionary Change in Economic Governance: Interaction, Interpretation and Bricolage.” Magnusson, Lars, and Jan Ohoson (eds.). Evolutionary Economics and Path Dependence, London: Edward Elgar, 1997, pp. 10-32; Thelen and Steinmo, op.cit. 129 Ma, Shu-Yun. 2007. “Political Science at the Edge of Chaos? The Paradigmatic Implications of Historical Institutionalism.” International Political Science Review 28(1): 57-78. 44 social identities, and the commitments of political actors, which together strengthen the existing path and complicate its reversal possibilities130. Path dependence features131 characterize understandings of policies as well. Cognitive psychology and organizational theory show that both masses and political actors tend to filter information according to pre-existing “mental maps”132, selectively approving only information that fits into these cognitive schemes, and filtering out information that does not fit them. Due to these processes, learning is complicated and cannot be assumed as a given. Self-reproducing mental maps are a product of collective, coordinated, network-like information sharing that creates adaptive expectations of individuals that would otherwise incur high learning costs in an attempt to build basic social understandings. Such cognitive schema may refer to ideologies, orientations toward particular parties, or attitudes to particular policy aspects. Since these schema emerge during periods of “historical openness” when they are selected and become institutionalized, they are all subsequently prone to path-dependent inertia. A similar logic underpins the concept of bounded rationality133, which imposes constraints on the rational choices perspective, identifying two limitations to an individual’s rational behavior. The first is costs related to information gathering that an individual may have to incur in order to be rational. The second refers to cognitive limitations, prompting the individual to rely on rules of thumb, or cognitive shortcuts. The development of actors’ mental maps and their impact on the genesis and persistence of minority-related policies would seem to open up a promising area of study for this research. In explaining policy inertia and irreversibility in a particular area, historical institutionalism pays particular attention to past events, starting from the genesis of these policies and exploring the chain of subsequent causal events that shape present-day policies134. Finding out the initial, or historical reasons for choosing a particular policy path and the

130 Pierson, Paul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics”. American Political Science Review 94 (2). 131 Obvious elements of path dependence can be seen in the very phenomenon of ethnicity, regardless of the theoretical approach adopted. Historically, distinctive cultural values emerged due to their territorial concentration: people residing in the same territory usually shared cultural, social and economic ways of life. Thus, ways of communication, physical peculiarities, all have been territorially concentrated1. Up until industrialization, circles of social contacts were territorially delineated, and, in turn, determined patterns of communication (shaping culture) and reproduction (shaping physical traits). Moreover, patterns of economic and social development used to be geographically concentrated as well. Different theoretical schools account differently for either the durability or fluidity of ethnic identities; what unites them is a shared recognition that all elements of ethnicity are path dependent. See Hechter, Michael. Internal Colonialism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975; Bates, Robert H. 1974. “Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 6 (4): 457-84. 132 Brian, Arthur W. Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in Economy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994; Denzau, Arthur D., and Douglass North. 1994. “Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions.” Kyklos 47 (1):3-31. 133 Simon, Herbert. Models of Man. New York: John Wiley, 1957; Cyert, Richard, and James March. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963. 134 Ma, op. Cit, p. 66. 45 interests it was intended to represent is of crucial importance in explaining the subsequent trajectory of policy amendments, its proneness to immutability or change, and underlying causal mechanisms. Thus the historical institutionalist analytical lens is based on the notion of institutional path-dependency that denotes proneness of policies to self-perpetuation. Put differently, once a particular policy path is chosen (even with more options at hand at the moment the decision is being made), over the course of time it becomes increasingly difficult to reverse this policy path, as the costs of reversal increase over time, with the accumulation of various institutional structures intended to serve this policy path, as well as institutional socialization and crucial actors’ increasing difficulty of thinking in terms of alternative solutions. According to Weingast, elements of path-dependency include standard operating procedures, behavioral norms, worldviews, or collective goals that become pervasive throughout a particular institution135. Although path-dependency, understood in this way, goes well beyond the party policy realm and could apply to action patterns of any institution in a given policy area, it is especially pertinent to political parties, given their key role in shaping policies and their particular proneness to structuring their policy choices along the above-mentioned elements of path-dependency, identified by Weingast. Political parties’ ideational dimension further contributes to their proneness to path- dependency. Consistently devoted to a particular policy option and having it set in its program documents, a political party as an institution is likely to be particularly resistant to changes that contradict its policy stances, even when the changing environment becomes more favorable to altering the existing policy path, possibly opening up opportunities for individual actors to benefit from these changes. This does not mean that change is impossible, but the party environment by its very nature is likely to be prone to inertia and resistance to change. In explaining the beginning of institutional path dependence, particular attention is paid to the historical sequence of crucial events that determined an actor’s key decisions, narrowing down his options and directing policy development along a particular path136. Subsequent policy making refers to these key decisions made in the past, and is thus path dependent137. In times of historical openness, otherwise called “historical junctures”, policy development can take any direction, and new ideas can be either adopted or rejected, depending on the sequence of contextual events. However, as soon as a policy path is adopted, it becomes self-reinforcing

135 Weingast, Barry. “Persuasion, preference change, and critical junctures: the microfoundations of a macroscopic concept.” Katznelson, Ira, and Barry Weingast (eds.). Preferences and Situations. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005, pp. 161-184. 136 Pierson, op. cit. 137 Mahoney, James. 2000. “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology.” Theory and Society 29(4): 507-548. 46 over time, as its institutional pattern generates “increasing returns”, or benefits related to its perpetuation. Accordingly, the costs associated with policy reversal become increasingly high over time138. Unlike rational choice perspective, historical institutionalism thus focuses on the limiting effect institutions have on actors’ rational choices in pursuing a particular policy path. Actors’ rational choices are constrained by unforeseeable intervening events and path dependent institutional dynamics. Namely, the institutional context “filters”, or “favors certain strategies, actors and perceptions over others”139, thus heavily influencing actors’ choices and prospects for policy change and directing it along a particular path. This path should be seen as the consequence of a key decision made in the past, at a moment of critical juncture. In terms of political parties and their role in shaping policies, the historical institutionalists’ emphasis on the impact of crucial decisions made earlier in the history of a particular policy area upon the subsequent policy path and direction would imply that the salience of particular policy issues in the period in which the parties were formed, along with the policy path chosen at that moment, will be likely to heavily influence subsequent policy choices in this area to follow a particular path, thus generating path dependency of goals pursued by crucial political actors upon the initial policy choices and directing subsequent policy changes along this particular path140. Historical institutionalism particularly emphasizes party proneness to inertia and resistance to change. This theoretical approach claims that parties’ capacity for adaptation is limited, as institutions of this kind depend heavily on their own history and origins. At their outset, parties reflect particular interests extant in the society. Subsequently, party ideology, values and beliefs are particularly path-dependent and tend to outlive both the social context in which the party was founded and changes in its social base. In other words, major political cleavages are produced by key historical junctures141. Once institutionalized into political parties, they reproduce adaptive expectations of their electorates, ideology and beliefs, characterized by a remarkable degree of stability. Adaptive expectations of an electorate also imply that people adjust their behavior to the actions of the majority of their group in order to avoid the high costs of making a wrong choice.

138 Ibid., p. 508. 139 Hay, Colin, and Daniel Wincott. 1998. “Structure, Agency and Historical Institutionalism.” Political Studies 46: 955. 140 Thelen and Steinmo, op.cit., p. 8; Peters, op.cit., p. 65. 141 This is in line with Lipset’s and Rokkan’s arguments. Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Stein Rokkan. Party systems and voter alignments: Cross-national perspectives. New York: The Free Press, 1967. 47 Ethnic parties usually draw their legitimacy from a particular ethnic policy agenda that emerged when they were founded. Mainstream nation-wide parties may also have ethnicity- related stances in their party strategies (e.g., ethnic mobilization approach or adherence to civic participation model; relative inclusivity or exclusivity toward ethnic minority issues). These party agendas, once set along a particular path, are likely to persist. In particular cases especially characteristic of post-communist European states, mainstream nation-wide parties can even correspond to the definition of ethnic parties, if their normative and ideational core and goals are related to themes typical for ethnic mobilization discourse. Unlike organizations that are strongly inclined to persist once institutionalized, policies are easier to change. Nevertheless, these changes are contingent on the political environment that is, again, inhabited by political actors (parties). The salience of particular ideas and values at the moment of historical juncture will provide a basis for policy solutions, and delineate limits of policy change acceptable for crucial political actors (political parties, their factions in parliament, government, ministries etc). These ideas and values, either laid down in party programs or simply informally interiorized as internal party culture, are likely to influence policy choices, delineating the scope of acceptable changes. Over time, accumulated experience and policy practices (subjectively assessed as positive) are likely to further reinforce the particular policy path, create further institutional incentives for perpetuating this path, thus strengthening path dependent dynamics142. Path dependence in ethnic policies pursued by political parties is a particularly promising area of study, as it allows for a cross-country comparison within post-communist Europe. The reasons behind the formation of parties could influence party policies over time. Accordingly, political parties formed at times of significant politicization of ethnicity are likely to preserve particular ethnic policy stances in subsequent periods, despite changes in the overall political environment. This raises another crucial question: what could cause changes in party policy stances over time? Institutional accounts are good at explaining institutional inertia and party resistance to change, but in order to avoid an overemphasis on determinism that is then unable to explain change143, institutionalism needs complementary insights from other theoretical schools so as to explain policy change.

142 Goodin, op.cit., p. 30. 143 Thelen and Steinmo, op.cit., p. 16. 48 1.3. Party policy change

An explanatory analysis of institutional change of ethnic minority policies is important, given its link to the general capacity of the state144. The term denotes the ability of state leadership and key policy makers to manifest sensitivity towards the needs of key groups or sectors. Considering ethnic minorities a relevant segment within the society with its distinct interests, the degree of sensitivity of state policies toward specific ethnic minority needs, reflected in timely policy changes, acquires particular relevance in the context of state capacity. Parties play a crucial role in changing the wider institutional framework. Possessing crucial leverages of power within the state legislature, they might aspire and campaign for alteration of policies and institutional arrangements. Two complementary explanations of policy change provided by the institutional paradigm view change either as a “punctuated equilibrium” (where the established policy path is increasingly disturbed, or “punctuated” by mounting pressures for change) or incremental change (when change occurs gradually, by small incremental policy adjustments)145. In analyzing policy changes it is important to identify the degree to which reforms alter existing policy practices, i.e., whether the change is truly fundamental or represents only a slight modification of the current policy path. An attempt to classify reforms according to the degree of change they bring about was made by Hall146. He distinguishes first, second and third order reforms. First order reforms denote changes of policy tool settings, prompted by new knowledge and experience, whereas general policy goals and tools remain unaltered. Second order reforms indicate changes of both policy settings and tools, based on past experience, while the general policy goals and strategies do not alter. Third order reforms are particularly important for studying cases of policy reversal, as in addition to changing policy tools and settings, they also imply changes in policy goals. In assessing the reforms that alter a general party policy line, one has to identify what reasons can prompt a political party to accept these reforms. In the rational choice theoretical perspective, policy changes are driven by key actors, when the existing policy regime no longer corresponds to their interests. This view is derived from the assumption that policies are designed by rational actors that pursue self-interest, possibly at the expense of their rivals’ interests. Applied to the field of ethnic policies, this

144 Evans, Peter. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995; Weiss, Linda. The Myth of the Powerless State. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998. 145 Cortell, Andrew, and Susan Petersen. 1999. “Altered States: Explaining Domestic Institutional Change.” British Journal of Political Science 29: 177-203. 146 Hall, Peter. 1993. “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State.” Comparative Politics 25: 278-279. 49 assumption would suggest that an ethnic policy regime at its outset is chosen with a view to benefiting the dominant political forces. Accordingly, policy changes are likely to be initiated by a party, when they appear to be more beneficial to it than the prevailing policies (benefits can be expressed in votes, reputational resources, etc). The evolutionary approach to change depends on the development of the political environment in which political parties operate. In the area of ethnic minority policies this could imply, for example, a growing share of ethnic minority representatives within the electorate and resulting ethnic policy changes, initiated by a political party in an attempt to attract additional votes. In other words, a shift in party attitudes toward ethnic minority policies is more likely to occur when there are external incentives related to the political environment, rather than appearing as a result of specific concerns associated with an ethnic minority situation per se. Another theory of change, related to the notion of the “logic of appropriateness”, is concerned with the legitimacy of existing rules. Fundamental policy changes are likely when the existing policy path loses its legitimacy. It can be discredited due to a discrepancy between the values manifested by an institution and its actual practice, or between the values of society and the values embodied in the policy regime147. Such a discrepancy could imply a gap between the internal values of the institutional design underpinning the policy regime, and external values and policy outcomes expected by a significant part of the society148: institutions can function well from the point of view of the policy designers, but policy outcomes do not meet the expectations of those they are intended to target. The bigger the gap, the bigger the pressure for policy change. Further incentives for reforms can be provided by positive experiences of other countries that offer alternative solutions to the existing problems. Applied to the sphere of ethnic policies, this could imply the discrepancy between the policy regime adopted vis-à-vis ethnic minority(-ies) and actual policy needs exhibited by the latter, resulting in tensions and pressure for policy changes. The question arises of whether tensions related to ethnic minority policy inadequacy could generate the political will necessary for policy changes on the part of political parties. A related theory of policy change attributes policy reforms to changes in the respective policy network. The term of policy network denotes the aggregate of actors involved in the policy making process149. Accordingly, changes occur in the balance of resources possessed by various actors. Policy changes would thus be contingent on the structure of the policy network,

147 Peters, B. Guy. “Political Institutions, Old and New.” Goodin, Robert, and Klingemann, Hans. A New Handbook of Political Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 205-220. 148 Goodin, op.cit., pp. 36-38. 149 Head, Brian, and Stephen Bell. 1994. “Understanding the Modern State: Explanatory Approaches. State, Economy and Public Policy.” Bell, Stephen, and Brian Head (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 58. 50 where the relative weight of various actors could change over time. Applied to policy attitudes and practices of political parties in the field of ethnic minority policies, this theoretical perspective could be also concerned with an ethnic minority’s share within a party’s electorate, or, alternatively, a growing role of ethnic minority politicians within the party’s membership leading to a shift in party policy stances related to the ethnic minority policy area. Party membership and the electorate can change over time, possibly provoking party policy shifts. Besides, the representation of various parties in the parliament can change over time, producing relevant implications for parties’ impacts on policy making. Minority-representative politicians joining a political party could give legitimacy to shifts in party minority policy stances. An important question remains, to what extent could such developments as an increasing share of a party’s minority membership or a party’s consideration of ethnic minority electorate change party policy inertia. According to historical institutionalist theory, political parties as institutions are placed between individual actors and broader “structural” political, economic and social forces150. While parties may influence and direct the behavior and choices of individuals, the above-said macro-factors are believed to possess the capacity of changing the behavior of parties proper151. Such wider forces may include the influence of international economic and political factors on domestic policies, as well as aspects of a country’s internal social situation. As mentioned earlier, historical institutionalist analysis of party policy making is concerned with the ways in which political parties empower and constrain their individual members in the policy making process. Parties are believed to direct the choices of individual actors along particular paths that are in line with parties’ normative and ideational profile. Parties thus are assumed to shape the individual actors’ perceptions of interests and their worldview, and, accordingly, shape their understanding of possible and acceptable policy changes, given the individual actors’ positions within the party and the latter’s position within a wider institutional framework. Within a political party, policy formulation thus evolves through negotiation between individual actors and path dependent institutional structures. Historical institutionalist theory is particularly suitable for tracing the long term evolution of a particular policy area and policy outcomes, shaped by numerous interactions of goal- pursuing actors152. Rather than seeing political parties as a mere aggregate of rational actors engaged in the distribution of power resources, historical institutionalism emphasizes a party’s normative and ideological core around which interactions of individual actors are structured.

150 Pontussen, Jonas. 1995. “From Comparative Public Policy to Political Economy: Putting Institutions in Their Place and Taking Interests Seriously”. Comparative Political Studies 28: 117-47. 151 Thelen and Steinmo, op.cit., p. 11. 152 Sanders, op.cit., p. 39. 51 This normative-ideological dimension becomes crucial for a party’s role in shaping policy, as it defines conventional direction and acceptable limits of policy change. Party leaders are viewed as “ideological entrepreneurs” that shape members’ beliefs about where their interests should lie153. One of the most important questions related to the proneness of political parties to changing an existing policy path regards the dilemma of whether changes in party attitudes and policy practices can be introduced without causing an ideational shift or rupture in the party. If new policy ideas seem to contradict the normative and ideational line of the party, their protagonists are likely to try to formulate them in a way that would seem to be innovative and conservative at the same time, i.e. to frame them in accordance with the traditional party policy line. Hence, from the perspective of path-dependency, actors’ policy choices are likely to be limited by previous policy practice. In other words, due to formal (normative) and informal (ideational) rules existing within political parties, a relatively moderate policy change on their part is more likely than a radical rupture with the previous policy course. Accordingly, pushing a political party to enact policy change is equal to altering the party’s “cultural” norms and bringing new ideas into the party, whereas a failure to introduce a policy change on the part of the party would imply the prevalence of the party’s institutional inertia and its normative and ideational dimensions over new ideas. One group of authors contests the institutionalist arguments by stressing the office-seeking nature of political parties. Thus, Seiler defines parties as organizations devoted only to seeking and preserving power, characterized by an instrumental approach to ideology, which finds much empirical evidence in Eastern Europe154. Accordingly, nationalism is exploited by parties as a legitimizing motive (the claim is also in line with the instrumentalist theoretical school of ethnicity). Similarly, Schlesinger considers that political power is the supreme motive underlying political parties’ activities, serving their leaders’ interests155. This assumption was supported by Panebianco who considers political parties professional electoral organizations that have merely an instrumental attitude toward their program stances156.

153 Blyth, Mark. 2003. “Structures do not come with an instruction sheet: Interest, ideas and progress in Political Science.” Perspectives on Politics 1(4): 698. 154 Seiler, Daniel-Louis. “Note sur les partis politiques dans les pays de l’Europe du sud-est.” Milacic, Slobodan (ed.). Démocratie constitutionelle en Europe Centrale et Orientale, Bilans et Perspectives. Bruxelles: Bruylant, 1998, p. 227. 155 Schlesinger, Joseph. “Political Careers and the Party Leadership.” Edinger, Lewis (ed.). Political Leadership in Industrialized Societies. Studies in Comparative Analysis. New York: Wiley, 1967. 156 Panebianco, Angelo. Political Parties, Organization and Power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 270-273. 52 While institutionalism is particularly good at explaining institutional inertia and resistance to change157, theories of institutional change offer complementary explanations of change, its nature and speed, particularly when it comes to rapid changes. Echoing the institutionalist emphasis on the constraints parties exercise on individual actors within them, theories of institutional change nonetheless admit that institutions in general, and political parties in particular, do change. Generally, all the above-mentioned theoretical approaches see policy change as a reaction to exogenous pressures, coming from outside the institutional environment, or, put differently, the very process of change is considered an interaction between the institution and external pressures. Accordingly, key actors of change usually emerge from outside the institutional environment, as a result of an external disturbance or crisis. Models of institutional change are focused on the external conditionality of a wider social, political and economic environment, surrounding such institutions as political parties158. Thelen and Steinmo distinguish between three models of change159. The first emphasizes the role of changes in a wider social, economic or political environment, which contribute to the increasing importance of previously irrelevant institutions. The second one stresses the capacity of these wider contextual forces to subject the old institutions to different goals. In the third one, external changes generate a shift in strategies and goals pursued within existing institutions. Likewise, in explaining policy change, historical institutionalist analysis emphasizes critical events, both those that precede the establishment of a particular policy regime and those that take place during its evolution, paying attention to the ways in which these events change party policy attitudes and practice. The very emergence of policy path-dependencies is seen as a result of unexpected critical events that disturb previously “normal” causalities and alter the previous political equilibrium, creating external incentives and political space for policy change. Such events can include mounting tensions between social and economic developments, and non-adaptive and unresponsive policies or external pressures coming from outside the political system. In other words, when policy inertia becomes exhausted and increasingly unresponsive to the needs and demands of those whom it is meant to target, change can occur as a result of its inadequacy. The change is driven by new ideas that can emerge both within and outside the existing institutional framework.

157 For an account on the slowness of change see Krasner, op.cit. 158 Pontussen, op.cit. 159 Thelen and Steinmo, op.cit. 53 Such critical events, otherwise termed “contingent moments” or “critical junctures”160, expand the variety of options available to key actors, possibly even altering their goals, and permitting new ideas to appear in the public space. By penetrating the political environment and the existing institutional structure, these new ideas can modify the prevailing rules and enable considerable policy change. At critical junctures, the institutional structure is particularly sensitive to reshaping on the part of actors situated within it. Although the latter’s choices can be influenced both by the institutional framework in which they operate and by the broader environment, moments of critical juncture nevertheless provide actors with incentives to think beyond the existing policy regime and to consider changes. Critical junctural moments can contribute to delegitimizing ideas underlying the prevailing policy regime, thus opening up space for changes. Hence, critical junctures, or events of crucial historical importance that alter the political equilibrium, are regarded as key factors influencing political activity and enabling policy changes. The analysis is concerned with the interaction of key actors with the institutional environment at critical juncture moments, when policy path-dependencies are created, reversed or retained. Periods of political transition provide particularly relevant examples of critical junctures in the context of the topic of the present dissertation. Transition represents an especially favorable environment for ethnopolitical mobilization, provoking the reshuffling of an established equilibrium of political power. Processes of decolonization, the emergence of independent states, the breakdown of multiethnic states or attempts at their democratization are especially likely to become a powerful catalyst of ethnopolitical mobilization, as the members of ethnic groups become increasingly aware of new threats as well as new opportunities. The collapse of the old system of values which legitimized the political system, generates a feeling of chaos and insecurity, and can endanger the social fabric, favoring the creation of new social aggregations aimed at protecting basic social needs, in particular that of security. Ethnic groups prove to have a strong appealing potential as survival units, satisfying individuals’ basic needs for solidarity, mutual trust and shared emotions. These needs are perceived to be granted by the ethnic group due to the fact that they are based on shared cultural practices and shared attitudes to social phenomena rooted in common culture and minimal cultural distance (intra-group distance is smaller when compared to inter-group distance). Marking out the history of political parties and state minority policies by distinguishing critical junctural moments could provide a viable explanation for the persistence of, or alternatively, reversal prospects of particular minority policies. An analysis of policy evolution,

160 Mahoney, op.cit., pp. 507-548. 54 structured around critical junctures as the most powerful causes that can influence party policy changes, seems to provide the best way of explaining the persistence and mutability of particular policy paths. In other words, an analytical emphasis on critical junctures might provide the best evidence of the proneness of ethnic party policy stances to change over time. Over time, a policy path initiated at a time of “critical juncture” can create new institutional inertia with its own path-dependency161. Once a critical junctural moment has been passed, the likelihood of a return to past policy practices (or policy path reversal probability) significantly decreases162. Critical junctures in their own right possess the capacity for generating new, both formal (normative) and informal (ideational) institutional structures, i.e., for influencing the domestic political cleavage structure with obvious implications for the party system (in terms of the possible creation, mergers and splits of political parties). Using historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions as an explanatory framework for policy changes, the analysis should focus on ways in which political parties and/or individual actors capitalize or, alternatively, fail to capitalize on moments of critical juncture in terms of change enactment. A substantial policy change would imply the alteration of the previous institutional and policy path-dependency and, simultaneously, give rise to a new path- dependency and institutional inertia. Change enactment may depend on abilities of individual “political entrepreneurs” to persuade party members that policy change is more beneficial to the party than the prevailing path163. However, their persuasive abilities and hence, chances for change enactment depend even more on wider events that are beyond the control of political entrepreneurs. These wider events are meant to back up the entrepreneurs’ arguments. Thus global external events stimulate changes in party policy stances and practices. Critical junctural events may foster rethinking of the current policy path within political parties and the broader institutional framework, increasing also the public’s receptivity to new ideas. The analysis should thus focus not only on actors’ choices within the changing wider environment, but also on reactions (approving or rejecting) within the institutional (party) environment to innovative policy ideas, the possibilities of actors enacting changes within the party environment, and the impact of the party environment on the degree to which policy changes can be enacted (how an actor changes his policy proposals in response to party environment’s impact)164.

161 Pierson, Paul, and Theda Skocpol. “Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science.” Katznelson, Ira, and Helen Milner (eds.). Political Science: State of the Discipline. New York: Norton, 2002, pp. 693-721. 162 Mahoney, op.cit., p. 516. 163 Weingast, op.cit., p. 163. 164 Katznelson and Weingast, op.cit., p. 9. 55 The reviewed theoretical literature raises three fundamental questions, in line with the research theses of the present dissertation: 1. The emergence of a possible ethnic cleavage dimension within the party system as a result of the salience of ethnopolitical issues and processes of ethnic mobilization evolving simultaneously with the genesis of the biggest political parties at the outset of a multi-party system. All the reviewed theoretical approaches stress the impact of values (historical institutionalism) or interests (rational choice theory) parties intend to represent at their founding, upon subsequent party policy attitudes and practices. Accordingly, if values and interests voiced by political parties at the outset of multi-party system were specifically related to ethnic mobilization or otherwise dealt with ethnicity-related issues, how did they affect party program goals in the ethnic minority policy area and what are the long-term consequences for ethnic minority policy outcomes? 2. The degree of perpetuation of the said ethnic cleavage, reflected in divergent (more liberal or more restrictive) party attitudes toward key ethnic minority policy issues, over time. To what extent are party ethnic policy stances and practices prone to path dependence, reflected in the stability of formal program goals and ideational values informally interiorized by party members that direct party policies in a given area along a particular path? Will parties be prone to punctuated equilibrium or incremental change? To first, second or third order changes? Behaviorist and rational choice approaches emphasize the commonality of interests that unite individual members in a political party, whilst the historical institutionalist paradigm stresses the socializational capacity of the party to shape individual perceptions, beliefs and behavior with regard to policy preferences. Regardless of the theoretical approach adopted, the question of durability of party policy attitudes and practice over time remains equally relevant. The same can be said of a related question regarding the mechanisms behind party policy change: all theoretical approaches are concerned with the dilemma of whether changes in party attitudes and policy practices can be introduced without causing an ideational shift, rupture or party split. Nevertheless, different theories emphasize different causes of change. The rational choice theory attributes policy changes to the changing interests of key actors with regard to the policy regime. Policy changes are intended to benefit actors by bringing them votes, reputational resources, etc. The “logic of appropriateness” theory relates policy changes to a current policy path’s loss of legitimacy, resulting in societal pressures pushing for change. Policy change will be

56 contingent on the political will on the part of key political forces, responding to external pressures. The “policy community” theory links policy changes to the structure of the policy network, where the relative weight of various actors can change over time. Incentives or opportunities for policy changes can be provided by a growing share of ethnic minority within a party’s electorate, as well as by the role of ethnic minority politicians within the party These causes of policy change can be summarized as internal, or endogenous, related to intra-party dynamics. The evolutionary approach to change emphasizes the development of the political environment in which political parties operate. For example, parties’ representation in parliament can change over time, producing relevant implications for parties’ impact on the policy making process. Models of institutional change are focused on the external conditionality of a wider social, political and economic environment, surrounding such institutions as political parties. Similarly, historical institutionalist theory pays particular attention to the broader structural political, economic and social forces (international economic and political factors influencing domestic policies, or aspects of a country’s internal social situation), capable of causing shifts in party policies. These causes of policy change can be summarized as external, or exogenous, related to a changing macro-level political environment. 3. Possible limitations manifested by political parties in responding to policy needs manifested by ethnic minority communities reveal the need to complement political parties’ participation in ethnic minority policy networks by the involvement of other organizations which could enable them to bridge the gap in representing ethnic minority policy needs. In terms of ethnic minority policy-making opportunities provided by political parties, party policy limitations can include: – consolidation of a particular policy path in a party’s formal goals and informal internal socializational culture up to the point of rigidity of formal and informal party rules, resulting in considerable institutional resistance to initiatives aimed at policy change and possible irreversibility of ethnic policies; – path-dependency, limiting actors’ policy choices to the experience and direction of previous policy practice.

57 1.4. Historical institutionalism as an explanatory framework

Different theoretical schools provide different answers for both policy continuity and policy change. Nevertheless, various theories share an assessment that institutions in general and political parties in particular are prone to having their present and future practices constrained by their past experience. This point of theoretical convergence allows us to choose an explanatory framework that, allowing for parallel testing of other theories’ assumptions, provides useful and universal analytical theoretical tools for explaining policy choices that are generated in a particular institutional context, represented by political parties. Traditionally, historical institutionalism has sought empirical explanations for regularities, based on continuous observations of social and political realities. New institutionalism is oriented towards enriching theory, explaining the interaction between individual actors and institutions. This emphasis on micro-level empirical observation, combined with the analysis of the impact of wider macro-phenomena on policies, can be helpful in tracing policy evolution over time and accounting for why certain ethnic minority policy options were preferred over others. A particular attention to past events, starting from the genesis of ethnic minority policies, historical reasons for choosing a particular policy path and the interests it was intended to represent and exploring the chain of subsequent causal developments, could explain the subsequent trajectory of policy amendments, its proneness to immutability or change, and underlying causal mechanisms, thus answering the first two questions of the present research that regard the prospects of ethnic minority policies in a party system deeply affected by ethnic mobilization processes that occurred in the past. Historical institutionalist theory is particularly suitable for tracing the long-term evolution of a particular policy area and policy outcomes. Given the key role of political parties in shaping policies and the relevance of the elements of path-dependency (standard operating procedures, behavioral norms, worldviews, and collective goals) for party policies, this research adopts key concepts of historical institutionalism – path-dependency, critical junctures, normative and ideational institutional structures – to explain party ethnic policy changes over time. Path dependence in ethnic policies pursued by political parties is a particularly promising area of study, as it allows for a cross-country comparison within post-communist Europe. While paying particular attention to exogenous pressures for policy change, historical institutionalism also deals with intra-party dynamics, relating the impact of wider events to the persuading capacity of individual ideational entrepreneurs within the party, the possibilities of

58 actors to enact changes within the party environment and a party’s reactions (approving or rejecting) to innovative policy ideas. Consequently, the analytical tools provided by historical institutionalism can serve as a universal explanatory framework for the present dissertation. Besides, historical institutionalist theory’s emphasis on the ideational dimension of party rules, consisting of values and discourse, provides a particularly promising analytical tool for studying the ethnic policies pursued by political parties, as parties represent a link between the institutional world and the ideational realm. Using historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions as an explanatory framework for policy changes, the analysis should focus on the ways in which political parties and/or individual actors within them capitalize or, alternatively, fail to capitalize on moments of critical juncture in terms of change enactment. Thus, historical institutionalist analytical tools and terminology can be useful in testing the assumptions of other theories without distorting their logic and content. This can refer even to rational choice theory, as the term “capitalization on policy changes” indicates the transferability of its assumptions related to utility-maximization in the historical institutionalist analytical framework. Besides, constructivist institutionalism is based on the same logic of path dependency and is largely compatible with historical institutionalism165. Although the impact of new institutionalism on social science resulted in a proliferation of new institutionalist disciplines, studies of ethnicity still lack empirical studies testing these theoretical assumptions in the ethnic policy area. The historical institutionalist theoretical perspective offers useful analytical tools for addressing a number of questions underresearched in the literature, such as the nature of institutional constraints imposed on ethnic policy makers by political parties, the variability of these constraints over time, the variability of party attitudes toward ethnic policies over time (in normative and ideational dimensions), the causes and the degree of possible changes over time. The interaction of parties and their individual members in the ethnic minority policy area as well as choices made by individual actors within the party environment (e.g., proposing legislative amendments, securing support for them within the party and voting on minority-related legislation in the parliament) is a particularly relevant aspect. Historical institutionalism provides a workable framework for analyzing ethnic minority policies from the perspective of political parties, focusing on internal as well as external pressures that impact on the policy trajectory.

165 Hay, Colin. Constructivist Institutionalism. Rhodes, Rod A. W. et al. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 57. 59 Focusing this research on post-communist democracies suggests an even more promising field of inquiry. As most of the empirical knowledge underpinning historical institutionalist and rational choice assumptions refers to established democratic systems, an attempt to apply them to transitional democracies and to the ethnic policy area can provide a promising area of study. A cross-country comparison can offer insightful empirical evidence for the role of political parties in both policy continuity and policy change in the ethnic policy area over time.

60 2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The above-presented theoretical elaborations on ethnicity and its relation to party policies lead us to the choice of methodology for the present research. This chapter is dedicated to considering the available methodological options for the research and choosing the most appropriate one. The theoretical overview has further revealed the importance of questions implied by the objectives of the dissertation. Among these questions, the most important one regards the prospects of ethnic minority policies in post-communist states where a multi-party system was introduced in a peculiar historical period characterized by the extreme politicization of ethnic issues. In other words, how did the processes of ethnicity politicization affect the structure of political cleavages within the emerging party system in terms of shaping the ethnic dimension of party policy agenda and practice? Even more importantly, what are the implications of institutionalized ethnic cleavage within the party system for ethnic minority policies? Historical institutionalist theory assumes that party policies are prone to path dependence and self-reproduction over time. The notion of historical “critical junctures” is denoted by the capacity to set a policy path along a particular track that over time makes this policy increasingly resistant to reversal. Alternative theoretical interpretations seem to oppose the claims about the inflexibility of party policy paths by retaining that political parties are primarily dedicated to seeking power; the rational calculus based on the quest for power could prompt them to adapt their political stances to circumstances that favor one particular policy path over another. In this context, the present dissertation is concerned with the peculiarity of ethnic cleavage within the party system (translated into the area of policies pursued by parties as crucial policy- making actors toward ethnic minorities) – to what extent are ethnic minority policies prone to path dependence and, respectively, what is the specificity of political parties as policy-making institutions in the area of ethnic policies? Further questions regard the durability of such cleavages over time and the phenomena that lead to their perpetuation and policy path dependence or, alternatively, the deconstruction and reversal of particular policy paths (be they of minority-inclusive or exclusive nature). Following the theory, the choice of methodology therefore has to be aimed at testing the causal relationship between (1) the salience of ethnopolitical issues when a multi-party system is introduced; (2) the institutionalization of ethnic cleavage (in terms of party policy agendas in ethnicity-related policy areas) within the nation-wide party system; (3) the expression of this cleavage in the political practice of parliamentary parties in the most relevant minority-related

61 policy areas; and (4) the durability of this cleavage, expressed either in the path dependent nature of minority policies conducted by political parties or, alternatively, in possibilities for policy reversal. It is the causal relationship of these variables that we attempt to test empirically. This causal relationship, at the core of the present dissertation, can be tested in any ethnically heterogeneous post-communist European country where the transition from to multi-party democracy was accompanied by processes of ethnic mobilization, and in which ethnic minority policies remain a relevant policy area subject to controversy. For this reason, it was decided not to limit the scope of the present dissertation to one single country, but to conduct qualitative field research in two countries. The selection of cases for comparison typically draws on three criteria: isolating the effect of the factor under investigation; choosing truly representative case studies; and controlling the impact of other (potentially intervening) factors166. A comparative research methodology provides us with two types of comparative research designs: (1) most similar research design, based on the selection of cases that are as similar as possible at their starting positions, but diverge under the influence of (a) factor(s) whose impact the research attempts to prove; and (2) most different research design, based on the opposite logic: two or more cases with starting positions that are as different as possible in everything save the independent variables we suspect influence the research object, and in the long run lead to a similar outcome167. The universal applicability of the above-said causal relationship to nearly any post- communist country seems to provide a promising opportunity to contribute to filling the existing lack of cross-subregion comparative research of ethnic minority policies from the perspective of political parties. For this reason, the “most different” research design was preferred in the present dissertation, as it has enabled the author to take advantage of an opportunity to conduct field research activities in two post-communist countries, Serbia and Estonia, characterized by diverse historical backgrounds, situated in different geopolitical contexts and having different experiences of political development and ethnopolitical processes, but, nevertheless, sharing one important feature; the genesis of contemporary party systems in these countries, beside occurring simultaneously, was accompanied by processes of ethnic mobilization. The above- mentioned underlying causal relationship hypotheses of this dissertation thus can be equally tested on such seemingly diverse cases as Estonia and Serbia.

166 Peters, B. Guy. Comparative Politics: Theory and Methods. London: Macmillan 1998, p. 31. 167 Burnham, Peter, Karin Gilland, Wyn Grant, and Zig Layton-Henry. Research Methods in Politics. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 58. 62 Dependent variable, or the phenomenon we attempt to explain in the research, refers to practices of political parties in the area of ethnic minority policies (the research object, also defined as ethnic cleavage within a party system). The following independent variables (factors suspected to influence the dependent variable) enable us to compare the two cases: – critical salience of ethnopolitical issues when a multi-party system was introduced; – proneness of party policies to path dependence in ethnic policy area; – historical critical junctures (events of particular strength, affecting the overall political situation) as a precondition for reversal of party ethnic policy path. The consideration of minority policies by political parties can be influenced by numerous intervening variables that make up the social, economic and political context of the research object and its independent variables. Intervening variables include: – Size of the respective minority groups, patterns of their ethnodemographic distribution and socio-economic characteristics; – Historical origins and the duration of the minority’s presence on the territory of the host state; – Collective status of the respective groups in the socialist period and different approaches of Yugoslav and Soviet socialist systems to managing ethnopolitical issues; – External conditionality of the EU, taking different shapes in the two countries; – The degree of stability in the size of the minority electorate: trends of growth or reduction in sociodemographic terms; – Peculiarities of political organization at the outset of the multi-party system: availability of organizational resources accumulated by it in the socialist period that can be invested in ethnopolitical mobilization and organization of ethnic parties; – Regional dimension. Presence or absence of provincial level of governance and/or ethnocultural and socioeconomic preconditions for regionalism on the territory populated by the minority. By ethnic minority policies, we refer to policies aimed at identifying and meeting the most important minority needs manifested by a considerable part of the minority group community. In my dissertation, I apply a bottom-up approach that, when evaluating policy measures pursued by political parties and state institutions run by them, pays particular attention to the most relevant needs identified by the minority community itself (the most reliable sources for identifying such policy needs are provided by sociological research and surveys). The analytical lens chosen for the present dissertation allows us to compare party policies pursued in the ethnic minority policy area without limiting the comparison to certain policy areas, but, instead, to

63 explore overall approaches of political parties to those ethnic minority policy issues that gained relevance during the introduction of a multi-party system. This approach to policies is justified in this dissertation, as it is focused on the ethnic-civic dichotomy that overlaps with party approaches in most policy areas, as the research results show. Another dimension of the analysis regards prospects for the reversal of minority policies, that may equally apply to any policy area. The logic behind the present comparative research is aimed at tracing regularities and establishing parallels in patterns of political parties’ practices in the field of minority policies, in order to set up general theoretical schemes that work in different multi-party systems despite differences in intervening variables. The methodology thus follows from the theory, and the two cases under analysis are united by the research theses, which are designed to reflect an expected similar outcome of the two case studies. A high degree of ethnification of politics when the first political parties were established is suspected to have generated a durable ethnicity-related cleavage within the nation- wide party system (in terms of different ethnic policy agendas and approaches to minority policies, manifested by parties). This in turn sets the policy practices of major political parties in the area of ethnic policies along particular tracks that over time become increasingly prone to path dependence. To reverse path-dependent party policy tracks, powerful “critical junctures” (events that change the overall political situation) are needed. The choice of “most different” case studies for comparison allows us to test this causal relationship. The present qualitative research is aimed at discovering ethnicity-related cleavage within respective party systems, expressed in parties’ ethnic policy attitudes and practices. This cleavage can also be characterized as one of stable patterns of inter-party relationships and allows us to classify parties according to their diverging policy attitudes and practices. Qualitative research design appears to be suitable for exploring in-depth the stances and practices of political parties in the area of ethnic minority policies. Qualitative methods allow us to distinguish intentionality and meanings behind ethnic policy attitudes and practices of political parties, which can be useful for testing divergent historical institutionalist and rational choice assumptions on party policies. Namely, the qualitative approach is appropriate for investigating reasons behind party policy inertia and proneness to path dependence over time and party policy changes. A focus on the case studies chosen for the present research also calls for qualitative methods168. Qualitative research allows not only to produce empirical findings that test hypotheses for particular case studies, but also to generate more general hypotheses, or informed

168 Mahoney, James, and Gary Goertz. 2006. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Political Analysis 14: 227-249. 64 assertions that can be further tested in other settings169. Flyvbjerg’s argument that empirical evidence from case studies based on qualitative methods allows for generalizations that go beyond the particular cases studied170, speaks in favor of our choice of comparing “most different” cases for the present research. The “most different cases” research design provides the widest possible framework for testing hypotheses on path dependence of ethnic minority policies pursued by political parties in post-communist countries, with multi-party systems that were established under conditions of the ethnification of politics. The sources for the present qualitative research include semi-structured interviews and official documents of political parties containing strategic policy agendas. For the Estonian case, shorthand records of parliamentary sessions and voting results on minority-related legislation are also available. The qualitative data has been processed by organizing it into patterns that allow us to draw conclusions. The historical research method is applied in sections dealing with critical junctural moments that occurred on the eve of the introduction of multi-party systems in Serbia and Estonia. In these sections, the impact of critical junctures on shaping long-term party policy agendas in ethnic minority policy areas is analyzed. The historical research method appears to be suitable for tracing the impact of crucial past events on party policy attitudes and practices and explaining current ethnic minority policy paths and their reversal prospects from the perspective of the path dependence of party policies. In the analysis of party programs, the ethnicity-related cleavage is identified on the basis of the different normative orientations of political parties with regard to ethnic minority policies, entrenched in official policy agendas. In the analysis of the ethnic aspect of political parties’ ideational dimension, ethnicity- related cleavage between political parties is identified by means of analytical post-coding of ethnicity-related value themes, manifested in open-ended responses to semi-structured interview questions on ethnic policy issues. In the analysis of political parties’ policy practices in key policy areas relevant for ethnic minorities, qualitative data is organized by means of coding which approaches quantitative methods in its interpretation.

169 Taylor, Steven J., and Robert Bogdan. Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods. New York: Wiley, 1998; Marshall, Catherine and Gretchen B. Rossman. Designing Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998; Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln. “Introduction: The discipline and practice of qualitative research.” Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds.). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2005, pp. 1-33. 170 Flyvbjerg, Bent. 2006. “Five Misunderstandings About Case Study Research.” Qualitative Inquiry 12(2): 219- 245; Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Case Study.” Denzin, Norman K., and Yvonna S. Lincoln (eds.). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2011, pp. 301-316. 65 In the present dissertation, Hall’s categorization of first-order, second-order and third- order policy changes171 is applied in order to both identify ethnic policy-related cleavages within the party system and to measuring changes in political parties’ ethnic minority policy attitudes and practices in a quantitative manner. In analyzing strategic party policy agendas and legislation initiated by various parties, party policy changes are labeled with the following codes: – first-order changes denote changes in policy tool settings, prompted by new knowledge and experience, whereas general policy goals and tools remain unaltered; – second-order changes indicate changes in both policy settings and tools, based on past experience, while general policy goals and strategies do not alter; – third-order reforms are particularly important for studying cases of policy reversal, since in addition to changing policy tools and settings, they also imply changes in policy goals. The conclusions on the degree of party policy changes and path dependence are based on the prevalence of particular codes in parties’ ethnic policy stances and practices in a two-decade perspective. Similarities and differences in related codes are traced across the two “most different” case studies, establishing parallels in terms of parties’ ethnic policy path dependence and reversibility over time.

171 Hall, Peter. 1993. “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State.” Comparative Politics 25: 278-279. 66 3. THE CASE STUDY OF SERBIA’S HUNGARIANS

3.1. Ethnic cleavage in the Serbian party system

This chapter aims to identify ethnicity-related aspects in both the normative and ideational dimensions of Serbia’s political parties. The first section focuses on ethnicity-related goals in political parties’ policy agendas, as set out in their strategic program documents. The second presents an intra-party framework of minority policy formulation. The third deals with the ideational realm, distinguishing ethnic credentials manifested by parties in their discourse on ethnic minority policies. The three aspects altogether allow us to trace ethnicity-related cleavage within the Serbian party system.

3.1.1. Stances on ethnic minority policies in Serbian political parties’ programs

The origins of ethnopolitical cleavage within the contemporary Serbian party system can be traced back to the late 1980s – early 1990s. In the period immediately preceding the introduction of a multi-party system, accompanied by the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia along ethnic-administrative lines, divergent ideological currents existing in the society were gradually institutionalized into political parties. The following analysis of party program documents classifies Serbian nation-wide political parties according to their stances on ethnic policy issues, as documented in policy agendas included in strategic program documents. By tracing critical historical junctures that generated changes in party ethnic policy stances, the analysis attempts to identify the causes underlying minority policy alterations on the part of political parties, testing historical institutionalist and rational choice theoretical assumptions on the degree of stability of ethnic policy paths over time. Strategic program documents allow us to classify Serbian nation-wide parties according to divergent approaches to ethnicity and ethnic minority policies. The very origins of the contemporary Serbian party system have produced a fundamental cleavage related to ethnic policy agendas that divides the parties into two groups. The first group encompasses parties devoted primarily to the political accommodation of ethnic majority group (). Ethnicity constitutes a crucial element in the political identity, appeal and policy agendas of these parties. As the analysis of program documents suggests, the pioneers of this approach throughout the 1990s were the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS, which emerged out of the transformation of the League of Communists of Serbia, LCS), its ally

67 Serbian Radical Party (SRS), the opposition party Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). The second group comprises parties that do not contain ethnopolitical goals in their programs. Approaches to dealing with ethnic policy issues, as proposed by these parties, cut across ethnic lines. The biggest party in this group is the DS (Democratic Party, since the late 1990s), followed by the considerably smaller Civic Union of Serbia (GSS), Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and G17+. A special case is the Vojvodina-based autonomist League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV) which has the most elaborated approach to minority policies among Serbia’s mainstream parties. Both party groups are heterogeneous in terms of the degree of inclusivity in their ethnicity-related political stances as manifested by the various parties. Nevertheless, as subsequent analysis will show, this cleavage within the Serbian party system showed a considerable degree of stability over time. At the critical junctural moment in which the multi-party system in Serbia was introduced in 1990, the country’s political leadership (LCS) was committed to tackling the crisis as Serbia’s primary political problem. From that moment on, different approaches to dealing with ethnic issues and the issues of Kosovo’s and Vojvodina’s autonomies were core cleavages that delineated party policy paths for decades to come. The creation of the SPS on July 16, 1990 was the final in a series of developments that marked the abandonment of the ethnic policy path pursued by the LCS. Previously, the socialist approach to ethnic policies, based on balanced institutional solutions conceptualized as “fraternity and unity”, had been officially abandoned during the 8th session of the Central Committee of the LCS (23-24 September 1987)172. In historical institutionalist terms, the victory of Slobodan Milošević’s faction over the one led by Dragiša Pavlović in the LCS Presidency can be considered a critical juncture. It paved the way for an entirely new ethnopolitical stance, aimed at combating Albanian separatism in Kosovo and protecting the province’s Serb population. The official discourse claimed that at the 8th session, “policies contrary to the interests of the Serbian nation and Serbia’s citizens” were abandoned173. Meanwhile, several important ethnopolitical topics galvanized the public discourse in the transitional period, including criticism of Kosovo Albanian separatism, debates on Serbia’s relations with its two autonomous provinces (Kosovo- and Vojvodina), and the situation of Serbs in

172 A new ethnopolitical course was portended by the speech of the president of the Central Committee of the LCS S.Milošević in Kosovo Polje already on April 24-25, 1987, where he annunciated changes in political relations and cadre policies. See Milošević, Slobodan. Godine raspleta. Beograd: Beogradski izdavačko-grafički zavod, 1989. 173 12. vanredni Kongres Saveza komunista Srbije. Dokumenti. Beograd: SKS, 1990, pp. 25-30. 68 and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was the culmination of mounting societal pressures and popular discontent over these long-standing ethnic policy issues, accompanied by a series of incidents and public events of deep resonance, that conditioned a turnabout in the LCS’s official approach to ethnic policies. In other words, the external political environment generated a critical juncture for ethnic policy alteration during the creation of the first political parties in a nascent multi- party system. Triggered by events in Kosovo174, this turnabout had direct implications for Vojvodina, as the crucial cadre changes in the LCS affected both of Serbia’s autonomous provinces. Eventually the LCS transformed into the SPS175, and by gaining considerable electoral support throughout the 1990s, remained in power until October 2000. With about 700,000 members and a developed party network and institutions, the SPS was the determinant political actor in Serbia throughout the last decade of the 20th century176. State legislative and executive institutions were dominated by the party’s members or nonpartisan officials who accepted the party’s policy line. In the SPS’s first program, adopted on 16 July 1990, the party’s commitment to the integrity of Serbia (as opposed to the state-like autonomy of Vojvodina) foresaw the republican authorities carrying out all the competences inherent to the state177. Rights deriving from specific ethnic, historical and cultural peculiarities were guaranteed to autonomous provinces that were reduced to the status of territorial autonomies. These stances were reiterated in the 1992 SPS program178. In this context, it is extremely important to stress that from the adoption of the very first SPS program documents up until the regime change on October 5, 2000, the SPS’s ethnic policies were at the same time the official ethnic policies of Serbia179. With regard to Vojvodina, these policies found their expression in the deconstruction the communist-era institutional framework of ethnic minority rights promotion, grounded in the province’s autonomy. The most important impact of the SPS leadership in changing the provinces’ position within Serbia was the adoption of amendments to the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Serbia (28 March

174 Seeking to put down the separatism in Kosovo by means of introducing republican power over the whole of Serbia’s territory, the Serbian leadership abolished the provinces’ constitutional status of a constitutive element of the federation. 175 Another organization that merged with the LCS in the process of creating the SPS was the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Serbia. 176 Orlović, Slaviša. Politički zivot Srbije između partokratije i demokratije. Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 2008, p. 36. 177 Programske osnove i statut Socijalističke Partije Srbije. Belgrade: SPS, 1990, p. 3-42. 178 Other minority-related themes of the 1992 program (relations with Serbs living outside Serbia; national equality and Yugoslav federalism; and the solution of the crisis in Kosovo) followed from the SPS’s role of being the only ruling party in the Yugoslav space that opposed Yugoslav disintegration. Osnove programa Socijalističke Partije Srbije, Belgrade: SPS, 1992 (adopted on the 2nd Congress of the SPS on 23-24 October 1992). 179 As the subsequent analysis of party programs will show, supporters considered the SPS policies to be a commitment to the interests of Serbia and the Serbian people, whereas opponents claimed that from the 8th session on, nationalism was the official policy of Serbia’s leadership. 69 1989) that abolished the provinces’ veto right on changing the Constitution of Serbia and returned legislative, administrative and judicial powers to republican jurisdiction. Thereafter, the Constitution of Serbia adopted on 28 September 1990 abolished the provinces’ statehood attributes and turned them into mere autonomous territories (art. 6). The Constitution of the SRY, adopted in April 1992, followed the SPS program line as well. All these developments, along with the changes in party and state leaderships that opposed the new policy path and the abolition of the 1974 constitutional solutions, were carried out in line with the first program of the SPS, adopted on 16 July 1990. Subsequent modifications in the SPS’s ethnic policy stances were conditioned by fundamental events (or historical junctures, in terms of historical institutionalist theory) in the external political environment (including the considerable involvement of international factors). Incorporated in the constitutional order of Serbia and the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia (SRY) and embodied in official state policies throughout the 1990s, the ethnic policy practice of the SPS was affected by the following historical junctures: the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY); the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and the creation of the Republic of Serb Krajina and the Bosnian Serb Republic respectively; and the crisis in Kosovo and NATO intervention. It is beyond the scope of the present dissertation to analyze the impact of these critical junctures on the overall ethnic policies of the SPS on the whole territory of former Yugoslavia. The analysis is thus limited to the impact on Vojvodina’s framework of minority rights protection. The end of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in 1995 marked a new era in the SPS’s policies, characterized by a more passive stance on ethnopolitics180. The failure of policies conducted by the SPS vis-à-vis Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia was a critical juncture that contributed to the party’s loss of initiative in ethnic policy issues. This phase was marked by the elimination of most of the protagonists of an active policy approach from the leadership of the SPS181 and the electoral coalition with the Yugoslav United Left (JUL, a party with an indifferent approach toward ethnic issues). The SPS’s passive approach to ethnic policies was reinforced by the subsequent loss of the war over Kosovo. The marginalization of the SPS following Milošević’s defeat in presidential elections in 2000, his subsequent extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the change in party leadership paved the way for a radical (third-order) shift in the SPS’s attitude toward key policy issues. The reversal in party policy stances on European integration and Vojvodina’s autonomy can be interpreted as the need to survive in

180 This period is also called “defensive”, or one of ad hoc policies. Bazić, Srpsko pitanje. 181 These were Mihailo Marković, Borisav Jović, Milorad Vučelić. 70 new political realities. In terms of historical institutionalism, the SPS’s policy reversal came as a response to a fundamental critical juncture posed by its own electoral defeat, which opened the way for the fundamental transformation of the whole country. A number of theoreticians suggest that electoral defeat is the most likely reason to provoke party policy alterations182. The case of the SPS after 2000 is in line with this assumption, which is also compatible with rational choice logic. The latest program of the SPS, adopted on December 11, 2010, stressed the party’s general commitment to multiethnic and multicultural values and the individual and collective rights of national minorities. The program also stressed the party’s rejection of secessionist goals and “institutionalized self-isolation and ghettoization of minorities”, explicitly referring to ethnic parties’ program goals advocating cultural and territorial autonomy. Although the wording of individual stipulations in the program revealed the party’s persisting implicit orientation towards the majority community (“the rights of national minorities cannot be used against the Serbian nation [...] and the state”183), the SPS, a coalition partner of the DS in the government, gave its support to Vojvodina’s Statute of Autonomy in 2009. Another influential party in the first group, the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), founded on 25 February 1991 by Vojislav Šešelj, was one of the most consistent parties in its ethnic policy agenda184. Through its participation in ruling coalitions with the SPS and in municipal assemblies in Vojvodina in the late 1990s, the party contributed to shaping minority policies in a way largely compatible with the SPS’s vision. Over two decades the strategic program documents of the SRS retained the party’s commitment to uniting all territories populated by a Serb majority into a single state. Šešelj’s project of Greater Serbia included Macedonia, , Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dubrovnik, Lika, Kordun, Banija, Slavonia and Baranja, while the country’s western border would be delineated by the line Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica185. The SRS resolutely opposed any autonomy or special territorial status for Vojvodina and Kosovo-Metohija, as well as Serbia’s regionalization. Later on, ICTY indictments against Šešelj were to include charges of forcefully changing the ethnic structure of minority-populated localities in Vojvodina186.

182 Adams, James, Michael Clark, Lawrence Ezrow and Garrett Glasgow. “Understanding Change and Stability in Party Ideologies: Do Parties Respond to Public Opinion or to Past Election Results?” British Journal of Political Science 34 (2004): 589-610. 183 Program of the Socialist Party of Serbia. 11 December 2010. http://sps.org.rs/Dokumenta/PROGRAM%20SPS.pdf, p. 19, accessed on 5 September 2011. 184 “Statut Srpske Radikalne Stranke.” Velika Srbija. Belgrade, May 1991; “Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke.” Velika Srbija 1991 (9):7-8; “Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke.” Šešelj, Vojislav. Srpska Radikalna Stranka. Belgrade: ABC Štamparija, 1995, p. 94-99; “Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke.” Velika Srbija“, July 1997. 185 "Programska deklaracija Srpske Radikalne Stranke." Velika Srbija 1991 (9): 6. 186 For the SRS’s point of view see Šešelj, Vojislav. Afera Hrtkovci. Zemun: Srpska Radikalna Stranka, 2007. 71 All the above-presented stances were preserved unaltered in the SRS program throughout the two decades. While in line with historical institutionalist assumptions on the path dependence of party policy stances over time, it must be noted that the party has had the same leader since its foundation in 1991 up to this writing. Still, this exception only confirms the historical institutionalist rule: the fact that Šešelj has continued to lead the party while under ICTY custody for at least 9 years (since 2003) shows that the SRS and its policy agenda had a considerable potential for surviving even outside the direct reach of its founding leader. Thus, an explicit commitment to an ethnic mobilization approach toward the majority nation is enshrined in the 2009 program of the SRS – the party’s latest program as of this writing. Although it defines the concept of Greater Serbia as the raison d’être of the SRS, the party nevertheless stresses its inclusivity of ethnic minorities. While emphasizing its commitment to ensuring the right of preserving collective minority rights, the program further enumerates rights of language use, education, culture and objective and impartial information. Still, the program is characterized by a prevailing orientation towards the majority nation and a normative orientation based on the rejection of Yugoslav-era ethnic policy values. It assesses that in the communist system and one-party totalitarian system, “representatives of the majority nation were endangered, while representatives of national minorities were privileged”. As an alternative solution, the program proposes allowing the establishment of minority schools, universities and media enterprises, albeit banning them from access to state budget financing. According to the party, minorities themselves should provide for the financing of their institutions187. The only attempt to introduce a fundamental change in the SRS’s policies resulted in the party’s split. In September 2008 Tomislav Nikolić, after serving as deputy chairman of the SRS and advocating Šešelj’s ideas for years, left the SRS with a group of supporters and founded his own party, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). The ’s positive stance toward Serbia’s European integration (supporting the Stabilization and Association Agreement between Serbia and the EU) can be considered a substantial policy reversal. The fact that the reversal did not happen within the party, but required the creation of a new party, supports the historical institutionalist assumptions on limitations of introducing a change in party ethnic policies. A pro-European orientation and abandoning the idea of Greater Serbia became crucial differences in program guidelines between the SRS and the SNS188. The fact that in 4 years the SNS did not adopt any detailed strategic program document speaks in favor of rational choice

187 “Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke”, pp. 27-28, http://www.srpskaradikalnastranka.org.rs/pdf/misc/20091023- program.pdf, accessed on 5 September 2011. 188 “Program Srpske Napredne Stranke.” http://www.sns.org.rs/%D1%81%D1%80/2010-06-05-00-10-55.html, accessed on 5 September 2011. 72 arguments on the office-oriented and opportunistic nature of political parties. On the other hand, this trend does not contradict historical institutionalist arguments either. Despite a mention of a commitment to improving the situation and rights of national minorities, the SNS, overwhelmingly based on the former SRS membership, retained its ethnic majority-oriented policy orientation, similar to that of the SRS. A similar experience by the anti-communist Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) also seems to support the above-mentioned historical institutionalist arguments: attempts to introduce alterations in party policy attitudes resulted in party splits instead of modifying the party course. After a series of splits the SPO, in its origins close to the SRS, converged with non-ethnic nation-wide parties, as a part of its leadership which supported the ethnic agenda passed to the DSS (a splinter of the DS which prioritized ethnic issues over those of democratization). Founded on 14 March 1990 by V.Drašković, the SPO was close to Šešelj, but the positions of the two leaders diverged that same year with the SPO embarking on a more moderate path. In its first program documents189, the SPO advocated the unity of the Serbian nation’s state, cultural and spiritual space in the face of existential danger. In the II Program, the party limited itself to the democratization of Serbia within the country’s current borders as a guarantee of the rights of all Serbs. This turnabout resulted in a series of splits in the party in 1993; first 17 members of the party leadership quit the SPO, and thereafter another group of leaders left the SPO to join the DSS. Afterwards, the SPO converged with the liberal democratic bloc (DS) parties in its stances and policy practice. In contrast, the DSS followed a path opposite to that of the SPO. The DSS was formed by a group led by V.Koštunica that split from the DS in 1992. This party advocated more active collaboration between anti-Milošević opposition parties and stressed that the Serb ethnic issue was more about survival than mere democratization. The DSS called for a complete rupture of the socialist approach to ethnic issues as well as the abolition of all socialist-era constitutional and legal acts, proclaiming instead a state continuity with the Kingdom of Serbia, as of before December 1, 1918190. In its II Program the DSS formulated the long-term goal of unifying all Serb-populated territories under more favorable international circumstances191. The DSS’s orientation toward the ethnic majority was balanced in its party program by it’s commitment to ensure education for all minorities in their own languages192.

189 "Deklaracija o ujedinjenju." Velika Srbija 1990 (1); "Nacrt programa Srpskog pokreta obnove." Srpska reč, Belgrade, 1 June 1990, pp. 33-37. The first program of the SPO was adopted on 29 October 1990; the second program adopted on 7 March 1993. http://www.spo.org.rs/file/doc/program-spo-eds.pdf, accessed on 5 September 2011. 190 Demokratska Stranka Srbije. Program i statut. Belgrade: DSS, 1993, p. 3. 191 Demokratska Stranka Srbije. Program i statut Demokratske Stranke Srbije. Belgrade: DSS, June 1994. 192 Demokratska Stranka Srbije. Program Demokratske Stranke Srbije. http://dss3.orion.rs/wp- 73 The second group of Serbia’s mainstream parties consisted of parties with a liberal democratic ideological platform and a moderate approach to ethnic policy issues. These parties either did not prioritize the management of ethnic majority (Serb) issues, or their focus on majority issues became blurred over time, after the critical juncture of the Yugoslav wars was over. These parties were created by anti-communist dissidents and oppositionists in late 1980s and early 1990s, advocating democratization of the country, the introduction of a multi-party system and constitutional guarantees as a way of solving ethnopolitical problems. The most prominent representative of this group of parties is the Democratic Party (DS), the first opposition party founded in November 1989. In its first program documents, the DS advocated liberal democratic reforms in Yugoslavia based on a consensus of all the country’s nations193. More specific suggestions included constitutional provisions for instituting territorial autonomy in ethnically distinct areas, where the populations could organize referendums on autonomy. The program also hinted at provisions for cultural autonomy. In the first phase of its existence, during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, the DS defined its main ethnopolitical program goal as the implementation of the Serbian nation’ right to self- determination and unification; this, however, could not be implemented to the detriment of national minority rights194. The DS committed itself to ensuring the highest standards of national minority rights according to international treaties and standards of Western democracies. As mentioned earlier, divergences on ethnopolitical stances were among the main reasons leading to a split in the DS, resulting in the creation of the DSS on July 22, 1992. The DSS took over the lead in prioritizing the Serb ethnopolitical agenda, whereas ethnopolitical stances in the DS program documents gradually faded away. The latter’s program preserved only generalized commitments to applying the highest standards of minority rights195. A notable exception is the issue of Kosovo, which was related to the state’s constitutional order and hence could not be ignored by any political party in Serbia. The DS’s long-standing moderate stance with regard to ethnic policy issues is further exemplified by the fact that it gave rise to two splinters, both in radical disagreement with the party’s ethnic policies, in diametrically opposite ways. Besides the above mentioned DSS, another split occurred on 5 November 2005 when the party’s liberal democratic faction left the DS and found the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Led by Č.Jovanović, Serbia’s former deputy

content/uploads/downloads/2011/02/04-Program-%E2%80%93-Demokratske-stranke-Srbije.pdf, accessed on 5 September 2011. 193 Demokratska stranka. "Pismo o namerama.” Nove stranke Srbije – dokumenti novih političkih stranaka i grupa u Srbiji. Belgrade: Institut za političke studije, 1990, p. 2; Demokratska Stranka. Program i statut. Belgrade: DS, 1992, p.13. 194 Demokratska Stranka. Program. Belgrade: DS, 1995. 195 Demokratska Stranka. Program Demokratske Stranke. http://www.ds.org.rs/dokumenti/ds-program.pdf, accessed on 5 September 2011. 74 prime minister (2003), the new party advocated a radical rupture with official ethnic policies. Again, and in line with historical institutionalist arguments, a policy reversal attempt resulted in the creation of a new party, instead of generating a shift in the existing party. The LDP based its ethnic policy agenda on the adoption of a set of antidiscriminatory laws aimed at ethnic minority protection196. This party stands out against the rest of Serbian parties, as it was the only to call for the abandonment of “unrealistic” official policies toward Kosovo, going as far as to implicitly demand the recognition of Kosovo’s independence since 2008. The political programs of the “a-national” parties are explicitly citizen-centered, as opposed to the nation-centered programs of the first, “ethnic” group of parties. These parties are explicitly indifferent to state border issues, focusing instead on internal political arrangements of the state, regardless of whether the borders of the constitutional framework are those of Yugoslavia, Serbia-Montenegro, or, in extreme cases, even Serbia without Kosovo (the stance of LDP). The policy program line of these parties emerged out of criticism of the LCS’s (later the SPS’s) ethnic policy agenda during the disintegration of Yugoslavia. This current of political thought united Belgradean intellectuals with liberal democratic views (politically socialized in the anti-regime student demonstrations of 1968) and one part of LCS functionaries opposed to Milošević’s course. Path dependence dynamics dating back to the ideological impact of the socialist-era LCY is evident in this group of parties’ ethnic policy agenda. One part of the party’s nomenclatura, which used to track manifestations of nationalism in socialist Yugoslav society, easily converged with the anti-regime opposition on anti-nationalist grounds. Moreover, its ideals of the primacy of the individual over ethnic groups and its global197 orientation naturally transformed into a pro-European policy orientation over time. Taken together, this ideological stream, also known as the “Other Serbia“, the “democratic alternative” and “civic Serbia”, considered the Serbia’s current borders a sufficient framework for solving the Serb ethnic issue, and put the main accent on Serbia’s democratization. The Association for Yugoslav Democratic Initiative (UJDI), the first legalized pan- Yugoslav opposition group, raised the principle of the primacy of the individual over ethnic collectivities, considering the existing administrative-political borders as sufficient and the only

196 The LDP adopted its principles on 26 December 2006. See “Dogovor za preokret. Izborna platforma Liberalno demokratske partije.” http://www.ldp.rs/kampanja/izborna_platforma_ldp.1318.html; http://www.ldp.rs/upload/documents/2011/Izborna%20platforma%20- %20DOGOVOR%20ZA%20PREOKRET.pdf; “Vojvodina bez granica.” http://www.ldp.rs/o_nama/program/srbija_bez_granica_2008/vojvodina_bez_granica.53.html; accessed on 5 September 2011; 197 The program orientation of these parties is also called “mondialist”. J.Bazić, Srpsko pitanje, Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 1993. 75 possible framework for democratization198. In addition, the party prioritized the country’s opening to the processes of global integration, believing nationalism to be extremely harmful. Nevertheless, in early 1990s, the parties with this kind of ideology did not possess sufficient political power to withstand the waves of ethnic mobilization that hit all Yugoslav republics. The Belgrade branch of the UJDI transformed into the Republican Club that later joined the Civic Alliance of Serbia (GSS). The Alliance of Reform Forces of Yugoslavia (SRSJ) was founded in July 1990 by Ante Marković, the last president of the Federal Executive Assembly of the SFRY. The SRSJ united mainly officials of federal administration and citizens of a-national and liberal democratic views. Although this party disappeared with the fall of Marković’s Government, it left its impact on political life in Vojvodina, where it gave rise to the Vojvodina Reform Party (RSV). In its program the party opposed ethnocentrism and advocated respect for minority individual and group rights, for Vojvodina’s autonomy and for civic political identity199. Ethnic issues were seen as cultural, not political ones. A characteristic stance of this group of parties is their belief that issues concerning cross-border Serbs should not put at risk the democratic development of Serbia and the welfare of its citizens. The GSS, a party of liberal and social democratic orientation, was formed in 1992 out of the merger of the Republican Club and the Reform Party (a successor of the SRSJ). Led by human rights activist Vesna Pešić, the party united public figures, university professors, scholars and artists and gave rise to numerous NGOs. The GSS’s program goals were characterized by opposition to war and nationalism. The GSS blamed the Yugoslav wars on the SPS’s policies and the projects of Serb unification; in the same vein, it opposed national minorities’ plans for territorial autonomy in Vojvodina as leading to separatism. Instead, the party advocated Vojvodina’s constitutional, legislative, executive and judicial autonomy and the status of a European region200. This party’s political impact in the 1990s was limited201, as seen from its electoral results and obstacles posed by the authorities on the party’s functioning. The convergence of the party’s program goals with other parties of this group is shown by their

198 Udruženje za jugoslovensku demokratsku inicijativu. “Manifest." Nove stranke Srbije – dokumenti novih političkih stranaka i grupa u Srbiji. Belgrade: Institut za političke studije, 1990, p. 121-123. 199 "Novi program reformi". Republika, 16-31 March 1991, p. 6-8; “Program reformista – Predlog programa SRSJ u Srbiji." Republika, 1-31 August 1991, p. 16-19. 200 Građanski savez Srbije. "Platforma." Republika, 16-30 June 1992, p. 23; “Predizborna politička platforma." Republika, 1-15 October 1992, p. 16-18; Građanski savez Srbije. “Izborni program." Republika, 16-31 December 1992, p. 16-17; Skupština Građanskog saveza Srbije. “Politička deklaracija." Republika 1-15 April 1996, p. 17-18. 201 In 1993 the GSS participated in the republican elections and gained two mandates within the DEPOS coalition. In 1996, it participated in federal and local elections within the “Zajedno” coalition. In 1997 the party boycotted the republican and presidential elections, along with other opposition parties. 76 participation in electoral coalitions (in 2007 it participated in parliamentary elections along with the LSV and the LDP). In April 2007 the party merged with the LDP. Another party belonging to the civic autonomist group is G17+, a centre-right liberal party founded in December, 2002. Its program included generalized commitments to multicultural values202, completely in line with the above-presented policy attitudes of its predecessors. By far the most elaborated minority policy agenda characterizes the program of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV). Human and minority rights and a commitment to good inter-ethnic relations constitute its pivotal element203. The party built its political identity in civic terms, opposing “aggressive nationalism [...], racism, xenophobia [...]”204. In its political discourse, the LSV derived its legitimacy from the socialist Vojvodinian autonomist tradition of “antifascist struggle”. As early as May 1992 the LSV included the detailed and thoroughly articulated “Thesis on minimal rights of the peoples of Vojvodina in the spheres of media, language and alphabet use, education and culture” in its program guidelines205. The striking continuity of the “thesis” with the standards of minority rights protection enshrined in the 1974 provincial Constitution allows us to interpret the autonomist legacy of the LSV in historical institutionalist terms. Likewise, the redefinition of these standards at a later stage, in new historical circumstances, enables us to consider the transition from Yugoslav one-party socialism to a multi-party system as a critical historical juncture. Defining itself as a party “without a national prefix”, the LSV formulated its political stance toward the “ethnic issue” in Vojvodina. It opposed the changes in the province’s legal status and ethnic structure, which were in the party’s view imposed “from outside Vojvodina”, and instead advocated the redefinition of the concept of interethnic cohabitation, drawing on a centuries-long tradition. The LSV defined Vojvodina as a “community of equal citizens”, rejecting both the concept of “national minority” and the division into representatives of “nations” and “nationalities”. The resolution of Vojvodina’s political status was considered a precondition for ensuring rights to the media, education and culture, as well as for establishing a

202 G17+. “Program.” 28 March 2004, http://www.g17plus.rs/v2/images/stories/dokumenti/program-g17-plus.pdf, accessed on 5 September 2011. 203 E.g., the LSV program drafted for 2008 parliamentary elections starts with a chapter on human and minority rights. See Predizborni program LSV i Koalicije “Zajedno za Vojvodinu – Nenad Čanak”. April 2008. http://www.lsv.org.rs/files/upload/52.pdf, accessed on 5 Semtember 2011. 204 Liga Socijaldemokrata Vojvodine. Program i statut. http://www.lsv.org.rs/files/upload/218.pdf, accessed on 5 Semtember 2011. 205 Liga Socijaldemokrata Vojvodine. May 1992. “Teze o minimalnim pravima naroda Vojvodine u oblasti informisanja, upotrebe jezika i pisma, obrazovanja i kulture.” http://www.lsv- zr.org.rs/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=21:programska-naela&id=46:teze-o- minimalnim-pravima-naroda-vojvodine-u-oblasti-informisanja-upotrebe-jezika-i-pisma-obrazovanja-i- kulture&Itemid=14&lang=cir. Accessed on 5 September 2011. 77 system for formulating and implementing these policies on the provincial level. The “thesis” contained detailed stipulations regarding the spheres of culture, science, relations with kin- states, institutionalized monitoring of the implementation of minority rights, and it specified the inadmissibility of forcefully changing the ethnoterritorial composition. The right to civic and national representation was to be institutionalized in the two-house system of the provincial Assembly. The House of Citizens would be elected according to the proportional system regardless of its deputies’ ethnic or religious affiliation. The Popular Assembly was to be composed of equal numbers of representatives from all the national communities with over 0.5% of Vojvodina’s population. This body would deal with media, education, cultural and other ethnicity-related issues, and would have the right of veto in adopting laws in the said spheres. Minority education standards and detailed rights to language use were evidently inspired by the 1974 Constitution, while the standards of media and publishing in various languages were explicitly related to the “constitutional solutions [applied] in Vojvodina up until 1988”. The historical institutionalist paradigm is supported by the LSV’s case both in terms of the above-mentioned legacy of the 1974 critical juncture and by the stability of the party’s ethnic policy agenda for two decades. In terms of policy enactment, the party’s contribution is evident in policy solutions enshrined in the 2009 Statute of Vojvodina to be analyzed in a section to follow. In advocating the autonomy of Vojvodina, the LSV’s program was closest to those of the province’s ethnic Hungarian parties. As previously mentioned, the introduction of the multi-party system in Serbia in 1990 occurred at the critical juncture marked by the overall ethnification of politics. This critical juncture led the Hungarian national minority in Serbia toward political organization on an ethnic platform. Thus the Democratic Fellowship of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMDK), founded on March 31, 1990, claimed a monopoly on the political representation of Serbia’s Hungarians. The extreme uniformity of the Vojvodina Hungarians’ political preferences206 at the outset of the multi-party system was confirmed by the fact that the VMDK at its outset counted over 24,000 members, whereas the overall Hungarian population in Serbia at that time was around 300,000.

206 In the first republican multiparty elections held on December 9, 1990, the VMDK confirmed its primacy in representing Vojvodina Hungarians by winning 132,726 votes (ca 90% of the votes of ethnic Hungarians living in Serbia) and 8 mandates. The VMDK’s electoral support further increased with the beginning of war in Croatia and Bosnia, reaching its zenith in the elections on December 20, 1992, when the VMDK won 140,825 votes and 9 mandates (7 mandates in the Zrenjanin electoral constituency, and 2 mandates in the Novi Sad constituency). The Hungarian party’s performance was impressive on the federal level as well: in the elections of the Citizens Chamber of the Federal Parliament of Yugoslavia in May, 1992, the VMDK won 106,831 votes and 4 mandates. In the elections of the Federal Parliament in December, 1992, it won 106,036 votes and 3 mandates. 78 As the strongest Hungarian political organization in the region, the VMDK became an unprecedented phenomenon in the whole Carpathian basin, with the Hungarian parties in and lagging far behind. From its very foundation the VMDK set autonomy for the Hungarian population in Serbia as its main program goal, with no salient ideological differences among its members. The main program ideas were laid out in the Memorandum on the Autonomy of Hungarians Living in Serbia207, adopted at the VMDK’s annual session on April 25, 1992 in Kanjiža. The VMDK based its policy agenda on the idea of threefold autonomy: personal (cultural), territorial autonomy and local autonomy for Hungarians living in isolated localities. The institutions of cultural autonomy would be elected by Vojvodina Hungarians on the basis of a separate electoral list. Elected representatives of the Hungarian minority would decide on the most important issues for the Hungarian community, related to Hungarian-language education, official language use, media and culture. These institutions would assume from the state the founding rights over Hungarian cultural, educational and media institutions. In addition, the VMDK’s concept of territorial autonomy foresaw the creation of the Hungarian Autonomous Region in the territory of the Ada, Bečej, , Čoka, Kanjiža, Mali Iđoš, Subotica and Bačka Topola municipalities, all populated by Hungarian majorities; adjacent municipalities with a significant share of Hungarian population could join it as well. The third pillar of autonomy would be constituted by Hungarian minority self-government aimed at protecting the rights of Hungarians living in isolated localities with a Hungarian majority. The leadership of the VMDK ascribed the party’s success to the protective function the party performed during the wars that accompanied the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. By giving its electoral support to the VMDK, the Hungarian population signaled it’s acceptance of the concept of autonomy suggested by the party as a “survival strategy” for the Hungarian national community during the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia. Throughout the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina the external threat, posed by the SPS regime, homogenized Hungarian political forces, keeping the party together in their anti- war stance and opposition to the regime.

207 For concepts of autonomy developed by the VMSZ see Ágoston, András. Válogatás a Vajdasági Magyar Demokrata Párt dokumentaiból 2000-2005, Temerin: VMDK, 2000. For details of Hungarian autonomy in Serbia in the global context of concepts of minority autonomy concepts applied across the world see Bozóki, Antal. Autonómiák: elemzések, kommentárok, dokumentumok. 1. és 2. köt., Újvidék: Forum-Dolgozók, 2001; 2002. For the concept of autonomy of the VMDK in the later period, see Páll, Sándor, Globalizacija i manjine, paper presented at the conference “Multikulturalizam – pokretač i kočnica preduzetništva.” Bečej, April 26, 2007, http://www.vmdk.org.yu/content/HU/vmdk168.html, accessed on 5 September 2011. For the most recent joint concept of autonomy of the Hungarian Coalition see A Magyar Koalíció autonómiakoncepciója. http://www.vmsz.org.rs/article.php?lg=hu&id_article=4613, accessed on 5 September 2011. 79 With the disappearance of the external threat as the wars in Croatia and Bosnia came to an end, the party split along the lines of diverging attitudes towards conditions and forms of cooperation with nation-wide political forces, towards the degree of priority given to the program goal of autonomy, as well as due to diverging personal interests and inter-party clashes. The Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ), founded on July 17, 1994, became the second Hungarian party in Serbia. In 1996, another split occurred when the leadership of the party was taken over by S.Páll. A third Hungarian party was founded by András Ágoston, the Democratic Party of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMDP). Having gained the upper hand over the VMDK in the 1996 parliamentary and local elections, the VMSZ has permanently garnered support of a considerable part of the Vojvodina Hungarian community and has taken over the role of the leading Hungarian political party in Vojvodina208. In its policy agenda the VMDP reiterated the stipulations of the 1992 Concept of Autonomy regarding cultural autonomy. The VMSZ, in turn, developed its own concept of autonomy in 1996, which was generally in line with the former. The concept of threefold autonomy remained the goal of the VMSZ, reconfirmed by the draft agreement on the foundations of cultural autonomy of Vojvodina Hungarians adopted in September, 1996. According to the document, autonomy implied absolute equality of languages and cultures in Vojvodina, cultural and territorial autonomy, and was aimed at the enhancement of rights to identity, language and education. The draft advocated a multicultural autonomous Vojvodina, and did not foresee the creation of a separate minority electoral list, while cultural autonomy would be implemented by five assemblies (for political, educational, media, cultural and scientific matters). Another concept was published by the party in 1997. According to this concept, instead of five assemblies, issues of Hungarian identity would be managed by the Hungarian National Council. The Concept of Autonomy foresaw the creation of a Hungarian self-governing district (territorial autonomy). On this point the VMSZ and the VMDK converged. The VMSZ advocated extensive autonomy for Vojvodina that foresaw a principle of proportional representation of national minorities in provincial institutions.

208 At the 1996 elections for the Citizens’ Chamber of the Federal Parliament, the VMSZ won 81,311 votes and 3 mandates. The VMDK led by Pall won 46809 votes and failed to pass the . Since then, with representation in elected bodies at all levels (from federal to local), the VMSZ established itself undisputedly as the largest and the most influential Hungarian party in Vojvodina. During the first decade of its existence, the VMSZ built a considerable network of political activity, establishing over 110 branches in local municipalities across Vojvodina, present with its developed institutional network all over areas populated by Hungarians. The party had a tangible influence on political developments in the Province, present both in the provincial Assembly and in the Executive Council. On the national level, with the number of its parliamentarians corresponding to the share of Hungarians in the total population of Serbia, the VMSZ was in a position to play a significant role in the Parliament, in certain situations determinant in ensuring the necessary number of votes for law drafts. 80 On the eve of local, provincial and parliamentary elections of May 11, 2008, aspiring to preserve their electorate which was being increasingly taken over by the Serbian nation-wide parties, the major Hungarian political parties, VMSZ, VMDK and VMSZ, undertook an attempt to homogenize the Hungarian political arena in Vojvodina by forming a coalition. The joint Concept of Hungarian Autonomy, drafted before the 2008 parliamentary elections, was accepted by four Hungarian parties, the fourth being the Civic Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (based in Senta and led by L.Szabó). The Hungarian Coalition’s program again confirms the historical institutionalist assumptions on the path dependence of political parties’ policy agenda. Interview data obtained in the course of the present PhD research show that the leaders of the three biggest Vojvodina Hungarian parties (VMSZ, VMDP, and VMDK) do not manifest differences in political ideology in their political discourse. All of them were conceived as classical ethnic parties, with membership cutting along ethnic lines and across ideological differences209. All three claim continuity and succession to the first and oldest party, the VMDK. The continuity of all Hungarian parties with the VMDK’s policy agenda is in line with historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions with regard to the stability of party ethnic policy agendas over time: once set along a particular path by a critical junctural event or series of events, political parties tend to keep to their initial policy agenda. In addition, a considerable degree of stability can be observed in the alliance structure of the Vojvodina Hungarian parties, as well as in the electoral preferences of the ethnic Hungarian electorate over the two decades. Thus, from the very introduction of the multi-party system, the VMDK was in opposition to the SPS and collaborated with parties of the democratic opposition (DS). On the eve of the 2000 elections, the Hungarian political parties, already split, found themselves within the DOS (an anti-Milošević coalition). In subsequent parliamentary elections, the Hungarian parties ran in coalitions with nation-wide parties that emerged from the democratic opposition of the 1990s. On December 28, 2003, the VMSZ ran for the parliamentary elections along with N.Čanak (LSV) and R.Ljajić (the Sandžak Democratic Party) in the coalition “Together for Tolerance” that won just 161,765 votes (4.2%)210. Hungarian voters’ electoral behavior patterns could be summarized as oscillating between the appeals of nation-wide civic parties and ethnic Hungarian parties. Over the two decades, the

209 The Hungarian community in Vojvodina does not manifest significant ideological cleavages since the society has not yet produced various and distinct political streams..But in its general political disposition it gravitates towards the right, as a leftist or social democratic orientation is too strongly associated with the communist period and generally distrusted in the Carpathian basin (Interview with J.László, deputy president of the VMSZ, August, 2009). 210 The results of the local, provincial, parliamentary and presidential elections are quoted from the sources of the Republican Election Commission of the Republic of Serbia. See Dokumenti Republičke Izborne Komisije. Rezultati izbora, http://www.rik.parlament.gov.rs/cirilica/propisi/Rezultati.htm , accessed on 1 May 2010. 81 Hungarian community in Serbia manifested a high degree of homogenization in its political preferences in two dimensions: allegiance to ethnic Hungarian parties and support for nation- wide political forces that adhere to a civic concept of the Serbian state (DS, LSV, G17+). Both dimensions reveal the salience and the persistence of ethnic cleavage between parties from the very outset of the multi-party system, when Vojvodina Hungarians mobilized themselves politically on the basis of ethnicity. Speaking in historical institutionalist terms, the main theme around which ethnicity was politicized at the critical historical juncture of the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia was the feeling of existential danger provoked by the drastic re- orientation of ruling elites of constituent republics, including Serbia, towards the concept of an ethnic majority-based nation-state. The ethnicity-related cleavage, reflected in party policy agendas at the outset of the multi-party system, persisted over the two decades. Ethnic Hungarian parties in particular demonstrated path dependence in their policy agenda. Despite continuous splits and subsequent unification in an electoral coalition, the Hungarian parties did not differ in terms of policy agenda: the concept of Hungarian autonomy remained at the core of the political programs of all Vojvodina Hungarian parties from the introduction of multi-party system in Serbia to this writing. Many of the strategic and tactical moves of Vojvodina Hungarian politicians over time can be considered to be in line with rational choice assumptions on the utility-maximizing, vote- and office-seeking nature of political parties211. Most notably, the VMSZ concentrated its political influence in northern Bačka, populated by a Hungarian majority, where the party could count on substantial electoral success212. Albeit the instrumental nature of the party policy agenda with regard to office-seeking goals, it nevertheless does not contradict the historical institutionalist assumption of path dependency of party policy agendas. The program guidelines of the Vojvodina Hungarian parties remained unaltered for two decades.

211 A difference between office-oriented and policy-oriented leanings can be traced in VMSZ and VMDP leaders’ approaches, respectively. For example on October 5, 2000, as a result of the row between Kasza and Ágoston, as well as the DOS’s refusal to accept the VMSZ’s claim to autonomy in the joint program, Ágoston’s VMDP withdrew from the DOS and did not run for the elections, while the VMSZ remained in the coalition. 212 In the second half of the 1990s, a “sinecural” consolidation in the VMSZ took place, implying a political compromise and power territorialization which fits the notion of “office-oriented” politics. The center of power distribution shifted to North Vojvodina, with Subotica becoming the strategic center of Vojvodina Hungarians. Notably, the concentration of power in North Bačka municipalities could be a result of a tacit agreement between the VMSZ and the ruling SPS with regard to the distribution of offices on the republican level. The “cesaristic” system of government meant that the VMSZ was increasingly losing sight of the Hungarian community living outside Subotica and of the every-day problems of Hungarians outside North Bačka. There, due to demographic weakness, Hungarian schools and radio stations were closing, accompanied by decreasing interest and funds for employing people able to teach in Hungarian schools and work in the Hungarian-language media. I owe the terms of “sinecuristic” and “cesaristic” policies to Ana Dević (University of Glasgow) who considers that the “sinecuristic” and “cesaristic” policy of Hungarian ethnic parties did not emerge isolated from the context, but as a result of a tacit “deal” between the VMSZ and the ruling SPS, and as a reaction to Milošević’s ethnocentric policies. 82 To conclude the analysis of Serbian party programs, we may note that changes did occur in parties’ ethnic policy agendas. However, such changes can be seen as exceptions to the general rule, which is the path dependency of party ethnic policy agendas over time. Drastic changes in program policy agendas, as a rule, would result in party splits and/or the emergence of new parties rather than policy reversals by the original parties. The two biggest instances of party policy reversal – the SPS after Milošević and the SRS-SNS rift – occurred when the leaders of the respective parties were extradited to the ICTY, which seemed to open space for party policy changes. However, the change affected only the SPS, whose leader died in the Hague. In the case of the SRS, a new party with a more moderate policy agenda was created while the ethnic policy agenda of the most hardcore party remained unaltered. The persistence of fundamental ethnicity-related cleavage within party systems lends support to theoretical assumptions of historical institutionalism in the area of ethnic policies. Changes in the policy paths of individual parties under the impact of various historical junctures were not sufficient to reverse the path dependent ethnic cleavage within the overall party system, due to the very simple fact that the cleavage was supra-party in nature. As the analysis has shown, particular policy paths are supported by more than one party, which facilitates party membership and ideational spillovers between parties of similar ideational backgrounds. This explains why changes in individual policy stances and political tactics do not result in changes in the ethnic cleavage structure. Party splits and mergers, accompanied by the socializational potential of path-dependent public discourse, may enable the perpetuation of contrasting policy agendas both within and across the frameworks of single political parties.

3.1.2. The intra-party structure of ethnic minority policy formulation

The interview data collected for the present dissertation showed that major nation-wide parties with headquarters in Belgrade have a poorly developed intra-party policy formulation framework for the ethnic minority policy area, which results in a generally passive role in shaping ethnic minority policy. The most commonly-used elements of minority strategy, mentioned by the interviewed chairs of the Vojvodina offices of nation-wide parties, were limited to putting candidates from minority communities213 on electoral lists and printing leaflets in minority languages.

213 According to the Serbian electoral system, voters choose parties, not concrete candidates. The party has the discretion to distribute the won mandates among its deputies according to its internal rules, regardless of the geographic distribution of its electoral support. 83 Since the introduction of a multi-party system in Serbia individual Hungarian and other minority deputies have been elected from all parties across the party system, from the DS to the SRS214. Still, in most cases minority representation is not supported by a strong intra-party institutional framework for dealing with ethnic minority policy issues. Respondents of all nation-wide parties do not consider ethnic minority policy formulation the function of a mainstream party. This explains why ethnic Hungarian parties remained the main actors of minority-related policies in Serbia. Indeed, the practice showed that changes to minority-related legislation were initiated by ethnic parties. Only a few nation-wide parties had institutional frameworks for formulating ethnic minority policies on an intra-party level. The Statute of the DS established a council for national minority issues, composed of a chairman and at least 5 representatives of national minorities. The council is entitled to prepare program documents and law drafts on the status of national minorities and on issues related to the enhancement of national minority rights according to the European standards; it can also organize round tables and other activities aimed at collaborating with minorities and their kin states. However, the impact of this intra-party body on the DS’s overall policies has been limited215. Furthermore, the DS’s Belgrade headquarters proved to have no coherent minority strategy, as it was responding ad hoc to different situations on the ground, reacting to signals coming from different municipalities. Nor did the party manifest coherency in its overall political strategy, as it is affected by internal splits (between the President, the party apparatus and the provincial branch) since Zoran Đinđić’s assassination216. The DS’s branch in Vojvodina, led by Bojan Pajtić, has proven to be more skillful than the party’s headquarters in Belgrade in this regard. The Vojvodina branch instituted a practice of proactively dealing with inter-ethnic incidents, convening the party’s security committee and analyzing events in detail. According to the DS respondent217 interviewed, although it is impossible for a political party to engage in a process of evaluating a minority’s situation, the

214 In the Parliament of 2008 convocation there were 3 DS deputies of Hungarian background from Ada, Senta, and Klek (out of a total of 64 DS deputies) and 1 Hungarian deputy from the SRS. See http://www.parlament.gov.rs/content/cir/sastav/stranke_detalji.asp?id=146, accessed on 5 September 2011. 215 Pavlović, Dušan. 2007. “Unutrašnja demokratija u političkim strankama Srbije u periodu 2000-2006. godine.” Sociološki pregled 31(1): 123-141. 216 The most apparent manifestation of this split was the election of the prime minister in 2008, when all 9 members of the party’s presidency proposed B.Pajtić, the president of the . The President of Serbia B.Tadić was against Pajtić, disposed in favor of V.Jeremić. As a compromise solution, M.Cvetković was nominated. Some authors, such as V.Ilić, seem to support rational choice assumptions, considering the DS’s interest in staying in power an important circumstance that allows it to function as a party. 217 Interview with M.Gagić, chairman of the Executive Board of the Council of the Province of Vojvodina of the Democratic Party, August 14, 2009. 84 party is in a position to enhance minority rights principles through the institutions it controls, namely the Executive Council of the Province, and the committee for education, science, culture and sport. Thus the DS sees its contribution as expanding the Hungarian-language school network in Vojvodina. By advocating the introduction of the principle of representation of all the major national communities of Vojvodina in the provincial Assembly, the DS implemented this principle with regard to the list of its own deputies at the provincial Assembly in the 2008 mandate. The Vojvodina-based regionalist party LSV has a particularly elaborated intra-party framework for dealing with ethnic minority policies. The party’s minority policies can thus be defined as proactive. The party managed to reflect the ethnic composition of Vojvodina in the party’s membership. Article 52 of the LSV’s statute established the intra-party Committee for Human and Minority Rights. As of this writing, the committee was chaired by Marko Karadžić, secretary of the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights of Serbia. This committee defines party policies on minority issues. Furthermore, the LSV explicitly manifested its intention to participate in national council elections of national minorities218. Members of minority communities represent the LSV in the national Parliament (in 2009, there were , a Ruthenian, member of the parliamentary committee for minority issues and inter-ethnic relations, and Daniel Petrović, president of the Romanian National Council and the coordinator of national councils in Vojvodina and a member of the republican Strategic Team for joining the EU). Another sign of the LSV’s proactive minority policies was a campaign to present the newly-adopted Law on National Councils of National Minorities to every national community, organized in the autumn of 2009. During the campaign the LSV reiterated its orientation toward civic-minded citizens (as opposed to prioritizing ethnic mobilization) and its conviction of the superiority of a political approach cutting across ethno-national cleavages over that of politicized ethnicity, advocated by ethnic minority parties. Another party characterized by a proactive approach to minority policies is G17+. While it does not have any special intra-party institutional mechanisms for policy formulation, the party was engaged in regular activities aimed at promoting multilingual practice in the public sphere. G17+ proved it could implement a workable minority-oriented strategy, as it was able to control two municipalities with a relative Slovak majority (Bački Petrovac and Kovačica) after the 2008 elections. It should be noted that all the nation-wide parties tend to stress their affirmative attitude towards national minorities, reflected in the number of party members belonging to national minorities. This applies not only to the above-mentioned parties of the liberal democratic

218 Interview with A.Jerkov, spokeswoman of the LSV, November 2009. 85 tradition, but also to parties that manifest explicit leanings toward ethnic mobilization in their programs (SRS and SNS). Thus the SRS respondent emphasized the practice of minority activists speaking at the party’s rallies. Still, the minority policies of the SRS proved to be rather reactive, albeit marked by cooperation with the Hungarian political representatives. During the period of the SRS rule in Novi Sad in 2004-2008, the city council for inter-ethnic relations was established. On the SRS’s proposal a member of the VMSZ, L.Galambos, was elected deputy president of the council. During the SRS mandate the council met just a few times, reacting to various requests of minority communities (e.g., a request by the Hungarian community to rename a street in honor of Hunyadi János), as no further need to convene the council was seen. Communication with national councils of national minorities was based on reactive principles as well. In the subsequent period as an opposition party, the SRS has tended to qualify its (potential) minority strategy with promises of obtaining power and by showing in practice how national minorities could benefit by cooperating with the SRS in Vojvodina219. In this context, it should be noted that in the said period, the SRS exploited its role as an opposition party, benefiting from the “fault-finder”opposition stance that does not entail responsibility for policies, but consistently avoiding political tactics that could actually help it get to power and replace the criticized government. In its role of opposition party, the SRS has tended to shift to the ruling DS the overall responsibility for a lack of political will on behalf of nation-wide parties in promoting minority rights and other problems of daily life that affect minority and majority communities. The intra-party opportunities for minority policy formulation should be seen in the wider context of minority policy formulation and enactment. The interview data collected for the present dissertation shows that the primary contribution to elaborating ethnic minority legislation was given by the ethnic Hungarian party, VMSZ. In the process of formulating legislative changes, the VMSZ’s nation-wide allies (DS, LSV, G17+) participated on a relatively more passive basis, but were crucial in the enactment of key policy changes, i.e. during final voting in parliament on the Law on National Councils of National Minorities and on the Statute of Autonomy of Vojvodina. According to testimony by Laszlo Józsa, deputy chair of the VMSZ220, the elite of Serbian parties proved to be liberal as far as establishing the legal foundations for the protection of minority rights. The VMSZ faced no substantial resistance in the processes of writing the

219 Interview with Đ.Jakšić, president of the city committee of Novi Sad of the SRS, August 29, 2009. 220 Interview with L.Józsa, chair of the Hungarian National Council in Serbia, vicepresident of Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, August 28, 2009. 86 Constitution (adopted in 2006), where the foundations of national minority rights protection were established. The Hungarian political elite, the VMSZ and the Hungarian National Council authored the principles proposed for the Constitution, and the entire DOS leadership manifested the political will to cooperate. The VMSZ faced no opposition from major nation-wide parties in the process of developing the constitutional principles that stipulate minorities’ extensive rights to autonomy. Obstacles did emerge in the process of elaborating the practical legislative stipulations that would enable the implementation of the constitutional principles. At the beginning of Koštunica’s first DSS Government (2004) there was a sharp slowdown in the pace of enacting more detailed legislative changes, i.e., directing the development of the legal system toward the implementation of principles foreseen by the Constitution. According to the VMSZ leadership, during Koštunica’s (DSS) governments the ruling parties manifested a lack of political will to pass the Law on National Councils of National Minorities, to define the councils’ competences and to enshrine them in the legislation. This lack of political will, according to the VMSZ respondent, was rooted in “suspicions towards minority communities”, i.e. in the contradiction between the VMSZ’s policy agenda and that of the DSS. Thus both Koštunica governments (2004-2007, 2007-2008) were passive with regard to improving the legislative basis and the practice of enhancing minority rights. The adoption of the Law on National Councils became possible in 2009 with the support of the DS-led coalition during the final voting in parliament. The second half of 2009 marked a watershed in the Hungarian political community’s cooperation with nation-wide parties, which resulted in the adoption of the Law on National Councils of National Minorities. The law gave “hitherto unseen prospects for the preservation of national minority communities”, and represented “a maturity test” for the Serbian political elite, as it credited minority communities with political subjectivity and the right to cultural autonomy, a huge step ahead compared to the previous policy regime. The adoption of the law came as a result of an intense political dialogue between the ethnic Hungarian party and mainstream Serbian parties, mainly the DS and the LSV. Notably, the law was treated as Serbia’s domestic question. The VMSZ saw no need to engage foreign states or international organizations. The party managed to achieve a fundamental policy change with “the democratic part of the Serbian political elite” without resorting to internationalizing the Hungarian situation in Serbia. The Law on National Councils is only the first step to improving the legislative basis of minority issues, as it introduces new competences which are not reflected in other laws. As of this writing the education laws still need to be harmonized with it. The Law on Culture was brought into conformity with the Law on National Councils (August 31, 2009). The

87 enhancement of minority rights was included in the amended Law on Public Media (August 31, 2009). The sphere of official use of languages in 2009 was regulated both on the republican and provincial levels, but on both levels these regulations needed to be not only mutually harmonized, but also brought into conformity with the VMSZ’s Concept of Autonomy. Ethnic policy-related cleavage is manifest in the attitudes of mainstream parties toward the adoption of the Law of National Councils of National Minorities. On the one hand, delays in enacting this fundamental policy change were caused by the opposition of the DSS, SNS and SRS. These parties, called by the VMSZ respondent an “immature part of the political elite”, voted against the adoption of the law due to its “anti- constitutional” stipulations. According to the VMSZ221, the Law on National Councils set a modern precedent in Serbia characterized by “medieval thinking” in the sphere of minority rights, as most Serbian parties have a very superficial idea of the situation in this sphere and the real implications of the proposed legislative changes. The concept of minority autonomy is problematic for the unitarist centralist mindset, because it implies the state’s readiness to transfer one part of its competences to national minorities in order to vest them with decision- making power in the respective spheres. On the other hand, the adoption of the law was made possible by the support of another group of Serbian parties, characterized by a more liberal view of the enhancement of national minorities’ rights. This characteristic applies to one particular part of the DS, led by minister of human and minority rights Svetozar Čiplić. Political parties’ actual contributions to policy changes in the area of minority cultural autonomy reveals that the intra-party structure of minority policy formulation correlates with the cleavage in policy attitudes between Serbian political parties, identified in the respective section. It is notable that the the Vojvodina regionalist party LSV has the most developed intra-party ethnic policy formulation framework, which correlates to the party’s thoroughly elaborated ethnic policy agenda. Serbian nation-wide parties either do not have an intra-party framework for dealing with ethnic minority policy issues, or these frameworks have marginal importance. The contribution of nation-wide parties allied with the VMSZ (DS, LSV, G17+) to ethnic minority policy enactment is reflected in their support for legislative amendments during voting in parliament. Parties of the opposite side of ethnic cleavage (SRS, SNS, DSS), on the contrary, did not participate in drafting legislation on ethnic minority autonomy and opposed the legislation elaborated by the DS and the VMSZ. On both sides of the cleavage, when the present research was conducted, intra-party frameworks of ethnic minority policy formulation correlated

221 Interview with L.Józsa, chair of the Hungarian National Council in Serbia, and Vice president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, August 28, 2009. 88 with initial party program goals, which were found to be largely fixed over the two decades. This aspect also lends support to historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions on the relative stability of party policy attitudes and practices over time.

3.1.3. The ethnic aspect of parties’ ideational dimension

The ideational dimension of political parties denotes informal ethnicity-related values, enduring beliefs, normative orientations and attitudinal culture, as well as policy legacies, codes of appropriate behavior in particular policy areas, conventional relationships and routines based on a party’s internal cultural tradition. Ethnicity-related values, or “ethnic credentials” exhibited by various political parties on ethnicity-related issues are an important indicator of ethnicity- related cleavages dividing political parties and can have important implications for ethnic minority policies pursued by political parties. In this chapter the ethnic aspect of the ideational dimension of Serbia’s nation-wide political parties is analyzed on the basis of primary data, obtained for the present dissertation through interviews with spokesmen and chairs of the Vojvodina offices of nation-wide parties and the leaders of ethnic Hungarian parties. The ethnic aspect of parties’ ideational values is analyzed from two perspectives, reflected in two respective issues addressed in the questionnaire: Serbia’s ethnic minority policies and the ethnic dimension of Vojvodina’s autonomy. The interview data reveals a fundamental cleavage along the lines of ethno-national versus civic orientation as a part of parties’ ideational dimension. Thus ethnicity constitutes a core ideational value of one group of Serbian nation-wide parties. These parties’ policy agenda is centered on the concept of nation-state defined in ethnic terms. Based on the interview data, the following parties belong to this group: SRS, SNS, DSS and SPO. These parties declare their inclusivity of citizens belonging to national minorities and openness toward cooperating with ethnic minority parties. In spite of this, these parties manifest an explicit orientation toward the ethnic Serb majority and define their electoral and policy target group in ethnic terms222. Thus, the SPO defines itself as an ethnic majority party: “The SPO is first of all a national, i.e., Serb party, as the very name of the party shows”. The party’s spokesman stresses conviction “based on experience” that the best way to represent a national community is to organize into an “indigenous” party, instead of engaging minorities in the work of nation-wide parties: “Minority communities are not our target group, when it comes to our political

222 Electoral results show that these parties have extremely limited support among minority voters. 89 activities, campaigning etc. First of all, we rely on Serb votes, but, surely we have a certain number of members belonging to national communities, including Hungarians” (Starović, SPO)223. Alongside the concept of ethnic majority, the notion of state is a key ideational value for the DSS, SRS and SNS. These parties stress their commitment to the constitutional and legal principles of the state as a condition for building coalitions with other political parties. Such rhetoric, moderate and not ethnically colored, is also typical for the DSS and draws it somewhat close to the discourse of the SRS. In stressing its inclusivity in terms of ethnicity, substantiated by the presence of national minorities’ representatives in the party’s ranks as well as a symbolic degree of electoral support from national minorities, the SRS combines ethnic and civic nationalism in its rhetoric: “The Serbian Radical Party is the only true, intrinsically national option in the political firmament of Serbia. However, certainly, it does not mean that the SRS is exclusive in terms of ethnicity, i.e., vis-à-vis other ethnic groups or minority communities that live here, on the territory of the Republic of Serbia. On the contrary, the SRS is very proud of having a great number of functionaries that do not belong to the Serbian nation. In this way, representatives of almost all ethnic communities on the territory of Serbia became members of the SRS and occupied positions in it. So, over the 20 years of our existence we had representatives of the Hungarian, Romanian, Ruthenian, Roma and other nations. We are very proud of the fact that when the SRS was part of the Government in 1998-1999, the first Roma minister was actually a candidate of the SRS, Mr. Jovan Damjanović. The SRS keeps the doors wide open for representative of all peoples that live on the territory of the Republic of Serbia, all peoples that bear the state of Serbia in their heart and that consider it as their state” (Jakšić, SRS)224. Critics of the minority cooptation approach argue that minority representatives in the ranks of majority “nationalist” parties are not representative of their respective national communities and their policy interests: “It was the official politics of the state: they [the SPS and the SRS] used to find such Hungarians or representatives of other nations, and use them as a showcase” (Radovanović, LSV)225. More importantly, minority representation by the SRS and the SPS did not result in any proposals for liberalizing changes in the minority-related legislation. The SRS’s political discourse and “ethnic credentials” are shaped in explicitly ethnic primordialist terms, correlating with the party’s policy agenda set out in its programs:

223 Interview with N.Starović, vicepresident of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Renewal Movement and spokesman of the party, August 14, 2009. 224 Interview with Đ.Jakšić, president of the city committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Radical Party, August 29, 2009. 225 Interview with R.Radovanović, member of the Parliament of Serbia, working group for national councils of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, November 2, 2009. 90 “The SRS is conservative. We are proud of our nationalism. To be a nationalist doesn’t mean anything derogatory. To be a nationalist means something most beautiful: to love your country. We are not chauvinists – we do not hate. We only love what is ours. We only promote what is ours. I think that every Frenchman is proud of being French, that every German is proud of being German, and that you as a Lithuanian are proud of being Lithuanian and do not miss any occasion to stress it”. (Jakšić, SRS). The concept of Greater Serbia appears as a core value, discursive motive and normative orientation of the SRS: “[The concept of Greater Serbia relies on] the well-known borders Karlobag-Ogulin- Karlovac-Virovitica. Dr. V.Šešelj once said in The Hague that the raison d’être of the SRS is the fight for Greater Serbia. Surely, at the present moment these goals are unachievable, but it is the dream of every Serb radical to unite all the territories of ex-Yugoslavia populated by a Serb majority into a single state: the territory of the ex-Republic of Serb Krajina, the territory of the Republic of Srpska, the territory of today’s, unfortunately, independent Republic of Montenegro” (Jakšić, SRS). The SRS’s splinter SNS, although having dropped its commitment to the Greater Serbia project in its program guidelines, still manifests ideational succession to the SRS, tending to stress respect for the Serbian legal system as the duty of minorities in exchange for respect of their rights: “We have such a party program that, surely, all the minorities are entitled to have their rights guaranteed, but their behavior should be in line with the Constitution and laws of this country, Serbia. Take , for example – the issue of Szentendre. There are Serbs over there. But Serbs in Hungary are not enjoying the same rights as Hungarians do here” (Raković, SNS)226. A cleavage between the two blocks, “ethnic” and “civic”, becomes evident when it comes to legislative solutions that would equate the majority nation, Serbs, with minority national communities. Thus, the DSS opposed the creation of the Serb national council that was considered during the debates on the Statute of Autonomy of Vojvodina, that would have granted Serbs “de facto minority rights” (Ćirović, DSS)227. On the opposite side of the ethnicity-related cleavage, political parties with a civic orientation (DS, G17+, LSV, LDP) distance themselves from any kind of ethnically-defined rhetoric and frame their ideational values, policy agenda and party membership in civic terms.

226 Interview with Đ.Raković, Serbian Progressive Party, Novi Sad, August 22, 2009. 227 Interview with P.Ćirović, deputy president of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Democratic Party of Serbia, November 3, 2009. 91 These parties’ ethnic credentials (or “cognitive shortcuts”, in terms of relational theory) cut across ethnic lines. A civically-framed approach helped the biggest party in this group, the ruling Democratic Party, to build its political identity on the ideational values of overcoming the legacy of the 1990s, combined with a commitment to the process of European integration. Here path dependency in terms of policy legacy speaks in favor of historical institutionalist assumptions with regard to parties’ ideational dimension. Parties with a Vojvodinian autonomist and regionalist orientation (the main one being the LSV, the only regionalist party in Vojvodina with a significant presence in the provincial Assembly and national Parliament) are particularly characteristic of a cross-cutting approach to ethnicity. Thus the LSV and the G17+ do not single out any particular nation in their policies. Avoiding the very term “national minority”, they prefer instead that of “national community”. Unlike the parties belonging to the first group analyzed, their ideational discourse is not shaped in terms of juxtaposing the ethnic majority to minorities. The LSV and G17+ frame their political concepts in civic terms, appealing to people with multiethnic backgrounds or those who come from multiethnic environments and prefer a civically (G17+) and regionally (LSV) defined dimension of political identity over ethno-national or state-centered definitions: “G17+ is a civic party. A classic pro-European party that is not prone to compromises. Accordingly, it implies the insistence on Serbia as a country of its citizens. And I think it is a fine framework and a fine environment for everyone who is not obsessed with nation or other vestiges of the past, to join the G17+” (Pribić, G17+)228. As proof of the success of this civic and pro-European strategy, the party quotes its exceptional success at the 2008 local elections in the Ada municipality populated by 90% Hungarian majority and in the Slovak-populated municipality of Bački Petrovac. The existence of political parties and civic orientations that cut across ethnic affiliations and are based on other ideological or interest cleavages proved to be of huge importance for the political organization of the Vojvodina Hungarians. These parties were consistently prioritized as allies by Vojvodina Hungarian political parties and supported by the ethnic Hungarian electorate. The assessment of the current extent to which national minority rights have been enhanced in Serbia can be considered another example of uncertainty-reducing cognitive shortcuts exhibited by the parties, in line with the relational theory. The distribution of parties according to these assessments apparently correlates with the position the respective parties on the

228 Interview with D.Pribić, president of the Youth Network of Vojvodina of the G17 Plus party, member of the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina, November 3, 2009. 92 “national – civic” scale. The assessments range from “satisfactory” (G17+)229, “good” (DS)230, “significantly improved” (SPO)231, “highest” (DSS, SRS)232 to “highest, turning into majority- oppressive” (SNS)233. The respondents from the ethnic majority-oriented parties (explicitly SRS, SNS, and, more moderately, DSS) tend to define Serbia as an exemplary democracy when it comes to national minority rights. The existence of networks of educational and cultural institutions and media in minority languages is quoted as proof of this statement. While stressing their support for the existing framework of minority rights protection, only in particular cases are minority rights defined as inconvenient for the majority. For example the representative of the SNS deplored the requirement for members of the majority nation to know a minority language in order to be employed in public administration in areas dominated by the Serb majority, as well as the practice of official public use of minority languages in areas where the numerical strength of the respective minority is below 100. Such “concessions to minorities” are defined by the SNS respondent as majority-discriminatory and not justified by current positive inter-ethnic relations. The idealistic view of the actual minority situation is accompanied by a passive, at times suspicious approach to concrete acts of promoting minority rights (e.g., abolishing the electoral threshold for parties of national minorities) and by a general unawareness of the most relevant points of the debate related to the enhancement of minority rights in Serbia. In particular, this regards the discrepancy between the rights entailed in the legislation and their actual implementation. Moreover, the majority-oriented parties (SRS, SNS and DSS) tend to have a static vision of the minority rights situation, often being rather unaware of differences in minority rights implementation in the 1990s and in the subsequent era. In fact, Serbia recognizes extensive rights to national minorities, but a key problem is the under-implementation of these rights in practice. Accordingly, the challenge lays in bringing the practice into agreement with the legislation234. The drastic differences in how the interviewed representatives of nation-wise parties evaluated the minority situation in the 1990s and during the post-Milošević era allow us to

229 Interview with Dane Pribić, president of the Youth Network of Vojvodina of the G17 Plus party, member of the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina, November 3, 2009. 230 Interview with M.Gagić, chairman of the Executive Board of the Council of the Province of Vojvodina of the Democratic Party, August 14, 2009. 231 Interview with Nemanja Starović, vicepresident of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Renewal Movement and spokesman of the party, August 14, 2009. 232 Interviews with Petar Ćirović, deputy president of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Democratic Party of Serbia, November 3, 2009;.Đurađ Jakšić, president of the city committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Radical Party, August 29, 2009. 233 Interview with Đorđe Raković, Serbian Progressive Party, Novi Sad, August 22, 2009. 234 Interview with P.Teofilović, provincial ombudsman, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, August 19, 2009. 93 divide these parties into two groups, based on their contrasting perceptions of the minority rights situation. Respondents of the DSS, SNS and SRS stress that even during the Milošević period national minorities had all the possibilities to implement their rights. In contrast, all respondents from the “civic” bloc and the Hungarian parties point out drastic differences between the two periods. This difference in perceptions has three implications for policy: – the majority-oriented parties’ more cursory acquaintance with the concrete problems of minority communities in the 1990s (an increasing gap between the legislative basis for minority rights and their implementation) confirms these parties’ lack of policy expertise in the area of ethnic minority policies; – a static and at times idealized view of the actual minority-related legislation and practice reveals the absence of common ground for a policy-oriented dialogue with the leadership of the Hungarian Coalition, which considers the minority issue in Serbia “unresolved”; – accordingly, compatible visions of the situation by Hungarian and nation-wide parties with a “civic” orientation creates the basis for policy-oriented convergence. The lack of political will on the part of nation-wide parties of the first group to adopt relevant minority-related laws (the fundamental one being the Law on National Councils of National Minorities) is interpreted by most respondents of the second group of parties as due to nation-wide parties’ irrational fears vis-à-vis national minorities. These fears are attributed to the assumption that “expanding minorities’ rights can lead to the deterioration of the situation in the whole country”, “seeing national minorities and the expansion of their rights as a nucleus for the further disintegration of the country” (Teofilović)235. Such attitudes are in line with the two- decade-long practice of ethnic majority mobilization, pursued by the SRS and inherited by its splinter, the SNS. The DSS represents a more moderate version of this approach. The path dependence of ethnicity-related values in parties’ ideational dimension seems to support the historical institutionalist assumptions. In contrast to the parties of the first group, the DS underlines its contribution as a ruling party in carrying out “an impossible task” of overcoming the legacy of the 1990s in the sphere of minority rights protection. The party also subscribes to autonomist values in stressing the key importance of Vojvodina as an institutional framework for the promotion of national minorities in the spheres of education, media, political representation, etc. The “ethnic vs. civic” cleavage appears to be fundamental for Serbia’s political development, as it overlaps to a huge extent with conflicting visions regarding the country’s accession to the EU. Thus, “Europe” is another key value, a discursive element and a normative orientation that divides the two groups of parties.

235 Interview with P.Teofilović, provincial ombudsman, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, August 19, 2009. 94 In this context, it has to be mentioned that Serbia’s Hungarian community has shown a consistent pro-European orientation. In the 20 years since the dissolution of Yugoslavia, pro- European nation-wide parties have been consistently supported by the Hungarian electorate. Party value attitudes towards Serbia’s European integration appear to be another fundamental credential, exhibited by political parties. According to the interview data we have subdivided the parties under analysis into two categories: parties that consider EU accession as a “supreme priority” for the country’s development, and those that hold “national interests” over EU integration. The first category completely overlaps with the “civic” block, while the second category corresponds almost completely to the group of “ethnic majority” parties (with the notable exception of the SPO that has a pro-European orientation). Thus the Europe-related cleavage complements the ethnic one. For the DS, LSV, G17+ and LDP, the pro-European orientation appears as a supreme legitimizing motive and a powerful factor that conditions their policies. European integration appears as an additional incentive for improving minority-related legislation and its enhancement, as well as keeping an eye on inter-ethnic relations and responding in a timely manner to inter-ethnic excesses. The DS “is aware that without certain laws it cannot go to Europe” (Pribić, G17+)236. Among the parties of the ethnic majority-oriented block, the SRS is the only one which opposes outright Serbia’s integration into the EU. Other parties express their general acceptance of the idea of Serbia being a member of the EU. Nevertheless, the parties in this group stress the inadmissibility of fulfilling EU requirements if they contradict Serbia’s national interests, as the parties perceive them. In the discourse related to EU conditionality in the sphere of national minority rights, the most eloquent example of ethnicity-related “discursive shortcuts” among the respondents of the “national” block were given by the SNS interviewee: “I think they are already going too far, and in this case the authorities led by the DS, out of (to my mind unreal) fear of Europe. I don’t know why we, Serbs, have such a fear of Europe that we have to make such big concessions to national minorities. If there were some inter- ethnic excesses, I would understand that the EU and some powerful states would force us to put right our political behavior; but there are no [excesses] now, and cooperation [with national minorities] is absolutely normal. So, I think that <...> some non-minority political parties in Serbia have an interest of political breakdown of Serbia <...>. And they [LDP, LSV] are in power in the Province, and together with the DS they give extensive rights to national

236 Interview with Dane Pribić, president of the Youth Network of Vojvodina of the G17 Plus party, member of the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina, November 3, 2009. 95 minorities, wider than those elementary <...> which are normal. <...> So it turns already into an oppression of the majority nation” (Raković, SNS)237. This stance appears to be in line with the general attitudinal culture of the SRS (the party from which the SNS originated) vis-à-vis the EU: “The SRS never advocated Serbia’s joining the EU, for known reasons. The EU is an artificial creature <...>. On the other hand, I don’t see a great interest for Serbia in joining the EU, because they are humiliating us for 10 years by [conditioning] EU accession by very funny stories, or rather sad than funny stories about white Schengen lists, how everything will change only if we extradite a certain general or somebody else to the Hague Tribunal, which is, by the way, a court for the Serbs. In my opinion, it judges the Serbs and the Serbian nation for the wars waged in the 1990s on the territory of the SFRY <...>. It is a story of sticks and carrots, when you need to fulfill a condition in order to get a carrot, etc. The SRS took a stance that joining the EU means getting humiliated by those who bombed you in 1999, despite your innocence. The same EU, led by America, Great Britain and , bombed the Republic of Serbia” (Jakšić, SRS)238. The succession of ideational values of the SRS and its 2008 splinter, the SNS, with regard to Serbia’s bid for EU membership is noteworthy, given that the divergent views of the SRS leader Šešelj and his deputy Nikolić with regard to EU membership became the reason for the party’s split. Pragmatic considerations underlying this drastic policy change are notable, which can be in line with rational choice theory. Nevertheless, references to unifying all Serbs in a single state and opposing any EU-led internationalization of Serbia’s minority issues are in line with the classical program of the SRS. These path dependent ethnic values in the new party’s ideational realm support historical institutionalist arguments about the inertia of party ideational culture. The finding of proneness of the ethnic aspect in the ideational realm to path dependence and considerable immutability is particularly important: “The SNS has realized that generally now, in 2009, people who live in Serbia, all citizens, both Serbs and minorities, are in favor of joining the EU. We do want to join and to integrate into the European institutions – yes, if it improves the economic standard of citizens, their life, creates working places, revitalizes the industry, and stabilizes the army. But look: what are the conditions for achieving this difference? If the condition for joining the EU is the need to recognize the independence of Kosovo and to grant legitimacy and legality to Albanians over there, then we shouldn’t join the EU, then it is not the political union of states as it is being

237 Interview with Đorđe Raković, Serbian Progressive Party, Novi Sad, August 22, 2009. 238 Interview with Đurađ Jakšić, president of the city committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Radical Party, August 29, 2009. 96 presented to us. If it implies an economic standard, and if those European laws force us to get our enterprises stabilized, to open new working places, then all of this is positive. But if there exists political criteria to be fulfilled, as I have mentioned, like Kosovo, or maybe a new problem in Vojvodina emerges in a year or two... look at the Raška region, look what is happening in Novi Pazar. So, if these are the criteria, then we are not in favor of the EU. Then we shouldn’t join it. First of all, Serbia should preserve its integrity – first and foremost, the Serb police, army and judicial institutions should return to Kosovo and Metohija. The Republic of Srpska, part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is going towards the idea of deciding at a referendum whether it wants to join Serbia, its motherland. What about a half million of expelled people from the Serb Republic of Krajina and Croatia? Is Croatia being conditioned by this fact? And the SNS surely has a reasonable and normal stance of every patriot and Serb nationalist that wishes well to its state. <...> EU – yes, all those economic standards – yes, but not at any price“ (Raković)239. Thus, the ethnicity-related values and attitudinal culture of the SNS and SRS proved to be in line with the normative orientations of its policy agenda, as set out in strategic party programs. These values and attitudinal culture could only appeal to members of minority communities presuming that they are consciously guided by the ideology of the Serbian nation- state. Indeed, the opposite is the case. Presuming that the Hungarian electorate recognizes Serbia’s membership in the EU as in its substantial interest, and, accordingly, considers the anti- European stances of nation-wide political parties as contradicting their perceived interests, it can serve as a convincing explanation for the electoral behavior of the Hungarian community in Vojvodina, which has consistently preferred ethnic Hungarian parties and Serbian parties that frame their ideational realm in civic terms. Thus the EU-related “cognitive shortcut” as an ethnic credential, exhibited in the political discourse of the major parties, appears to be a key ideational value. It is noteworthy that the ethnicity-related inter-party cleavage in the ideational realm overlaps with the cleavage revealed in the sphere of ethnic policy agendas. Another relevant indicator of cleavage between parties in the ideational realm along ethnic or civic lines is related to the autonomy of Vojvodina. Vojvodina’s ethnic diversity is an important aspect for assessing the ethnic aspect of ideational dimension of political parties for a series of reasons. First, Vojvodina is a historically defined region with a peculiar cultural identity and patterns of interethnic cohabitation, originating from the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The ethnically, linguistically and religiously heterogeneous composition of the province’s population distinguishes it from the rest of Serbia, as well as a different degree of citizen awareness of the existence of national

239 Interview with Đorđe Raković, Serbian Progressive Party, Novi Sad, August 22, 2009. 97 minorities240. Demographically, every third inhabitant of Vojvodina is a representative of a national minority, and some 90% of municipalities have an ethnically diverse population. This circumstance generates a different perception of minorities than that in most of the rest of Serbia, characterized by a large number of mononational municipalities. A long historic tradition of inter-ethnic cohabitation dating back to the period of Austro-Hungarian Empire generated a civic culture of tolerance towards various ethno-national groups, their languages and cultures. The bloody battles of the 1848-1849 Revolution contributed to an increased appreciation of tolerant inter-ethnic culture that lasted until World War II. The culture of tolerance, inter-ethnic cohabitation and acceptance of differences in Vojvodina is claimed to have been acquired during the long process of socialization that historically affected many generations, starting from the 19th century241. During the Austro- Hungarian Empire when Vojvodina was populated mostly by Serbs, Germans and Hungarians, in towns with a mixed structure of population all inhabitants spoke all three languages. This multicultural practice was transmitted from one generation to another, and was still preserved in the first Yugoslavia. In terms of official policies, there has never been a locally-defined trend aimed at reducing the degree of minorities’ inclusion in political life in Vojvodina (Gobor)242. In the Habsburg monarchy Vojvodina was considered a peculiar region, and authorities manifested awareness of the region’s multinational character. In socialist Yugoslavia the policies of including nationalities in the state and administrative apparatus, while helping to avoid discrimination or reducing national communities’ role, ran to the other extreme, as “sometimes it was more important to have a representative of a particular national community in a certain office, regardless of whether he was sufficiently qualified for the office in question” (Gobor)243. The interview data collected for the present dissertation shows that awareness of the province’s multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual and multiconfessional character is manifested

240 Interview with Petar Teofilović, provincial ombudsman, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, August 19, 2009; Zoltan Gobor, deputy ombudsman of Vojvodina for national minority rights protection, August 19, 2009; Radovan Radovanović, member of the Parliament of Serbia, working group for national councils of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, November 2, 2009; Nemanja Starović, vicepresident of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Renewal Movement and spokesman of the party, August 14, 2009; Ana Dević, University of Glasgow, June 15-16, 2010.

241 Argument shared by all above-cited respondents. Op.cit. 242 Interview with Z.Gobor, deputy ombudsman of Vojvodina for national minority rights protection, August 19, 2009.

243 Interview with Z.Gobor, deputy ombudsman of Vojvodina for national minority rights protection, August 19, 2009.

98 by all the provincial leaders of political parties, regardless of the party’s ideology. The interview data suggests that there exists a general consensus among the Hungarian and nation-wide political (including both “national” and “civic” options) and intellectual elite on the special role of Vojvodina in providing a framework for national minorities’ political participation and the enhancement of minority rights. However, ethnicity-related cleavage between political parties is still reflected in differences in value orientations with regard to the province’s ethnic diversity and in contrasting policy visions. The interviewed representatives of nation-wide parties diverge in their acceptance of the adopted Statute of Autonomy of Vojvodina, and the split around this issue almost completely overlaps with the ethnic/civic cleavage. The DS, LSV and G17+ actively participated in creating the Statute and voted for it, while the DSS, SNS and SRS opposed it, considering it a legal act that undermines the constitutional foundations of the Serbian state. A notable exception to the second group is the SPO, which, although positioning itself as an ethnic majority-oriented party, nevertheless adopts rhetoric framed in civic terms when it comes to the party’s support for the Statute of Autonomy of Vojvodina. The SPO literally echoes the stance of autonomist parties that the Statute meets the interests of all the citizens of Vojvodina, regardless of national affiliation244. Despite its explicitly declared ethnic majority orientation, the SPO manifests awareness of the historic tradition of inter-cultural intermingling that still exists today: “In many localities, both urban and rural, the majority and minority national communities intermingle and live together, not side by side. We often say that in the Balkans, if we can’t live together, let’s live at least peacefully side by side. I think it is not the case in Vojvodina, as here we have achieved such a level that in a considerable number of localities (not in all, but in many of them) the majority and minority communities literally live together, work in the same enterprises, attend the same coffee bars, etc. – no kind of cultural segregation exists” (Starović)245. Recognition of Vojvodina’s specific regional identity based on the tradition of multiethnicity contributed to the SPO’s political will to accept minority-inclusive policies. On the other hand, the Statute is resolutely opposed by parties whose ideational profile has been centered on the ethnic majority (SRS, SNS and to a lesser extent DSS) for two decades. The interviewed representatives of these parties have defined the Vojvodina’s Statute of

244 Interviews with Nemanja Starović, vicepresident of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Renewal Movement and spokesman of the party, August 14, 2009; , spokesman of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina, November 2, 2009; Dane Pribić, president of the Youth Network of Vojvodina of the G17 Plus party, member of the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina, November 3, 2009. 245 Interview with Nemanja Starović, vicepresident of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Renewal Movement and spokesman of the party, August 14, 2009. 99 Autonomy as a legal act that “creates a state within the state” (DSS, SNS), or “a half- constitution of the half-state” (SRS). Although the SRS expresses its recognition and appreciation of the multiethnic character of the province, it does not consider it sufficient legitimization for Vojvodina’s autonomy. The party advocates a unitarist vision of Serbia and expresses its disapproval of any kind of expansion of Vojvodina’s autonomy. It is notable that the interviewed representatives of all parties in this group admit that the Hungarian political elite has recognized an interest for their ethnic community in expanding Vojvodina’s autonomy. A “bottom-up” versus “top-down” approach to governance is a crucial difference between the parties with a “civic” versus “ethnic” ideational profile. This difference comes to the fore when Vojvodina is placed in a wider European context. While the supporters of Vojvodina’s autonomy refer to its historical multicultural specificity as one of the legitimating bases for its autonomy like in federalized countries in Western Europe, the SNS respondent evokes the same examples the other way round in emphasizing the state’s duty to combat separatism, associated with autonomist parties: “In Germany, if you officially tried to separate a region – let’s take Bavaria <...> – according to all constitutions and laws, you would end up badly in that state” (SNS)246. In contrast, the respondent of the civic-oriented G17+ tends to emphasize principles of decentralization and subsidiarity. Quoting the same example of Germany the other way round, he conceives of autonomy in civic terms, as an issue for all citizens of Vojvodina, Serbs, Hungarians, Romanians, Ruthenians, Slovaks etc: “If it [the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina] had no specificity, it wouldn’t exist, that is why it was created. As there exists Bavaria in Germany, as there are many provinces in , etc., for the same reasons Vojvodina was created as a culturally and historically completed whole. It is formed because the citizens of the AP Vojvodina know exactly what is best for them. Much better than Belgrade and, maybe, Brussels does. <...> It is an additional quality that national communities can use. The framework of the Republic of Serbia is good, the framework of the AP Vojvodina is better, and the framework of, say, the municipality of Bački Petrovac is even better. There are general policies, regional policies, and local ones. Although all these are real and aimed at the same goal, that is, the creation of an intercultural society, i.e., not a multicultural one where we will live side by side, but an intercultural society where we will live together and intermingle, then this is what we need” (G17+)247.

246 Interview with Đorđe Raković, Serbian Progressive Party, Novi Sad, August 22, 2009. 247 Interview with Dane Pribić, president of the Youth Network of Vojvodina of the G17 Plus party, member of the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina, November 3, 2009. 100 The ideational value of Vojvodina as a regionally defined civic framework dates back to its socialist-era autonomy. In the early 1990s the protagonists of the Vojvodinian autonomist idea aspired to articulate a new model of autonomy based on a complex combination of individual rights and freedoms and the institutionalization of multiple regional interests. This approach respected the national principle without absolutizing it, as the ethnic criterion was considered dangerous, divisive and potentially leading to forceful ethno-territorial homogenization. Instead, Vojvodinian regionalism focused on the affirmation of economic, cultural, social and other interests shared by all the citizens of Vojvodina, the creation of a civil society, respectful of the positive experience of multiculturalism and the feeling of its citizens’ identification with their region. The protagonists of these ideas, particularly the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV), a centre-left regionalist party, had rather modest electoral support. However, the ethno-national and cultural dimension of legitimization of Vojvodina’s autonomy presented an opportune structure for the institutionalization of collective political and cultural rights of Hungarians and other national minorities in Vojvodina, as this vision created the basis for the political alliance structure of Vojvodina Hungarians. The LSV demonstrated its commitment to Vojvodina’s autonomy and Serbia’s European integration as the party’s two fundamental ideational values. In the process of European integration, the LSV presented Vojvodina’s regionalism as Serbia’s locomotive on its way to Europe. Such ideational values had direct policy implications: the adoption of the Statute of Vojvodina implied legal recognition of Vojvodina’s specificity. The party referred to Vojvodina’s multicultural values as one of the legitimating reasons for politically institutionalizing its peculiarity. Here, opportunities opened up for cooperation between regional, nation-wide political parties and ethnic Hungarian parties on the basis of common engagement in two interrelated policy areas: 1) expanding Vojvodina’s autonomy, and 2) Serbia’s integration into the EU. Since their foundation, Vojvodina’s Hungarian political parties have opted for strategic cooperation with nation-wide forces with ideational values that included democracy, civic- mindedness and a European orientation. Traditionally, the VMDK and later the VMSZ allied with the DS, one of the biggest anti-Milošević opposition parties in the 1990s, and dominant on the Serbian political arena since the regime change in 2000. Accordingly, the Hungarian parties considered as their opponents those nation-wide parties that were committed to state centralism, manifested euroskepticism and applied ethnic mobilization tactics vis-à-vis the majority group. These include the SRS, whose program goal was to unite all territories populated by Serb majorities into a single state; the SPS, the heir to the League of Communists of Serbia which ruled throughout the 1990s; and the DSS, a more majority-centered splinter of the DS.

101 Thus the cleavage structure shaped by the critical historical juncture (the reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy) was favorable for ethnic Hungarian political parties pursuing policies aimed at achieving minority autonomy, as it provided them with political allies along several cleavage dimensions: an alliance with the DS as a ruling party pursuing a civic pattern of political identity (as opposed to parties using an ethnic mobilization strategy vis-à-vis the Serb majority) and cooperation with the LSV aimed at restoring Vojvodina’s autonomy. Still, an “ethnic” versus a “civic” cleavage can be discerned in the ideational dimension of Vojvodina Hungarian parties as well. The stance toward the autonomy of Vojvodina is the most telling indicator of this cleavage. Although it has an important multicultural element in its legitimizing discourse, the autonomy of Vojvodina is still civic-based in its foundations and is by no means equivalent to the project of Hungarian ethnoterritorial autonomy foreseen in the Hungarian Coalition’s policy agenda. The reluctance of the two minor partners in the Hungarian Coalition, the VMDP and VMDK, to regard the autonomy of Vojvodina as in the interest of the Hungarian community is explained by the fact that Hungarians do not constitute the majority in Vojvodina. Hungarians make up about 13% of Vojvodina’s population, while over 60% are Serbs. Besides, a huge influx of refugees (about 300,000) from the war-torn territories brought new population with a completely different political culture from that of Vojvodina. This dramatically changed the ethno-cultural and political balance in the province. The political logic of distancing themselves from the Serbian political community, and reluctance to find common ground for shaping policy, and thinking in purely ethnic terms are all reflected in the two above-mentioned parties’ stance on the autonomy of Vojvodina: “It is not a chance at all. It is a substitute for the essence. Because a higher degree of autonomy for Vojvodina is a Serbian-Serbian question. What degree of autonomy Vojvodina, populated by 75% of Serbs, will have, it is being decided among the Serbs. If the Hungarians are strongly insisting on a higher degree of autonomy, while the Serb parties that advocated it are neglected, then this kind of advocating autonomy gains a tinge of separatism, and here the VMSZ is entrapped. It is a substitute. Hungarians make up 12-15% and they can’t decide the issue of Vojvodina. And now it makes absolutely no sense to force Hungarians to demand a higher degree of autonomy, while the Vojvodina Serbs, that is the League [of Socialdemocrats of Vojvodina] and the DS are standing aside. And the VMSZ shouldn’t take part in it, for it doesn’t solve the minority issue. The Hungarians are in the minority in Vojvodina as well” (Páll)248.

248 Interview with S.Páll, leader of Democratic Fellowship of Vojvodina Hungarians, May 25, 2009.

102 Similar ideational values framed in terms of Hungarian cultural autonomy are echoed by the VMDP leader: “Vojvodina is not a Hungarian issue, neither is it a minority issue. Serbs are in a huge majority. <...> There is no political ground for the existence of this province, even from Hungary’s side, because Vojvodina did not emerge as a Hungarian territorial autonomy, but as a Serbian one. The Serbian Vojvodina and the Krajina emerged after the retreat of the Turks <...>. The VMDP, and, earlier, the VMDK, as long as I was its president, told that Vojvodina is neither a Hungarian issue, nor a Hungarian-Serbian issue. Vojvodina is a Serbian-Serbian issue. It will be agreed by a part of the political elite in Vojvodina with the one in Belgrade. We do not oppose the autonomy of Vojvodina, but our primary goal is Hungarian autonomy, a personal one that does not require territorial delimitation. <...> ...the Hungarians in Vojvodina have no substantial interest to fight for the Province of Vojvodina. We have a substantial interest in getting double citizenship, to have autonomy here and in a very vivid communication between Budapest and the Hungarians in Vojvodina, to establish practically a Hungarian nation without changing the borders” (Ágoston)249. According to this conception, Vojvodina, deprived of its own revenues, is too weak of a framework to assert Hungarian interests. However, it can be used by both Budapest and Belgrade as a justification for the lack of more active engagement in favor of Hungarian autonomy: “Vojvodina doesn’t mean anything, and exactly because it doesn’t mean anything, both sides use it when they think that they will benefit from it. The Serbian government <...> says: “Look at Vojvodina, we gave it [autonomy], look how the Province is living”. Then Budapest tells us: “It is already an autonomy, Vojvodina, you already have an autonomy there, why are you asking for more?”. Especially the actual government, socialist and liberal which is now ruling. So, both sides (when I say “both sides” I don’t mean us, because we are never the other side, but Belgrade and Budapest are using Vojvodina for their own purposes” (Ágoston)250. The VMSZ applies another approach, compatible with that of the parties of the civic and autonomist block. The VMSZ’s support for the Statute of Vojvodina revealed a shift in this party’s ideational dimension towards civic concepts, placing the Vojvodina Hungarian community in the dimension of citizens of Vojvodina: “The Statute, surely, is neither a minority document, nor a document of minority politics, but, considering our political traditions, the VMSZ gave its full support to the Statute proposal,

249 Interview with A.Ágoston, leader of Democratic Party of Vojvodina Hungarians, August 26, 2009.

250 Interview with András Ágoston, leader of Democratic Party of Vojvodina Hungarians, August 26, 2009. 103 as it considers that it absolutely corresponds to the interests of all citizens of Vojvodina. The Statute creates a new, modern political situation, and lays down a good preparatory ground for Vojvodina to become a region that will pursue its interests in modern Europe. And we absolutely agree that if a Statute suits all the citizens of Vojvodina, it will for sure also fit the interests of national minorities, even if the main accent in the Statute is not placed on minority issues, but on general questions” (Józsa)251. Since the second half of the 1990s, the VMDK and the VMDP, focused mostly on purely ethnic goals, were gradually eclipsed by a more civic-minded VMSZ that gained a nearly uncontested monopoly over the Hungarian electorate. The party’s ideational convergence with the DS and the LSV helped it to establish a workable cooperation with the nation-wide parties aimed at developing ethnic minority legislation. The fundamental importance of ethnic-civic and European-Euroskeptic ideational cleavages for the Hungarian community is reflected in the discourse of the ethnic Hungarian party leaders with regard to the first split in the Vojvodina Hungarian party and the resulting takeover of Hungarian votes by Serbian parties. The VMDP’s leader is quoted below (the words of the VMSZ and VMDK leaders were largely compatible with it): “We survived, but an image of quarrelling Hungarians, of Hungarian politicians that are quarrelling over seats and chairs, remained rooted in the consciousness of the Vojvodina Hungarians. And this is a punishment. First they voted a little bit for Čanak (LSV) who advocated Vojvodina, while these [Hungarian politicians] were quarrelling even about Vojvodina, and our life had been so nice in Vojvodina back in our times. Then the DS came. Since 2003, they trumpet only: ‘The DS is Europe itself!’ And, surely, the Hungarians do not want , do not want to get closer to the Russians, they were greatly opposed to Koštunica, none of the Hungarians voted for Koštunica, and given that all the mass media, including these in Hungary, were trumpeting that Tadić is Europe incarnate, they identified Tadić and Europe, then there was a great sympathy. And on the other side, there were those [Hungarian politicians] incessantly quarrelling over the chairs. And over the three elections, we were getting less and less votes both [each party] individually, and taken all together. And then, it was the reason to try together [to unite into a Hungarian Coalition]” (Ágoston). The analysis of the ethnic aspect of parties’ ideational values revealed that Serbia’s political parties are divided by an important ethnicity-related cleavage denoting citizen-oriented versus ethnicity-oriented values. This ethnicity-related cleavage overlaps significantly with two

251 Interview with L.Józsa, chair of the Hungarian National Council in Serbia, vicepresident of Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, August 28, 2009.

104 other important cleavage dimensions: “autonomism” versus “centralism” and pro-European versus anti-European foreign policy orientations of political parties.

105 Table 1. Ethnicity-related cleavage dimension in the Serbian party system

DS LSV G17+ LDP SPS SPO DSS SNS SRS Hungarian Coalition Minority- No Yes No No No No No No No Yes related program document s Intra- Institu- Institu- Non None None None None None Non Ethnic party tionalized tionalized institutio- institutio- party level reactive proactive nalized, nalized, minority (on the proactive reactive policies national level), proactive (on the provincia l level)

Minority Ethnic participa- Yes party tion in the party Minority Ally of Ally of HC Ally of HC Ally of HC Opposing Ally of HCOpposing Opposing Opposing Main policy HC (in 1990s), protagonist enactment passive ally (after 2003) Party’s Civic Civic Civic Civic Ethnic Ethnic Ethnic Ethnic Ethnic Ethnic identity: regionalis majority- majority- majority- majority- majority- minority position t (autono- oriented oriented oriented oriented oriented on mist) (esp. in ethnicity- 1990s) related cleavage dimension Stance Supportive Supportive Supportive Opposing Supportive Supportive Opposing Opposing Opposing Supportive toward * the Statute of Vojvodina Ideational Major, Pro- Pro- Pro- Pro- Pro- Euro- Euro- Anti- Pro- values pro- European European European European European skeptic, skeptic, European European European regionalist ** centralist centralist centralist

* the LDP voted against the Statute of Vojvodina due to another extreme: the degree of the Province’s autonomy was found insufficient by the party. ** The SPS embarked upon a considerable transformation in the post-Milošević period.

The said interrelated divisions in parties’ ideational realm date back to the critical junctures of the reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy and the beginning of the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia that occurred simultaneously with the introduction of a multi-party system in the country. Persisting over two decades, the ethnicity-related ideational cleavage has thus proved to be long-standing, in line with historical institutionalist assumptions. No significant changes in ideational values on an ethnic-civic scale occurred in the two decades.

106

3.2. Political parties and ethnic minority policies in Serbia

In dealing with ethnic minority policies pursued by political parties in Serbia, this chapter distinguishes two policy dimensions relevant for Serbia’s Hungarian community: (1) the regional legal framework for minority rights protection in Vojvodina and (2) Hungarian cultural autonomy. The regional autonomy of the province of Vojvodina is a fundamental element of a minority rights protection regime, as it provides a unified, regionally-based legal and institutional framework for the enhancement of minority rights in the areas of language, education, mass media and cultural policies. For this reason, the ethnicity-related dimension of Vojvodina’s regional autonomy has been chosen for the analysis of party policies as an ethnic minority policy area in its own right. In turn, Hungarian cultural autonomy is a relatively new policy area that originated with Vojvodina’s regional autonomy, but still has to be considered a separate policy field, given that the competences of provincial institutions and cultural autonomy institutions have been established by separate pieces of legislation. It is necessary to differentiate between these policy areas in order to analyze the policies formulated and enacted by political parties vis-à-vis Serbia’s Hungarian community in terms of the following aspects: ethnicity-related cleavage within the party system; the persistence of this cleavage over time and implications for policy reversibility; and political parties’ policy efficiency and policy expertise in the area of ethnic minority policies.

3.2.1. Critical junctural moments for ethnic minority policies at the outset of Serbia’s multi-party system

As suggested in the theoretical section, political parties can be prone to considerable path dependence in their policy agenda. In turn, parties’ self-reinforcing institutional dynamics can explain the persistence of certain policy practices252. Hence, when dealing with policy practices of political parties in the area of ethnic minority policies, the analysis should reveal ways in which political parties and their path dependent ethnic policy stances can impact the development of state policies toward ethnic minorities, contributing to the perpetuation and irreversibility of a particular policy path.

252 Pierson, Paul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review, 94 (2), p. 251. 107

Moreover, in analyzing ethnic policies pursued by political parties, special attention must be given to critical junctures, or triggering events which set policy development along a particular path and establish mechanisms that reproduce the existing policy trajectory, increasing the costs of its reversal. Major policy changes (or third-order changes, in Hall’s terminology) may still occur due to exogenous shocks, or new conditions that disrupt or overwhelm the mechanisms that reproduce the current policy path, rooted in normative orientations and ideational values of political parties. Thus, analysis of party policies should consider critical junctures that create incentives for a reversal of ethnic policies. The regional framework for the protection of nationalities’ rights in socialist Vojvodina is relevant for the analysis of party policies in the subsequent multi-party period, since direct preconditions for political parties’ ethnic policy attitudes and practices were laid in the socialist one-party system. Here, the critical junctural period coincides with the transition from the socialist framework of minority rights protection, applied in the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina under the 1974 Constitution, toward state centralization and ethnification of politics that occurred simultaneously with the introduction of multi-party system. To deal with origins of the contemporary policies of Serbia’s political parties in policy areas relevant for the country’s Hungarian community, the analysis should start from the very first critical juncture that produced the contemporary ethnic minority policy trajectory. Accordingly, the origins of Vojvodina’s regional autonomy date back to the communist National Liberation Movement that gave rise to Yugoslavia’s one-party system. The autonomy of Vojvodina was instituted in November, 1943 by the Provincial National Liberation Committee due to the province’s historical, economic and cultural peculiarities, as well as its heterogeneous ethnic structure253. The autonomous status of Vojvodina within Serbia was confirmed by the decision of the Assembly of People’s Deputies of Vojvodina held in Novi Sad on July 31, 1945. The institutionalization of collective rights of nations and nationalities in Vojvodina was thus rooted in the ideology of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, the party that ruled the country from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the country’s demise in 1991. The party’s official political and academic discourse attributed a special role to national groups. The process of overcoming the division of society in classes was considered to be evolving both within national communities and on the whole Yugoslav space254.

253 According to the 1948 census, the province was majority Serb (841,246, or 50.6%). Nevertheless, minorities accounted for a huge share of its population: Hungarians was the second largest national group, accounting for 428,932 (25.8%). Other largest groups were (134,232, or 8.1%), Slovaks (72,032, or 4.3%), Romanians (59,263, or 3.6%), Germans (31,821, or 1.9%), Montenegrins (30,589, or 1.9%, and Rusyns (22,083, or 1.3%). 254 Komšić, Jovan. Šanse interkulturalizma i iskušenja etnodemokratije. Subotica: Otvoreni Univerzitet, 1997, p. 108

The term “nationality” (narodnost) was first introduced in the 1963 Constitution of the SFRY and came to substitute the term “national minority” (nacionalna manjina referred to the groups that did not have the status of the constitutive nations of Yugoslavia), in order to terminologically emphasize the principle of equal rights of members of all national groups regardless of their numerical strength, and to avoid negative connotations supposedly implied by the term “minority”255. Article 43 of the 1963 Constitution explicitly equates the terms “nationality” and “national minority”. The 1974 Constitution of Serbia guaranteed equal rights to all nationalities regardless of their share in the total population (art. 146), while the term “national minority” is not mentioned anymore. Specifying concrete nationalities (Hungarian and Albanian) in article 269, the 1974 federal Constitution explicitly defines their collective legal status. In the Yugoslav one-party system, the equality of nations and nationalities was thus considered a fundamental ideological and political value by the ruling party. Vojvodina’s autonomy was legitimized by the ideological concepts of “socialist revolution”, “victory in the People’s Liberation War” and “socialist federalism”. Despite the fundamental limitations of the one-party system, “socialist autonomy” was the first period in Vojvodina’s history marked by the institutionalized equality of all national groups in the spheres of language use, culture, education and media. The one-party monopoly in the public life, while restricting the implementation of individual rights and freedoms, instead developed high standards in the sphere of collective rights. The system of nationalities’ rights protection in Vojvodina reached its zenith in the Constitution of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina adopted in 1974. The very first article of the provincial Constitution begins with the words “nations and nationalities of Vojvodina”, stressing their role in the socialist revolution. Throughout the entire text of the Constitution, “nations and nationalities of Vojvodina” and “working people” are referred to as its two principal subjects. Until 1988 the ethno-national approach was one of the fundamental principles of personnel policy within the one-party system of political representation. Important offices in the state and party apparatus and industry were arbitrarily distributed according to the rules adopted by party forums. Manifestations of nationalism in public life were severely punishable, as the only available legitimate framework for the assertion of nations’ and nationalities’ interests was the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). Sociological research conducted before the

21. 255 Petrić, Ernest. 1965. “Prava pripadnika nacionalnih manjina u statutima opština”. Naše teme. 8-9: 1333. 109

demise of the SFRY256 showed that hierarchical distribution in Yugoslavia’s social structure did not depend on ethnic affiliation and largely corresponded to the ethnic structure of Vojvodina257. The socialist period is important for understanding the origins of ethnicity-related cleavage within the Serbian party system, as this period saw an increasing affirmation of equality rather than differences between nations and nationalities. Thus no one language was privileged in the sphere of official use in Vojvodina. The languages of the 5 major national groups were equally used in the spheres of education, mass media and culture. North Bačka and north underwent a period of dynamic economic expansion, creating the material basis for social and cultural development. The network of cultural institutions258 grew considerably, as radio and TV programs, daily newspapers, and several weeklies were established and financed by the provincial institutions. Opportunities to be educated in the various nationalities’ languages existed on all levels of education. In the larger localities there were Hungarian gymnasiums as well as departments in technical schools. At the Faculty of Arts in Novi Sad, the Department of Hungarology was established. The large publishing house “Fórum” printed Hungarian literature. Until the end of 1980s, the official Yugoslav political and public discourse considered the national question as resolved, and no inter-ethnic tensions appeared in practice. Compared with other Yugoslav republics and AP Kosovo, the citizens of Vojvodina manifested the highest degree of group identification with their environment and with Yugoslavia as a whole, and the smallest inter-ethnic distance. The official discourse of the time claimed that the institutionalization of national differences contributed to the satisfaction of needs in a socialist society259. The tradition of quoting Vojvodina’s institutionalized cultural model as an example of cultural pluralism and inter-ethnic tolerance on a European scale goes back to the period of “socialist autonomy”. A prominent group of minority authors from Vojvodina, however, adheres to the opposite view. László Végel argues that the socialist one-party system, lacking democratic consensus with regard to the nature of political community, exercised a monopoly over the protection of nationalities’ interests, for the sake of the prestige-struggle between national bureaucracies, and

256 Blagojević, Marina. Društvene karakteristike etničkih grupa: kako meriti diskriminaciju. Miloš Macura and Vojislav Stanovčić (eds.). Položaj manjina u SRJ. Beograd: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, 1996, p. 656; Lazić, Mladen. Sistem i slom. Raspad socijalizma i strukture jugoslovenskog društva. Beograd: Filip Višnjić, 1994, p. 163-183. 257 According to the 1991 census, 64.33% of “managers” (members of assemblies, administrative staff, functionaries of executive institutions, managers of enterprises etc.) in Vojvodina were Serbs, 11.03% Hungarians, 8-98% Yugoslavs, 6.14% Montenegrins, 2.99% Croats, 1.58% Slovaks, 0.8% Ruthenians, 0.7% Bunjevci, 0.68% Romanians etc. See Samardžić, Miroslav. Položaj manjina u Vojvodini. Beograd: Centar za antiratnu akciju, 1999, p. 108. 258 Statistical data on the network of cultural institutions in Vojvodina in the socialist period is presented in Samardžić, Miroslav. Položaj manjina u Vojvodini. Beograd: Centar za antiratni akciju, 1999, p. 108. 259 Qtd. in: Komšić, Jovan. Šanse interkulturalizma i iskušenja etnodemokratije. Subotica: Otvoreni Univerzitet, 1997, p. 21-22. 110

from time to time improved nationalities’ situation by granting them concessions260. According to Végel, the party did not grant collective rights but rather privileges which benefited only the political elites of the respective nationalities, and this proved to be an effective political strategy of division. In a similar vein, the last stage of “self-governmental federalism” was regarded by some analysts as a systematic political basis for causing the break-up of the state, as nationalism was “embedded in the system, not only emerged from it”261. Laslo Sekelj argued that nationalism in Yugoslavia since the 1960s was produced by the system, as decentralization without democratization within a society where political powers were concentrated in one party’s monopoly, led to a crisis of modernization262. This in turn gave the way to nationalism as a new basis of political legitimization. The 1974 Constitution created a new legitimizing basis for the political monopoly of the power elites within the LCY by institutionalizing ethno-national pluralism, as it was based on the perception of ethnonational liberty as the essence of political liberty, whereas territorial and national pluralism was considered to be the essence of political pluralism; national identity in the political sense was thus an essential manifestation of one’s individual identity263. The only legitimate way to implement an individual’s political rights was to identify them with the group rights of the respective nation or nationality, or, alternatively, by representing one’s administrative territorial unit. In trying to merge individual identities into a national identity, the LCY performed the function of nationalist mobilization. In the long run, the voluntarist political solutions of the 1974 Constitution created the conditions for the national question to become a key question for Yugoslav policies. Regional political elites’ basis for legitimacy became ethno-national and regional particularism, and no longer Yugoslavism. The earlier integral ideology of “working people” was substituted by the civic ideology of homogenizing the population on a national basis, i.e., according to republics and provinces264. Regardless of contrasting evaluations of Vojvodina’s socialist-time framework of nationalities’ rights protection, it is important for the present analysis that both the socialist period and the subsequent critical juncture of the deinstitutionalization of Vojvodina’s nationality protection regime were fundamental for the subsequent genesis of political parties’ ethnic policy agendas vis-à-vis Vojvodina’s minorities. The constitutional arrangement of the Yugoslav political system along ethnic lines, with a fundamental role attributed to nations and

260 Vegel, Laslo. “Multikultura i moderno civilno društvo”. Miloš Macura and Vojislav Stanovčić (eds.). Položaj manjina u SRJ. Beograd: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, 1996, p. 314. 261 Golubović, Zagorka. Društveni karakter i društvene promene u svetlu nacionalnih sukoba. Beograd: Filip Višnjić, 1995, p. 79. 262 Sekelj, Laslo. Jugoslavija: struktura raspadanja. Beograd: Rad, 1990, p. 143-157. 263 Mirić, Jovan. Sistem i kriza: prilog kritičkoj analizi ustavnog i političkog sistema Jugoslavije. Zagreb: Cekade, 1984, p. 30; Sekelj, Laslo. Jugoslavija: struktura raspadanja. Beograd: Rad, 1990, p. 150. 264 Kuvačić, Ivan. 1972. “Ideologija srednje klase.” Praxis 9: 368. 111

nationalities, became a reference point for the formulation of political parties’ ethnic policy agendas, as shown by the analysis of party programs in the respective section. The political concept of nations and nationalities outlived the system that enshrined these collective statuses in its fundamental constitutional norms and became the basis for the aggregation of people into political parties at the critical juncture of the emergence of a multi-party system. Thus the 1974 provincial Constitution can be considered the first critical juncture that impacted the formulation of party policy agendas. The second fundamental critical juncture occurred on the eve of the introduction of a multi-party system, when the official approach to ethnicity changed dramatically, accompanied by the outbreak of the wars of Yugoslav disintegration along ethnic lines. The minority protection regime in socialist Vojvodina is peculiar from the viewpoint of the historical institutionalist concept of path dependence, as the regime’s designers did not create obstacles to institutional change, thus weakening its institutional durability. Unlike democratic systems characterized by the ruling elites’ proneness to set barriers to reform, preventing possible future changes that might be attempted by their political opponents once in power, the foundations of Vojvodina’s nationalities’ protection regime were laid in the one- party system monopolized by the LCY. The rise of S.Milošević to power in Serbia marked a radical turn toward state centralization, as the new leadership of the ruling party demonstrated the political will to overcome the barriers to reform, uncontested by Vojvodina’s political elite within the same party. In the wake of the adoption of amendments to the 1989 Constitution that reduced the extensive powers held by Serbia’s autonomous provinces, the political elites that embodied the use of the “national key” were ousted in both Vojvodina and Kosovo. The “anti-bureaucratic revolution”, otherwise known as the “yogurt revolution”, became one of the watershed moments in the recent political history of Serbia and Yugoslavia. This critical juncture paved the way for the radical transformation of the foundations of the Yugoslav social and political arrangements. Due to the “tectonic” changes in ideology and political processes it provoked, it was called the “forerunner of later events”265. Controversies related to the autonomy of Vojvodina and Kosovo and the unity of the Serbian state foreshadowed the global opening of the Serbian question and political and theoretical confrontations related to Yugoslavia’s post-socialist arrangements. In this transition, where “an interregnum between socialist self-government and participatory democracy was filled by nationalism”266, the ideology of socialist self-government gave way to

265 Komšić, Jovan. Etnodemokratija i regionalizam u košmarima postsocijalizma. Novi Sad: KMS, 1996, p. 117. 266 Ibidem, p. 69. 112

the political logic of the nation-state. In the new circumstances, in which minority aspirations “clash with the interests of the majority-dominated state”, national minorities could struggle for their rights by means of “democratic compatibility with the nation-state”267, “making tactical deals with the nation-state”268. The elimination of Vojvodina’s political ruling top from the LCY implied the discreditation and the beginning of a complete delegitimization of the socialist-era approach to ethnicity. In Vojvodina these changes had gradual implications for the sphere of official culture (TV and radio programs, publishing policies, school programs). Already in late 1980s, official political and cultural life in Vojvodina was turbulent. Staff (regardless of national affiliation) and official policies on ethnicity were changed in many institutions, starting from the LCY, and including television, publishing houses and news agencies. This moment is crucial for understanding recruitment into ethnic parties. The critical juncture of the reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy thus affected the genesis of political parties, providing them with a cadre basis and ideational guidelines for a policy agenda. The impact of the provincial multicultural policies in empowering the Vojvodina Hungarian community toward collective action is visible in the membership structure of the first Vojvodina Hungarian political party, the Democratic Community of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMDK) according to education and profession. Out of 128 VMDK deputies elected on all levels (from the federal parliament to local municipalities), 45% had a higher education, 46% had a secondary education, and 5% had academic degrees. 18% of VMDK deputies were workers, 12% teachers, 9% agricultural workers, 9% pensioners, 6% doctors, 6% engineers, 6% artisans and traders, 5% economists and 3% were lawyers269. Founded by the director of the “Fórum” publishing house A.Ágoston, the VMDK at its peak had over 24,000 members, whereas Vojvodina’s total Hungarian population was 300,000. In the first republican multiparty elections held on December 9, 1990, the VMDK confirmed its primacy in representing Vojvodina Hungarians, winning 132,726 (ca. 90%) of Hungarian votes. The monopoly of the VMDK in representing Hungarian community in Vojvodina showed that the Hungarian population responded to the party’s appeal, demonstrating their susceptibility to relative deprivation and their acceptance of the VMDK’s interpretation of events and the political platform, based on the continuation and reproduction of the minority autonomy discourse under

267 Lošonc, Alpar. Etnički aspekti regionalizma. Skenderović-Ćuk, Nadia (ed.). Regioni i građani. Subotica: Subotičke novine, 1994, p. 138. 268 Komšić, Jovan. Šanse interkulturalizma i iskušenja etnodemokratije. Subotica: Otvoreni Univerzitet, 1997, p. 27. 269 Statistical data based on the sample taken after the 1992 federal elections is presented in: Hódi, Éva, and Sándor Hódi. Esély a megmaradásra. A Vajdasági Magyarok Demokratikus Közösségének évkönyve. Ada: VMDK, 1992, p. 142. 113

new conditions. The Hungarian minority’s collective reaction to the reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy was thus expressed in the emergence of a strong ethnic party. Thus, the roots of Vojvodina’s Hungarian political parties should be sought in the cadre of the autonomous institutions. Throughout its existence, the regime of autonomy with its extensive policies of minority promotion contributed to the development of a Hungarian political and cultural elite in all spheres of public life. With the decomposition of the previous multiethnic regime of political participation and cultural life, this elite formed the ethnic Hungarian party and launched an appeal for ethno-political mobilization of Vojvodina Hungarians. As the socialist system of nationalities’ social, political, economic and cultural promotion fell apart, the Hungarian political elite in Vojvodina reanimated the post-Trianon historical discourse, which stressed the continuity of the Hungarians’ situation from the end of the World War I up to the end of the century. With regard to the 1990s, it claimed: “We are living in a society where a nation-state has come to substitute a party-state, and both forms are characteristic of negating diversity”. “The national exclusivism that resulted in civil war, as well as extreme centralization, moved us further away from the possibility to influence decisions that shape our destiny and existence. <...> today we can speak not only of danger, but also of discrimination in every sphere of life”270. Thus, the autonomous political and cultural institutions empowered the Hungarian elite, providing them with relevant resources that allowed them to find an alternative venue of political participation with the collapse of the socialist institutional framework of nationalities’ social, political, economic and cultural promotion, and to translate its discontent into a collective reaction aimed at retaining its collective cultural rights. Resources of public appeal (media, publishing), previously integrated into the socialist regime of nationality rights protection, began to serve the Hungarian party’s ethnic mobilization agenda. Simultaneously, the relative deprivation experienced by the Hungarian population of Vojvodina with the reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy served to legitimize the VMDK’s demands for Hungarian autonomy: research conducted in the 1990s revealed that Hungarians manifested a clear perception of ethnically-based inequality of individual and collective rights. The succession of the VMDK to the socialist-era regional autonomy comes to the fore in the party’s concept of minority autonomy. The high standards of minority rights protection achieved under the 1974 Constitution became benchmarks for subsequent policy making. They allowed the ethnic Hungarian party to act as an interest group that built their political legitimacy

270 Csubela F., president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, 1995. Qtd. in Komšić, Jovan. Šanse interkulturalizma i iskušenja etnodemokratije. Subotica: Otvoreni Univerzitet, 1997, p. 32. 114

on confronting the negative consequences caused by the abandonment of the previous multicultural policies. The Vojvodina Hungarian political elite based its strategy on minority cultural, political and territorial autonomy, as foreseen by the concept of autonomy adopted by the VMDK on April 25, 1992. The concept of minority cultural autonomy implied founding independent decision-making institutions, authorized to manage the spheres of culture, use of language, education and media, whereas the proposed policy standards of minority rights protection largely echoed the 1974 Constitution271. Another party with a policy agenda that referred to the 1974 constitution was the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV), a centre-left political party that became a protagonist of the Vojvodinian autonomist idea. Inspired by the standards of the 1974 constitution, the LSV aspired to articulate a new model of autonomy, based on a complex combination of individual rights and freedoms and the institutionalization of multiple regional interests. This approach respected the national principle without absolutizing it, as the ethnic criterium was considered dangerous, divisive and leading to forceful ethno-territorial homogenization. Instead, Vojvodinian regionalism focused on the affirmation of the economic, cultural, social and other interests shared by all the citizens of Vojvodina, and the creation of a civil society, respectful of the positive experience of multiculturalism and its citizens’ feeling of identification with their region. Therefore, the constitutional arrangement of the Yugoslav political system along ethnic lines, with the fundamental role attributed to nations and nationalities, had a crucial impact on the trajectory of party policy agendas at later stages. The political concept of nations and nationalities outlived the system that enshrined these collective statuses in its fundamental constitutional norms and became the basis for the subsequent political organization in the period of post-communist transition and the emergence of a multi-party system. Despite the absence of institutional barriers to reform, the system of nationality rights protection in Vojvodina had generated the potential for a collective reaction that may be regarded as a crucial element of path-dependent dynamics, allowing for the historical continuity of the standards of nationality rights protection in the province. Preserved by mass consciousness and public discourse and supported by political action on the part of political parties, these standards outlived a centralist stage of Vojvodina’s institutional arrangements,

271 The concept of autonomy went beyond the standards of the 1974 Constitutions, as it demanded territorial autonomy for predominantly Hungarian-populated municipalities in North Bačka. This idea proved to be unviable in the long run: besides leaving some 2/5 of Vojvodina Hungarians beyond the borders of the proposed territorial autonomy, the project was disapproved by all the nation-wide political forces and remained unfeasible. 115

when their implementation was to a considerable extent interrupted in practice, to be revived later, in new institutional settings. The role of political parties in preserving the policy standards of the 1974 constitution over time is fundamental. The reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy proved to be a key historical juncture that contributed to shaping significant dimensions of political cleavages, organized into political parties. The parties whose emergence and political platform date back to the processes that accompanied the reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy included the LSV (advocating the restoration of Vojvodina’s autonomy) and ethnic Hungarian parties (seeking ethnic Hungarian autonomy). Moreover, the policy agenda of the biggest opposition party, the DS, was compatible with that of the above-mentioned parties, thus creating the grounds for party alliances.

3.2.2. Political parties and the regional legal framework of minority rights protection in Vojvodina

The following analysis of ethnic policies conducted by Serbia’s political parties is structured into two periods: (1) the last decade of the 20th century, marked by the dominance of the SPS in shaping ethnic minority policies, and (2) the period subsequent to the critical juncture of the regime change in 2000 which provides us with a cross-party perspective in terms of party policy practices in the analyzed ethnic minority policy areas. Although a multi-party system was introduced in Serbia simultaneously with other Central and Eastern European states, the decade of the 1990s was peculiar and different from other post- communist states. This difference lay in the fact that for a decade after the formal introduction of the multi-party system in 1990, the party system in Serbia was dominated by one party272. The SPS (party successor of the LCS) and its leader S.Milošević maintained a monopoly over shaping Serbia’s ethnic policies273. Milošević was the leader of the SPS throughout his presidency in 1987-2000, and even after his extradition to the ICTY in 2001. Milošević’s rise to power posed a fundamental critical juncture that marked a radical turn in the ruling party’s ethnic policies. Namely, on September 23, 1987, an intra-party clash over the “national question” occurred at the 8th session of the CC LCS, which resulted in the victory of nationalist stream led by Milošević. In the outcome, provincial party leaderships in

272 Orlović, Slaviša. Politički zivot Srbije između partokratije i demokratije. Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 2008, p. 308-349. 273 Bazić, Jovan. Srpsko pitanje: političke koncepcije rešavanja srpskog nacionalnog pitanja. Beograd: Službeni list SCG, Institut za političke studije, 2003. 116

Vojvodina and Kosovo were replaced (the Yogurt Revolution), and amendments to the Constitution of Serbia were adopted which reduced competences of autonomous provinces. Within the LCS, Milošević had crucial power leverage to influence the country’s political transition. By adopting the new constitution before the elections were held in 1990, Milošević adapted important constitutional stipulations to his party’s interests. Among these, public property was retained, a semi-presidential system was introduced, and a majoritarian electoral system was implemented at elections274. Notably, the ruling party’s turn toward nationalism marked the delegitimization of the communist system and came as a response to pressures from the social environment. Mounting societal pressure for change was expressed in mass rallies, the biggest in Gazimestan on 28 June 1989. Thus, the critical juncture had important preconditions in society: societal pressure “from below” that characterized the political environment, created conditions for a radical third-order change in the whole approach to ethnic policies on the top party level. The critical juncture of delegitimization of the socialist value system resulted in the upsurge of nationalism as a response to a collective identity crisis and a means of ethnopolitical mobilization. At the very first elections the SPS’s ethnicity-framed appeals garnered huge support. The years 1990-2000 in Serbia can be considered a transitional period from a one-party system to a full-fledged multi-party system for several reasons. The peculiarity of this transitional period lies in the fact that Serbia’s party system in the 1990s was dominated by a single party, the ruling SPS, which represented continuity with the LCS in terms of party membership and ownership. The party-successor to the LCS continuously maintained its monopoly over the country’s political and economic life. On the one hand, elections were held and the opposition was represented in the federal and republican . Since support for the SPS diminished with every election, the party was forced to make concessions to its coalition partners in order to maintain its majority in parliament. On the other hand, throughout the 1990s the ruling party SPS maintained its monopoly over state institutions and the crucial levers of power: the public administration, the army, the police, the secret service, mass media and finances275. These levers helped the party and its leader Milošević (who was at the same time the country’s president) to obstruct political

274 In interpreting the ethnification of politics in terms of rational choice theory, the rationale behind ethnic mobilization would be the pursuit of votes. 275 Control over finances allowed one narrow circle of people associated with the ruling party to get rich and create economic monopolies. All these phenomena can be interpreted as utility-maximizing behavior, in terms of rational choice theory. 117

competition276. Police cracked down on peaceful opposition demonstrations in 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997 and 1999. The SPS used the public mass media under its control for party propaganda. Beginning in August, 1990, the intelligence services served the needs of the SPS, turning into political police and collecting information on political opponents and helping the SPS to disrupt the activities of opposition parties. The JUL, one of the SPS’s important coalition partners in 1998-2000, was led by Milosević’s wife M.Marković. Public funds were used arbitrarily for private and group purposes, resulting in party-led clientelism penetrating the whole state. In terms of ethnic policies, the coalition partners of the SPS (ND, SRS, and JUL) did not offer an alternative policy agenda. The above-said concessions regarded distribution of ministerial offices and positions in public enterprises, not policy changes. Two factors determined the failure of nation-wide opposition parties to introduce changes to ethnic minority policies in the 1990s. First, opposition parties had incomparably fewer organizational and material resources to challenge the might of the SPS. Until 2000 the opposition parties’ numerous attempts to unite were largely unsuccessful. These parties failed to offer a competitive alternative to the SPS’s policies277. Second, in the turbulent years marked by wars, the dynamic changes in the external environment required prompt responses to global ethnopolitical issues, such as the situation of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia278. Divergent views of these fundamental issues generated splits in the newly-founded opposition party DS, further weakening the opposition’s prospects for formulating an alternative policy agenda in the areas of language, media, education and culture of minorities in Vojvodina279. The area of ethnic minority policies was thus left to ethnic Hungarian parties. However, since they were in the opposition they could not influence the legislative process. In Milošević’s period, the VMDK participated in politics as an opposition party to the SPS, basing its refusal to ally with the ruling party on its commitment to the concept of autonomy.

276 Dizdarević, Raif. Od smrti Tita do smrti Jugoslavije: Svjedočenja. Sarajevo: Svjedok, 1999. 277 Orlović, Slaviša. Politički zivot Srbije između partokratije i demokratije. Beograd: Službeni glasnik, 2008, p. 308-349. 278 Bazić, Jovan. Srpsko pitanje: političke koncepcije rešavanja srpskog nacionalnog pitanja. Beograd: Službeni list SCG, Institut za političke studije, 2003. 279 The most significant example of opposition parties’ disoriented ethnic policy agenda was the DS at the initial stage of its existence when it suggested abolishing minority-language primary education. The law was passed in parliament but president Milošević refused to sign it. Interview with Csorba Béla (VMDP), June 2009. 118

Meanwhile the SPS, the party-successor to the LCS, retained not only its dominance in political and economic institutions280 but also the approach taken at the 8th Session of the Central Committee of the LCS after the introduction of a multi-party system. The new constitutional and legal system, created on the basis of the SPS’s party program, redefined the rights of national minorities in the new context of rigid state centralism. As a result of the 1990 constitutional reform the powers of autonomous provinces were significantly reduced. The Constitution specified (art. 109) issues of special interest to citizens, that the autonomous Province was entitled to implement, including culture, education, official use of languages, public media, etc. However, the Constitution did not foresee legislative authority for the provinces in these spheres; nor did it specify “individual questions” the provinces were authorized to manage. In practice these issues were managed by republican law. Most laws adopted afterwards did not specify the competences of the Province, or they specified them in a restrictive or symbolic way. The new Statute of Vojvodina adopted in 1991281 was more restrictive than the 1989 amendments to the 1974 Constitution. No right to pass laws was foreseen (although this possibility was not completely excluded by the Amendments); the powers of provincial executive institutions were insignificant; rights of national minorities were hence legally regulated on the republican level. Nevertheless, even according to the new Statute, the Province was entitled to pass decisions in the spheres of minority rights, although this was subject to the provisions of republican laws. In addition to the use of Serbo-croatian as their official working language, the provincial institutions committed to ensuring the official use of Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and Ruthenian (art. 6) and to create the conditions for education (art. 13), and the functioning of public media in the languages of nations and nationalities (art. 15). The legislation of the FRY and Serbia did not give a legal definition of national minorities or nationalities, nor did it specify them. Neither the FRY nor Serbia had special laws on national minority rights protection; this sphere was regulated by a series of other laws applied to respective spheres. In government institutions no special right of proportional representation of minorities existed. No mechanisms were foreseen that would allow representatives of minority communities to participate in the process of political decision-making on equal footing, nor

280 Managers of public enterprises and planned economic institutions associated with the SPS particularly benefited from delaying transition. Furthermore, civil war and international sanctions created favorable conditions for plundering public funds, smuggling and the clientelistic atmosphere created by the SPS apparatus. In the early 1990s the socialist-era nomenclatura controlled about 2/3 of enterprises (more than in any other post-socialist country. See Lazić. 281 The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Official Journal of the APV, No. 17/91. 119

were any effective mechanisms of appeal at the disposal of minorities. The existing laws only prohibited discrimination; minorities could found political organizations and nominate candidates at elections under equal conditions. This circumstance was further aggravated by the peculiarities of political life in Serbia and Vojvodina and the overall deterioration of inter-ethnic relations in Vojvodina in the 1990s. Previously the political majority had been formed within the ethnic majority group. The Serbian Radical Party, particularly distrusted by the Hungarian electorate, was especially popular in Vojvodina282. With the break-up of the SFRY, accompanied by wars, about 250,000 refugees from the war-torn parts of former Yugoslavia fled to Vojvodina283. This circumstance contributed to the radicalization of the political and social situation in the province. In 1991- 1994, sporadic clashes between groups of refugees and the local population took place, causing some of the minority population to migrate. On the one hand, the SPS recognized the rights of minorities to be educated in their languages, to found educational and cultural organizations and to maintain cultural ties with their ethnic kin abroad. However, many measures taken by the state institutions during the SPS period contradicted the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and caused distrust on the part of minorities. According to a survey conducted in 1997 only 26.4% of Hungarians believed that ethnic equality in the sphere of education existed in Vojvodina, while 49.1% of Hungarians claimed it did not exist284. Similarly, 23.6% of Hungarians believed that the employment opportunities in Vojvodina were equal for all nations, while 39.6% responded negatively. With regard to the perception of equality in occupying leading positions, 12.3% of Hungarians believed that equality existed while 54.7% answered negatively. The education laws formulated by the SPS and adopted in the 1990s were less favorable for minorities than those observed in Vojvodina up to the end of the 1980s. Unlike the 1974 Constitution (art. 189), the laws adopted in the 1990s set a requirement for a minimum number of pupils in preschool and primary education in order to organize teaching in minority languages. Nevertheless, a significant number of Hungarian pupils were still covered by Hungarian-language or bilingual primary education. In secondary schools this indicator was significantly lower, while at high schools and the University of Novi Sad opportunities to obtain one’s education in minority languages were modest285. In the 1990s the legislation on

282 Since 1992, the SRS was the SPS’s ally, in informal (1992-1993) or formal (1998-2000) coalition with the SPS and the JUL. 283 Cvijić, Srđan. “Srbizacija Vojvodine – mit multietničnosti”. Limes Plus, geopolitički časopis. Vojvodina: evropski region i priključenje Srbije/SCG Evropskoj Uniji. Beograd: Hesperia, 2006, p. 79-89. 284 Ilić, Vladimir, and Slobodan Cvejić. Nacionalizam u Vojvodini. Zrenjanin: Gradska narodna biblioteka “Žarko Zrenjanin”, 1997, p. 181. 285 Samardžić, Miroslav. Položaj manjina u Vojvodini. Beograd: Centar za antiratni akciju, 1999, p. 53-74. 120

universities did not foresee the right of school-leavers to take preliminary examinations at university in the language in which they graduated. This led to decreasing numbers of representatives of nationalities at some faculties. Accordingly, high schools were preparing insufficient numbers of competent staff to teach in minority languages due to the lack of respective study groups. Minority communities could not participate in managing schools, drafting school programs or founding new schools. An important trend that came to the fore in the 1990s was the fact that the possibilities of obtaining an education in Hungarian were very uneven in Vojvodina, being better in localities compactly populated by Hungarians (north Bačka and Potisje), and significantly worse in localities where their share in the total population was smaller. In the late 1990s the biggest Hungarian party, VMSZ, concentrated its influence in the north Bačka municipalities around Subotica where Hungarians constituted a majority, whereas Banat and Srem were comparatively neglected by the VMSZ. The SPS’s control over the media resulted in a rapid decrease in printed press in minority languages. Compared to 1979, in 1996 the number of newspapers in Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak and Ruthenian decreased by 50%. The circulation of newspapers in the 4 above- mentioned languages in 1995 was 43.07% lower than in 1991. From 1989 to 1994 the number of copies and titles of books in minority languages decreased by 71%286. The cultural life of minority communities in Vojvodina was badly hit by the long-lasting economic crisis and insufficient state subsidies. The personnel and editorial policies of the public minority-language media were under the monopoly of the ruling SPS, which controlled provincial and republican institutions. The publishing house “Fórum” (publishing the only Hungarian-language daily in Vojvodina “Magyar Szó”) was a public enterprise founded by the Council of Vojvodina and subsidized by the provincial budget. Despite these subsidies, most minority publishing houses were in a difficult economic situation. RTV Novi Sad, a part of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), broadcasted mostly translations of main programs in nationalities’ languages. The board of directors was appointed by the SPS-led government after consulting the competent committee in parliament. Minority representatives could not participate in RTS management. The number of independent newspapers and magazines in minority languages was insignificant, and the legislation in force was unfavorable for founding an independent radio or TV station. Unlike the 1974 Constitutions of Serbia (art. 146) and Vojvodina (art. 194), based on the principle of equality of languages and alphabets of nations and nationalities, the 1990 republican

286 Samardžić, Miroslav. Položaj manjina u Vojvodini. Beograd: Centar za antiratni akciju, 1999, p. 159-160. 121

Constitution declared Serbocroatian the official language, specifying that in the localities populated by nationalities, their languages and alphabets were “official, pursuant to the law” (art. 8). The 1991 Law on the Official Use of Language and Alphabet287 was more restrictive than the respective socialist-era legislation. It permitted the exclusive use of Serbian versions of toponyms and personal names. Unlike the Law on Publication of Federal Regulations (1976/1980), according to which all the official legal acts should be published in Serbian, Albanian and Hungarian288, the 1990 law did not mention the possibility of publishing legal regulations in minority languages. In practice, the regulations that guaranteed minorities the right to the official use of their languages were not fully applied, and state institutions did not take measures to improve the situation. The right to use Hungarian was guaranteed only for court hearings of first instance. The law in force gave precedence to Serbian as the language of court hearings. In the sphere of political representation, Hungarians, due to their share in the total population, were the only minority that could be represented in the republican and federal parliaments under the electoral systems applied since 1990, as the mechanisms set by the SPS did not allow proportional representation of minorities. However, in representative bodies on all levels of government there were no special procedures on how to manage issues relevant for minorities. Thus, the presence of several representatives of minorities could not guarantee that the interests of the respective group would be taken into consideration. Better representation of minorities on municipal councils did not improve the situation: in a centralized state, municipalities had very restricted authority, were financially dependent on the central power, and the most relevant minority-related issues were of republican competence. The socialist-era ethno-national approach to personnel policies in public administration was abandoned at the end of 1988, and this led to the underrepresentation of minorities among office holders and directors. In the municipalities where Hungarians constituted a majority (Ada, Bačka Topola, Bečej, Mali Iđoš, Kanjiža, Senta and Subotica), Hungarians were underrepresented in the judiciary, among directors of public enterprises, and in the police (as mentioned above, these institutions were controlled by the SPS). In these 7 municipalities Hungarians made up 57% of the population. The regulations adopted during SPS rule were ethnically neutral, as they did not set up mechanisms of proportional representation or protection of national minorities. The Constitution of Serbia did not foresee advisory bodies charged with minority issues. Different republican

287 Official Journal of the Republic of Serbia, No. 45/91. 288 Official Journal of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, 43/76, 11/80. 122

ministries were charged with minority-related issues, but no special agencies dealt with human rights. On the level of the federal administration, the short-lived Ministry of Human and Minority rights was annexed to the federal Ministry of Justice. The only institution charged with minority rights was the provincial Secretariat for the Enhancement of National Minority Rights, Administration and Regulations, which mainly produced reports and did not initiate any significant campaigns. Thus, the centralization of the Serbian state in the 1990s carried out by the ruling SPS, decreased the powers of the provincial institutions and led to the deconstruction of the legislative and institutional framework of nationalities’ rights protection. This impacted the every-day practice of implementing minority rights and created a pronounced feeling of relative deprivation among Vojvodina Hungarians. A new fundamental critical juncture was needed in order to overcome the dominance of one party in shaping Serbia’s ethnic minority policies. This critical juncture was produced by the growing loss of legitimacy of the SPS regime that finally led to its demise in the 2000 parliamentary and presidential elections, marked by attempts at electoral fraud on the part of the SPS. The opposition coalition DOS, uniting 18 parties, got 176 out of 250 mandates in the republican parliament. The electoral defeat of the SPS created possibilities for first-order changes in minority legislation and the enhancement of minority rights in Vojvodina. Throughout the 1990s, ethnic minority policy standards of the 1974 provincial constitution, albeit abandoned in practice, were preserved as a normative orientation in the policy agendas of ethnic Hungarian parties and the LSV, with a potential ally embodied by the DS as the major opposition party. The alliance structure of Vojvodina Hungarian parties was based on a long-standing division characterizing Serbian political parties in the form of “autonomism” versus “centralism”, which overlapped both with the ethnicity-related cleavage (“civic” vs “ethnic majority-dominated state”) and the “pro-European” versus “anti-European” foreign policy orientations of political parties. Since their emergence, Vojvodina Hungarian political parties opted for strategic cooperation with nation-wide forces that positioned themselves as “democratic”, “civic-minded” and “pro-European”. These were the LSV and the Democratic Party (DS), one of the biggest anti-Miloševic opposition parties in the 1990s, and dominant on the Serbian political arena since the regime change in 2000, as opposed to the political parties committed to state centralism, euroskepticism and ethnic majority mobilization, most notably, the SRS, SPS and DSS. The cleavage structure shaped by the critical historical juncture (the reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy) was favorable for those ethnic Hungarian political forces pursuing policies aimed at achieving minority autonomy, as it provided them with political allies along

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several cleavage dimensions: the alliance with the DS as a ruling party pursuing a civic pattern of political identity (as opposed to parties using an ethnic mobilization strategy vis-à-vis the Serb majority) and cooperation with the LSV aimed at restoring Vojvodina’s autonomy. The regime change brought about significantly favorable conditions for reinstitutionalizing the collective political and cultural rights of Hungarians and other national minorities in Vojvodina, and promoting minority autonomy, as the VMSZ became one of the DS’s principal partners after the DOS took power in Serbia and the province of Vojvodina. Their cooperation on the eve of the 2000 elections was based on a shared commitment to changing the political regime in Serbia. Convergence between the DS and the VMSZ with regard to political changes initiated in Vojvodina after 2000 resulted in the creation of post-electoral coalitions between the two parties in the provincial Assembly as well as in local municipalities. After the changes of October 5, 2000, with a vice-prime minister in the government, the VMSZ got the opportunity to participate in the ruling majority on the republican, provincial and local levels, as well as shaping policies on the provincial level. Thus after the critical juncture of October 2000, political and economic changes led to a gradual institutionalization of national minority rights protection on the republican and provincial levels. The redefinition of Vojvodina’s competences within Serbia was relevant for the situation of the Hungarian minority. The reform initiated by the DOS resulted in passage of the Law on Local Self- Government289 and the Law on Establishing the Jurisdiction of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Omnibus Law) in February, 2002290. Over 200 competencies, including the spheres of culture, education, official use of languages and alphabets, and public media, were transferred to Vojvodina. The Omnibus Law delegated issues related to the official use of languages to the Province (art. 18), according to the 1990 Statute, that, alongside the Serbo-, foresaw the official use of Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and Ruthenian. The law entitled the Province to adopt teaching programs for minority languages (art. 12, 13). In the sphere of media, RTV Novi Sad was transformed into an autonomous legal subject in June, 2006. In May, 2002, the Provincial Secretariat of Regulations, Education and National Minorities took over control of the official use of minority languages in public inscriptions, toponyms, names of streets, notifications, bilingual official documents, possibilities of communication in minority languages in councils, executive institutions and administrations of local municipalities, public enterprises, republican institutions, and in localities demographically dominated by national minorities, where the regulations on official use of minority languages

289 Official Journal of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, No. 9/02, 26.02.2002. 290 Official Journal of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, No. 6/2002, 7.2.2002. 124

were not respected even in municipalities dominated by a Hungarian majority such as Kanjiža (90% Hungarian) and Senta (80% Hungarian)291. Noticeably, court hearings in North Bačka were already held in Hungarian. In the subsequent period, a series of decisions by the DOS-dominated Provincial Assembly expanded minority rights and abrogated certain laws, e.g. the Law on the Official Use of Languages and Alphabets. These decisions regulated the official use of languages, the distribution of budgetary funds for national councils and institutions that used minority languages in their work, and subsidies for national communities. The Provincial Council of National Communities founded by the Executive Council on August 30, 2006, became an important advisory institution monitoring the work of national councils. The office of Provincial Ombudsman became the most important independent institution dealing with the protection and promotion of human rights in provincial and municipal institutions. The institutional basis for education in Hungarian, reduced in 1991, was again expanded after 2000 with the opening of Hungarian groups in pre-school institutions, liberalizing requirements for Hungarian sections in primary and secondary schools, the founding of two gymnasiums and the pedagogical faculty in Subotica, as well as new magazines in minority languages financed from the provincial budget. Compared to the 1990s, the provincial budget erogated significantly more subventions to minority organizations, media, culture, and publishing activities. The number of pupils covered by secondary education in minority languages increased. Possibilities of ensuring the right to education in one’s mother tongue existed on all educational levels, albeit with persistent logistical problems: difficulties of reaching schools, insufficient numbers of teachers, lack of Hungarian textbooks, etc292. Still, the possibilities of education in Hungarian were still better in areas populated by a Hungarian majority (in North and Central Bačka, Potisje, North Banat) than in Srem, South Bačka, South Banat, where Hungarians constituted a minority. In the latter areas Hungarians were neglected by ethnic Hungarian parties. Not a single Hungarian school existed in Srem in the said period. On the local level, the Law on Local Self-Government foresaw the right of ethnically heterogeneous municipalities to establish advisory councils for interethnic relations, composed of representatives of all national communities present on the territory of the municipality. The municipal council was obliged to consult the council for interethnic relations with regard to its decisions related to minority rights. Until mid-2007, most ethnically heterogeneous municipalities in Vojvodina established councils for inter-ethnic relations. Despite the binding

291 Interview with Petar Teofilović, provincial ombudsman, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, August 19, 2009. 292 Manić, Željka. Položaj mađarske nacionalne manjine u Vojvodini: sociološko-pravni aspekt. MA thesis. U of Belgrade, p. 68-77. 125

stipulations of the law, in most municipalities these institutions were not in a position to carry out their functions in practice. Since the Law on Local Self-Government did not specify procedures for electing members of councils for inter-ethnic relations, local municipalities arbitrarily appointed council members, and the councils’ structure reflected the party structure of the local authorities. The experience of the first decade of the 21st century showed that the provincial institutions proved to be more sensitive and effective at promoting the rights of national minorities, adopting numerous acts and taking on activities and measures aimed at protecting diversity and the rights of national communities. The role of the Hungarian elite is notable: throughout the said period, the VMSZ was coalition partner in the provincial government for several mandates. Substantial progress was made in a domain where the republican institutions were passive. Hungarians were adequately represented in the provincial institutions in relevant offices according to their share in the population. Their representatives in republican legislative institutions had a constructive role in the elaboration of minority legislation. The fact that the VMSZ was consolidating its power on the provincial level provided the Hungarian political community with an important framework for articulating their interests. In turn, by pursuing the above-described policies, the DS recognized the leading role of Vojvodina as an institutional framework for promoting national minorities293. Moreover, Serbia’s European integration appeared as an additional incentive to the DS to improve minority-related legislation and its enhancement. Hence, the pro-European, civic (as opposed to ethnic majority- oriented) and autonomist orientations appeared to be a supreme legitimizing motive and a powerful factor that conditioned the convergence of policies pursued by the parties with the political agenda of the Vojvodina Hungarian minority. Likewise, autonomist political forces depicted Vojvodinian regionalism as “Serbia’s locomotive on its way to Europe”294. The basis for the VMSZ’s convergence with the autonomist LSV was laid by the multicultural character of the province, which became one of the major legitimizing motives employed by supporters of the province’s autonomy. This circumstance further expanded the political opportunities available to the Hungarian elite. Here, opportunities opened up for the Hungarian political community to cooperate with both provincial and nation-wide political forces on the basis of their engagement in two interrelated dimensions: 1) the process of expanding Vojvodina’s autonomy, and 2) the process of Serbia’s integration into the EU.

293 Interview with M.Gagić, chairman of the Executive Board of the Council of the Province of Vojvodina of the Democratic Party, August 14, 2009. 294 Interview with A.Jerkov, spokeswoman of the LSV, Novermber 2009. 126

The LSV and the VMSZ cooperated since the foundation of both parties, running together for elections in electoral coalitions on the republican level before the abolition of the 5% threshold for minority parties. Their last joint participation in elections was in 2003, in the coalition “Together for Tolerance” (LSV, VMSZ, and the Sandžak Democratic Party). After the coalition failed to pass the threshold, the LSV gave the Hungarian party its support in directing European institutions’ attention to the situation of the Vojvodina Hungarians. Once back in parliament, the LSV and VMSZ based their cooperation on their shared commitment to European orientation and regional interests. These shared attitudes determined that in most cases, the voting patterns of the two parties in the Parliament coincided295. Likewise, the LSV has been one of the VMSZ’s closest partners in the provincial coalition since 2000. The two parties acted together in favor of restoring Vojvodina’s autonomy. The 2009 Statute of Autonomy, as the legal framework for minority rights protection in Vojvodina, enables us to trace ethnicity-related cleavage within the Serbian party system in terms of policy practice. The Statute was elaborated by the DS, LSV, G17+ and SPO and opposed by the DSS, SNS and SRS. A first-order change in the SPS’s policies is notable. After entering the ruling coalition with the DS in 2008, the SPS passively supported the DS’s ethnic policies. This first-order change in party policy stances and practices can be attributed to the impact of the critical juncture of the SPS’s loss of power in 2000. With new leadership, the party had to adapt to fundamental changes in the political environment in order to survive as a significant factor in Serbia’s politics. The rupture with the Milošević-era ethnic policy path can be explained in terms of both rational choice theory (as the only way to pursue viable office-oriented behavior) and historical institutionalism (as an impact of a fundamental critical juncture). In the case of the SPS, the two theories seem to be complementary, not contradictory. Identical party voting patterns could be observed during the adoption of the Law on Establishing the Competences of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina on November 30, 2009 simultaneously with the new Statute of Vojvodina. The DS, LSV, G17+, SPS and SPO voted for the law, while DSS, SNS and SRS opposed it296. The law confirmed the Province’s

295 Interview with A.Jerkov, spokeswoman of the LSV, Novermber 2009. 296 Interviews with Miloš Gagić, chairman of the Executive Board of the Council of the Province of Vojvodina of the Democratic Party (DS) (14.08.2009.); Petar Ćirović, deputy president of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) (03.11.2009.); Aleksandra Jerkov, spokesman of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV) (02.11.2009.); Radovan Radovanović, member of Parliament, working group for national councils of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV) (02.11.2009.); Nemanja Starović, vicepresident of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Renewal Movement and spokesman of the party (SPO) (14.08.2009); Dane Pribić, president of the Youth Network of Vojvodina of the G17 Plus party, member of the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina (G17+) (03.11.2009.); Đorđe Raković, Serbian Progressive Party, Novi Sad (SNS) (22.08.2009.); Đurađ Jakšić, president of the city committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) (29.08.2009.) 127

competences in the sphere of education (articles 33, 34, 38), culture (art. 41), and the management and control of the official use of languages and alphabets of national minorities (art. 76). Other important stipulations of the law included the province’s commitment to co- finance the functioning of public media in minority languages (art. 62), and the possibility of delegating the Province’s competences in the field of culture, education and public media to national councils (art. 74.5). These stipulations represented elaborations of the LSV’s concept of regional autonomy, backed by the provincial branch of the DS. It is noteworthy that the 2009 Statute of Vojvodina avoids the notion of “national minorities” (unlike the 2006 republican constitution), preferring instead the definition of “numerically smaller national communities”297. In this way, article 6 stipulates the principle of the national equality of “Serbs, Hungarians, Slovaks, Croats, Montenegrins, Romanians, Roma, Bunjevci, Ruthenians and Macedonians, as well as other numerically smaller national communities”. Representatives of national communities that constitute a minority in the total share of the population are entitled to special protection (art. 22). In line with the programs of the DS, LSV and G17+, the Statute introduces new notions of multiculturalism and interculturalism as values of special importance for Vojvodina, and obliges provincial institutions to promote inter-ethnic respect and communication (art. 7). The Statute reconfirmed the official status of Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Croatian, Romanian and Ruthenian languages (art. 26). The right to official use of other languages is enforced according to ratified international agreements, the law and the decision of the provincial Assembly. With regard to the division of republican and provincial competences, article 23 specifies that the Province shall monitor the implementation of human rights and ensure their protection in case it is not ensured on the republican or the local level. An important legislative innovation introduced by the Statute is the principle according to which the level of individual and collective human and minority rights, once achieved, can not be reduced (art. 23). The Province may raise the level of protection of national communities. This principle, introduced by ethnic and regionalist parties, surpasses the stipulations of the 1974 provincial Constitution, and is in line with modern international standards of minority rights protection. The principle of proportional representation introduced by article 24 is another example of the higher standards applied by the Statute as compared to the 1974 Constitution. It committed the provincial institutions to ensure that representatives of national communities are represented in them according to their share in the population. Special measures and activities are needed as

297 Statut Autonomne Pokrajine Vojvodine. Službeni list APV, No. 17/2009. 128

long as a minority is substantially underrepresented, but these measures cannot endanger the functioning of any provincial institution and general conditions of employing people in them. These principles were the result of the DS’s, LSV’s and VMSZ’s engagement. In line with the LSV’s program guidelines the Statute established an advisory body in the provincial Assembly charged with the rights of national communities – the Council of National Communities composed of 30 members (art. 40). The number of representatives of every minority group is proportional to the total number of members of the respective community in the provincial Council. When deciding on an issue directly or indirectly related to the enforcement of national communities’ rights, especially in the spheres of culture, education, public media and official use of languages and alphabets, the provincial Assembly is obliged to ask the Council of National Communities for its opinion. Due to the fact that the Statute of Autonomy of Vojvodina on its own is not a minority document, when referring to the benefits of the Statute to the Vojvodina Hungarian community, both Hungarian and Serbian parties with an autonomist orientation converge in tending to place them in the context of the overall effect the Statute would have on the life of the citizens of Vojvodina. The Statute is important as the beginning of the decentralization process, but its effects are limited due to the fact that neither the Statute nor the Omnibus law regulates the Province’s revenues. The Statute’s benefits for national communities of Vojvodina can be subdivided in several spheres that support both historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions emphasizing the perpetuation of party policy agendas over time, and rational choice arguments about the utility- seeking nature of parties: 1. Framework for minority rights protection. The provincial level has proved to be a more effective framework for minority rights protection in terms of improving the quality of enforcement of minority rights. According to interviews with provincial officials dealing with the monitoring of minority rights, Vojvodina as a provincial political and institutional framework proved to be far more sensitive and responsive than the rest of Serbia or even adjacent states with regard to the practical enforcement of minority rights. The tradition of interethnic cohabitation, rooted in Vojvodina’s centuries-long civic culture, was adopted as an ideational value by ethnic Hungarian, Vojvodinian regionalist parties as well as provincial branches of Serbian nation-wide parties that adhere to the civic side of the cleavage, and was preserved in party policy agendas over two decades, in line with the historical institutionalist paradigm. 2. Financial benefits. By providing the province with additional financial means, the Statute creates the material basis for improving the enforcement of minority rights, as it would

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create conditions for passing the law on provincial property, and, respectively, ensure additional finances for activities in the sphere of national communities’ rights. In this way, the Province took over the commitment to finance national councils of national minorities and public enterprises. Moreover, the Fund for Capital Investment distributes funds allocated from the Republic on the basis of the constitutional stipulations of autonomy. The funds are redistributed on the provincial level, and local municipalities populated by a Hungarian majority can apply for financing on the basis of projects proposed by them. Financial incentives could drive political parties’ utility-maximizing behavior. Nevertheless, according to non-party based experts from provincial secretariats, the amount of available funds correlates with the quality of enforcement of minority rights as stipulated by the Constitution and the Statute. 3. Institutionalization of cooperation between provincial institutions and the Hungarian National Council is another evident benefit that the Statute of Autonomy of Vojvodina brings to the Hungarian community. The contribution of autonomist and ethnic parties to shaping legal stipulations is reflected in the level of minority rights established by the Statute in the sphere of language use, which exceeds the level of rights of national minorities established by the Constitution and the republican laws. Namely, the Statute foresees 6 official languages, while the Constitution of Serbia stipulates that the only official language in the state is Serbian. The unequal situation created between the Serbian citizens living in Vojvodina and those in other parts of the country was picked up by the DSS, SNS and SRS as one of main criticisms of the Statute. Vojvodina’s Statute of Autonomy was drafted by the DS, the LSV and the Hungarian Coalition. The impact of the Hungarian Coalition is especially visible in those parts of the Statute that regulate issues related to the principle of political representation of national communities in provincial institutions. Despite the LSV’s protests that all the DS’s coalition partners were excluded from negotiations and only scant information was available to them, the Statute adopted in autumn, 2009 was identical to the one drawn up with the participation of the LSV and the VMSZ (particularly T.Korhecz). In concluding the section we note that the 1974 Constitution of Vojvodina, by establishing a full-fledged system of nationality rights protection, institutionalized a particular track of developing official policies toward minorities. Considering four processes inherent to any political environment (collective action, institutional development, the exercise of authority, and social interpretation), the subsequent reduction of autonomy in 1989 proved to be a critical juncture marked by an “exogenous shock” to the current path, as the ruling party exercised its political authority so as to reverse the existing track of institutional development. Nevertheless, during the years of its existence (1974-1989), the Vojvodinian regime of nationality rights

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protection had generated the potential for collective action and social interpretation aimed at re- institutionalizing the abandoned path. By producing Hungarian leaders who were able to speak for the group, the system of de-facto cultural autonomy provided them with the resources and skills to mobilize politically. Thus, the roots of Vojvodina’s current minority protection regime date back to past events, although when it was finally institutionalized the factors that set the development along this particular path had long since passed away. Although policies and institutions in 2010 are not identical to those of 1974, the path dependence is obvious in the policy standards related to minority rights protection in the four policy areas. The continuation of these standards became possible due to program documents of both ethnic Hungarian and regionalist Vojvodinian parties, inspired by the 1974 constitution. Therefore, the example of Vojvodina allows us to consider the historical context as one of the elements of the minority political opportunity structure that may have generated crucial resources for achieving favorable outcomes even under conditions of deterioration of minority situation. The combination of the province’s historic, cultural and ethno-national peculiarities as constitutive factors of autonomy persisted from the 1974 provincial Constitution (art. 1), through the 1990 republican Constitution (art. 108), to the 2009 Statute of Autonomy, revealing historical path continuity. The persistence of the ethnic policy standards from the 1974 constitution in the policy agendas of regionalist and ethnic Hungarian parties allowed these standards to outlive an interim period of state centralization in the 1990s, allowing for their succession from the 1974 Constitution to the 2009 Statute of Autonomy. The program documents of the VMDK and the LSV, rejected by Milošević, after more than a decade allowed for the historical continuation of the standards of minority rights protection inherited from the 1974 constitution. The persistence of policy agendas of Vojvodina’s ethnic Hungarian and regionalist parties throughout two decades speaks in favor of thesis 1 of the present dissertation, based on historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions about a considerable degree of stability of party policy agendas over time. By expanding the historical institutionalist perspective to the studies of ethnicity, the case study of Vojvodina Hungarians provides an example of path dependence in the sphere of ethnic minority policies, explaining why state policies toward minorities are difficult to reverse once institutionalized. The costs of deinstitutionalization are translated into the political processes of collective reaction and social interpretation that can be regarded as a crucial element of path- dependent and self-reinforcing dynamics. In the case of Vojvodina, the collective reaction and social interpretation of the reduction of its autonomy, contributed to shaping the structure of political cleavages at the moment of a “critical juncture”, i.e., at the outset of a multi-party

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system. In turn, these cleavages gave rise to political parties that based their political platforms on the concepts of minority and regional autonomy, inspired by the principles of the 1974 Constitution. In the long run, these path-dependent concepts became re-institutionalized in new institutional settings during the process of the restoration of Vojvodina’s autonomy. Hence, the reinstitutionalization of minority rights protection became possible due to political processes, driven by path-dependent actors pursuing a path-dependent political agenda.

3.2.3. Political parties and Hungarian cultural autonomy in Serbia

The establishment of national councils of national minorities is one of the most important legislative changes that occurred in Serbia after the critical juncture of regime change in 2000. National councils of national minorities as institutions of cultural autonomy were established by several pieces of legislation, all of which reveal a long-standing cleavage between Serbia’s political parties in terms of policy practice. The legislative foundations of minority cultural autonomy were laid by the federal Law on the Protection of Rights and Freedoms of National Minorities and the 2006 Constitution (art. 19). Specific cultural autonomy legislation includes stipulations of the 2009 Statute of Vojvodina (art. 25) and the Law on National Councils of National Minorities. The federal Law on the Protection of Rights and Freedoms of National Minorities defined national councils as advisory and representative bodies in the fields of education, culture, media, official use of language and alphabet298 (art. 19). The enactment of such legislative changes became possible with the regime change in 2000, with the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coming to power. The national council was vested with the right to deliver proposals, initiatives and opinions to the Parliament, Government and other state institutions within its competences. Likewise, the council was to have advisory powers on minority-related issues with provincial institutions and local municipalities. The first National Council of the Hungarian National Community, consisting of 35 members, was elected in Subotica on September 21, 2002 by an electoral assembly299 dominated by the VMSZ, pending the adoption of the respective law that would regulate the rules of universal and direct elections of national councils by secret ballot. During the process of establishing the legal foundations of minority rights protection, the VMSZ and the Hungarian National Council elaborated proposals with regard to minority rights

298 Official Journal of the SRY, No. 11, 27. 02.2002. 299 The electoral assembly was composed of Hungarian deputies of federal, republican or provincial parliaments belonging to the minority community and authorized by the Ministry of national and ethnic communities. 132

to extensive autonomy. Their proposals were accepted by all DOS-based parties and enshrined in the 2006 Constitution. The right of every national minority to elect a national council was established by article 20 of the Constitution dealing with institutions of cultural autonomy. The beginning of Koštunica’s first (DSS) government (2004) coincided with a rapid slowdown in the elaboration of practical legislative stipulations that would allow for the implementation of the constitutional principles. Two terms of Koštunica’s government (2004- 2007, 2007-2008) were marked by a lack of political will to pass the Law on National Councils of National Minorities, to define its competences and to enshrine them in the legal system. The delays in making necessary changes to legislation occurred due to the opposition of the parties that represented the opposite side of the threefold cleavage: the DSS, SNS and SRS opposed the law, considering its stipulations anti-constitutional. Likewise, the split around the Statute of Autonomy of Vojvodina overlapped with the ethnic/civic cleavage. The VMSZ, DS, LSV and G17+ actively participated in drafting the Statute and voted for it, while the DSS, SNS and SRS opposed it, considering it a legal act that undermined the constitutional foundations of the Serbian state. The autonomy of national communities is explicitly stipulated by article 25 of the Statute, which defines the leading role of national councils. The Province may delegate to local municipalities and national councils the management of individual affairs of its competence, providing necessary financing (art. 31). The second half of 2009 marked a watershed in the Hungarian political community’s cooperation with the nation-wide establishment. The adoption of the Law on National Councils of National Minorities became possible due to the support of a part of the DS, led by minister of human and minority rights Svetozar Čiplić and characterized by a more liberal view towards national minority policies. The Law on National Councils of National Minorities gave hitherto unseen prospects for cultural autonomy of national minorities300. The law stipulated that national councils based in Vojvodina would be financed from the republican budget and co-financed from the provincial budget. Furthermore, the law entitled national councils to initiate the adoption of new laws or amendments to the existing legislation, and monitor its enforcement. National councils obtained the right to found associations, funds, institutions of education and upbringing (art. 11), culture (art. 16), media (art. 19), the public use of languages and alphabets (art. 10); or to co-found them together with the Republic, Province, local municipality or other legal persons. The Republic,

300 Official Journal of the Republic of Serbia, No. 72/2009. 133

Province, and local municipalities were entitled to transfer founding rights over the above- mentioned institutions to national councils (art. 24). The DS-led provincial institutions manifested their acceptance of national councils through the transfer of competences. The provincial Secretariats transferred to national councils the competence over deciding on priority projects for co-financing. In the field of education, national councils were authorized to suggest teaching subjects relevant for national minorities, and to participate in drafting teaching plans and programs. Obtaining the national councils’ opinion on school textbooks became an established practice in Vojvodina. In the field of official language use, national councils defined traditional toponyms in minority languages. In the field of media, the founding rights over printed media in minority languages on the territory of Vojvodina were transferred to national councils. The republican parliament, the government, other state institutions, as well as provincial and local government institutions were obliged by law to consult the national councils before making decisions on issues of minority cultural autonomy (art. 25). Legal acts adopted without consulting the national council are illegal and void. The national council may initiate the abrogation of republican legal acts that do not conform to the legislation on national minorities. The provincial and local institutions are obliged to consider proposals, initiatives and opinions from the national councils and take adequate measures (art. 26). On the provincial and local level national councils thus have more influence than republican institutions. Summing up the stipulations of the Law on National Councils of National Minorities, we may note that they largely corresponded to the Common Concept of Autonomy of Vojvodina Hungarian Parties301. Nearly all the demands of the Hungarian parties regarding cultural autonomy found their expression in the provisions of the law. The Law on National Councils was only the first step toward improving the autonomy legislation, as it introduced new competences which were not reflected in other laws. Notably, the VMSZ demanded not only to mutually harmonize regulations on the republican and provincial levels, but also to bring them into conformity with the party’s Concept of Autonomy. According to the legislation in force, national councils were not supposed to be politically subjective but were supposed to act exclusively in the sphere of culture. Nevertheless, the Hungarian national council was practically influenced by the VMSZ, Vojvodina’s biggest Hungarian political party. An example of indirect political benefits that could be potentially drawn by political parties from their control over cultural institutions was provided by the change in status of the Hungarian daily “Magyar Szó”. With the election of the first Hungarian

301 Hungarian Coalition. A Magyar Koalíció autonómiakoncepciója. Subotica/Szabadka, March 2008. http://www.vmsz.org.rs/article.php?lg=hu&id_article=4613, accessed on 5 September 2011. 134

National Council in 2002, the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina transferred the founding rights over “Magyar Szó” to the National Council. Later on, this move provoked criticism by other Hungarian parties that the daily had become the mouthpiece of the VMSZ, which also controlled the Hungarian National Council. Moreover, the daily’s editorial office was moved from Novi Sad to Subotica, the stronghold of the VMSZ. Although the Hungarian community was the first in Vojvodina to conform to the stipulation of collecting signatures of over 50% of minority representatives on the electoral list in order to organize direct elections of the national council, the question on the effective implementation of autonomy remained open302, as the first elections to national councils in June, 2010 were politicized, with much rivalry among several political fractions within the minority and nation-wide political elites. The composition of the national council represented the distribution of influence within the Hungarian electorate. During the first direct elections held in June, 2010, other parties’ electoral lists (most notably the DS and the LSV) ran alongside the VMSZ. The national council as an institution of cultural autonomy thus proved to be a source of political capital in the inter-party struggle. The experience of Vojvodina Hungarians thus suggests that rational choice arguments on the utility-maximizing behavior of political parties and historical institutionalist assumptions on the perpetuation of party policy stances over time are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Parties may stick to their original policy agenda, which could also enable them to create new institutional spaces for drawing office-related benefits. The genesis of cultural autonomy legislation in Serbia clearly reveals the crucial role of political parties in enabling the succession and perpetuation of previously abandoned standards of minority rights protection. Path dependence is obvious in the policy standards for minority education, media, language use and culture. The continuation of these standards became possible due to program documents of both ethnic Hungarian and regionalist Vojvodinian parties, inspired by the 1974 standards, as well as regional branches of nation-wide parties with an ideational dimension framed in civic terms. This finding lends support to thesis 2 and historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions on party policy inertia over time and its impact on state policies.

302 Notably, the VMSZ’s leading role in drafting the Law on National Councils resulted in its considerable similarity to the respective law passed in Hungary in 1993. Besides, like in Hungary, and in line with the general ambivalence of the classical NCA model with regard to the definition of membership in a minority community, defining the electorate for the minority councils in Serbia became a fraught issue. The Serbian law left the registration for elections of minority councils with the free will of individuals belonging to the minority, whereas a minor Hungarian party VMDP demanded from the Ministry of Interior that all the members of the minority community should be put on the electoral lists according to the census data. In the long run, the registration of members of the Hungarian minority for the elections of national councils was organized by the VMSZ. 135

By advocating Vojvodina’s autonomy and actively participating in the creation of its Statute of autonomy, the VMSZ acknowledged the Province as the primary venue for articulating the interests of the Hungarian community. Thus, the political process aimed at increasing Vojvodina’s autonomy created opportunities for an increasing civic component in the VMSZ’s policies. The legal, political and institutional framework presented by the institution of Vojvodina’s autonomy, historically dating back to the socialist period and in practice never formally abrogated, since 2001 provided the Hungarian minority with an effective system of opportunities for the assertion of policy goals, that in the long run resulted in the institutionalization of cooperation between provincial institutions and national councils, enshrined in the 2009 provincial Statute. At the same time the status of nationality enjoyed by the Hungarians in Vojvodina according to the 1974 provincial Constitution, allowed for the continuity of their collective rights in the most recent period, as the set of political and cultural rights established back in 1974-1989 was revived in 2001-2010 in terms that corresponded to the new political realities. It was then further expanded by new legislative stipulations that reflected the modern international standards of minority rights protection. Political parties’ contribution to restoring the previously abandoned policy path is fundamental: the decade-long gap in implementation of policy practice was bridged by political parties’ policy agendas formulated on the basis of abandoned policy standards and kept unaltered throughout the entire period of state centralization. In focusing on the case study of the cultural status of the Vojvodina Hungarian minority in Serbia, this chapter has revealed the crucial significance of political parties in providing institutional space for self-reinforcing dynamics associated with minority-related policies, once these have been reversed. In line with thesis 2 and the historical institutionalist theory, political parties provide path dependence mechanisms at the disposal of minorities that can enable the previous path to be restored, once the institutional framework of minority rights protection falls apart. The Vojvodina case study thus exemplifies the costs faced by a government aspiring to reverse ethnic minority policies and highlights political parties as path-dependent factors that stand behind the collective action processes related to the perpetuation of main policy principles. Parties allow ethnic policy principles to outlive the abolishment of respective institutional arrangements, persist across radical political and social changes over time, and reemerge at later historical stages, in new institutional settings. Although party policies in the long run allowed for a minority rights protection regime to be reinstated and for the temporal gap marked by the abandonment of these policy principles to be bridged in practice, a crucial distinction should be made between the minority policies

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implemented by specific institutions and the minority agenda pursued by political parties, in line with thesis 3. The two approaches are different in nature due to the intrinsic peculiarities of party phenomenon: the main rationale behind political parties’ activities is their struggle for power and winning electoral support. Since the collapse of the one-party framework of political participation, the Vojvodina Hungarian political elite, in pursuing ethnic mobilization, successfully exploited Hungarians’ feeling of relative deprivation for attracting electoral support. The self-reproducing legitimization of ethnic parties, a path-dependent process in its own right, became particularly salient during the first elections of the national council of the Hungarian minority, with the participation of various electoral lists associated with political parties. The very fact that political parties engaged in the struggle over the national council reveals the attractiveness of this institution as an institutional resource of political capital, lending support to rational choice assumptions about the office-seeking nature of political parties. On the one hand, this circumstance may benefit ethnic minority policies, prompting the parties to consider minority issues in their agenda, as shown by the experience of parties that stress their commitment to civic and regionalist values and whose contribution to the restoration of minority autonomy is presented in this chapter. On the other hand, the practice of political parties in Vojvodina provides examples of cases in which the tactical priorities of political parties are often defined by electoral considerations and do not always correspond to the priorities suggested by the real minority situation (e.g., the project of territorial autonomy; scarce attention toward the situation of Hungarian-language education in the subregions of Banat and Srem where the Hungarian electorate is too weak for ethnic parties to rely on; or the example of the “Magyar Szó” daily). Minority policies pursued by ethnic parties had their limitations, as they were conditioned by “office-oriented” considerations. Although the findings suggest that political parties’ effectiveness in pursuing minority- related policies cannot be neglected, they nevertheless prove to have crucial limitations to the their policy effectiveness, posed by electoral considerations and the peculiarities of the available alliance structure. In terms of implications for the ethnic minority policy network, the experience of Vojvodina Hungarians suggests that minority policies, once (re-)institutionalized, would benefit if organized according to the principle of professionalism (like Vojvodinian secretariats and other provincial executive institutions), rather than remaining party-based and politicized.

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4. THE CASE STUDY OF ESTONIA’S RUSSIANS

4.1. Ethnic cleavage in the Estonian party system

4.1.1. Stances on ethnic minority policies in Estonian political parties’ programs

The following chapter presents a systematic analysis of the most important strategic program documents of all Estonian political parties represented in the (parliament) from 1992, tracing minority-related program goals in a two-decade chronological perspective. Two periods can be distinguished in the evolution of minority-related stances in program documents of the Estonian nation-wide parties: the period of the 1990s, with an emphasis on the protection of the Estonian nation and culture in the restored nation-state, and the period from 2000, with a growing attention to the inclusion of ethnic minorities into social, political and economic life. Notably, the latter development occurred only in the programs of political parties that emerged out of the Popular Front of Estonia. These parties are the Estonian Centre Party (KE) and the Social Democratic Party (SDE) In contrast, the program stances of successor parties to the Congress of Estonia with regard to ethnic policies remained unaltered. As of this writing, these parties have all become united into the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (IRL), with the Reform Party (RE) as the coalition partner. The first strategic program documents of all Estonian political parties elected in the 1992, 1995 and 1999 parliament share one important feature that illustrates the consensus between major nation-wide parties on the country’s ethnopolitical strategy, resting on the restorationist principle in citizenship policies and a rigid naturalization procedure, centered on the Estonian language exam. None of the main strategic program documents of the parties Isamaa (Pro Patria)303, Estonian Liberal Democratic Party (ELDP304, since 1994 called the Estonian Reform Party, RE305), Popular Front (ERR, later KE)306, Moderates307, Estonian Country Union (Estimaa Maaliit, EML)308, Estonian People’s Union (Eesti Maarahva Erakond, EME309, since

303 Isamaa valimisprogramm 1992. Tallinn: Vaba Maa, 1992; Isamaa valimisprogramm 1995. Tallinn: Vaba Maa, 1995; Isamaaliidu programm "Eesti 2000". Tallinn: Isamaaliit, Vaba Maa, 1998; Isamaaliidu programm (kinnitatud Isamaaliidu suurkogul 7. mail 2002. a.). Tallinn : Isamaaliit, Online Trükitööd, 2002. 304 Cit. in: Elu: liberaalne leht. Rapla: ELDP, 1990 305 Eesti Reformierakond: valimisplatvorm, laiendatud valimisplatvorm, valimisnimekiri. Tallinn: Eesti Reformierakond, Uniprint, 1995; Eesti Reformierakonna programm ja põhikiri. Tallinn: Eesti Reformierakond, Uniprint, 1998. 306 Eesti Keskerakonna põhikiri ja programm. Tallinn: Eesti Keskerakond, Spin Press, 1994. 307 Erakond Mõõdukad: programm. Põhikiri. Tallinn; Tartu: Mõõdukad; Tallinn: Pakett, 1998. 308 Eesti Maaliidu programm. Eesti Maaliidu põhikiri. Tallinn: Eesti Põllumajanduse Infokeskus, 1991. 309 Eesti Maarahva Erakond: põhikiri, programm, valimisplatvorm. Tallinn: Eesti Maarahva Erakond; Pärnu: Trükk, 1995. 138

1999 Eestimaa Rahvaliit, ERL310), Safe Home, Estonian Coalition Party311, Independent Royalist Party of Estonia, Estonian National Independence Party (ERSP)312, Estonian Citizen, Green Party (EER)313, Party of Estonian Entrepreneurs (EEE)314, foresaw alternative solutions to the issue of non-citizens in Estonia. Naturalization was the only policy option mentioned in the party program documents. In a wider perspective, consociational solutions or any forms of inter- communal dialogue were not taken into consideration; no specific measures involving non- Estonians in political and public dialogue were considered. On the whole, minority issues did not appear prominently in the program documents of any nation-wide party315, apart from the cursory mention of individual, not collective minority rights. Instead, the strategic documents of the above-said major parties converged in their ethnic primordialist vision of Estonia as a monoethnic nation-state, implicitly viewing the sizeable Russian community as a threat to Estonia’s statehood, language and culture, rather than considering measures to politically and socially involve it. Throughout the two decades not a single Estonian party has elaborated an all- encompassing program document dedicated to ethnic minority policy issues. Comparing the very first party program documents with their subsequent evolution, it can be concluded that all Estonian mainstream parties converged on fundamental ethnic policy goals, based on the principle of state protectionism of the Estonian ethnicity. In Hall’s terminology, no third-order policy changes between nation-wide parties on the fundamental principles of citizenship and language policies emerged in party programs in two decades. This circumstance again speaks in favor of historical institutionalist theoretical assumption on the path dependency of party policy stances over time. Still, differences in policy particulars (mostly first-order and at times second-order policy changes) began to emerge in the second decade of independence (after 2000). It is notable that these differences emerged after pressure from the EU with regard to Estonia’s EU accession

310 Eestimaa Rahvaliidu põhikiri ja programm. Tallinn: Eestimaa Rahvaliit, 2000; Eestimaa Rahvaliit. Põhikiri. Programm (vastu võetud Eestimaa Rahvaliidu kongressil 10. juunil 2000). Tallinn: Eestimaa Rahvaliit; Võru: Võru Täht, 2001; Eestimaa Rahvaliit. Põhikiri (kinnitatud ERL IX kongressil 8. juunil 2002). Programm (kinnitatud ERL X kongressil 20. septembril 2003). Tallinn: Eestimaa Rahvaliit, ETPV Trükikoda, 2004. 311 Eesti Koonderakonna programmilised seisukohad. Eesti Koonderakonna Juhatus. Tallinn: Hansar, 1993; Eesti Koonderakonna programm. Tallinn: Eesti Koonderakond; Pärnu: Trükk, 1997. 312 Eesti Rahvusliku Sõltumatuse Partei: põhikiri & programm. Tallinn: ERSP, 1989; Eesti tuleb tagasi: Eesti Rahvusliku Sõltumatuse Partei valimisprogramm 1992. Tallinn: ERSP, 1992. 313 Erakond Estimaa Rohelised. Programm. http://roheline.erakond.ee/images/stories/dokumendid/programm.pdf, accessed on 5 November 2011. 314 Eesti Ettevõtjate Erakond. Põhikiri ja programm. Tallinn: Eesti Ettevõtjate Erakond, 1990. 315 As party electoral strategies are beyond the scope of the present dissertation, only strategic program documents are included in the present research. The data on electoral campaigns in the parliamentary elections of the first decade of independence can be consulted in: Hallik, Klara. “Rahvuspoliitilesed seisukohad parteiprogrammides ja valimisplatvormides.” Heidmets, Mati (ed.). Vene Küsimus ja eesti valikud. Tallinn: Tallinna Pedagoogiaülikool, 1998, pp. 77-100. 139

subsided. Although the EU’s conditionality represented an important critical juncture (in historical institutionalist theoretical terms), it did not provoke changes in party policy programs. These changes came as a result of the changing political environment, as the subsequent analysis will show. The analysis thus distinguishes two groups of parties: those whose programs include minority-related policy objectives (KE316, RE317, SDE318), and those whose programs do not contain chapters dedicated to minority issues (Isamaa, later IRL). The perpetuation of a minority-related cleavage dating back to the Popular Front (ERR) and the Citizens Committees (Congress of Estonia), again gives support to the historical institutionalist arguments. The Congress-based parties ERSP and Isamaa, the leading parties in advocating a rigid approach to citizenship and language policies, took the lead in formulating “citizenship policy principles” (implying a rigid naturalization procedure). The foundations of these policies, laid down by the Congress, were elaborated during the government of Mart Laar (leader of the “Pro Patria” party and Prime Minister 1992-1994). Parties committed to these principles included Isamaa, ERSP, Pro Patria and other minor parties subsequently all united into the IRL; followed by the RE, a splinter of Pro Patria and IRL’s coalition partner since 2007. Throughout the two decades (from the restoration of Estonia’s independence up to this writing), the commitment to the continuity and unchangeability of the citizenship policy principles runs throughout all the main strategic documents of the Congress-based parties (both their splinters, such as the RE, the 1994 splinter of Pro Patria, and their mergers, the most important being the 2005 Pro Patria Union and the 2006 IRL) and their coalitional agreements. In the second decade of independence the right-wing “Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica” (IRL) and the Reform Party (RE) still demonstrated their commitment to rigid citizenship and language policies with virtually no proneness to concessions. Thus, at the moment of this writing, the main goal of the IRL was defined as follows: “The main goal of the party ’Isamaa and Pro Patria Union’ is to guarantee the preservation and development of Estonia’s nation, language and culture”319. “The principles of citizenship policy do not change”, the party program went, lending eloquent support to historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions on the path dependency of party program goals over time. In the firm

316 Eesti Keskerakonna põhikiri (vastu võetud erakonna 7. kongressil 19. veebruaril 2000 Tallinnas). Eesti Keskerakonna II programm (vastu võetud erakonna 6. kongressil 24. augustil 1997 Viljandis). Tallinn: Eesti Keskerakond, Spin Press, 2000. 317 Reformierakond. Programm. http://www.reform.ee/ee/reformierakonnast/reformierakond-parem-eesti-koigile- vabadus-maksud/reformierakond-programm#14, accessed on 5 November 2011. 318 Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond. “Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakonna Programm”. // http://valimised2011.sotsdem.ee/programm/loimumine/, accessed on 18 May, 2011. 319 Isamaaliidu programm: kinnitatud Isamaaliidu suurkogul 7. mail 2002. a. Tallinn: Isamaaliit, 2002; IRL-i programm 2011-2015. http://www.irl.ee/et/IRL-i-programm-2011-2015, accessed on 18 May, 2011. 140

conviction that automatic citizenship and liberalizing language requirements do not correspond to Estonia’s interests and expressing its commitment to “conservative” policies, the IRL has shown a clear two-decade-long continuity (path dependence) with regard to language and citizenship policies, instituted by the Congress of Estonia back in late 1980s. In tending to emphasize the protectionist approach with regard to Estonian nation, language and culture, these parties did not balance it by mechanisms of minority promotion in their programs. The program guidelines of the IRL and the RE on minority-related policy issues were elaborated in these parties’ coalition agreements for the periods 2007-2011 and 2011-2015. The main stipulations of the latest ruling coalitions’ program documents were in line with the first governments’ rigid principles in the spheres of language, citizenship, education and other minority-related policies, and thus reveal strong path dependence, in line with historical institutionalist arguments. Thus the coalition government constituted in 2007 by the RE, IRL and SDE, prioritized the protection of the Estonian language and its use, increasing financing of various programs of language use, and support for Language Inspection activities320. Five out of 12 policy measures formulated by the coalition government focused on promoting Estonian language learning. With regard to the reform of secondary education, the program prioritized the promotion of the Estonian language of instruction, while the preservation of cultural identity and native language of national minorities was addressed only by doubling the financing of culture and cultural schools of national minorities. Here, the term “national minority” was not applied to ethnic Russians, since their community did not manage to create institutions of cultural autonomy. Hence, in dealing with the preservation of Russian culture the coalitional agreement referred only to the Russian Old Believers settled by Lake Peipus. Meanwhile, the overall Russophone population of Estonia was not addressed as a community with specific needs (except the officially recognized need of learning the state language and conforming to naturalization requirements). Notably, the program did not deal with non-Estonians’ inequality in terms of social and economic opportunities and did not foresee any measures to address this situation. The coalitional agreement signed between the IRL and the RE in the wake of the 2011 parliamentary elections largely reiterated the principles of the previous years’ integration policies321. The document explicitly stated that the directions of the citizenship policies did not change. The novelty was the enumeration of ethnic minorities entitled to the protection of their

320 Estonian Government. “Reformierakonna, Isamaa ja Res Publica Liidu ning Sotsiaaldemokraatliku Erakonna valitsusliidu programm aastateks 2007-2011”. 2 April 2007. http://www.valitsus.ee/et/valitsus/valitsuste- loetelu/45-andrus-ansip/valitsusliidu-programm-2007-2011, accessed on 18 May 2011. 321 IRL and RE. “IRLi ja Reformierakonna valitsusliidu programm”. 23 March 2011. http://poliitika.postimees.ee/?id=407612, accessed on 18 May 2011. 141

cultural heritage: Jews, Baltic Germans, Russian Old Believers, Estonian Swedes and Ingrian Finns. Again, the overall Russian community of Estonia was not mentioned among minorities entitled to specific collective rights. It is notable that the 2007 “Bronze Soldier” crisis, albeit the culmination of mounting pressure coming from Estonia’s Russian community for overall ethnic policy rethinking, did not prompt the ruling IRL and RE to reconsider their fundamental ethnic policy stances322. In turn, the ERR-based parties (KE after 2000 and SDE since 2011) gradually elaborated a different approach to ethnic minority policies. They tended to combine a commitment to promoting the majority national identity, language and culture with an inclusive approach toward minorities, manifested through concrete policy measures as proposed in their programs. The cleavage between the stances of the KE and those of the right-wing IRL and RE on ethnicity-related issues dates back to the rivalry between the Popular Front and the Congress of Estonia. The ideology and membership of the latter two parties drew on the legacy of the Congress. The KE emerged out of the rival organization Popular Front (ERR), which, however, also contained many adherents with an ethnocentric vision of the state among its members323. Nevertheless, the KE became the first Estonian mainstream political party to introduce a minority-related clause in its program324. The program, generally in line with the state’s integration policy goals, raised several problems faced by the non-Estonian population: alienation and the second-rate role of national minorities in society; their underrepresentation in the government, parliament, local municipalities and the public sector; structural unemployment of skilled workers among non-Estonians; a disproportionate share of non-citizens in the society; the continuing isolation of Estonian and Russian communities; the uncertain future of Russian schools; and the social alienation and marginalization of minorities. In order to deal with these problems, the party proposed a set of policy measures covering social, economic and cultural policies aimed at rendering the “one-sided” integration policies more systematic. The program formulated a general goal of passing anti-discriminatory laws and creating a system for enhancing them (ombudsmen, inspections, courts), as well as measures aimed at combating alienation, unemployment and fostering social equality and official tolerance toward ethnic

322 Among the most significant effects of the 2007 crisis, the KE-led initiative of the Tallinn City authorities to organize regular public debates called “Civic Peace”, intended to “break the ice” on integration-related issues is notable. 323 In comparing the two rival organizations for Estonia’s political renewal on the eve of independence, the Popular Front had a more liberal stance on language and citizenship issues than the Congress of Estonia. Nevertheless, the subsequent period saw the equalization of attitudes between the two organizations. In the long run, the ERR and the political forces that emerged out of it adopted the legal restorationist model of citizenry, initially promoted by the Congress. 324 Eesti Keskerakonna III programm (vastu võetud Eesti Keskerakonna X kongressil 21. augustil 2005 Rakveres). Tallinn: Eesti Keskerakond, 2006. 142

minorities. Given that anti-discriminatory laws were never put on the policy agenda in the parliament, it is impossible to rank them according to Hall’s scale of first-, second- or third- order policy changes. With regard to the transition of Russian schools to the Estonian language of instruction, the KE program advocated a “more flexible” approach (i.e., a first-order policy change), warning of the possible negative consequences of radical solutions. The program of the SDE experienced the first- and second-order changes in terms of policy objectives as early as on the eve of the 2011 parliamentary elections. A profoundly elaborated clause on integration in the SDE’s program marked a considerable change in the party’s ethnic policy strategy. Notably, it was not the 2007 “Bronze Soldier” crisis to prompt the SDE (at the time part of the ruling coalition together with the IRL and the RE) to reconsider its ethnic policy attitudes. On the contrary, during the April 2007 crisis related to the relocation of the “Bronze Soldier” monument, SDE member Jüri Pihl was Minister of Internal Affairs, when the April events saw excessive use of force against the protesters on the part of the police. A change in the party’s policy attitudes came only at a later stage, due to the impact of the political environment (orientation toward the Russian electorate on the eve of the 2011 elections). While confirming its commitment to the “privileged right of the indigenous Estonian people to the perpetuation of its nation, language and culture” in Estonia, the SDE’s 2011 program enumerated the main problems faced by the non-Estonian population due to unsuccessful state integration policies: mutual isolation of Estonian and Russian communities in separated media worlds, educational environments, labor markets and living environments; alarming social and economic inequalities; and social exclusion and alienation of the non- Estonian part of society. The party stressed its commitment to involving national minorities in decision-making processes both on the local and national level and expanding career opportunities in the public sector (without, however, specifying concrete policy steps to be taken in this direction). Among the policy measures proposed by the program, the party committed to prioritizing the quality of education in Russian gymnasiums in the process of transition toward the Estonian language of instruction (a first-order policy change, since the goal and amount of transition was not questioned). Besides, the party expressed its support for the creation of minority cultural autonomies, although without specifying whether it intended to prioritize concrete minorities. While it did not question the overall strategy of the transition of secondary education to the Estonian language of instruction, it combined prioritizing the spread of the Estonian language with several first-order policy measures aimed at increasing the sphere of use of the in the public and media spheres. On the other hand, the program reiterated the issues already voiced by the KE: granting automatic Estonian citizenship to non- citizens’ children (a second-order policy change) and allowing people over 65 years of age to

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take the naturalization exam on the Constitution in Russian (a third-order policy change). The proposed second- and first-order policy changes in the SDE program marked a new stage in the party’s minority policy attitudes325. While in general it did not contradict the fundamental goals of the IRL and RE programs on language, citizenship and education policies, the SDE program introduced new relevant insights with regard to policy particulars. Commitments to third- or second-order policy changes make the programs of Estonia’s ethnic Russian parties stand out against the overall background. Over the two decades, the program goals of Estonia’s ethnic Russian parties largely coincided. These goals included: a commitment to help all Estonia’s inhabitants obtain Estonian citizenship; preservation of Russian-language education; promoting the competitiveness of Russian school graduates on the labor market; expanding the sphere of use of the Russian language in particular areas (such as medicine instructions); combating the increasing socioeconomic marginalization of non-citizens; preservation of minority culture; settling the relations of the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate with the state; a pluralistic debate on historical controversies surrounding Russian-Estonian relations; and good neighborly relations with Russia. The striking overlap of the program goals of Estonia’s ethnic Russian parties in the areas of citizenship, language, education and other policies is corroborated by the party leadership succession among most parties326 and their pre-electoral and post-electoral coalitions327.

325 Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond. “Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakonna Programm”. http://valimised2011.sotsdem.ee/programm/loimumine/, accessed on 18 May, 2011. 326 There is a leadership succession between the Russian People’s Party of Estonia (RNPE) and the Russian Party in Estonia (RPE, led by N.Maspanov); and between the RPE, the Russian Baltic Party of Estonia (RBPE), the Russian Party of Unity (RPYe) and the Party “Unity of Estonia” (PYeE). After the latter 4 parties merged in 2002, RBPE’s Stanislav Tšerepanov became leader of the RPE, while leaders of other parties formed the RPE’s board. The merger did not help the parties to avoid political marginalization: in the long run, torn by internal strife, the RPE would win fewer votes than the number of its party members. On the other side, there is a succession between the Russian Democratic Movement (RDD, 1991-1994), the Representative Assembly of the non-Estonian Population (1992-1994), and Estonia’s United People’s Party (ONPE, since 1994). Both streams participated in the joint list “Our Home is Estonia” (composed of ONPE, RPE and RNPE) in the 1995 parliamentary elections. Later, ONPE and RPE participated in the 1999 local elections in the coalition “People’s Choice”. The parties based their cooperation on a joint commitment to oppose the “onslaught of rightist- nationalistic forces”, putting the shared policy program goals on the policy-making agenda. In June, 2008, the ONPE (renamed the Constitutional Party in February 2006) merged with the Estonian Left Party (EVP, a party- successor of the pro-independence wing of the Communist Party of Estonia) to form the Estonian United Left Party (OLPE), which, nevertheless, did not save it from becoming a dwarf party, unrepresented in parliament. The following episode is telling in terms of the overlap of program goals of all Estonia’s Russian parties. On July 14, 2000, the ONPE, RPE and RPYe signed an agreement on the creation of the Union of Russian Parties of Estonia “for the sake of a more efficient pursuit of joint program goals”. Nevertheless, on December 21, an analogous unification agreement was signed by a different group of parties (RPE, RBPE, RPYe and PYeE, leaving the ONPE out) “on the basis of a common program and ideological platform”, with no changes introduced into the RPE’s original program. 327 Three political paths of ethnic Russian parties in Estonia can be distinguished. The Russian-Baltic Party of Sergei Ivanov, which pursued an explicit pro-integration stance by basing its political identity on the idea of Baltic Russians’ cultural distinctiveness, over time merged with the Russian Party of Estonia. The RPE, led by ex-activists of the former Russian section of the Popular Front, continued to exist, competing with the KE for 144

A slight exception is the RPE program. Constructing its political identity upon the succession to the Russian National Union in Estonia (RNSE, the first Russian party of inter-war Estonia, founded in 1920), the RPE made its political program heavily reliant on the goal of restoring Russian cultural autonomy in Estonia – a notable merit of the RNSE that embodied the liberality of inter-war Estonia’s minority policies328. Among the most relevant policy change proposals, the program of the ONPE is notable. The party advocated facilitating the naturalization procedure for all Estonia’s inhabitants resident in the country as of August 20, 1991 (a second-order policy change). In the sphere of language policy, it called for giving the Russian language at least the status of a language of interethnic communication, which could be evaluated as a first-order policy change. Still, any of these general policy commitments foresaw concrete policy initiatives that could be defined as third order policy changes in Hall’s classification. Likewise, Russian parties’ performance in parliament in terms of putting third order changes onto the policy agenda was poor, as subsequent chapters will show. The most elaborated policy program by a Russian party came on the eve of the 2011 parliamentary elections, when the united Russian list, created on the RPE basis, based its electoral appeal on policy measures proposed with the aim of overcoming ethnically based social and economic inequality. During the 2011 electoral campaign, the united Russian list “Russkaja Sbornaja” (“Russian Team”), created on the institutional platform of the RPE, presented an Antidiscriminatory Program proposing a set of concrete policy measures in the spheres of social and economic policies, education, cultural autonomy, and voting rights329. The

the electorate and never passing the threshold since the 2005 elections. The United People’s Party (ONPE, since February 2006 renamed Constitutional Party) merged with the Left Party of Estonia, which, however, repeated its destiny of turning into a dwarf party. The cleavage between the Russian parties was based on different attitudes toward cooperation with mainstream Estonian parties and diverging ideological attitudes, only indirectly related to minority policy issues, the most conspicuous example being the RBPE, founded in 2000 by S. Ivanov. Born in Estonia to pre-war citizens, unlike most of the country’s Russian population which dates back to the Soviet era, Ivanov based his party’s political image on the peculiar identity of Estonia’s autochthonous Russian population, serving as a model for integration. The RBPE defined itself as a centre party, aiming at constructive opposition to and cooperation with the mainstream political forces (mostly the right-liberal RE, the RBPE’s partner in the 2002 local elections) cutting across ethnic differences, in contrast to the left-wing orientation and emphasis on ethnic identity exhibited by other ethnic Russian parties (ONPE, RPE, RPYe and PYeE). The cleavage lost its relevance amid the mergers and marginalization of the Russian parties. In the long run, the RBPE merged with the RPE while its leader, advocating the unification with the Reform Party, left the RBPE and joined the RE individually. 328 The RPE program includes references to the report of P.Baranin, a member of the Estonian State Assembly, made on the II Congress of the Russian National Union on November 21, 1925 and entitled “National Cultural Autonomy”. Drawing on the Law on Cultural Self-Government of National Minorities adopted by the State Assembly on February 12, 1925, the Congress adopted a resolution that committed to implementing cultural autonomy from January 1, 1927. 329 Russkaya Sbornaya. “Antidiskriminatsionnaya programma Russkoy Obshchiny Estonii”. Tallinn, February 19, 2011. http://www.slavia.ee/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5875:2011-02-03-12-00- 15&catid=161:-riigikogu-6-2011&Itemid=221, accessed on 18 May 2011. Adopted as a programme document 145

Russian party stressed its interpretation of the “Russian question” as a sociopolitical issue rather than an ethnic one, and justified the need for Russians to consolidate politically around the goal of seeking “inter-ethnic justice”330. Third-order policy change proposals included: (1) revision of education reform, reversing the transition of Russian gymnasiums to the Estonian language of instruction which affects 60% of the curriculum; (2) restoration of the stipulations of the 1938 Citizenship Law, abolishing the additional naturalization requirements based on duration of residence in Estonia, knowledge of the constitution and Estonian language skills for the naturalization of non-citizens permanently resident in Estonia for a minimum of 10 years; (3) abolishment of legislative differences in rights between Estonian-born and naturalized citizens331; (4) expanding stipulations of the Law on Cultural Autonomy, granting autonomy rights also to non-citizens; (5) legalization of double citizenship and liberalization of the border- crossing regime for residents of border areas. The program was doomed to failure, as the RPE did not pass the 5% electoral threshold, and subsequently (in January 2012) merged with the SDE. Although the unification of the RPE and the SDE raised the question of ethnic policy changes in the SDE‘s program and policy practice, the merger of the two parties did not result in changes in the SDE’s program, nor did the RPE insist on any program changes. The official rhetoric went that the comparison of program goals of the two parties revealed many common commitments. Moreover, on the eve of the merger with the SDE, the RPE distanced itself from the “radical stances” of Dimitri Klenski, the leader of the Russian Team in the March 2011 elections and the most active upholder of the RPE’s Antidiscriminatory Program. In conclusion, we can note that no third-order policy changes that would alter the parties’ policy attitudes on citizenship, language or other minority-related policies occurred in party programs over the two decades. This finding supports the theoretical assumption of thesis 1 and historical institutionalism that claim that political parties are generally prone to path dependence and reproduction of policy stances chosen at the moment of their institutionalisation.

by the candidates of the “Russian Team” (electoral list of the Russian Party in Estonia) for the 2011 parliamentary elections. 330 Interview with D.Klenski, leader of the Russian Team in the 2011 parliamentary elections (11.3.2011). 331 Such differences include: 1) the possibility of depriving a naturalized citizen of citizenship (art. 28 of the Citizenship Law). Estonian-born citizens cannot be deprived of Estonian citizenship for any reason (art. 8 of the Constitution; art. 28.3 of the Citizenship Law). Estonian-born citizens de facto have a possibility for double citizenship (despite prohibition by the law), as they can be deprived of citizenship only on the basis of voluntary application; 2) According to the Citizenship Law (art. 5), children of Estonian-born citizens obtain Estonian citizenship automatically. Children under the age of 15, born before their parents obtained citizenship, have the right to obtain citizenship by naturalization simultaneously with their parents, without passing the language, Constitution and civics exam (art. 13 & 14). Children aged over 15 of naturalized parents have to pass exams according to a general procedure, even if born in Estonia; 3) Only an Estonian-born citizen can run for presidential office (art. 79 of the Constitution); 4) Only pre-war citizens and Estonian residents as of 16 June 1940 can be acknowledged with the status of repressed (Law on Persons Repressed by Occupational Regimes, p. 1, art. 2). 146

A slight, incremental evolution of first- and second-order ethnic minority-related policy goals occurred in the programs of ERR-based parties KE and SDE. Nonetheless, the general minority-related policy objectives mentioned in the programs of these parties still do not contradict the general policy path embarked upon since early 1990s. A striking inertia and resistance to change in the policy stances of the Congress-based parties (currently represented by the IRL and the RE, united in the ruling coalition) gives further support to historical institutionalist arguments. These parties’ attitudes toward ethnic policy issues were not affected by such critical junctures (in historical institutionalist terms) as EU conditionality and the 2007 Bronze Soldier crisis that revealed the failure of official integration policies.

4.1.2. The intra-party structure of minority policy formulation

This section examines the intra-party framework for the genesis of minority policy among Estonian nation-wide parties. Assuming that minority representation in political parties is a crucial element of the ethnic minority policy network, the analysis relates parties’ minority membership to patterns of ethnic minority policy formulation within the internal structure of Estonian political parties. Since the restoration of Estonian statehood in 1991, the political representation of the Russian-speaking population in the Estonian Parliament has undergone three phases. The first phase was marked by the complete isolation of non-Estonians from national politics and policy-making. No one political force contested the 1992 Riigikogu elections due to the internal disorientation of the Russian-speaking community and its political elites. In the wake of the disenfranchisement of the majority of non-Estonians, the country’s electorate was ethnically homogeneous. The second phase coincided with the 1995-1999 and 1999-2003 convocations of parliament and saw the predominant participation of non-Estonians through ethnic Russian parties. The Russian parliamentary group, based on the coalition “Our Home is Estonia” (composed of the United People’s Party of Estonia (ONPE), and the Russian Party of Estonia (RPE)), was created in parliament in 1995 under pressure from the European Union. However, its experience was not successful: the group split twice without having achieved any political success in representing the Russian-speaking community. The Russian deputies proved unable to participate effectively in the decision making process, manifesting a lack of political experience and professionalism. Deputies of ethnic parties did not initiate many motions in parliament. The absence of human, financial and media resources as well as a poor reputation

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contributed to the Russian parties’ leaders’ inability to create a sustainable party network. Moreover, these parties demonstrated their incapacity to cooperate and build partnerships over the long term even within their lists332. The several Russian votes that were held sufficed to voice issues, but did not influence decisions. The immaturity of the first generation of Russian deputies in the Estonian Parliament limited their inability to exploit the opportunity to deal with issues relevant for the Russian community with the help of various European organizations, the representatives of which they were constantly meeting. As a consequence, the non-Estonian electorate was gradually alienated from the Russian parties. In the 2003 parliamentary elections, electoral support for all the major Russian parties decreased dramatically: compared to 1999, the support for the ONPE decreased three times (11108, or 2.2% of total votes)333. The party had an especially weak performance in predominantly Russian-populated Narva. Similarly, support for the RPE decreased 10 times, falling from 2% in 1999 to 0.5% (990 votes) in 2003334. Simultaneously, the Russian electorate was increasingly taken over by the Estonian Centre Party (KE) that gradually pushed numerous ethnic Russian parties out of the political scene. In 2003 4 Russian deputies were elected on the KE lists, and one Russian deputy from the lists of the Reform Party (RE). The reorientation of the Russian electorate from the Russian parties to the KE became especially manifest in the 2007 parliamentary elections, when despite the growing activity of the electorate, two Russian parties, the Constitutional Party (formerly the ONPE) and the RPE, did not pass the 5% electoral threshold, altogether having won just 1.2% of the total votes. In 2007, 5 Russians were elected on the KE lists, and one was elected from the RE. In 2011, the KE’s Russian faction grew to 8 people, and one deputy was elected on the lists of the Social Democratic Party.

332 Interviews with Sergei Ivanov, member of the Riigikogu, member of Tallinn City Council, delegate of the Reform Party (April, 2008); Aleksei Semjonov, director of the Legal Information Centre for Human Rights (April, 2008); Mihhail Stalnuhhin, head of Narva City Council, member of the Estonian Centre Party (08.02.2011.); Dimitri Klenski, leader of the Russian Party (11.03.2011.). 333 1999. Riigikogu valimised. http://www.erakonnad.info/1999.html, accessed on 18 May 2011. 334 2007. Riigikogu valimised. http://www.erakonnad.info/2007.html, accessed on 18 May 2011. 148

Table 2. Russian representation in the Estonian Parliament335

Year of 1992 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 elections Number of 0 6 4 0 0 0 deputies of (Our Home is (ONPE) Russian Estonia) factions Number of 0 0 2 6 6 9 Russian (KE) (4 from KE; (5 from KE; (8 from KE; deputies in 2 from RE) 1 from RE) 1 from SDE) Estonian factions

The Riigikogu of 10th convocation (elected in 2003) marked the third phase in Estonia’s Russian politics. Since no ethnic Russian party crossed the electoral threshold, Russian deputies were represented only within Estonian nation-wide parties (RE and KE in 2003-2007; KE in 2007-2011; KE and SDE since 2011). Within the Estonian nation-wide parties, the effectiveness of minority policy proved to be greater, as the analysis of legislative changes has shown. The results of three parliamentary elections (1999, 2003 and 2007) demonstrated that the KE was virtually the only Estonian party that consistently offered its minority members real opportunities to get into parliament. The party’s Russian membership in the Riigikogu grew from 2 deputies in 1999 to 8 in 2011. In addition, since 2005 the KE has retained a majority of mandates in the main cities of predominantly Russian-populated Ida Viru County: Narva, Sillamäe and Kohtla-Järve. Thus, the overall staffing policy of the KE contributed to its image as the only Estonian party offering prospects for a political career and promotion to minority representatives both on the national and local levels of governance, as well as in public service336. Beside purely quantitative representation, the KE managed to attract the most active Russian political activists, a notable example being Mihhail Stalnuhhin, the author of important draft laws in the spheres of language, citizenship and migration in the 1999 convocation of parliament, and chair of Narva City Assembly in 2002-2011. The RE was another party that had individual minority members (S.Ivanov and T.Muravjova) elected to parliament in 2003 and 2007. This level of minority representation was

335 The table does not include deputies of other non-Estonian communities that do not declare their adherence to Estonia’s Russian politics, the most prominent example being A.Lotman, leader of the Green Party (2007-2011). 336 E.g., in Tallinn City Assembly elected in 2005, 24 of 63 deputies were non-Estonians, overwhelmingly members of the KE (63% of 32 members of the KE faction was non-Estonian; in contrast, there were only 2 non-Estonian members in the RE faction, and only 1 non-Estonian in the IRL faction). Vabariigi valiskomisjon. Kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimised. http://www.vvk.ee/varasemad/?v=k05/, accessed on 18 May 2011. 149

still far below the proportion of ethnic Russian residents and citizens in Estonia, considering that in the outcome of the 2007 and 2011 elections, the RE got 31 and 33 mandates respectively. In 2011, not a single MP elected on the RE’s list belonged to minorities. In other major nation-wide parties, non-Estonian members held lower positions on the party lists and never made their way into parliament. This is especially telling for the right-wing conservative Pro Patria and Res Publica, parties of the political tradition dating back to the Congress of Estonia. Although they won a considerable number of mandates (28 mandates of Res Publica and 7 mandates of Pro Patria in 2003, 19 mandates of Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, IRL in 2007 and 23 mandates of IRL in 2011), these parties did not offer minority members the opportunity to be represented in parliament. In terms of internal structure of minority policy formulation, a sign of consideration of the Russian members was shown by the RE and the SDE in the beginning of the above-mentioned second phase of representation of Russian politics by mainstream parties. In this period, the RE and the SDE constituted Russian factions within their parties. The RE became the first Estonian party to create a Russian faction. Initiated by S.Ivanov, the faction elaborated the Program on National Minorities. Thus, the RE became the only Estonian nation-wide party to have such program. However, the document was ignored by other deputies of the party; it did not make its way to the public and did not produce alterations in the party’s minority policies337. The most eloquent manifestation of the extremely limited persuasive capacity of RE’s Russian members vis-à-vis the general party line on minority policies came during the adoption of the Law on Forbidden Constructions338, which served as a preface to the April 2007 crisis. During the final vote on January 10, 2007, in an attempt to avoid confrontation with their party’s line, the two Russian members had to either miss the parliamentary session (S.Ivanov) or abstain from voting (T.Muravjova). Ironically, the law was adopted by a margin of exactly two votes. This example is a telling confirmation of historical institutionalist arguments with regard to the relative inflexibility of party policy stances and the limited ability of individual members to alter the general party policy line. The practice of the KE showed that actual promotion of minority-related policies was contingent on intra-party pressure exercised on the party leadership by its Russian members. An example from the 9th convocation of parliament is relevant: a set of minority-related laws was

337 Interview with Sergei Ivanov, member of the Riigikogu, member of Tallinn City Council, delegate of the Reform Party (April, 2008). 338 Initiated by the IRL, RE and SDE, the law was intended to lay the groundwork for the removal of the Soviet soldier’s monument from the centre of Tallinn, opposed by the vast majority of Estonia’s Russian population. See Astrov, A. Samochinnoe soobschestvo. Tallinn: Tallinna Ülikooli Kirjastus, 2007; interview with Aleksandr Korobov, “Nochnoy dozor” (03.02.2011). 150

adopted only after the Centre Party entered the government in the wake of the breakup of the “Tripartite Government“ led by Mart Laar and composed of IRL, RE and Moderates (SDE). The laws adopted included the registration of the Russian Orthodox Church (which had no official legal status in Estonia until then); the Law on Primary School and Education that was welcomed by Russian schools; liberalizing provisions of the Law on Foreigners, the Language Law and the Law on Citizenship. The elaboration and adoption of these amendments were the result of consistent persuasive efforts initiated by individual Russian activists inside the KE on the party leadership. In 2002-2003, Eldar Efendijev (KE) served as Minister of Population and Ethnic Affairs in the KE-RE Government of Siim Kallas. Thus, Russian members of nation-wide parties got an opportunity to influence the general party policy line, but the scope of this influence also proved to be limited and depended on individual Russian party members’ persuasive abilities toward the party leadership. This ability to persuade on the part of Russian politicians within the Estonian nation-wide parties, beside being limited in terms of policy content, depended highly on the degree of inclusivity of the party’s general policy line, and proved to be more effective in the case of the more moderate KE, whereas it was largely unsuccessful in the RE. The latter party in the long run approached the IRL, the direct ideational successor of the Congress, in its ethnic policy attitudes and practices. With respect to the real political power of minority members within Estonian parties, it should be noted that the participation of non-Estonian members in the governing boards of all the Estonian parties remained extremely limited. An exception was the KE and the SDE and is a rather recent development. In the KE, Mihhail Velman and Denis Boroditš were members of the governing board in the period of writing the present dissertation. In 2011, Vadim Belobrovtsev, the vice- of Tallinn in 2010-2011, became a member of the SDE’s governing board. The difference between the ERR-based and the Congress-based parties in terms of minority representation in party governing boards illustrates yet another dimension of ethnic cleavage, which again overlaps with differences between these parties in policy attitudes and practices. The SDE’s most significant contribution to minority policy formulation was the work of the Minister of Population and Ethnic Affairs Urve Palo in drafting the State Integration Program. At the same time, however, several high-ranking state officials from the SDE proved extremely insensitive toward the Russian community. SDE-backed President Toomas Hendrik Ilves repeatedly expressed his disapproval of any changes to Estonia’s citizenship and language policies339. In the long run, the April 2007 crisis demonstrated the Integration Program’s failure.

339 See, e.g., “Ilves: russkij kak gosudarstvennyj? Ne zadavayte smeshnyh voprosov!” Delfi, 11 December 2011. 151

Considering the April 2007 crisis as a manifestation of the overall demand of Estonia’s Russian community for a bigger “voice” in ethnic minority policy formulation340, the SDE’s policies were as unresponsive to this claim, as were the policies of the party’s then coalition partners IRL and RE. The SDE followed the lead of the RE in imposing the unilateral decision to relocate the monument: its member Jüri Pihl served as Minister of Internal Affairs during the April events which saw the uncompromising use of force on the part of the police against the protesters. Therefore, up till 2011 the SDE’s ethnic policy stances can be characterized as ambiguous, with an obvious cleavage between various party members giving proof of divergent policy practices. The party did not prioritize minority issues until the 2011 parliamentary elections. A remarkable change in the SDE’s approach to minority policies occurred on the eve of the 2011 parliamentary elections. This change is related to the arrival of active minority politicians (V.Belobrovtsev, J.Ossinovski and several others) in the party. In March 2011, J.Ossinovski became the first Russian deputy elected to parliament from the SDE. The political context of the SDE-RPE merger is relevant for evaluating its implications for the party policy agenda. The reasons for unification with the RPE, publicly named by the party’s leader S.Mikser, seem to support the rational choice theoretical assumption, which ascribes potential party policy changes to a rational cost-benefit calculation, conditioned by a changing political environment. According to Mikser the party was interested in increasing support for the SDE among the Russian electorate341. By gaining ¼ – 1/3 of votes among both Russians and Estonians, the SDE could claim in its electoral campaign that it represents the country’s entire citizenry. Thus, the impact of the political environment on the SDE’s more active and articulated ethnic policy stances is evident. The Russian electorate, monopolized by the KE, represented an underused electoral niche for the SDE, which attempted to position itself as a serious alternative to the KE. In late 2011, the SDE was the second most popular party among the Russian electorate. A series of legislative initiatives by the SDE coincided with a rise in the party’s popularity to 15% among the Russian community, but it still lagged far behind the KE which

340 This assumption is based on the sociological finding that the the majority of Estonia’s Russians supported the protesters, not the Government. In addition, there is convincing evidence that the Bronze Soldier crisis transferred the realm of history proper, turning into a symbolic manifestation of protest against the overall marginalization of Estonia’s Russians from decision-making regarding the issues directly affecting it. See Astrov, op. cit. 341 ERR. “Sotsdemy gotovy priniat’ Russkuyu partiyu v svoi ryady”. 25 November 2011. http://rus.err.ee/topnews/292f0bd7-24b9-4b52-b07e-4e4e938d1aa0, accessed on 1 February 2012. 152

enjoyed the support of about 70% of Russians342. In its calculations the SDE followed the KE’s experience in successfully creating the image of a minority-inclusive party343. Providing active Russian politicians with access to decision-making was intended to increase the Russian electorate’s trust toward the party. In terms of implications for policy, this was closely related to a greater attention to ethnic minority policy issues on the part of the party. By 2012, the competition between the KE and the SDE over the Russian votes represented a critical juncture (in terms of historical institutionalist theory) which seemed to provide a serious opportunity for introducing liberalizing changes into Estonia’s minority policies. The political environment and the opportunity structure appeared to be gradually opening for Russian policies. The unification benefits for the RPE were also mentioned publicly. Namely, the RPE leaders promoted within the SDE could get opportunities to be elected to local municipality assemblies and parliament on the SDE’s lists. Earlier developments had provided the most eloquent evidence that ethnic parties‘ possibilities of getting into parliament were exhausted. Since 2005 ethnic Russian parties had been suffering one debacle after another in elections. For over a decade, the RPE had been unable to cross the 5% electoral threshold, while the number of votes cast for it fell below the actual number of party members (about 1200). The united ethnic “Russian Team” electoral list, created on the RPE basis, failed to cross the threshold in March 2011 parliamentary elections. Thus, despite policy-oriented rhetoric344, the cost-benefit ratio behind unification was obvious: in its political marginalization, the party had touched bottom and had nothing to lose. Still, the RPE’s program guidelines on citizenship policy, Russian-language education and Russian cultural autonomy remained points of potential divergence, as they could imply important, even second-order policy changes. Subsequent developments gave empirical evidence of both party policy inertia and ongoing changes in policy attitudes. A sign of party inertia in education policies came with an evasive answer by Mikser to a public letter to the SDE written by the association “Estonia’s Russian School” led by A.Lobov

342 Raun, Alo. “Olukord vene valijate seas: sotsid tõusevad, Kesk langeb.” , 04.01.2012. http://www.postimees.ee/691262/olukord-vene-valijate-seas-sotsid-tousevad-kesk-langeb/, accessed on 1 March 2012. 343 Given the degree of political polarization between Estonian and Russian voters, the move was risky: although promising to increase the SDE’s overall electorate by attracting more Russian voters, unification with the RPE could alienate ethnic Estonian voters from the party, as had already happened with the KE. 344 “Itogovaya rezolyutsiya s’yezda RPE.” Tallinn, 29 January 2012. http://rusparty.ee/%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F- %D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8E%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F- %D1%81%D1%8A%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B4%D0%B0- %D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BF%D0%B0/, accessed on 1 March 2012. 153

and asking to specify the party’s position on “the forceful transition of Russian schools to the Estonian language of instruction”345. Mikser noted that the SDE’s stance is different both from that of the ruling IRL-RE coalition and from Lobov’s view346. On the other hand, in admitting that the current citizenship policy path had become obsolete and did not correspond to contemporary realities, the SDE revealed its readiness for policy change. At the time of writing, however, we lacked evidence as to which order of change the party was ready to introduce. Summing up the practices of the major parties in terms of the intra-party policy formulation framework, it can be concluded that the phases of most active promotion of ethnic minority policy issues by KE and SDE in the areas of citizenship, language, education, cultural autonomy and others, coincided with phase of active participation of Russian members in these parties. Several aspects are notable: (1) policy formulation activities of Russian members have not been successful in all parties, but only in those with an ideational background and political tradition that was more open and receptive to alternative minority policy attitudes. Russian members in the Congress-based RE failed to introduce changes in that party’s policies, whilst Russian activists in the ERR-based KE and the SDE managed to alter party policies (second- order changes in the KE, and third-order changes in the SDE); (2) policy changes occurred in those parties that had enabled minority representation in their governing boards and in parliament. Changes did not occur in parties that did not allow for substantial minority representation; and (3) party policy changes can be attributed to the impact of the political environment. The SDE followed in the KE’s footsteps in constructing the image of a minority- inclusive party for the sake of attracting the minority electorate. In doing so, it began to prioritize minority policies. The overall finding seems to contradict neither the historical institutionalist, nor the rational choice arguments. With regard to ethnic policies of Estonian parties, the two theoretical traditions seem to be compatible. Parties of Congress-based background (IRL and RE) tend to prioritize the protection of the ethnic majority in their ethnic policies, while parties of the ERR- based tradition (the KE and the SDE) in the long run built an overarching image cutting across ethnic divisions. This allowed them to appeal to the Russian electorate so as to boost their electoral fortunes. On the one hand, electoral considerations may underlie the actions of both groups of parties, thus lending support to the rational choice arguments on the utility-

345 “Otkrytoe obraschenie Russkoy Shkoly Estonii k Svenu Mikseru.” 29 November 2011. http://www.dzd.ee/651550/otkrytoe-obrawenie-russkoj-shkoly-jestonii-k-svenu-mikseru/, accessed on 1 March 2012. 346 “Mikser: uzhe v osnovnoj shkole shag za shagom nuzhno vse bolshe prepodavat na estonskom.” Delfi, 30 November 2011. http://rus.delfi.ee/daily/estonia/mikser-uzhe-v-osnovnoj-shkole-shag-za-shagom-nuzhno-vse- bolshe-prepodavat-na-estonskom.d?id=62523260, accessed on 1 March 2012. 154

maximizing nature of political parties. On the other hand, overall party policy patterns clearly correlate with the historical-ideational background of these parties and contribute to its perpetuation, thus supporting the thesis 1 and historical institutionalist assumptions on the relative inflexibility of party policy stances over time. In terms of the social cohesion of an ethnically diverse society, such trends of polarization could only perpetuate ethnicity-related cleavage within the Estonian party system, with clear implications for policy. Changes can be introduced by relatively minority-inclusive parties, and blocked by relatively minority-exclusive parties.

4.1.3. The ethnic aspect of the parties’ ideational dimension

This section aims to delineate an ethnicity-related cleavage between Estonian political parties in the ideational realm. The party ideational dimension denotes informal ethnicity-related values, enduring beliefs, normative orientations and attitudinal culture, policy legacies, codes of appropriate behavior in particular policy areas, conventional relationships and routines based on a party’s internal cultural tradition. These elements altogether constitute the “ethnic credentials” constructed by political parties. As presented in the theoretical part, the ideational dimension of political parties, along with normative documents, provide their members with behavioral templates and reference frames in making policy choices. The salience of the ethnic aspect in the ideational profile of a party is likely to impose constraints on the possibility of individual party members to introduce a policy change in the respective policy area on behalf of the party and to garner support for it among party co-members and the leadership. Ideational codes can provide incentives or disincentives for particular policy paths. The ideational dimension is thus meant to complement the arguments regarding opportunities for ethnic minority policy formulation and policy change on the part of political parties. Given that since the first decade of the 21st century, ethnic minority policy-making in Estonia is structured through mainstream parties, the Estonian case provides a particularly promising area for studying the nature and degree of constraints imposed on ethnic minority policy-makers within the institutional environment represented by political parties. Moreover, a two-decade period provides a sufficient time span for analyzing the degree of inertia in parties’ ideational profile and the impact of critical junctural moments on altering party policy paths in the context of historical legacies embodied in ideational codes. Although a detailed account of the evolution of the ethnic dimension in parties’ ideational profiles remains beyond the scope of the present dissertation, the focus on the present-day shape

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of the ethnic ideational dimension of Estonian political parties, with a general overview of its historical trajectory, provides a relevant complementary dimension for understanding ethnic minority policy paths of political parties. Given the tendency of the Estonian party system toward the diminution of the number of parties and consolidation of bigger parties at the expense of smaller parties347, the focus on the current situation is relevant for assessing future prospects of party receptivity toward minority policy needs. Besides the already reviewed programs of political parties, sources for analyzing the ethnic aspect of the ideational dimension of political parties can be found in specialized survey data focused on political parties, the most important discursive elements of electoral campaigns and their correlation with the voting patterns of the ethnic Russian electorate. According to surveys conducted on Estonian political parties in the period preceding the last parliamentary elections (2011), not a single party claimed to have special strategies for attracting Russian votes348. Nevertheless, the major political parties can be grouped according to their official attitudes toward ethnic minority policy issues. The IRL had an explicitly Estonian-centered view of ethnicity issues, combining its insistence on integration of non-Estonians with a majority-centered vision of state and stressing the necessity for the “historical education” of Russian-speakers. This ideational orientation is in line with the party’s political legacy: it can be considered the main successor of the Congress of Estonia in the Estonian party system. For two decades the party has been the leader in consistently advocating the restorationist vision of citizenship, language, education and cultural policies. Liberal amendments to legislation, proposed by the ERR-based parties KE and SDE, have been blocked by the IRL, as the analysis of legislative developments will show. In contrast, the KE and the RE claimed to have a balanced stance with regard to the whole of Estonia’s population, regardless of ethnic affiliation, therefore seeing no need for special policies among the non-Estonian population. Still, the RE, a 1994-splinter of Pro Patria, was closer to the Congress-based IRL than to the ERR-based KE in its ideational profile. The convergence in parties’ stances on the relocation of the Soviet Soldier in 2007 showed compatibility of party values vis-à-vis the post-war

347 The two-decade evolution of the Estonian party system has seen the consolidation of core parties through the unification of smaller parties with similar ideological backgrounds, the most important developments being the unification of Res Publica and Pro Patria into the IRL. Smaller parties became marginalized as they did not reach the electoral threshold. 348 The survey conducted by the agency Turu-uuringud is presented in: Gunter, Aleksei. “Parlamentskie partii ne delyat svoih izbirateley na russkih i estoncev”. Postimees, April 21, 2009. The stances of the mainstream parties on ethnicity-related issues on the eve of the 2011 parliamentary elections are available in: Repman, Ksenija. “Krupneyshie politicheskie partii Estonii ne delyat svoih izbirateley po natsional’nosti”. Postimees, January 17, 2011. 156

immigrant population. The voting results on legislative amendments analyzed in the respective sections also reveal the IRL-RE convergence. The ideational profiles of the KE and the SDE, the two parties that emerged out of the Estonian Popular Front, were more open toward the development of ethnic minority policies compared to the successor parties of the Congress of Estonia. The KE preferred to employ an approach cutting across ethnic lines in its electoral appeals349. The party aimed to convince Russian-speaking voters that their interests lied with those of the overall population of Estonia, instead of emphasizing distinct needs of the Russian community. The party contrasted itself to the RE and IRL, presenting itself as the only alternative to their policies. Notably, the principles of the minority-related policies were not questioned; the KE’s criticism targeted the ruling parties’ economic and social policies. The KE invoked its own experience of ruling Tallinn, where it had the overwhelming support of the Russian population. Explicitly opposing electoral tactics based on “playing the national card”, the KE also targeted the ethnic Russian parties as its opponents, not potential allies, claiming that votes casted for “loser” ethnic Russian parties would strengthen the position of the right- wing IRL and RE350. Likewise, the ethnic Russian party RPE perceived the KE as its main opponent, as numerous publications on electoral and policy-related issues show. Parallel to the decline of ethnic Russian parties, the KE succeeded in building and monopolizing an image of the only Estonian party with a genuinely civic approach cutting across ethnic lines. This approach was opposed both to the divisive approach “us versus them” employed by the ruling IRL and RE with regard to the Estonian and Russian communities, and to that of the Russian parties that tried to position themselves as “protectors of Russian interests”351. In its public discourse, the leadership of the KE expressed anxiety over the future of a state in which an individual’s nationality is more important than his personal abilities. Contrasting itself to the IRL and RE, the KE cited its own cadre policies in the Tallinn City Assembly as an example of the openness of the party’s institutional channels to activities of non-Estonians with social ambitions. It should be noted in this context that other major Estonian parties, competitors of the KE (most notably, IRL and RE), avoided this strategy of offering visible channels of political

349 See, for instance, the appeal of the KE to the Russian-speaking electorate, made during the conference “Russian policies of the Centre Party” on the eve of the 2009 local elections. “Obrashchenie Tsentristskoy Patrii k russkoyazychnoy Estonii”. Postimees, 18 September 2009. http://rus.postimees.ee/?id=166325, accessed 18 May 2011. 350 In practice, these votes only strengthened the position of the KE in 2002 and 2005: according to the Estonian electoral system, the votes of parties that fail to pass the threshold are distributed among the winning parties. 351 Savisaar, Edgar. “Kakim mne viditsya buduschee Russkogo voprosa”. April 20, 2011. http://www.keskerakond.ee/savisaar/rus/2011/04/20/, accessed 18 May 2011. 157

mobility to the Russian population. This trend indicates considerable practical implications of ethnic division within the ideational realm of the Estonian party system. Another important dimension of the KE’s ideational dimension which, by the way, helps to understand its popularity among the Russian population, was constituted by an appeal to the so-called “Second Estonia”, or “losers of transition”352. Confirming assumptions of the relational theory of ethnicity, Estonia’s Russian population proved to be susceptible to this appeal, directed to a population aware of its socioeconomic deprivation. Furthermore, Russians’ support for the KE as a more representative channel of participation, compared to the weak ethnic Russian parties, can be explained by research on the political culture of Estonia’s Russians. This research suggests a low degree of protest mood and a proneness to adapt to the forces in power353. Thus the Russian community, faced with the choice of Estonian nation-wide parties, opted for a combination of the party’s prospects for accessing power and the party’s inclusivity towards the non-Estonian community. Both these ethnicity-related features of the KE’s ideational profile became the crucial cognitive shortcuts for the party’s electoral appeal to the Russian electorate, and these factors explain the party’s absolute victory over the ethnic Russian party354. The patterns of political behavior of Estonia’s Russian community showed that their mobilization clearly followed civic lines of political participation, not that of confrontation with the state or the Estonian community. The results of the referendum on independence, the number of Russians undergoing the naturalization procedure in the 1990s355 as well as abundant sociological research data all show that Estonia’s Russians, supportive of the civic model of society and open to integration, never challenged the right of Estonians to their nation-state. Their situation of relative deprivation prompted Estonia’s Russians to direct their anxieties and expectations towards the Estonian state and its institutions, as a community aware of being underrepresented in Estonia’s political and economic life. Thus, in 2007, an absolute majority of Russians manifested a wish to see their community participating in Estonia’s political and

352 Kallas, Kristina. 2008. The participation of non-Estonians in Estonian social life and politics. Heidmets, Mati (ed.). Estonian Human Development Report 2007. Tallinn: Eesti Koostöö Kogu, 2008, p. 63. 353 Berg, Eiki. Estonia’s Northeastern Periphery in Politics: Socio-economic and Ethnic Dimensions. Tartu: Tartu University, 1999, p. 78. 354 In turn, polarized political preferences determine the uniformity of electoral preferences within ethnic groups, to a considerable extent fitting the “ethnic census” description. In this situation, the minority electorate is influenced by the logic of “strategic voting”, i.e. voting for the party that combines positive prospects of access to government with inclusivity towards minorities in an attempt to prevent the victory of minority-exclusive parties. 355 Semjonov, Aleksei. "Estonia: nation-building and integration – political and legal aspects.” National Integration and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Societies: the Cases of Estonia and Moldova, ed. Kolstø, Pål (ed.). Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002, p. 116. 158

economic life on equal footing with the majority community, in the belief that the majority political elite should show more consideration for their views356. Nevertheless, the same surveys reveal a sharp contrast between the attitudes of ethnic Estonians and Russians towards participation of non-Estonians in Estonia’s political and economic life. Only 28% of ethnic Estonians were supportive of Russians’ aspirations for increased participation; in contrast, 34% of Estonians considered the involvement of Russians to be rather harmful to the country. Only one third of ethnic Estonians approved of Russians’ representation in parliament proportional to their share in Estonia’s population, while over one half of members of the ethnic majority group opposed it. Later survey data confirm the predominant commitment of more than one half of the majority community to ethnic primordialist values: in January, 2011, 54.1% of ethnic Estonians, regardless of education and income level, still considered the preservation of the Estonian nation and culture to be a major challenge for the country357. This circumstance revealed a huge potential for ethnicity to be used as a crucial uncertainty-reducing informational shortcut on the part of political parties (in line with the relational theoretical approach). This explains the outcome of the 2007 and 2011 elections, where ethnicity-related issues constituted an important element of the ruling parties’ (IRL and RE) electoral appeals. The sociological survey data and electoral results suggest that the attitudes of the majority group are an important factor to be taken into consideration when assessing the policy orientations of the major Estonian parties with regard to minority-related issues. Comparing party practices with ethnic Estonian public opinion regarding the prospect of increased political participation of non-Estonians in political life, the conclusion is obvious: one half of Estonia’s society exhibited ideational ethnicity-related values prioritized by the RE and IRL. This part of the society might provide a stable electorate for the latter parties that make up a traditional coalition opposing the KE. The KE, in its turn, could count on one third of ethnic Estonians’ votes. The outcomes of the 2007 and 2011 parliamentary elections reflect this layout. These facts might help explain the link between the perpetuation of restrictive principles in Estonian minority policies and overall Estonian politics which prove to be structured along ethnic lines to a remarkable extent358. The perpetuation of ethnicity-related cleavage within the

356 Vetik, Raivo. “Kelle oma on Eesti riik, kui ta on rahva oma?” Eesti Päevaleht, February 27, 2007. 357 The findings of the “Klaster” survey company are presented in: Ojakivi, Mirko. “Eesti järgmine suur eesmärk: rahvuse ja kultuuri säilitamine.” Eesti Päevaleht, 7 February 2011. 358 E.g., the impact of Russian votes became particularly evident already in 1995, when the Moderate Party (Mõõdukad, later SDE) hardly passed the 5% threshold in the parliamentary elections. It became clear that if the number of Russian voters had been 30,000 higher, the layout of national political arena would be noticeably different, shaped by a stronger performance of the political forces uniformly supported by the Russian voters. The 1995 elections marked the beginning of a long period during which the Estonian language requirements for obtaining citizenship were increasingly toughened and led to an extreme reduction of the number of naturalized 159

Estonian party system is in line with historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions that stress path dependence of party policy lines over time. It was only in the wake of the 2011 parliamentary elections that an ethnicity-related ideational change occurred in the SDE. Then, the party explicitly followed in the footsteps of the KE, attempting to attract Russian votes by means of offering political career channels to its Russian members. Such tactics, along with the unification with the ethnic Russian RPE, induced analysts to hypothesize that while the overall electorate of the SDE could grow, the ethnic Estonian share in it could diminish. This again testifies to a considerable degree of ethnicity- related ideational division that affects not only the parties, but also the electorates. After the elections, the ethnicity-related ideational turn in party attitudes became even more pronounced. In mid-November 2011, the leader of the SDE Sven Mikser launched an internet video-appeal in the Russian language to Estonia’s Russian citizens and their organizations359. The appeal strongly criticized the SDE’s competitors (intending the ruling IRL and RE) as “still considering state governance a privilege of Estonians, not of all citizens” and called upon the Russian community to start cooperation aimed at bridging the gap between the two communities. Presenting a thought-out evaluation of Estonia’s failed integration policy, Mikser’s appeal presaged a considerable shift in the SDE’s overall ethnic policies360. In Mikser’s words, no obstacles existed to cooperating with Russians, only slight contradictions. The RPE was the first to take up the call. Its leader Tšerepanov called cooperation and unification with the SDE a chance to uphold the interests of the party’s electorate and equalize the social and political opportunities of Estonians and Russians361. Public statements by the RPE leadership with regard to unification abounded with policy-oriented rhetoric: “the last several elections have shown the impossibility of dealing frontally with ethnic issues – we need partners among Estonian parties”362; “we are interested in unification in order to implement our program”363; “the appearance of such an influential ally could help us implement our program guidelines”364.

citizens per year. The number of naturalized Estonian citizens among adults was gradually declining each year and in the long run was minimized. New naturalized citizens were overwhelmingly children that had the right to obtain citizenship after passing graduation examinations in primary school. 359 Obraschenie predsedatelya Sotsial-demokraticheskoy partii Svena Miksera. http://rus.delfi.ee/daily/estonia/mikser-nekotorye-partii-schitayut-upravlenie-gosudarstvom-privilegiej- etnicheskih-estoncev.d?id=62350076, accessed on 1 March 2012. 360 The turn in the party’s stance can be exemplified by the fact that a year earlier, the United Left Party’s cooperation proposal was rejected by the SDE. 361 “Tšerepanov: ob’edinenie RPE s sotsdemami izmenit paradigmu politiki v Estonii.” Aktualnaya kamera, 12 January .2012, http://rus.err.ee/interview/48d62a4a-a200-4bf4-b0b1-8c7a63fe81d3, accessed on 1 March 2012. 362 Afanasyev: uspeshnoe sotrudnichestvo s sotsdemami stanet novym slovom v mestnoj politike. http://www.dzd.ee/655814/afanasev-uspeshnoe-sotrudnichestvo-s-socdemami-stanet-novym-slovom-v-mestnoj- politike/, accessed on 1 March 2012. 363 Russkaya Partiya Estonii predlagaet sotrudnichestvo sotsial-demokratam. 25 November 2011. 160

On January 12, 2012, the RPE and the SDE signed a unification agreement. The Final Resolution of the RPE’s Congress stressed the “similarity of program guidelines” of the two parties365. The document has a clearly policy-oriented tone: the RPE’s program goals are said to have come to constitute “a significant part of the joint party’s program, which gives more significant possibilities for their achievement”. The unification was claimed to be something more than a merger: the renewed SDE was deemed “the first party in the newest history of our country with a proportional representation of Estonians and Russian-speakers”. Regardless of any potential changes in party policy practice that might occur subsequent to the conclusion of the present research, a third-order change clearly occurred in the ideational realm and in minority representation within the party. It can be concluded from the general experience of Estonia’s political parties that the ethnic aspect of the ideational dimension is prone to path dependence, perpetuation and reproduction by political parties over time, thus confirming thesis 1 based on the assumptions of historical institutionalism. Over the last two decades the major political parties in Estonia have proved their polarized ethnic credentials, whereby ethnicity acts as a significant component of party ideational labels. In addition, an ethnicity-related ideational cleavage between parties correlates with an analogous cleavage in society. A considerable degree of polarization is manifested by the Estonian and Russian ethnic communities on a range of important issues, including the most crucial one: the persisting reluctance of a considerable share of the ethnic majority community to accept increased participation of the minority in Estonia’s political and economic situation. In the face of the challenge of the two ethnic groups’ polarized political preferences on ethnicity- related issues, two options are available to Estonian political parties: to pursue a pattern of ethnic exclusivity in their ideational profile, targeting the expectations of a more exclusively- minded part of the ethnic majority electorate, or to adopt a civic approach, appealing both to the moderate part of the ethnic majority community and to the ethnic minority electorate. The political practice of the major Estonian parties proves that the right-wing Estonian parties (IRL and RE) opted for the first approach, de facto acting as ethnic majority parties and resorting to ethnic mobilization tactics vis-à-vis the majority electorate, whereas the KE framed its electoral appeal in civic terms. The subsequent re-orientation of the SDE toward the Russian electorate by creating a minority-inclusive image (including receptivity toward policy claims) can be attributed to the contagious example of the KE (i.e., influence of the political environment).

http://rus.err.ee/estonia/f803a5de-81d1-4aea-83a5-7d7da723289f, accessed on 1 March 2012. 364 Ibid. 365 Itogovaya rezoliytsiya s’yezda RPE, op.cit. 161

Up to 2012 the internal political layout in Estonia has been rather unfavorable for creating incentives to address relevant minority policies and create overarching civically-framed nation- wide spaces for social and political participation. The limited proneness of nation-wide parties to pursue minority policies has had important implications for the social, political and economic development of the ethnic minority community. As the strategies of equalizing ethnically-based social and economic differences in party program documents are still in their embryonic stadium, ethno-social stratification remains an inherent feature of Estonia’s development. Ethnicity-based inequality in the spheres of political representation, economics, and social life continues to structure interests and their perceptions along ethnic lines. Against this background, ethnicity still operates as an important element of Estonian parties’ ideational dimension. In this context a major shift in another party’s (SDE) stance on ethnic policies occurred in early 2012, before concluding the present dissertation. With some indications already at hand, it still remains to be seen whether an ideational shift by the SDE toward greater inclusiveness of the Russian community could bring about a breakthrough in party policy practice. Nevertheless, this considerable change in the “ethnic credentials” of one single party suggests relevant conclusions for the present work. The fact that the SDE is following in the KE’s footsteps in an attempt to attract the Russian electorate suggests a positive impact of the political environment on policy change in the former party. Again, this finding lends support to a synthesis of rational choice and historical institutionalist paradigms. On the one hand, considerations of utility maximization can provoke changes in party ethnic policy attitudes and practices. On the other hand, such changes are possible in parties with ideational profiles that are relatively compatible with policy alteration (SDE and KE). Meanwhile, first-order changes are not likely to occur in parties with ideational profiles based on values, normative orientations and political legacies that are diametrically contrary to alterations of the existing policy path (IRL). The latter empirical observation, based on the Estonian case, is in line with historical institutionalist arguments and thesis 1. The critical juncture, in this case EU pressure to alter citizenship and language policies in the late 1990s, did not result in the alteration of party policy program attitudes on ethnic issues. Changes were made at a later stage, due to efforts of minority activists among party members in persuading the party leadership that engagement in minority policies could bring additional votes. More importantly, such efforts were successful only in those parties with ideational profiles that were sufficiently open to ethnic minority initiatives (ERR-based KE and SDE), i.e. not strongly dependent on motives of ethnic majority mobilization. Similar efforts undertaken in the Congress-based RE failed, while in the IRL no efforts were even made in this direction: this party had no minority deputies in the parliament. This finding confirms the historical

162

institutionalist assumption about the relative rigidity, inertia and change-resistance of party policy stances over time. Moreover, empirical evidence supports the arguments of rational choice and historical institutionalist lines of theoretical thought, attesting to their general compatibility. Party policy stances in the area of ethnic policy are generally path-dependent (historical institutionalism); changes are possible due to the impact of the external environment as well as electoral calculation (rational choice).

4.2. Political parties and ethnic minority policies in Estonia

4.2.1. Critical junctural moments for ethnic minority policies at the outset of Estonia’s multi-party system

The following paragraphs identify the crucial developments (or “critical junctures”, in historical institutionalist terms) that determined the general path of Estonia’s minority policies and effectively blocked any subsequent reversal of minority policies on the part of political parties. The origins of cleavage in attitudes toward minority policies within the Estonian party system can be traced back to the period of Estonian ethnopolitical mobilization on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Already then, moderate and radical streams were discernible in the political programs of the two rival movements that led Estonia to independence, the Estonian Popular Front (ERR) and the Citizens Committees. The moderate stream was represented by the ERR, whose program guidelines were first formulated at the plenum of Estonia’s creative unions on 1-2 April 1988366. Its moderate nature was reflected in its gradual approach to pursuing ethnopolitical goals, as well as its use of the official framework provided by the Communist Party of Estonia (CPE) for institutionalizing these goals. These included the protection of Estonian language and culture, the restoration of national symbols, and a gradual transition toward independence367. Following the anti- totalitarian tide of perestroika, the ERR’s political platform at its outset combined the potential for civic political identity and protection of the Estonian ethnicity within the USSR. The former feature found its expression in the participation of Russian political activists in the ERR. The

366 Rahvarinde I kongress. Dokumendid. http://www.rahvarinne.ee/rr/81/. 367 Semjonov, Aleksei. 2002. Estonia: nation-building and integration – political and legal aspects. Kolstø, Pål (ed.). National Integration and Violent Conflict in Post-Soviet Societies: the Cases of Estonia and Moldova. Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002. 163

latter was manifest in the 1990 electoral platform that called for taking on Estonian as the state language and establishing control over migration to Estonia. The radical stream was embodied in anticommunist dissident political forces: the Estonian National Independence Party (ERSP), the Estonian Citizens Committees and the Congress of Estonia. These advocated a radical turnover of the existing bicommunal (Estonian-Russian) ethnopolitical balance in favor of the Estonian nation. The fundamental critical juncture that determined Estonia’s ethnic policy path for at least two decades to come was the radical stream’s success in taking over the lead in setting the ethnic policy agenda. This success was determined by two factors. First, the radical stream’s peculiar ideology of legal restorationism denied the USSR any legitimacy and literally called for the restoration of the pre-war Estonian Republic (restoring pre-war laws and granting citizenship rights only to citizens of the pre-war Republic and their descendants). Second, this ideology had an enormous appeal among the ethnic Estonian majority. By employing the criterion of pre-war citizenship as an effective tool for defining membership in the newly-restored state and successfully mobilizing 600,000 people at the elections of the Congress of Estonia, the Citizens Committees set an alternative policy agenda regarding Estonia’s sizeable Soviet-era immigrant community368. The ethnic policy path Estonia ultimately followed was further determined by rivalry between the CPE, the ERR and the Congress in the period 1988-1991, and the ethnic outbidding effect it produced in radicalizing the Estonian ethnic policy agenda. The ERR’s victory in the Supreme Council elections in 1990 created an ambiguous situation marked by the existence of two quasi-parliaments, in which developments influencing the ethnic policy path could still take either direction. Nevertheless, it was at this critical juncture that ethnic policy agendas were set in party programs. The ERR and the Congress gave rise to the main political parties that shaped Estonian politics after regaining independence (the core of the ERR later formed the KE and the Moderate Party, while the core of the Congress later formed the ERSP). The cleavage thus initially ran between a relatively more moderate approach to ethnic policies and the potential for civic-based participation on the one hand, and an uncompromisingly exclusive majority- centered policy agenda on the other. Furthermore, and more importantly for understanding the later policy dynamics of the ERR-based parties, the cleavage became blurred as the restorationist agenda prevailed. In other words, over time crucial elements of the Congress’s agenda were incorporated into the ERR’s policies as well. The latter’s potential for moderate policies was marginalized, as were its ethnic

368 Pettai, Vello. 2007. “The construction of state identity and its legacies: legal restorationism in Estonia”. Ab Imperio. 3: 1-23. 164

minority activists. The Congress’ agenda permeated into the ERR because membership in the ERR and in the Congress to a certain extent overlapped, both at the top and ordinary levels. This may explain a certain degree of ambiguity in ethnic policies, demonstrated in subsequent decades by political parties that aggregated people with both former communist and anti- communist backgrounds (the prominent example being the Moderate Party, to be renamed the SDE). By linking the analysis of political rhetoric of members of the Supreme Council, conducted by Kask369, with the subsequent party affiliation of the respective Council’s deputies within the Riigikogu elected in 1992, it can be concluded that the radicalization of political rhetoric and a slide toward ethnic exclusivity affected the ERR-based parties (most notably, the Moderates) as well. In addition, ethnic undertones present in the discourse of Congress-based parties (Isamaa; EKRE) against the Centre Party and its leadership, can be regarded as an early manifestation of ethnicity-related cleavage between the parties that later manifested itself in divergent approaches to ethnicity-related policies. At this critical junctural moment, the lack of political will on the part of the ERR-based parties (particularly the KE) to suggest alternative solutions to citizenship, official language and related issues allowed the legal restorationist conception to gain a monopoly over defining the definitive path to be followed by minority-related policies in independent Estonia. As the analysis of party programs conducted in the respective chapter shows, barriers to reversing these policies were set in the program guidelines of the dominant parties that turned out to be inflexible over time. Besides, these program principles were steadily supported by the expectations of a significant segment of the majority ethnic group. On the other hand, a critical juncture that might have imposed an alternative path for Estonian citizenship policies was the Treaty on the Principles of Interstate Relations between the RSFSR and the Republic of Estonia370. Signed in Tallinn on 12 January 1991 (during the Soviet crackdown in Vilnius and Riga), this document was a manifestation of Russian president Yeltsin’s support for the Baltic nations in opposing Soviet oppression. The treaty was immediately ratified by the Supreme Council. Among the commitments assumed by Estonia under the treaty, Article 3 contained the possibility for the whole population of Estonia to qualify for automatic citizenship. Nevertheless, the external conditionality on Estonia’s minority policies by the Soviet and Russian authorities vanished as soon as the threat of Soviet intervention subsided. Following the international recognition of Estonia, the country’s leaders ignored the treaty’s stipulation.

369 Kask, Peet. 1994. "National radicalization in Estonia: legislation on citizenship and related issues." Nationalities Papers 22(2):379-391. 370 Dogovor ob osnovah mezhgosudarstvennyh otnosheniy RSFSR i Estonskoj Respubliki. Tallinn, 12 January 1991. http://www.sibupk.nsk.su/New/06/Migration/1/2/estonia/dog.doc, accessed 1 January 2011. 165

Finally, recognition of Estonia’s independence in September 1991 became a turning point that set a nearly irreversible path for Estonia’s citizenship, language and related policies. In 1992-1997, this minority policy path was definitively entrenched in state legislation. The following chapters aim to analyze Estonian minority policies pursued by political parties in the independence period (1991-2011). The analysis focuses on the role of political parties in shaping (formulating and enacting) minority-related legislation. It covers parties represented in Parliament in 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 convocations (1992-1995, 1995-1999, 1999- 2003, 2003-2007 and 2007-2011 respectively). For the analysis those pieces of legislation have been selected that deal with the following policy areas: (1) citizenship and naturalization criteria; (2) minority language use; (3) education in minority language; (4) integration policies and (5) minority cultural autonomy371. In order to test theoretical assumptions as to what extent minority policies pursued by political parties are prone to reproduction and path dependence over time (or, alternatively, to modification and reversal), party policy paths in the above mentioned policy areas are analyzed in a 20-year chronological perspective. The nature and degree of party policy changes are measured with Hall’s classification of first-, second- and third-order policy changes. The analysis is contextualized in the two processes that could potentially condition minority policy changes in Estonia: (1) the country’s European integration, and (2) an increase in Russians’ share in the country’s citizenry and electorate.

4.2.2. Political parties and citizenship policies in Estonia

In order to measure the nature and degree of party policy changes in the area of Estonian citizenship policies over the two decades, I apply the classification suggested by Hall, who distinguishes first-, second- and third-order policy changes. In the present analysis, Hall’s classification is applied both to liberalizing policy changes and policy restrictions (continuation of existing policy path). Third-order policy changes denote alterations of fundamental policy goals. In relation to our case study, this would imply changes in the foundations of Estonian citizenship policies.

371 The policy areas have been chosen on the basis of consultations with experts on ethnicity issues: Alexander Astrov, Assistant Professor in Political Theory and International Relations at the Department of International Relations and European Studies, Central European University in Budapest; Mati Heidmets, Head of Centre of Educational Policy, Professor; Tallinn University; Kristina Kallas, Member of the board of the Institute of Baltic Studies; Veronika Kalmus, Associate Professor, PhD, Institute of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu; Iris Pettai, Estonian Institute for Open Society Research, Head of the Department of Sociological Studies, (PhD) in Economics and Sociology; Vello Pettai, Director of the Department of Political Science, University of Tartu; Raivo Vetik, Professor of Comparative Politics, Director of the Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn University; Triin Vihalemm, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu. 166

These foundations were laid by the decision made by the Supreme Assembly on November 6, 1991, which recognized the right to automatic citizenship for citizens of the pre-war Estonian republic and their descendants only. Second-order policy changes refer to policy instruments, whereas policy goals remain unaltered. The main instrument of Estonian citizenship policies vis-à-vis non-citizens is the naturalization procedure, introduced on March 30, 1992, when the pre-war Law on Citizenship (1938, with important modifications) was enacted. The law foresaw that persons resident on the territory of the ESSR that had not been citizens of the Estonian Republic before June 16, 1940 or their descendants, could obtain Estonian citizenship only by undergoing the naturalization procedure. Accordingly, a second-order policy change would imply substitution of the naturalization procedure with alternative instruments for various applicant groups. For example, a permanent residence permit can also be considered a citizenship policy tool. First-order policy changes refer to policy instrumental settings, whereas both policy instruments and policy goals remain unaltered. For Estonian citizenship policies, this would imply changes in particular naturalization modalities, requirements for naturalization, changes in particular requirements for permanent residency permits, etc372.

Table 3. Political parties and Estonian citizenship legislation

Date Proposed Policy effect and content Initiated by Supported by Opposing Neutral legislation (parties parties (parties voted for) (voted abstained against) ) 15 Alien’s Act373 Restricting, 2nd order. Non- Isamaa All - - June (adopted, citizens status regulated. No represented 1993 subsequently permanent residence issued. parties vetoed by the president). 8 July Alien’s Act374 Liberalizing, 2nd order. Constitutional All - - 1993 Permanent residence accorded commission represented to non-citizens. (after the parties president’s veto)

372 Requirements for the naturalization exam are set by a special governmental decree on the basis of the Law on Citizenship. In the initial period, the exam procedure allowed for a subjective approach on the part of the examination committee. See Poleschuk, Vadim (ed). Problemy prav natsional’nyh men’shinstv. Moskva: Russkaya Panorama, 2009, p. 121; The decision of the Administrative Law Collegium of the Supreme Court, October 20, 2008, case No. 3-3-1-42-08 // RT, III 2008, No. 42, art. 288. 373 Välismaalaste seaduse eelnõu esimene lugemine. 8. juuni 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=739522800#pk1900000708; Välismaalaste seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 15. juuni 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=740127600#pk1900000754; Välismaalaste seaduse eelnõu teise lugemise jätkamine. 21. juuni 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=740646000#pk1900000797. 374 Vabariigi Presidendi poolt tagasisaadetud "Välismaalaste seaduse" uus käsitelu. 8. juuli 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=742140000#pk1900000829. 167

19 Law on Restricting, 1rd order. Civics ERSP All - - Januar Citizenship375 exam added, permanent represented y 1995 residency requirement extended parties to 5 years. 8 Amendments to Liberalizing, 2nd order. Granting Government Moderates, Isamaa - Decem the Law on citizenship to non-citizens’ KE, RE, and ERSP, ber Citizenship § children born after February 26, Russian individual 1998 13, 15, 18, 19, 1992, on the basis of parents’ Faction, deputies 21, 23, 28, 29, application. About 10,000 Koonderakon of 32 and § 14376 children qualifying for d & Maarahva Koondera citizenship. kond & Maarahva 14 Amendments to Liberalizing, 1rd order. KE378 All - - June § 34, 35 of the Naturalization requirements represented 2000 Law on liberalized for disabled people. parties Citizenship (53 & 319 SE)377 8 May Law on Liberalizing, 2nd order. ONPE ONPE380 Isamaa, Koondera 2002 Amending the Possibility to non-citizens of RE, KE (6 kond, KE Law on (pre-)retirement age to obtain deputies), (17 Citizenship citizenship, being exempted Moderates deputies), (942 SE)379. from the language exam. 60,000 (4 Moderate Rejected. people affected. deputies) s (7 deputies) 15 Law on Liberalizing, 1rd order. KE All - -

375 Kodakondsuse seaduse eelnõu esimene lugemine. 10. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=784454700#pk1900001986; Kodakondsuse seaduse ja Eesti Vabariigi Ülemnõukogu otsuse "Kodakondsuse seaduse rakendamise kohta" muutmise seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 15. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=784886400#pk1900002000; Kodakondsuse seaduse § de 4, 12, 14 ja 15, Eesti Vabariigi Ülemnõukogu otsuse "Kodakondsuse seaduse rakendamise kohta" muutmise seaduse ning Eesti Vabariigi Ülemnõukogu otsuse "Kodakondsuse seaduse rakendamise kohta" muutmise seaduse eelnõu ja kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu teise lugemise jätkamine (kodakondsust käsitlevate õigusaktide osalise muutmise ja kehtetuks tunnistamise seadus). 17. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=785059320#pk1900002016; Kodakondsust käsitlevate õigusaktide osalise muutmise ja kehtetuks tunnistamise seaduse eelnõu (658 SE ja 671 SE) kolmas lugemine. 22. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=785491200#pk1900002023; Kodakondsuse seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 14. detsember 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=787406460#pk1900002101; Kodakondsuse seaduse eelnõu kolmanda lugemise jätkamine. 19. jaanuar 1995. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=790502640#pk1900002158. 376 Kodakondsuse seaduse §de 13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 23, 28, 29 ja 32 muutmise ning §ga 14 seaduse eelnõu. 18. november 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=911390400#pk1900005434; Kodakondsuse seaduse §-de 13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 23, 28, 29 ja 32 muutmise ning §-ga 14 seaduse eelnõu. 8. detsember 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=913104000#pk1900005517. 377 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus. 12. April 1999. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=emsplain&content_type=text/html&page=mgetdoc&itemid=991030021; Kodakondsuse seaduse §-de 34 ja 35 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (53 ja 319 SE) teine lugemine. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=960980400#pk2000006803. 378 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (53 SE). Haaletustulemused. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=14.06.2000&nr=4. 379 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (942 SE) esimene lugemine. 8. mai 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1020852000#pk2000008808. 380 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (942 SE). Haaletustulemused. 8. mai 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=08.05.2002&nr=3. 168

Octobe Amending § Naturalization requirements represented r 2002 35.4 of the Law liberalized for disabled people. parties382 on Citizenship (SE 1081)381 17 Law on Liberalizing, 1rd order. Reducing KE384 KE, RE Isamaa, Rahvaliit Decem Amending the the naturalization procedure Moderates ber Law on period from 1 year to 6 months. 2002 Citizenship (954 SE)383. Rejected. 10 Law on Liberalizing, 1rd order. Price of RE, Rahvaliit, All - - Decem Amending the language courses reimbursed to Isamaa represented ber Law on those who pass the exam (art. parties386 2003 Citizenship 8(1)). (180 SE)385. 11 Law on Liberalizing, 1rd order. Reducing KE388 KE, Res Isamaa - Februa Amending the the naturalization procedure Publica, ry Law on period from 1 year to 6 months Rahvaliit, 2004 Citizenship (68 (art. 6). SDE SE)387 22 Law on Liberalizing, 1rd order. Allowing KE390 KE RE, IRL, - Novem Amending § 9 citizenship applicants to choose SDE ber of the Law on the language of the Constitution 2007 Citizenship exam (Estonian or any working (113 SE)389. language of the Parliamentary

381 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 35 lõike 4 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1081 SE) teine lugemine. 15. oktoober 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1034665200#pk2000009163. 382 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 35 lõike 4 muutmise seadus (1081 SE). Hääletustulemused. 15. oktoober 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=15.10.2002&nr=1. 383 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (954 SE) esimene lugemine. 26. märts 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1017129600#pk2000008673; Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (954 SE) teine lugemine. 25. aprill 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1019718000#pk2000008790; Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (954 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 17. detsember 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1040112000#pk2000009430. 384 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (954 SE). Hääletustulemused. 17. December 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=17.12.2002&nr=6. 385 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (180 SE) esimene lugemine. 18. november 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1069142400#pk2000010202; Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (180 SE) teine lugemine. 4. detsember 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1070524800#pk2000010274; Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (180 SE) kolmas lugemine. 10. detsember 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1071054000#pk2000010300. 386 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (180 SE). 10. detsember 2003. Haaletustulemused. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=10.12.2003&nr=4. 387 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) esimene lugemine. 16. september 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1063695600#pk2000009953; Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) teine lugemine. 14. oktoober 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1066114800#pk2000010048; Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) kolmas lugemine. 11. veebruar 2004. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1076497200#pk2000010486. 388 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (68 SE). Hääletustulemused. 11. veebruar 2004. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=11.02.2004&nr=1. 389 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 9 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (113 SE) esimene lugemine. 22. november 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toime tamata=0&date=1195719060&paevakord=1159. 390 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 9 muutmise seadus (113 SE). Haaletustulemused. 22. november 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&hid=188559&new=1&u=201111292 14541. 169

Rejected in 1st Assembly of the Council of reading. Europe); exempting people over 65 from the exam on the basics of Constitution and Law on Citizenship. 22 Law on Liberalizing, 3st order. KE KE IRL, RE, Novem Amending § Recognizing citizenship rights SDE ber 5.1.3 of the by birth to non-citizens’ 2007 Law on children born in Estonia. Citizenship (126 SE)391. Rejected in 1st reading. 4 Law on Liberalizing, 3st order. KE KE393 IRL, RE, Novem Amending § 5 Recognizing citizenship rights SDE ber of the Law on by birth to non-citizens’ 2008 Citizenship children born in Estonia. (306 SE)392. Rejected in 1st reading. 16 Law on Liberalizing, 3st order. KE KE RE, IRL SDE Novem Amending § 5 Recognizing citizenship rights ber of the Law on by birth to non-citizens’ 2010 Citizenship children born in Estonia. (796 SE)394. Rejected in 1st reading. 25 Law on Liberalizing, 3st order. Granting SDE SDE, KE396 IRL, RE Octobe Amending the automatic citizenship to r 2011 Law on children of non-citizens, Citizenship (68 permanently resident in Estonia, SE)395. without waiting until age 15. Rejected in 1st reading.

As shown by the table 3, the citizenship and language policy path embarked upon during the period of Estonian political mobilization for independence in late 1980s – early 1990s was translated into legislation adopted by the first Parliament of the post-Soviet era (1992-1995)397,

391 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (126 SE) esimene lugemine. 22. november 2007. www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1195715100#pk1160. 392 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (306 SE) esimene lugemine. 4. november 2008. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toime tamata=0&date=1225785865&paevakord=2919 393 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seadus (126 SE). Hääletustulemused. 22. november 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&hid=188727&new=1&u=20111207 225136 394 Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (796 SE) esimene lugemine. 16. november 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1289902533&paevakord=7384#pk7384. 395 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) esimene lugemine. 25. oktoober 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1319526300#pk9081 396 Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (68 SE). Haaletustulemused. 25 October 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=haaletus&hid=1425209&op=ems&content_type=text/html&new=1. 397 As a consequence of the disenfranchisement of 32% of Estonia’s population, the Parliament elected in 1992 consisted of ethnic Estonians only. 170

dominated by the Isamaa (Pro Patria), the major party that originated from the Congress of Estonia. The citizenship policies it enacted marked a triumph of the restorationist doctrine, previously elaborated by the Congress. The fundamental minority-related legislation adopted in this period rested on the principles of state restorationism, historical justice and protection of the Estonian language and culture, and reflected a general consensus on the main principles of citizenship policies, existing among the major Estonian political parties. As the table shows, this particular citizenship policy path persisted throughout the two decades due to the intransigent stance of political parties – successors of the Congress. Throughout the two decades, the vast majority of legislative amendments enacted by the Parliament refer to third-order policy changes. The only second-order change (in December 1998) was enacted as a reaction to EU conditionality. Other third- and second-order changes proposed by ERR-based parties (KE and SDE) were blocked by the Congress-based parties (IRL). The following analysis of Estonian citizenship policies is structured along two lines. In temporal terms, it distinguishes two periods: the institution of the Estonian citizenship policy path (1991-1998) and the consolidation of this path (since 1998), whereas EU conditionality, as we argue, proved to be a critical juncture that helped to definitively consolidate this policy path, softening its extremes but without demanding its reversal. A peculiar cleavage between Estonian nation-wide parties on ethnicity-related issues came to the fore with the adoption of the Law on Foreigners (Aliens Act) that regulated the status of non-citizens. The initial version of this law, initiated by the Isamaa party and adopted in June, 1993, did not foresee non-citizens’ residency rights. This provision was abolished only after the president’s veto, with the new version of the law, adopted on July 8, 1993. During parliamentary debates the ERR-based parties (KE and Moderates) consistently manifested more consideration for non-Estonians’ situation398. Nevertheless, the overall stance of these parties, although more moderate, was in line with the general policy line pursued by the Congress-based parties Isamaa and ERSP. Moreover, from their outset, the KE and Moderates contained many adherents with an intransigent policy stance as well. For example, Andres Kollist (KE), the director of the Citizenship and Migration Department throughout the 1990s, publicly admitted after his dismissal that the policy of his institution had been aimed at fostering the emigration of Russians from Estonia399, whereas the government made every effort to complicate the procedure of obtaining citizenship or residence permits.

398 E.g., the KE proposed to reject the Aliens’ Act in the first reading. The Moderates’ deputies called for not substituting an old historical injustice with a new one. 399 Ernits, Peeter. “Kodakondsusameti endine peadirektor Andres Kollist: Nende eesmärk oli venelaste elu põrguks 171

In defining subsequent citizenship policies, the Congress-based parties (most notably, the Isamaa and ERSP) struck a balance between their declared goal of reducing the share of stateless people by fostering naturalization, and the aim of securing a loyal citizenry. Citizenship laws reflected a compromise between the constitutional goal of ensuring the survival of the Estonian nation, implemented by means of restricting citizenship rights to those who understood the country’s language and culture, and integrating those who settled in Estonia during the Soviet period, thus ensuring their loyalty. Thus, a new Law on Citizenship initiated by the ERSP in 1995 toughened the requirements for the Estonian language proficiency and added an exam on the fundamentals of the Estonian Constitution and the Law on Citizenship (art.6). Since this law was adopted the number of naturalized persons has decreased drastically. Nevertheless, according to research conducted by the International Migration Organization in 1996, only 30% of RF citizens and 7% of stateless persons were reluctant to obtain Estonian citizenship400. While the leading role in instituting a rigid naturalization procedure belongs to the Congress-based parties, the role of the EU is notable in consolidating this policy path and contributing to its irreversibility. The irreversibility of Estonia’s citizenship policy course was to a large extent already determined by the findings of first missions of international organizations (the UN and the Council of Europe) in Estonia in the first half of the 1990s, which suggested two conclusions: the impact of Estonia’s policies on the minority situation was negative, but these policies did not contradict international law. This implied the recognition and acceptance of Estonia’s minority policies on the part of these international organizations. In the first years of Estonia’s independence, the OSCE’s High Commissioner on National Minorities Max van der Stoel, who carried out the most active monitoring of Estonia’s minority situation, explicitly stated that his goal was not to reverse the general path of Estonia’s citizenship policies (i.e., not to demand third-order changes), but to contribute to the liberalization of certain policy details, intended to prevent ethnic confrontation. Among his recommendations, Van der Stoel urged the Estonian government to set up the office of a National Commissioner on Ethnic and Language Questions as a go-between for the government and the non-Estonian community, charged with monitoring the implementation of legislation. If implemented, such an amendment would have represented a new policy tool, i.e. a second-order change. The OSCE mission remained in Estonia until

muuta.” Postimees, 7 February 2000. 400 International Organisation for Migration. Estonia’s Non-Citizens: a Survey of Attitudes to Migration and Integration. Budapest: IOM, 1997. 172

January 2002. Its closure was associated with the implementation of main Van der Stoel’s recommendations. Similarly, the EU gave a clear sign of accepting the general path of Estonia’s minority policies at the Luxembourg Summit in December 1997. It included Estonia as one of the first countries to start accession negotiations and did not demand third-order policy changes. Nevertheless, certain aspects of Estonia’s citizenship and language policy did appear in relation to the country’s EU accession prospects. The issue of integration was raised in the Agenda 2000 report, in which the European Commission explicitly stated that the failure to liberalize citizenship policies could result in Estonia’s non-compliance with the political criteria for membership401. The initial Accession Partnership agreement guidelines issued in March 1998 contained only two minority policy goals in the political part of the Copenhagen Criteria. Namely, the Council of the EU called upon Estonia to facilitate the naturalization process, especially with regard to stateless children (a second-order change), and to intensify Estonian language training for non-Estonians (a first-order change)402. The EU’s biggest impact as far as altering Estonia’s minority policies was thus represented by the most significant amendment ever made to the Citizenship Law. This amendment, adopted in December 1998, permitted children born in independent Estonia after February 26, 1992 to non-citizen parents to qualify for citizenship without exams, on the basis of their parents’ application (provided the parents had lived in Estonia for at least 5 years). Up to September 1, 2008, the number of children that benefited from this amendment totaled 10,239 or 1% of Estonia’s population. The merit of the EU in persuading Estonian policy-makers to accept this amendment is obvious: the question of children of non-citizen parents, a violation of article 7 (1) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (ratified by the country in 1991), was raised by the OSCE High Commissioner as early as 1993 but for years met with the resistance of Estonian policy-makers403. In the subsequent period of path consolidation of Estonian citizenship policy, the dynamics of changes made to the Law on Citizenship reveal a clear trend that shows the distribution of the Estonian political parties along diverging attitudes on the citizenship issue.

401 Commission of the European Communities. "Regular Report from the Commission on Estonia’s Progress Towards Accession." Brussels, 13 October 1999, p. 15. 402 Council of the European Union. (1998) ‘Council Decision on the principles, priorities, intermediate objectives and conditions contained in the accession partnership with the Republic of Estonia.’ Official Journal of the European Communities L 121: 26-30. Cit. in: Pettai, Vello, and Kristina Kallas. 2009. Estonia: Conditionality amidst a Legal Straightjacket. In Minority Rights in Central and Eastern Europe – A failure of conditionality?; ed. Bernd Rechel. London: Routledge, p. 104-118. 403 See, e.g., the response of Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Max van der Stoel on the issue of stateless children. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/970604a.htm Tallinn, 04 June 1997 173

On the one hand, attempts to introduce liberalizing amendments to the Law on Citizenship were made by the (ERR-based) KE, SDE and the ethnic Russian party ONPE. On the other hand, these amendments were consistently opposed by the right-wing (Congress-based) IRL and RE. The ethnic policy-related nation-wide cleavage thus divided the first group of parties that attempted to increase the share of citizens among non-Estonians, and the second group that was consistently opposed to liberalizing the naturalization procedure. Thus, in May, 2002, the Parliament rejected amendments to the Law on Citizenship proposed by the ONPE. These amendments were aimed at giving non-citizens of pre-retirement and retirement age the possibility of obtaining citizenship without having to take the language exam. Since this change would have affected approximately 60,000 people, the proposal was rejected as contrary to the main citizenship policy principles of the ruling RE-KE coalition404. Most KE deputies abstained from voting, while some voted against the amendment. This example, as well as the adoption of the Law on Citizenship and the Aliens Act, clearly show that the KE, while demonstrating a more moderate policy approach, nevertheless converged with the Congress-based Isamaa, ERSP and Res Publica (later united into the IRL) on citizenship policy fundamentals during the period in which the citizenship policy framework was established. (1992-1998). In the subsequent period of policy consolidation (after 1999), the KE’s stance on citizenship policies is characterized by two peculiar features: (1) the party initiated the most significant law drafts aimed at liberalizing citizenship policies, and (2) these policy proposals were the result of intra-party persuasion by the KE’s Russian members with regard to party leadership. In contrast, similar attempts undertaken by Russian members of the RE were unsuccessful, as they were too contradictory to the party’s general policy line. This finding clearly corresponds to the historical institutionalist theoretical assumption applied in this dissertation to the field of ethnic minority policies. Political parties indeed appear to have only limited flexibility in modifying their ethnic minority policy paths. Thus parliament, dominated by the Isamaa, rejected the amendments proposed by the KE in December, 2002. The proposal, which has been drafted with input from the Russian members of the KE, aimed to reduce the period for the naturalization procedure from one year to 6 months, thus significantly increasing naturalization rates. The amendments were adopted (February 11, 2004) only after the elections of March 2, 2003, when the KE’s representation in

404 From January 2002 the ruling coalition was composed of the KE and the RE. The coalition existed until the 2003 elections. Subsequently, although the KE won the biggest number of votes, it remained an opposition party until March 2005, when the Government of collapsed. 174

parliament strengthened. Nevertheless, this first-order policy change did not help to implement the Integration Plan for 2004-2007, adopted by the Estonian government in May, 2004. The Plan had entailed the naturalization of at least 5000 people per year as one of its most important goals. Likewise, on September 19, 2007, the KE initiated amendments to the Law on Citizenship that would have allowed a citizenship applicant to choose the language of the Constitution exam (Estonian or any working language of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe – English, German, French or Russian); it also would have exempted people over 65 from having to take the exam on the basics of the Constitution and Law on Citizenship. The amendments were supported by the population minister Urve Palo, whose stance, however, was opposed by her party, the SDE. The said first-order changes failed to gain a majority in parliament due to the opposition of the ruling coalition composed of the IRL, RE and SDE. The citizenship policies of the Moderates (renamed the Social Democratic Party in 2004) were characterized by inconsistencies that can be attributed to the dual origins of this party. The Moderates incorporated both Congress- and ERR-based politicians, both Soviet-era activists and anti-Soviet left-wing dissident movements. In the phase of Estonian minority policy consolidation, several SDE members active in the minority policy area came to the fore. Urve Palo was among the first, serving as the Population Minister in 2007-2009. The SDE’s active role in drafting minority policies in parliament started from the Riigikogu of the 12th convocation. In March 2011, Russian representatives of the SDE were elected to the Parliament for the first time. Nevertheless, policy changes advocated by the party immediately met with strong resistance by the IRL and the RE. Already in July 2011, the government (IRL and RE) rejected the draft law initiated by the SDE which proposed granting automatic citizenship to children of non-citizens, permanently resident in Estonia. Unlike the actual law, parents would not have to apply for their children’s citizenship, and children would not have to wait until the age of 15. The role of Russian members of the SDE (Member of Parliament J.Ossinovski and SDE counsellor V.Belobrovtsev) in propagating the amendment is notable. Although the amendment would have affected only 1737 children, it was subsequently rejected by parliament (with IRL and RE voting against it). In terms of policy contents, the two-decade-long path of Estonian citizenship policy can be defined as extremely stable in its foundations, with consistent leanings toward toughening naturalization requirements. The policy contents of rejected law drafts presented in the above table allow us to trace consistent Estonian citizenship policy limits and define policy thresholds that delineate the ethnic minority policy cleavage dividing the nation-wide parties. The unalterability of Estonian citizenship policy principles, enshrined in the party programs of the

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RE and the IRL, in practice slowed down the increase in the share of non-Estonians in the population. A series of first-order policy adjustments on the government level did not regard the foundations of citizenship policies. Thus in 2000, any language exam taken by employees was equated with the naturalization exam. In 2002, the naturalization procedure was simplified for graduates of gymnasiums and vocational schools. Language and civics graduation exams were equated to the respective naturalization exams (art. 8 (5)). Since January 1, 2004, language course costs are reimbursed for those who successfully pass the naturalization exams (art. 8(1)). Naturalization exams were made free of charge. In addition, amendments introduced in various years significantly simplified the naturalization procedures for disabled persons (art.35). People born before January 1, 1930, were exempted from the written part of the exam, but were nevertheless required to take a written exam on the Constitution and the Law on Citizenship (art. 34). Nevertheless, most of these third-order liberalizing changes virtually did not affect naturalization rates. However, legislative amendments entailing more significant measures aimed at liberalizing naturalization procedures were rejected by the majority in the Parliament, as shown in the above paragraphs and in the table. The KE’s proposals included: allowing citizenship applicants to choose the language of the Constitution exam; exempting people over 65 from the exam on the basics of the Constitution and the Law on Citizenship; and granting automatic citizenship to children of non-citizens, permanently resident in Estonia. In contrast, the Congress-based parties’ orientation toward focusing citizenship policies on the central role of the Estonian language was retained for two decades. This policy stance could be exemplified by comparing public statements made by high-ranking officials in the early 1990s as well as recently. For instance, in 1994 the population minister Peeter Olesk (an ERSP, and later IRL member) publicly admitted that many non-Estonians would have to leave Estonia since they would not become Estonian-speakers405. In 2011, Minister of the Interior Marko Pomerants (IRL) in a public statement expressed the coherent stance of the ruling coalition (IRL and RE) with regard to the issue of the stateless population. In his speech to the Parliament delivered on February 15, 2011, Pomerants argued that the problem of stateless people would be solved in 20-25 years as these people would gradually pass away, whereas most children born in

405 Qtd. in: Vzglyad, “Maksim Grigor’ev: demokratija po-estonski”, 28 June 2006.

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Estonia obtain Estonian citizenship406. This statement applied to approximately 100,000 people who were still stateless in 2011407. The above-mentioned minister’s forecast has been confirmed by demographic trends. For instance, during the first 5 months of 2011 the number of stateless people in Estonia decreased by 900, the main reasons being death (41%) and obtaining citizenship in another state (41%). Those who obtained Estonian citizenship accounted for only 17%408. The above-presented parties’ stances had their foothold in the public opinion of the majority group. According to integration monitoring data, in 2005 60% of Estonians considered citizenship policies as “normal and in line with international requirements”, whereas 70% of non-Estonians considered them too “rigid and violating human rights”409. Still, according to the 2006 survey (a sample of 980 people), 72% of stateless and 35% of RF citizens expressed the desire to become Estonian citizens. Nevertheless, only 19% of stateless and 9% of RF citizens felt able to pass the language exam410. Likewise, the continuity of citizenship policy principles is reflected in public statements of the state’s leading officials whose ideational background dates back to the Congress of Estonia. Thus, Prime Minister Mart Laar in the 1990s publicly claimed that the Estonian citizenship law was one of the most liberal. Likewise in 2010 Estonian president T.H.Ilves (a member of the SDE, backed by the IRL in presidential elections) claimed that “the Estonian Law on Citizenship is much more liberal than [citizenship legislation] in most democratic countries, where it is much more difficult to obtain citizenship. Exams on language and the country’s history have to be taken in every country”411. These statements contrasted sharply with the conclusions of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) research, which revealed that Estonia was lagging far behind the leading immigration countries due to its weak citizenship and political participation policies412. Among the shortcomings of Estonian legislation, international observers (including the OSCE) cited the state’s failure to establish a simplified procedure for second and third generations of immigrant descendants. The exception is made only for underage children of stateless people, but, unlike in the USA, Canada, Great Britain and France, such children cannot qualify for automatic

406 Pomerants, Marko. "Eesti turvalisuspoliitika põhisuunad aastani 2015" 2010. aasta aruanne. 15. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1297753500. 407 In 2011, out of Estonia’s 1.34 million inhabitants 84% were Estonian citizens and 110,000 were citizens of the RF. 408 Jõesaar, Tuuli. “Kodakondsuseta inimeste arv langes alla 100 000”. Eesti Päevaleht, 6 June 2011. 409 Hallik, Klara. 2005. “Kodakondsus ja poliitiline kaasatus.” Marje Pavelson, Ivi Proos, Iris Pettai, Jüri Kruusvall, Klara Hallik and Raivo Vetik (eds.). Uuringu Integratsiooni monitooring 2005 aruanne. Tallinn: TLÜ Rahvusvaheliste ja Sotsiaaluuringute Instituut, p. 60-61. 410 Saar Poll. Mitte-eestlaste perspektiivid: Elanikkonna küsitlus. Tallinn: Saar Poll, 2006, p. 30-31. 411 Veller, Mihail. “Mnogo raboty – znachit, mnogo perspektiv“. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 5, 2010. 412 Migrant Integration Policy Index – Estonia. http://www.mipex.eu/estonia, accessed on 1 September 2011. 177

citizenship; they can only be admitted into Estonian citizenship after their parents apply for it. Besides, the requirements of the Estonian language test taken during the citizenship application procedure are among the toughest in Europe. While Estonia offers free language courses and informs stateless people about the possibilities of obtaining the Estonian citizenship, the peak of mass naturalization is over. The only category of persons applying for citizenship is stateless children, who obtain it through the above-mentioned simplified procedure. Since 1995, when naturalization requirements and the language tests were significantly tightened, the lowest ever naturalization rate (633 people) was registered in 2009. Beside, stateless people do not see any benefits in obtaining Estonian citizenship. On the contrary, over the past three years, a trend of increasing numbers of applications for Russian citizenship has been registered. Summing up the analysis of the parties’ role in developing Estonian citizenship legislation over time, several conclusions can be made. First, major Estonian political parties displayed a considerable degree of stability in citizenship policy practices over the two decades. This finding lends support to the historical institutionalist assumption on the path dependence of party policy lines over time. Over time, all Estonian nation-wide political parties revealed a broad degree of consensus on the fundamentals of citizenship policies. It was only at the end of the second decade of independence that changes in the ethnic policy attitudes and practices of the KE and the SDE emerged. These changes are still in line with the historical institutionalist argument. Historically, the KE and the SDE date back to the Popular Front with its traditional duality of (1) consideration of alternative and more liberal solutions to minority policies and (2) a relative lack of political will in insisting on their enactment. Third-order changes in the KE’s and SDE’s policies can be explained by changes in the environment which render previous policy tools obsolete. By advocating the liberalization of citizenship policy for stateless children, the KE and SDE acknowledged the changing political and social environment. Second, the policy content of legislative amendments proposed by various parties enables us to identify a stable ethnicity-related cleavage dimension among Estonian nation-wide parties. Third- and second-order changes to legislation, initiated by more moderate parties (KE, SDE), were opposed by parties strongly committed to the unalterability of citizenship policy principles (IRL, RE). The latter parties have been consistently guided by considerations of “historical justice”, of preservation of the Estonian nation, language and culture, dating back to the critical junctural period of Estonian national revival. In line with the historical institutionalist paradigm and thesis 1, these motives, focused on the circumstances of the Russian-speaking population’s appearance in Estonia, were taken up political parties’ programs. This “historical justice” motive mobilized the mass support of the Estonian population through Citizens’ Committees, was

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subsequently reflected in party platforms, public discourse and adaptive expectations of the parties’ electorate, and in the long run proved to be more viable than the European and international conditionality, calling for the equalization of the political rights of migrants’ descendants with those of Estonian citizens. Third, the analysis has shown that two phases can be distinguished in the evolution of Estonia’s citizenship legislation: (1) the institution of a policy framework based on the principles of state restitution and historical justice (1991-1998, when the fundamental citizenship legislation was adopted), and (2) the consolidation of this policy framework (since 1998, or since the adoption of the state integration program and the introduction of changes in the legislation under pressure from the EU). Fourth, the irreversibility of the current Estonian citizenship and language policy path owes a lot to the impact of the EU conditionality that helped to consolidate it. Of all the international organizations that have dealt with Estonia’s minority policies, the EU was the only one to succeed in introducing a second-order change at the critical historical juncture of Estonia’s EU accession. On the other hand, the overall impact of the European Union on Estonia’s minority policies was limited: it succeeded in persuading Estonia to liberalize certain policy particulars but did not demand that it alter the fundamental principles of these policies (primarily, citizenship policies and collective legal status). These policy principles, closely related to the official legal interpretation of Estonia’s statehood, were laid down at the critical juncture of Estonian ethnic mobilization and drive for independence in 1989-1991. Thus, the fundamental legal principles of the restored Estonian state set considerable limits on the power of conditionality of international organizations (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe and the European Union) in reversing Estonia’s minority policies.

4.2.3. Political parties and language policies in Estonia

In the area of language policies, we apply the following classification of policy changes. Third-order changes would refer to alteration of the fundamental principle of language policy which declares Estonian the only state language. This principle was enshrined in the 1995 Language Law, which declared all other languages except Estonian as foreign. A first-order policy change would thus imply raising the status of the Russian language to a higher level than that of foreign.

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Second-order policy changes would imply alteration of language policy instruments, such as introducing or lifting Estonian language requirements for various spheres; instituting or abolishing institutions of control for language use. First-order changes denote policy instrumental settings. In the context of language policies, it would imply toughening or softening Estonian language requirements in various spheres, and toughening or liberalizing control measures of language use.

Table 4. Political parties and Estonian language legislation

Date Proposed Policy content and Initiated by Supported Opposed Neutral legislation effect (in relation to by by (parties previous legislation) (parties (voted abstained) voted for) against) 21 Language Law Restrictive, 3st order. All Isamaa, All - - February (adopted)413 other languages declared Kindel Kodu represented 1995 foreign; minority parties languages not mentioned. 15 Amendments to the Restrictive, 2nd order. Constitutional All Russian - December Riigikogu Election Estonian language Commission represented faction 1998 Law, the Local requirements set for (RE) parties Municipality election candidates to Council Election Riigikogu and local Law and the municipality councils. Language Law (1073 SE, adopted)414 14 June Law on Changing Liberalizing, 1rd order. Culture All - - 2000 the Language Law Estonian language Commission represented (390 SE)415 requirements for private (Moderates) parties416 sector employees softened. 21 Law on Amending Liberalizing, 2nd order. IRL, Isamaa, RE, ERL, Individual November §-2, 2.1 and 26 of Estonian language Moderates’ Moderates, Koondera members of 2001 the Riigikogu requirements for election and RE ONPE, kond, KE KE, Election Law and § candidates revoked. deputies individual (most Isamaa, 3, 3.1 and 26 of the KE deputies) RE, ONPE Law on Elections to deputies418 the Local

413 Keeleseaduse eelnõu esimene lugemine. 14. veebruar 1995. http://riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&day=21&date=792748860&pkpkaupa=1& paevakord=1900002240; Keeleseaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 21. veebruar 1995. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=793353720#pk1900002276. 414 Riigikogu valimise seaduse, kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse ja keeleseaduse muutmise ja täiendamise seaduse eelnõu (1073 SE) esimene lugemine. 8. detsember 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=913104000#pk1900005515; Riigikogu valimise seaduse, kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse ja keeleseaduse muutmise ja täiendamise seaduse eelnõu (1073 SE) teine lugemine. 15. detsember 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=913708800#pk1900005560. 415 Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (390 SE) teine lugemine. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=960980400#pk2000006807. 416 Keeleseaduse muutmise seadus (390 SE). Hääletustulemused. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=14.06.2000&nr=9. 180

Municipality Councils (880SE)417 20 Law on Changing Preamble to the 86 deputies All - - February the Constitution of Constitution expanded by (all parties) represented 2007 Estonia (974 SE)419 the commitment to parties420 protect the Estonian language. 8 Amendments to the Restrictive, 1rd order. SDE, RE, IRL All - Individual February Language Law (SE Competences of represented KE and RE 2007 902 & 1077)421 Language Inspection parties422 deputies Authority expanded (§ 6); Russian-language transition to Estonian scheduled for September 1, 2007 (§ 28) 23 Amendments to the Restrictive, 1rd order. IRL IRL, RE424 KE SDE February Language Law (808 Competences of 2011 SE)423 Language Inspection Authority expanded. The practical significance of Estonian language policies for the legal, social, economic and political situation of the country’s Russian community cannot be analyzed separately from

417 Riigikogu valimise seaduse §-de 2, 2.1 ja 26 ning kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse §-de 3, 3.1 ja 26 muutmise seadus (880 SE). 15 October 2001. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=emsplain&content_type=text/html&page=mgetdoc&itemid=012890032. 418 Riigikogu valimise seaduse §-de 2, 2.1 ja 26 ning kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse §-de 3, 3.1 ja 26 muutmise seadus (880 SE). Hääletustulemused. 21. November 2001.http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=21.11.2001&nr=2. 419 Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (974 SE) esimene lugemine. 17. oktoober 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1161068400#pk2000013346; Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (974 SE) teine lugemine. 18. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1169107200#pk2000013712; Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (974 SE) kolmas lugemine. 20. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1171958400#pk2000013848. 420 Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seadus (974 SE). Hääletustulemused. 20. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=20.02.2007&nr=2. 421 Keeleseaduse muutmise seadus (1077 SE). February 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=emsplain&content_type=text/html&page=mgetdoc&itemid=070380004; Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1077 SE) esimene lugemine. 17. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1169031600#pk2000013704; Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (902 SE) esimene lugemine. 21. september 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1158822000#pk2000013266; Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1077 SE ja 902 SE) teine lugemine. 7. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1170846000#pk2000013777; Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1077 SE ja 902 SE) kolmas lugemine. 8. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1170921600#pk2000013793. 422 keeleseaduse muutmise seadus (902 ja 1077). Hääletustulemused. 8. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=08.02.2007&nr=7. 423 Keeleseaduse eelnõu (808 SE) esimene lugemine. 13. oktoober 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1286972321&paevakord=7069; Keeleseaduse eelnõu (808 SE) teine lugemine. 16. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1297865056&paevakord=8165#pk8165; Keeleseaduse eelnõu (808 SE) kolmas lugemine. 23. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1298462989&paevakord=8294#pk8294. 424 Keeleseadus (808 SE). Hääletustulemused. 23. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=haaletus&hid=1309385&op=ems&content_type=text/html&new=1. 181

citizenship policies, as the language policies are related to the naturalization procedure. Accordingly, for two decades, language policies have gone hand in hand with citizenship policies. As the subsequent analysis shows, Estonian nation-wide parties are divided along the same cleavage line in relation to both language policies and citizenship policies. Although a series of language rights are enshrined in the Constitution, the actual bases of the Estonian language policies were laid out by the Language Law which specified constitutional rights in a restrictive way. Thus national minorities’ language rights as laid out in the Constitution include the right to preserving one’s ethnicity (art. 49), the right to create cultural autonomies (art. 50), the right of educational institutions to choose the language of instruction (art. 37), the right to receive responses from local and state institutions in a minority language in municipalities where minorities make up at least 50% of permanent residents (art. 51); and the right to have a second internal working language in local municipalities where over one half of the population are not native Estonian speakers (art. 52). Nevertheless, the constitutional right to choose the language of instruction refers to schools of cultural autonomies (art. 37). The 1992 Constitution does not entail the right of minorities to be educated in minority languages (unlike art. 12 of the 1920 Constitution). The 1995 Language Law, drafted by the Congress-based parties Isamaa and Kindel Kodu, defined Estonian as the only language to be used in the public sphere, while the status of all other languages (including Russian) was defined as “foreign”. The law foresaw the exclusive use of Estonian in legislative and executive institutions, local municipalities, private business and public media. The exclusive effect of such policies was exacerbated by the fact that, according to the 1989 census, only 15% of local Russians could speak Estonian425. The right to use minority languages in official contacts was further regulated by other laws. In this area, Estonian political parties converged in their practice of maintaining the monopoly of Estonian. Despite the right to use Russian as an internal working language in localities compactly populated by Russian-speakers (art. 52 of the Constitution; art. 11 of the Language Law), the Estonian government (regardless of the parties in power) repeatedly declined the petitions of the Narva and Maardu City Assemblies to use Russian. Besides, such permission, if granted, would only have been valid until the end of the current Assembly’s term of office, whereas the time of the government’s response was not limited. Only session protocols could be drafted in two languages without permission (Law on Organization of Local Municipalities’ Work, art. 23 (7) and 41 (3-4). The right to get information in minority languages from official institutions in municipalities where one half of the population belongs to

425 In 2000, their share rose to 40%, particularly among young Russians (59% of persons aged 15-19), and continued to grow further. Estonian HDR 2007, op.cit. 182

a national minority, beside being implemented incoherently in practice, applied only to physical, but not legal persons426. The request of the Kallaste City Assembly to introduce the second historical toponym, Krasnye Gory, was declined. When it comes to policy instruments, the impact of Congress-based parties (IRL, and to a certain extent RE) in shaping the activities of the State Language Inspection is notable. Founded in 1998 within the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, this institution was charged with controlling usage of the state language. This institution was assigned to keep an eye on the level of Estonian language proficiency in state and private institutions, issue certificates and define minimal norms of language fluency to be enshrined in the legislation, and pay control visits to working places. Criticized by international organizations (the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) for its unlimited power and “punitive” approach427, the Language Inspection Authority was officially appreciated by the IRL exactly for its fervor: the party awarded the Inspection Authority’s director Ilmar Tomusk the title of “nationalist of the year” in 2008428. The two-decade development of Estonia’s language legislation reveals several trends that are important for the present analysis. In terms of policy goals, Estonia’s language policy has been clearly directed toward the expansion and protection of the sphere of usage of the Estonian language. Amendments introduced in various years dealt with the limits of the sphere in which the use of Estonian would be mandatory (second-order changes), but no party has ever introduced a motion aimed at enacting a thrid-order change and legalizing the use of other languages in the public sphere. Since its adoption in 1995, the main policy line enshrined in the Law on Language has remained unaltered, directed toward propagating and helping to learn Estonian. The language policy practices of all the major Estonian parties continued to toughen even during historical critical junctures. This adds credibility to historical institutionalist theoretical arguments on party policy inertia and considerable resistance to changes in the area of ethnic policies.

426 Decision of the Administrative Collegium of the Supreme Court on the case 3-3-1-29-05, p. 13 /// RT, III 2005, no. 22, art. 232. 427 European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, Report on Estonia, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/Country-by-country/Estonia/EST-CbC-IV-2010-003-ENG.pdf, accessed on 1 March 2012; p. 14-15; Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, Report by the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène, Addendum: Mission to Estonia, A/HRC/7/19/Add.2, 17 March 2008, http://www.adh-geneva.ch/RULAC/pdf_state/Sp-Rapp-Racism-2008.pdf, accessed on 1 March 2012. 428 Eesti rahvuslik liikumine, “Aasta rahvuslaseks valiti Ilmar Tomusk”, http://www.rahvuslikliikumine.ee/index.php?page=aasta-rahvuslaseks-valiti-ilmar-tomusk, accessed on 1 March 2012. 183

The first critical juncture was the European Commission’s monitoring process (documented in the progress reports issued from November 1998 and October 1999). This circumstance prompted the Council of the EU to expand its initial guidelines in December 1999, adding new demands for second-order policy changes429. Thus by pointing to the EU free market requirements, the Commission managed to obtain the revocation of amendments to the Language Law which set Estonian language proficiency requirements for private business. Another amendment passed in November 2001 under EU pressure abolished the requirement for electoral candidates to know the Estonian language430. However, at the same time regulations for elected institutions were adopted that entailed the sole use of Estonian as the working language in parliament and local municipalities. Thus despite EU pressure, the content of legislative amendments and the support given to them by various parties revealed a consensus on language policy fundamentals among major nation-wide parties. The example of the above-mentioned revocation of Estonian language requirements for electoral candidates in 2001 is telling: the more moderate and ERR-based KE proved to be even more radical than the Congress-based Isamaa, as most of the KE’s deputies (including the party’s leader Edgar Savisaar) voted against the liberalizing amendment. The IRL and the RE consistently proved their adherence to the policies of exclusive prioritization of the Estonian language. In 2007, their deputies, along with representatives of other parties, initiated a change to the preamble to the Constitution. The initial version of the preamble had enshrined the determination of the Estonian nation to ensure the preservation of the Estonian nation and culture for ages. The IRL’s and RE’s amendment expanded this statement by adding the protection of the Estonian language431. On the initiative of the ruling IRL-RE-SDE tripartite coalition, Estonian language policies kept toughening even against the backdrop of the Bronze Soldier crisis and its aftermath. Thus on February 8, 2007 the ruling coalition initiated amendments to the Language Law. These first- order policy changes expanded the competences of the Language Inspection Authority, allowing it to visit private and state institutions without notification, to attend their sessions and to study documents, to revoke previously issued Estonian language proficiency certificates, to assign a re-examination and to suggest that employers dismiss employees with insufficient command of

429 Council of the European Union. 1999. “Council Decision on the principles, priorities, intermediate objectives and conditions contained in the accession partnership with the Republic of Estonia.” Official Journal of the European Communities” 335: 35-40. 430 The abolished stipulation was in breach of the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, joined by Estonia on 26 September 1991. 431 The courts already made references to the constitutional preamble in solving legal disputes related to language issues. E.g., in 1998, the Constitutional Supervision Collegium of the Supreme Court ruled that the requirement for deputies of local municipalities to know Estonian corresponded to the Constitution, as it followed from the Preamble. 184

Estonian. In 2009 the Minister of Education and Science Tõnis Lukas (IRL) formed a working group charged with analyzing the shortcomings of the Language Law and assessing the need for a new edition of the law. The initiative was not aimed at introducing third-order changes in the foundations of language policies, nor did it consider measures aimed at promoting other languages. Instead, it aimed to protect the Estonian language from new challenges revealed during the monitoring of the language sphere. The law draft was intended to introduce new policy instruments (second-order changes) which would oblige the Parliament to analyze language policies and the development of the Estonian language as issues of state importance at least once every two years (this provision was ultimately excluded from the final version of the law). Aimed at more effectively protecting the Estonian language, the law set new, tougher requirements for knowledge and usage of Estonian. The scope of the Language Inspection Authority was defined more precisely, drawing its attention to people that graduated in Estonian (exempted from language examination requirements), but did not speak it. According to the new law, such people could be re-examined. This law came into force on July 1, 2011. The consensus among the parties on language policy fundamentals prevailed until the end of the first decade of the 21st century. In this period, slight divergences on first-order policy details emerged, in particular regarding the degree of language policy restrictivity and the scope of the Language Inspection Authority. These divergences ran along the cleavage dividing more radical parties (IRL and RE) from more moderate ones (KE and SDE). The latter group of parties manifested a potential for more inclusive minority policies, dating back to the ERR policy tradition. Both the above mentioned consensus on policy goals and the divergence on first-order particulars are in line with historicalinstitutionalist theoretical assumptions and thesis 1 regarding the stability of party policy paths over time. The KE’s and the SDE’s more radical approach to language policies compared to their relatively more liberal stances on citizenship policies, correlates with the general acceptance of Estonian by Estonia’s Russian population. Ethnic Russian parties’ policy effectiveness proved to be extremely limited. In the Riigikogu of 1995 and 1999 convocations, several voices from the Russian faction voiced issues but were not able to influence decisions or policy outcomes, as the table shows. In concluding the analysis of the two-decades of Estonian language policies and the role of political parties in elaborating them, an argument usually passed over by analysts can be raised. The analysis of the socioeconomic situation of Estonia’s Russians conducted in the respective chapter of this dissertation, showed the crucial role of Estonian language skills in determining individual social, economic and political opportunities in society. Since the Estonian language requirements for naturalization and employment opportunities proved to be too rigid (as shown by decreasing naturalization rates and emerging socioeconomic stratification along

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ethnolinguistic lines), there were two ways to promote Russians’ socioeconomic opportunities and achieve more efficient use of Russian human resources in Estonia: (1) a human-centered policy orientation, which would imply liberalizing Estonian language requirements; and (2) a language-centered policy orientation which would imply prioritizing Estonian language training among the Russian population in order to help it reach high language skill standards, instead of liberalizing those standards. Two decades of policy experience clearly reveals the consensus among Estonian nation-wide parties on the second policy way. A cleavage line can be distinguished among the more rigid IRL and RE and a slightly more moderate KE (since 2011 followed also by the SDE). Dating back to the times of the Congress and the ERR, the persistence of this policy cleavage between parties speaks in favor of thesis 1 and the historical institutionalist approach that emphasizes path dependence in party policies. This party policy inertia proved to be stronger than the conditionality of critical junctures, the strongest being EU accession. Although the UN monitoring institutions went as far as to suggest that Russian become the second state language in Estonia, the EU – as the only international institution with conditionality power on Estonia – supported Estonia in its language-centered policy path. It did not question language and citizenship policy fundamentals, but rather provided abundant aid for Estonian language training programs. Thus the EU contributed to the irreversibility of the Estonian language policy path, as it did not demand third- order policy changes.

4.2.4. Political parties and education policies in Estonia

Changes in education policies are measured in the following way. Third-order changes refer to alterations of the strategic goal of transition of Russian- language education to Estonian language of instruction. Second-order changes denote instruments of this transition (the amount of the curriculum to be affected by the transition). First-order changes refer to the temporal settings of the transition.

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Table 5. Political parties and Estonian education legislation

Date Proposed Policy effect and Initiated by Supported Opposing Neutral legislation content by parties (parties (parties (voted abstained) voted for) against) 15 Law on Primary Transition of non- Ministry of All - - September School and Estonian gymnasiums to Education represented 1993 Gymnasium432 the Estonian language of and Culture parties instruction scheduled for (Isamaa) 2000/2001.

10 Law on Amending § Liberalizing, 1rd order. Russian All - - September 52 of the Law on Transition postponed to faction represented 1997 Primary School and 2007/2008. parties Gymnasium (341 SE)433 4 April Law on Amending Restricting, 2nd order. Culture Isamaa, RE, KE, Koonderak 2000 to the Law on The transition will affect Commission, Moderates ONPE ond Primary School and 60% of the total headed by 435 Gymnasium § 9, 52 curriculum. M.Lauristin (SE 274)434. (Moderates) 9 June Law on Primary Transition confirmed. Government IRL, RE, KE 2010 School and SDE437 Gymnasium (412 SE)436

432 Vabariigi Presidendi poolt tagasisaadetud põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse uus käsitelu. 15. september 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=748090800#pk1900000875. 433 Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (341 SE) teine lugemine. 12. november 1996. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=847785600#pk1900003484; Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse § 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (341 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 10. september 1997. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=873889200#pk1900004097. 434 Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (274 SE) esimene lugemine. 15. veebruar 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=950601600#pk2000006398; Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (274 SE) teine lugemine. 23. märts 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=953798400#pk2000006509; Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (274 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 4. aprill 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/index.php?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=954835200&#pk2000006517. 435 Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seadus (274 SE). Hääletustulemused. 4 April 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=04.04.2000&nr=2. 436 Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) esimene lugemine. 25. märts 2009. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1237990259&paevakord=3960; Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) teine lugemine. 25. november 2009. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1259153179&paevakord=5334; Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 2. juuni 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1275484519&paevakord=6572; Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) kolmas lugemine. 9. juuni 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&d ate=1276088259&paevakord=6654#pk6654. 437 Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseadus (412 SE). Hääletustulemused. 9. juuni 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=haaletus&hid=1064787&op=ems&content_type=text/html&new=1. 187

Russian-language education constitutes another important policy sphere affecting the socioeconomic opportunities of Estonia’s Russian community. The issue of the quality of Russian-language education and socioeconomic perspectives offered by it in the officially monolingual Estonian labor market has remained one of the most fraught issues of Estonian minority policies. The Law on Primary School and Gymnasium initiated by the Isamaa party and adopted in 1993, scheduled the transition of non-Estonian gymnasiums to the Estonian language of instruction for 2000-2001. This reform aimed to establish Estonian as the main language of instruction in gymnasiums (10-12 forms). The transition project met no significant opposition on the part of the ERR-based KE and Moderates, which illustrates a consensus among nation- wide parties on minority-language education policies. On the other hand, education policies can be considered the most prominent success of ethnic Russian deputies in the Estonian Parliament. In 1997 the Riigikogu’s Russian faction initiated a third-order amendment to the Law on Primary School and Gymnasium that postponed the transition to 2007-2008 due to Russian schools’ unpreparedness for the reform. In 2000 a second-order change was initiated by the Isamaa, RE and the Moderates. The amendment stipulated that the transition would affect 60% of the total curriculum. Opposition of the KE (along with ONPE) to this second-order policy change reveals policy-related cleavage between the parties on policy particulars, as in the case of previously analyzed policy areas. The transition started in September, 2007, despite a wide range of unsolved practical issues, such as lack of prepared teachers and the negative attitude of most non-Estonians towards the reform. A gradual approach to the transition was adopted: the subjects to be taught into Estonian included Estonian language and literature, civics, history, geography and music. School boards of trustees, although entitled by the law to choose the language of instruction, could only initiate the discussion of this issue, without having the possibility to influence the outcome. Meanwhile, Russian schools were subject to regular control visits by the Language Inspection Authority, checking the Estonian proficiency level of teachers. Controls took place regardless of whether a teacher had passed an exam and obtained a certificate before. The Authority was authorized to void an exam previously passed by a person and to oblige him/her to repeat it. The end of the transition, scheduled for 2011, was preceded by the adoption of the new Law on Primary School and Gymnasium, unanimously opposed by all 28 KE deputies. Nevertheless, during the parliamentary debate the KE did not introduce any motion with regard to the proposed changes to the Law, which testifies to the lack of an alternative vision of the transition.

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On the local level, the ambiguity of the KE stance in terms of policy efficiency was even more manifest. Namely, the party’s education policies were contingent on the activities of its Russian members. Thus the municipalities of Tallinn and Narva (dominated by the KE with significant Russian participation) solicited the Ministry of Education to preserve the Russian language of instruction in 16 gymnasiums. In contrast, in Loksa (57% Estonian), the Russian Gymnasium was closed by the City Assembly, where the KE had 14 seats out of 15. This was one of the first initiatives of the newly-elected Assembly after the 2009 local elections, where most deputies were Russians438. The KE’s stance on education policies shows that its relative inclusiveness, without prioritizing concrete policy measures, was sufficient for a mainstream party to win the trust of the minority community. Attitudes of Estonia’s Russian school community (teachers, pupils and parents) toward the education reform was clearly correlated to trust in political parties. The KE was the uncontested leader among political parties, being the only political party trusted by the Russian school community: 50.5% trusted the KE, 27% did not trust any party, and 20% found it difficult to answer. The KE’s readiness for dialogue was appreciated by 76% of school community (compared to 5% appreciating the RE and 13% trusting the IRL). With regard to concrete political steps expected from the political parties, the KE was still far ahead of other parties, although only 56% believed that the KE would intervene to correct the reform. The transition of Russian gymnasiums to the Estonian language of instruction was met with skepticism by those affected by it439. Most representatives of the school community (teachers, parents, pupils) expressed serious anxiety about the future of Russian schools in light of the ongoing reform. The main problems of Russian education were uncertainty with regard to the future of Russian schools (74%) and the restrictive approach of the Language Inspection

438 Similarly, with its majority in the Tallinn City Assembly, the KE did not use this possibility for voicing the education question. The law foresaw the possibility of introducing other languages of instruction with the consent of a majority of the school’s parents and the council of trustees, the consent of the City Assembly, and the consent of the Government. 439 93% of teachers, 95% of parents and 73% of pupils had a negative attitude towards the transition of their schools towards the Estonian language of instruction. Over 80% were sure that the reform was the first step toward the abolition of Russian-language education. Only 14% of all respondents (9% of parents) believed that the official goal of the reform, to increase the competitiveness of Russian youth on the labor market, would be achieved. Instead, the majority pointed to negative effects, such as the decreasing quality of education. Surveys revealed that the most important problem was the permanent psychological pressure provoked by the Language Inspection Authority and fear of losing jobs, experienced by teachers in Russian schools, including certificate holders. According to the data of the Language Inspection Authority, an overwhelming majority of teachers in Russian schools did not comply with the language requirements: 97% of checked teachers did not comply with the language requirements in 2007, 85% in 2008 and 72% in 2009. On August 27 2010, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination noted that the focus on language in the integration strategy along with the punitive approach were needless, given the increasing number of people using Estonian. Legal Information Centre for Human Rights. Russkaya shkola Estonii: sbornik materialov. Tallinn: Legal Information Centre for Human Rights, 2010. 189

Authority (52%). Despite an obviously negative attitude towards the reform, most respondents still demonstrated loyalty and readiness to comply with the reform requirements. The survey data on Estonia’s Russian schools is important for assessing the parties’ policy in terms of policy efficiency expected by the Russian school community affected by the reform. The main education priority was considered to be the preservation of Russian identity: this factor was of primary importance for 49% of parents and 39% of teachers. This shows that a considerable part of the Russian community attributed importance to the socio-cultural function performed by the school, which was appreciated even more than the goal of obtaining knowledge and skills. Although not a single political party managed to respond to this expectation, a second- order policy-related cleavage between parties came to the fore, as shown by the above-presented policy-shaping in parliament440. Still, the education reform, once set along a particular track of transition of Russian gymnasiums into the Estonian language of instruction, was never reversed. Party policy attitudes and practices proved to be path-dependent for two decades, diverging only in second-order policy particulars. In historical institutionalist terms, no sufficiently strong critical junctures emerged in two decades to alter this policy path.

4.2.5. Political parties and state integration policies in Estonia

This section analyzes the development of Estonian integration policies, focusing on strategic policy goals, the role of political parties within ethnic minority policy network underlying these policies, and parties’ contribution to shaping integration policy content. Two phases in the institutional development of Estonia’s ethnic minority policy network can be defined: (1) the existence of an institutionalized platform for state-minority dialogue, vested with advisory right toward policy-makers, and (2) official state integration policies. An institutional framework for state-minority dialogue was created immediately after the adoption of the Law on Citizenship in April 1992. The government then set up a commission, intended as a dialogue platform between the authorities and non-citizens. Its creation can be considered a reaction to a critical junctural moment, represented by the trade union protests in Narva following the disenfranchisement of most non-Estonians. The commission included top politicians representing the country’s leading political parties. Both former ERR and Congress activists were represented, the most prominent being Marju Lauristin (Moderates), Tiit Made (EEE) and others. Non-citizens were represented by trade union members, members of the city

440 The policy cleavage between parties correlates with their electoral performance, as shown in the appendices to the present dissertation: in the long run, the KE took control of nearly the entire Russian electorate. 190

councils of the Ida Viru region, and leaders of ethnic Russian parties (RDD, PA). The negotiations lasted several months and failed in the long run, as the government’s side insisted on the legal restorationist logic, based on historical justice arguments. This experience testifies to a high degree of consensus with regard to the foundations of ethnic policies that occurred between the ERR and Congress, and subsequently continued in the political parties created on the basis of these umbrella organizations. Considering the 1992-1993 crises in the northeast of the country as critical junctures influencing the country’s minority policy path, their most important effect lied in the creation of the Roundtable on Minorities, an advisory body at the President’s Office, established on 10 July 1993. Founded with the participation of the OSCE mission, the Roundtable was intended as a permanent platform for state-minority dialogue and charged with promoting stability and interethnic confidence. Composed of parliament members, representatives of political parties and members of the Estonian Union of Nationalities441, the roundtable thus created possibilities for noncitizen involvement. The proof of the Roundtable’s efficiency came with the peaceful resolution of the crisis related to the adoption of the Law on Aliens in July 1993. Mediating between the government and the local leaders of Narva and Sillamäe, the roundtable helped to achieve a compromise solution of the tense conflict. The government did not hinder the referendum on the northeast’s autonomy, whereas its organizers subsequently obeyed the National Court’s decision which declared the referendum illegal. Thus the risk of establishing a parallel government run by noncitizens was avoided. Nevertheless, this phase of policy practice, based on an institutionalized platform for state- minority dialogue, was relatively short-lived. Its activities continued throughout the 1990s, involving the president, ministers, members of parliament, political parties, municipalities, minority representatives and experts that jointly participated in the Roundtable’s sessions and thus enabled the roundtable’s outreach to the legislature and the executive. The president and ministers gradually abandoned Roundtable sessions, although this advisory body was still officially quoted as a successful aspect of Estonia’s minority policies. Throughout the 1990s this forum did not help to liberalize Estonia’s minority policies. As a rule, decisions by the parliament and the government contradicted the Roundtable’s recommendations. During T.H.Ilves’ (formerly SDE member) presidency the Roundtable was never convened and in 2010 it was finally abolished. In its place, the Roundtable for Estonia’s Ethnicities at the Estonian Cooperation Assembly was convened by the president, but its scope and the extent of minority

441 The Estonian Union of Nationalities was created in 1987 as an organization associated with the Popular Front; it united 22 cultural societies and aimed to represent Estonia’s ethnic groups. In the subsequent period, its support for citizenship and cultural autonomy legislation stood in sharp contrast to the stance of Russian parties. 191

representation in its membership were far below the first Roundtable’s, with no outreach to legislative and executive foreseen, and no members with academic or political expertise involved. It can be concluded that in the first period, the lack of political will on the part of all Estonia’s major political parties was the main reason for the failure of attempts to establish an institutionalized space for state-minority dialogue and to compensate for minority under- representation in the legislature. This circumstance, along with the overall effect of the restorationist approach on minority policies, shared by all Estonian parties, further contributed to a delay in the genesis of ethnic minority civil society structures in Estonia. A change in party approach to integration policies occurred at a later critical juncture, marked by two favorable circumstances: external conditionality and changes in the internal political environment. The external incentive for launching official integration policies was the EU’s decision on enlargement in July 1997. An internal incentive came with Prime Minister Mart Siimann’s reinstatement of the office of Minister of Population and Ethnic Affairs in order to strengthen his minority government (Koonderakond – Maarahva Erakond) after the abolition of the ministerial post on European Affairs in May 1997. Thus Andra Veidemann (Progressive Party, Eesti Arengupartei), former Minister of European Affairs, became the Minister for Population and Ethnic Affairs. The government’s program “The Integration of Non-Estonians into Estonian Society: The Principles of Estonia’s National Integration Policy”, initiated by Minister Veidemann and adopted on 10 February 1998, can be considered the starting point of official integration policies. While its adoption can be viewed as a third-order policy change (since there was no official integration policy before), we measure the subsequent changes in integration policies in relation to this program. Several crucial aspects should be emphasized with regard to the contribution of political parties to the elaboration of minority integration policy guidelines within the government’s commission: – the commission was abandoned by the Russian representatives of the KE, V.Velman and M.Stalnuhhin, who argued their opinions were ignored by it; – the program was adopted by the Koonderakond-Maarahva Government on 10 February 1998 and endorsed by parliament in June 1998, with the majority of representatives of all parties voting for it. From the point of view of a minority policy network, an important aspect is involving academic researchers in drafting the program. The program was based on a social research

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project conducted by Estonian scholars in 1996-1997, the main thesis of which was the existence of two parallel societies (Estonian and Russian) within the country as an outcome of Estonia’s minority policies442. According to the authors of the project, this situation posed a long-term threat to Estonia’s development. Still, the program foresaw no legislative reform, focusing mostly on Estonian language training for non-Estonians (third-order policy measures). In the subsequent period, the crucial role in the completion of the state integration policies belonged to the ruling coalition, composed of the IRL, the RE and the Moderates (later SDE) in the wake of March 1999 elections. The ministerial office for population and ethnic affairs was offered to Katrin Saks (Moderates). The renewed state program “Integration in Estonian Society” was adopted in January 2000. Its most important feature was that it still did not foresee any legislative reform. On the other hand, the ONPE and individual Russian deputies of the KE (those that had left the commission) expressed their disagreement with the program. The ONPE and Russian deputies of the KE considered the state integration program one-sided and intended to help non- Estonians integrate into the existing ethnopolitical order, instead of involving the two communities in a dialogue on equal footing. Notably, in September 2000, the said group of ONPE and KE deputies attempted to initiate changes to legislation by means of adopting a new Law on Integration, but this initiative was not supported by the Ministry for Population and Ethnic Affairs or by the ruling IRL-RE-Moderates coalition. The detailed program “Integration of the Estonian Society 2000-2007” was based on two principles: (1) social harmonization of the society on the basis of knowledge of the Estonian language and acquisition of Estonian citizenship, and (2) preservation of ethnic differences on the basis of recognition of the cultural rights of ethnic minorities443. The program defined three areas of integration: (1) linguistic and communicative integration, defined as the creation of a common media sphere and Estonian-language environment under conditions of cultural diversity and mutual tolerance; (2) legal and political integration, interpreted as shaping a population loyal to the Republic of Estonia and reduction of the share of persons without Estonian citizenship; (3) social and political integration, reflected in achieving greater competitiveness and social mobility in society, regardless of ethnic and linguistic differences.

442 For a detailed account, see Pettai, Vello, and Klara Hallik. 2002. “Understanding processes of ethnic control: segmentation, dependency and cooptation in post-communist Estonia”. Nations and Nationalism. 8 (4): 505- 529. 443 See: Ministry of Culture. “Integration in Estonian Society 2000-2007”. March 14, 2000. http://www.kul.ee/webeditor/files/integratsioon/state_programme111.pdf (accessed May 18, 2011); Estonian Cooperation Assembly. “Estonian Integration Strategy 2008-2013,” (April 10, 2008). http://www.kogu.ee/public/documents/Loimumiskava_2008-2013_ENG_VV_11.06.pdf (accessed May 18, 2011). 193

Key elements of the official integration strategy that received the biggest share of all the funds were focused on promoting Estonian language learning with a view to obtaining citizenship. The introduction of these policy instruments corresponds to second-order policy tools, while the general policy course remained focused on the Estonian language as the basis of integration. Notably, the integration program did not go beyond the program guidelines of any of the major Estonian political parties of that time, as revealed by the comparison of party program documents. In terms of the impact of external incentives (critical junctures) on Estonian integration policy, it is important to note how Estonia’s EU accession commitments helped to underpin the Estonian integration program, the main feature of which was Estonian language learning by non-Estonians. The financial help provided by EU funds since 1998 to Estonia’s integration program gave further impetus to this particular policy course. Those minority issues that appeared on Estonia’s EU accession agenda with the EU Commission’s Opinion on Estonia’s bid for EU membership further confirm the acceptance of Estonia’s general policy line by the EU: the EU only addressed the most restrictive policy aspects without reversing the general policy path. The EU thus ensured sustainability and contributed to the irreversibility of the general Estonian minority policy path. It only attenuated its excesses and contributed to its complementation with an integration policy that was in line with the general minority policy course, embarked upon in early 1990s. The Estonian case study thus exemplifies the way in which irreversibility of a particular minority policy track occurs. Meanwhile, international observers went beyond the official integration strategy in their second-order policy suggestions. Thus in February, 2003 the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights suggested that Estonia revoke the prohibition for non-citizens to be members of political parties and study ways to increase the effective representation of national minorities in parliament and other political institutions444. In addition, the 2000-2007 integration program did not entail policy measures in the area of social and economic integration. Meanwhile, socio-economic disparities persisted, especially in the sphere of occupation. Unemployment in the country’s northeast, where the share of Russian-speaking population is 96%, was twice as high as Estonia’s average. According to the UN report on racism, the level of overall unemployment among Russophones was twice as high

444 These suggestions were based on the fact that the first integration program did not include a series of relevant problems, the subjective perception of which was manifested by Estonia’s Russian population. Most notably, the program did not foresee any measures of positive discrimination toward non-Estonians aimed at overcoming its under-representation in state institutions (only 9% of judges and 6% of officials of the Ministry of Interior were Russians, whereas the staff of the Ministry of Justice was nearly homogeneous in terms of its ethnic structure). Non-citizens remained banned from occupying certain positions (over 30), including offices in state institutions, local municipalities and participation in political organizations. 194

as Estonia’s average. On March 2, 2010, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe in its report on Estonia expressed anxiety due to the fact that all previously noted problems related to the situation of non-citizens and the Russian population persisted (including the language restriction in the employment sphere and education problems)445. The Commission suggested Estonia ratify the Antidiscrimination Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights446, which would represent a second- order policy change. The second integration program (2008-2013) was elaborated in an analogous political context as the first one. The leading role belonged to the Ministry of Population, headed by Minister Urve Palo (SDE, the then coalition partner of IRL and RE). The principles of the second program were in line with the first one and represented its evolution. Among the main policy principles, the definition of Estonian as the main language of communication in the public sphere was preserved. The goal of integration was defined as strengthening the single state identity of Estonia, fostering the common understanding of the state by permanent residents of Estonia, based, among other elements, on the recognition of cultural differences. The novelty of the new integration program was the inclusion of “equal opportunities” and “prevention of ethnonational separation” among its principles. Thus, among the goals to be achieved by 2013, besides reiterating the previously set goals of increasing the share of Estonian-speakers among non-Estonians and reducing the share of non-citizens, the program foresaw promotion of inter-ethnic contacts and the reduction of inter-ethnic differences in the public sphere; promotion of inter-ethnic trust; consumption of Estonian-language media by the majority of non-Estonians; and reduction of inter-ethnic differences in employment patterns and wages. The program thus voiced concerns for equal opportunities on the labor market, the necessity to avoid ethnicity-based separation and social withdrawal, admitting that “[c]ompared to Estonians, Russian speakers feel indirect unequal treatment on the labor market and in the distribution of wealth more often”. Dealing with inter-group employment, salary differences and the concentration of Russians in several social risk groups, the program generally tended to explain these phenomena with regional or structural reasons unrelated to ethnicity (education, working in town or in the country, gender) as well as knowledge of the language. Nevertheless, the program admitted that inter-group differences in Tallinn could not be explained by these regular reasons and set the objective to decrease inter-ethnic differences in employment and income levels.

445 Diène, op.cit. 446 European Commission on Racism and Intolerance, op.cit. 195

The strategy included a separate clause on equal opportunities for economic self- realisation, aimed at overcoming ethnicity-based differences in the labor market. The measures included distribution of information on educational and employment opportunities through Russian-language information channels, as well as organizing language learning and additional training activities aimed at increasing competitiveness. It can be concluded that the integration program did not foresee any first-order policy changes aimed at liberalizing the state-defined language requirements for the labor market. Instead, the first-order measures it entailed were aimed at acquisition of the skills and knowledge that met the requirements of the labor market, mostly centered on promoting the learning of Estonian through the working environment447. At the same time, the only reciprocal measure aimed at making the labor market more open to non-Estonians was training offered to employers with the aim of motivating them to employ non-Estonians. No measures for liberalizing language legislation with regard to the labor market were foreseen by the strategy. With the objective of involving Russian-speaking citizens in Estonian public life and the decision-making process, the program aimed, on the one hand, to increase trust toward non- Estonians on the part of Estonians; on the other hand, it sought to increase the trust of non- Estonians toward the Estonian state. Measures aimed at enhancing the political involvement of Russian-speakers entailed fostering learning of the Estonian language and involvement of non- Estonians in civil society organisations, public discussions and debates. The program aimed to increase awareness of equal treatment and to prevent unequal treatment, conducting informative activities among government officials, organizing intercultural communication training and additional research on actual needs, thus creating an environment favorable to integration. While the introduction of such instrumental settings of integration policies could be considered first- order policy changes, stronger legislative mechanisms underpinning such policy measures were not foreseen. Instead, particular attention was paid to reorienting the Russian community toward the Estonian media field. This measure was based on the conviction that integration problems arise from the consumption of Russia-based mass media. The expansion of the shared media field for all the country’s inhabitants was planned by increasing from 60% to 70% the share of non- Estonians listening to Estonian Radio 4 and/or watching ETV on a weekly basis. The development of Estonian Russian-language media was to be fostered by means of additional training of specialists.

447 Training activities were aimed at enhancing competitiveness on the labor market, labor exchange programs (which saw 72 people participating in 2007, and 55 people participating as a target level for 2013), language courses (1009 people participated in 2007, and 800 people participating as a target level 2013), language and professional training courses (640 people participating each year). 196

Although the Estonian integration program originated in academic circles and drew on abundant research data with regard to ethnosocial and ethnopolitical processes, measures aimed at overcoming interethnic inequality are still in the embryonic stage, thus correlating with the programs of Estonian political parties in the area of ethnic policies. An important topic left out by both versions of the official integration program regards polarized interpretations of history by the Estonian and Russian communities. Given its importance in the context of the Bronze Soldier crisis, this aspect deserves special attention in the analysis of political parties’ contribution to shaping Estonian integration policies. The external political environment is especially important, given a critical juncture that occurred at the end of the period covered by the first program and coincided with the introduction of the second program. In April 2007, mass protests over the removal of the Soviet Army soldier’s monument from the centre of Tallinn saw a considerable use of force on the part of the police. The “Bronze Soldier” crisis was publicly recognized as a manifestation of the failure of the state integration program. On the eve of the April 2007 crisis, two laws were adopted that dealt with the official interpretation of history. These were the Law on the Protection of Military Cemeteries (10 January 2007) and the Law on Forbidden Constructions (15 February 2007). The first law specified the way in which military cemeteries should be dealt with; the second one forbade monuments glorifying the Soviet occupation in public spaces. In the long run, the implementation of these laws paved the way for removal of the Soviet soldier’s monument from the center of Tallinn. Initiated by the RE, IRL and SDE, the laws caused the gradual mobilization of Estonia’s Russian public opinion against the forceful imposition of the official interpretation of history, considered largely one-sided by most non-Estonians. The two laws provided a telling example of two phenomena of fundamental importance for the present analysis. First, the ethnicity-related cleavage within the Estonian party system revealed its persistence and universal character. The policy attitudes and practices of every single party overlapped in all policy areas. By consistently manifesting a coherent and stable (although not absolutely unalterable) policy line in citizenship, language, education and other areas, Estonian parties lend support to thesis 1 and historical institutionalist arguments on party policy inertia over time. Second, Russian members of mainstream parties had a limited capacity to influence the policy stances of their parties. The passivity of two RE deputies, S.Ivanov and T.Muravjova, during the final voting on the laws, manifested the impossibility of RE’s Russian members to oppose the general party’s

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line448, when issues of symbolic importance for the country’s Russian community were at stake. This circumstance was further exacerbated by a symbolic coincidence: the absence of their two votes decided the outcome of voting on the Law on Forbidden Constructions.

448 The interview with S.Ivanov, conducted for the present dissertation in April 2008, confirmed the impossibility of Russian members of the RE to vote against the general party line. In contrast, members of the KE could vote on the same laws at their discretion. 198

Table 6. Political parties and legislation related to the 2007 crisis

Date Proposed legislation Policy effect and content Initiated by Supported by Opposing (parties voted parties (voted for) against) 10 January Law on Protection of The law allows for RE, Isamaa, RE, Isamaa, 6 KE deputies 2007 Military Cemeteries removal of military burial Res Publica, Res Publica, (1001 SE)449 places located outside SDE SDE, ERL, cemeteries. KE450

15 Law on Forbidden The law forbids RE, Isamaa, RE, Isamaa, KE, SDE, ERL February Constructions (1000 constructions that glorify Res Publica, Res Publica452 2007 SE)451 the occupation of the SDE Estonian Republic.

In terms of parties’ roles in an ethnic minority policy network, the most telling example of a huge gap in perception of the situation between the ruling parties and the academic community on the eve of the crisis came on 23 April 2007. On that day, a group of professors from Tartu, Tallinn and Universities published an open letter to the Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo, offering the assistance of the academic community in analyzing the situation and solving the problem453. Drawing attention to the risks of the monument’s removal for integration, interethnic relations and the country’s internal stability, the authors of the letter pointed to different interpretations of history existing not only between the two communities, but also within the Estonian community. The letter was ignored by the ruling parties and the government and produced no policy effect. The KE was the only party to react to the “critical juncture” set by the Bronze Soldier crisis. On behalf of the Tallinn City Assembly where the KE had a majority, the party started organizing yearly conventions called “Civic Peace” on the anniversary of the April events, with the participation of key politicians, representatives of both the domestic and foreign academic

449 Sõjahaudade kaitse seaduse eelnõu (1001 SE) esimene lugemine. 9. november 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1163059200#pk2000013442; Sõjahaudade kaitse seaduse eelnõu (1001 SE) teine lugemine. 20. detsember 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1166612400#pk2000013630; Sõjahaudade kaitse seaduse eelnõu (1001 SE) eelnõu kolmas lugemine. 10. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1168426800#pk2000013661. 450 Sõjahaudade kaitse seadus (1001 SE). Hääletustulemused. 10. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=10.01.2007&nr=2. 451 Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seaduse eelnõu (1000 SE) esimene lugemine. 9. november 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1163059200#pk2000013441; Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seaduse eelnõu (1000 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 13. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1171353600#pk2000013803; Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seaduse eelnõu (1000 SE) kolmas lugemine. 15. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1171526400#pk2000013834. 452 Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seadus (1000 SE). Hääletustulemused » 15. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=15.02.2007&nr=2. 453 “Professorite avalik kiri: pronkssõduri teisaldamises peituvad riskid”. In: Postimees, 23 April 2007. http://www.euro.postimees.ee/230407/esileht/arvamus/256754.php. 199

community and minority activists. This initiative marked a new phase in the party leadership’s approach to integration policies that can be considered a reaction to the critical juncture described above. The lack of a similar reaction by other parties was to a certain extent reflected in the official integration program, which lacked practical measures for the implementation of similar dialogue-based forms of minority involvement. Moreover, telling proof of Estonian integration policies’ dependence on party politics came to the fore on June 11, 2009, when the IRL-RE government abolished the Ministry of Population and Ethnic Affairs. This occurred as a result of the SDE abandoning the ruling coalition earlier in May. The Ministry’s functions in the area of integration were handed over to the Ministry of Culture. Given that the Ministry for Population and Ethnic Affairs had been created in response to the Council of Europe’s request in the context of the country’s EU integration, its abolition showed the prevalence of party policy inertia over EU conditionality in the area of ethnic policies over time, speaking in favor of historical institutionalist arguments.

4.2.6. Political parties and Russian cultural autonomy in Estonia

Before analyzing the policies advocated and pursued by political parties in the area of minority cultural autonomy in a two-decade perspective, it is important to define the foundations of these policies, thus providing the background for classifying subsequent policy changes. The overall foundations of Estonian ethnic minority policies rest on a peculiar definition of national minority, restricted to Estonian citizens only. This definition originates from the Law on Cultural Autonomy of National Minorities, adopted on June 12, 1993 on the basis of the respective law of 1925. This law is the only legal act dealing with the legal status of national minorities in Estonia. According to article 1, only citizens of Estonia can be recognized as representatives of minority groups. The same reservation clause was subsequently included in the Law on the Ratification of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (1996). Both laws define minorities as citizens of Estonia residing on its territory, having long-lasting and strong connections to Estonia, but different from Estonians due to their ethnic origins, the peculiarities of their cultural and religious lifestyles or language, and aspiring to preserve the cultural traditions, religion and language that underlie their common identity.

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Notably, the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention regarded both Estonia’s citizens and non-citizens as minorities454. Echoing the opinions of experts arguing that according to the law, the creation of cultural autonomy could bring only scant benefits to the representatives of minorities455, the Committee concluded that the law did not fit the actual situation of minorities. A third-order policy change in the area of cultural autonomy would thus imply an alteration of the definition of national minority. Besides, third-order policy changes could refer to policy goals, initially defined by the law as follows: ensuring the learning of the native language and organizing instruction in the native language; founding cultural institutions of national minorities; and founding and distributing funds, scholarships and prizes for the development of national culture and education. Second-order changes would refer to policy instruments – institutions of cultural autonomy. Among these, the law provided for the creation of minority-language educational institutions with advanced studies of national culture (pre-school educational institutions and schools); cultural institutions; enterprises and publishing houses; and social service institutions. First-order changes would refer to altering instrumental settings in which the enumerated institutions operate. Several aspects are important in assessing the contribution of political parties to shaping Estonian cultural autonomy policies. First, no nation-wide political party has ever attempted to introduce a third-order change, expanding the legal definition of national minority in the respective laws. The legal definition of national minority applying to citizens only was retained for two decades. In historical institutionalist terms, there were no critical junctures to prompt changes in party attitudes in this policy area. Second, this restrictive definition of national minority was opposed by the Russian faction of the Riigikogu. The vote on the 2006 law can be considered one of the most conspicuous examples of the powerlessness of the Russian faction to influence the decision making process. Third, the ethnic Russian party RPE was the only one to champion the issue of the Russian cultural minority in Estonia. It should be mentioned in this context that the criterion of long-lasting connections to Estonia seemed to exclude the majority of the Russian-speaking population from the definition

454 Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. “Opinion on Estonia”. 14 September 2001, http://web-static.vm.ee/static/failid/412/1st_OP_Estonia.pdf, accessed 1 March 2012. 455 Osipov Aleksandr, and Ilya Nikiforov. Natsional’no-kul’turnaya avtonomiya. Ideya i realizatsiya. Estonskiy opyt. Tallinn: Legal Information Centre for Human Rights, p. 22. 201

of national minority. Russians, nevertheless, had a series of reasons that could allow them to qualify for the status of a national minority. Historically Russians were settled not only in rural areas along the Russo-Estonian border and on Lake Peipus, but in big cities (Tallinn, Narva, Tartu) as well. Given the rate of mixed marriages between old residents and Soviet-era migrants, it was difficult to differentiate this group. In any case the law mentions Russians, along with Germans, Swedes and Jews as Estonia’s national minorities. Other groups are entitled to found cultural autonomy, if they correspond to the above definition and count 3000 citizens (art. 2.2). Nevertheless, as of this writing (2011), only Ingrian Finns (2004) and Coastal Swedes (2007) have availed of their right to create cultural autonomy in Estonia. The registration process of the above-said cultural autonomies was not politicized, fast and smooth, with the demands satisfied within 3 months. In contrast, Estonia’s Russians have not managed to create cultural autonomy.

Table 7. Political parties and minority status-related legislation

Date Proposed legislation Policy effect and content Initiated by Supported by Opposing (parties voted parties (voted for) against) 26 October Law on National Definition of national KE All represented - 1993 Minority Cultural minority based on parties. Autonomy456 citizenship.

21 Law on Ratification Definition of national Government All nation-wide ONPE November of Framework minority based on (RE, KE, parties. 2006 Convention on the citizenship. ERL) Protection of National Minorities (429 SE)457

In building its political image upon the succession to pre-war Estonia’s Russian party, the RPE aimed to institutionalize the preservation of Russian language, culture and education for 38% of Estonia’s inhabitants (344,796 people, according to the 2000 census) that declared Russian as their native language. Furthermore, the initiators aimed to contribute to the solution of political problems related to the underrepresentation of Russians in government institutions.

456 Vähemusrahvuse kultuuriautonoomia seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 30. september 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=749376000#pk1900000927; Vähemusrahvuse kultuuriautonoomia seaduse eelnõu teise lugemise jätkamine. 26. oktoober 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=751622400#pk1900000984. 457 Vähemusrahvuste kaitse raamkonventsiooni ratifitseerimise seaduse eelnõu (429 SE) esimene lugemine. 13. november 1996. http://riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&day=25&date=847886400&pkpkaupa=1&paevakord= 1900003500#pk1900003500; Vähemusrahvuste kaitse raamkonventsiooni ratifitseerimise seaduse eelnõu (429 SE) teine lugemine. 21. november 1996. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=848563320#pk1900003529. 202

Thus on February 22, 2006 an activist group led by the leader of the RPE Stanislav Tšerepanov initiated the creation of Russian cultural autonomy. The non-profit organization “Russian Cultural Autonomy” (VKA) united various cultural organizations counting over 12 000 members. On March 30 it asked the Ministry of Culture for permission to draw up a list of the national minority in order to organize the elections of institutions of autonomy. After a protracted delay on the part of Minister Raivo Palmaru (KE), the initiators of autonomy sued the Ministry in the Tallinn Administrative Court. On May 19, 2008, the Court obliged the Ministry to give its response within 30 days. On June 18, 2008, the Ministry lodged an appeal to the Tallinn District Court. On November 28, 2008, the District Court supported the decision of the Administrative Court. On January 29, the State Court declined the cassation appeal of the Minister of Culture Laine Jänes (RE), obliging the Ministry of Culture to respond to the VKA‘s demands. Subsequently, the Ministry of Culture rejected the VKA’s demand to include its representative in a working group charged with drafting amendments to the Law on Cultural Autonomy. The Ministry argued that there was no need to include representatives of the “Russian Cultural Autonomy” in the working group, as all the members of the working group and experts consulted by it were experienced and competent, and their national affiliation was irrelevant. The initiators of Russian cultural autonomy interpreted this response as an attempt to change the law, introducing the possibility of declining requests for creating cultural autonomy. On February 26, 2009, the Ministry of Culture declined the VKA’s demand to obtain authorization to draw up lists of the Russian national minority. The refusal ensued after nearly three years of delays, two orders of the Chancellor of Justice and decisions by three courts458. The Ministry argued that the VKA did not qualify as a Russian minority organization or union, arguing that there were negative reactions to the VKA’s initiative on the part of other Russian cultural organizations. It was only in 2012 that a change occurred in the stance of one major Estonian political party, the SDE, on the issue of Russian cultural autonomy. Following the unification of the RPE with the SDE, the leaderships of the two parties agreed that the existing legislature on cultural autonomy should be implemented without artificial obstructions on the part of the executive. The SDE’s concern over the protracted registration of Russian cultural autonomy by the Ministry of Culture was expressed in the following issues posed by the party’s deputy Jaak Allik

458 The complaint of the VKA about the order of the Ministry of Culture is available on: http://www.rusparty.ee/ddoc.php?firus=2009_02_27_VKA_kaebus_Halduskohtule_26022009.pdf The order of the Ministry of Culture: http://www.rusparty.ee/ddoc.php?firus=F_DOKREG_sisse09_0226152342_001.pdf, accessed on 1 March 2012. 203

to the culture minister Rein Lang on February 8, 2012459: 1) the reasons behind the protracted preparation of amendments to the Law on Cultural Autonomy by the Ministry of Culture. The amendment would stipulate reasons for denying permission to draw up a list of ethnic group, resulting thus in a second-order change; 2) the reasons behind the failure to create Russian cultural autonomy on the basis of the law, considering the widespread tendency of the existing political will to obstruct the creation of Russian cultural autonomy; 3) the ministry’s assistance to applicants for creating autonomy. Summarizing the section on the political parties’ contribution to shaping cultural autonomy policy in Estonia, two conclusions can be made. The first is related to a general path dependency of party policy attitudes and practices over time, in line with the historical institutionalist paradigm. This path dependency was manifested by most mainstream political parties, as no changes occurred in their stances toward minority cultural autonomy or the legal definition of national minority. The ethnic Russian party RPE also manifested trends of path dependency in policy priorities: the constant prioritizing of the implementation of rights to cultural autonomy was part of the party’s political identity. The second conclusion refers to changes in party attitudes: changes are possible, if prompted by the external political environment. A shift toward a more active attitude on the part of the SDE toward cultural autonomy policy happened in the context of its unification with the RPE, aimed at attracting more Russian votes (as the party’s leader Mikser publicly and repeatedly stated). This circumstance, while in line with rational choice assumptions, still does not contradict the historical institutionalist argument on path dependency. A change became possible in a party that, partially, dates back to the tradition of the ERR (an umbrella organization that had a relatively more liberal attitude toward ethnic issues at its outset). Meanwhile, policy stances of the Congress-based parties remained unaltered.

459 Vähemusrahvuste kultuuriautonoomiast. XII Riigikogu stenogramm. III istungjärk. 8. veebruar 2012. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1328702400#pk9715 204

CONCLUSIONS

1. Case studies of ethnic policy attitudes and practices of Serbia’s and Estonia’s political parties empirically confirm the thesis 1, based on the application of historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions to ethnic minority policies. Both case studies reveal a considerable degree of stability and resistance to change in ethnicity-related normative orientations and ideational values of political parties, with direct implications for ethnic minority policies. Both case studies reveal a fundamental divide between parties whose normative orientations and ideational values cut across ethnic lines (DS, LSV, LDP and G17+ in Serbia; KE and SDE in Estonia), and parties that show consistent normative orientation toward the ethnic majority (SRS, DSS and SNS in Serbia; IRL and RE in Estonia). Throughout the two decades, the ethnic policy-related cleavage within the party systems of both states proved to be long-standing and overlapping in all minority-related policy areas. In Sartori’s terms, ethnic policy-related cleavage within Serbia’s party system can be characterized as polarized pluralism, with no consensus among major parties on the basic values and foundations of ethnic policies persisting for two decades. Ethnic policy-related cleavage within Estonia’s party system can be characterized as moderate pluralism, with a general consensus on ethnic policy fundamentals persisting for two decades, and divergences on policy instruments and instrumental settings (i.e. on second-order and third-order changes) that appeared in past years.

2. Throughout the two decades since the introduction of multi-party systems, political parties’ diverging normative orientations and ideational values with regard to ethnic minority policies both in Serbia and Estonia date back to the critical junctures marked by the political salience of ethnicity that coincided in time with the introduction of the multi-party system. The first thesis based on historical institutionalist assumptions thus finds support in both case studies: - in Estonia, an ethnicity-related cleavage divides, on the one hand, the parties of relatively more moderate ethnic minority policy tradition dating back to the ERR (as of this writing, these parties are KE and SDE), and on the other hand, the parties formed on the basis of the Congress of Estonia (IRL and RE) that showed a two-decade-long consistency in advocating a legal restorationist approach to language, citizenship and other ethnic minority-related policies, established by the Congress in the late 1980s and preserved till this writing. - in Serbia the divergent ethnic policy stances of political parties were formed in the wake of the abolition of Vojvodina’s autonomy and at the outbreak of wars of Yugoslav disintegration.

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The resulting ethnic policy-related cleavage between parties was preserved largely unaltered for two decades.

3. In both studied cases, the prevalence of particular (first-, second- or third-order change) codes in ethnic policy attitudes and practices of individual parties enable us to establish overarching parallels that reveal a strong path dependence of political parties’ ethnic policies. In line with historical institutionalist assumptions and thesis 1, first-order changes in parties’ ethnic policies are rare and usually occur as a response to critical junctures, or exogenous shocks in the parties’ environment. In Serbia, first-order changes in the LCS’s (1989) and SPS’s (after 2000) ethnic policies occurred as a response to fundamental exogenous shocks that delegitimized previous ethnic policy courses. In Estonia, first- and second-order legislative changes proposed by the KE and SDE were initiated mostly by individual Russian members of the respective parties and were framed in utility-maximizing (vote-oriented) terms.

4. In both cases, utility-maximizing approaches to ethnic policies, manifested by political parties, are in line with rational choice arguments, but these appear to be complementary, not contradictory to historical institutionalist theoretical assumptions and thesis 1. On the one hand, considerations of utility maximization can cause changes in parties’ ethnic policy attitudes and practices (as shown by the examples of the KE and SDE in Estonia). On the other hand, first- order changes are possible in parties with ethnicity-related ideational values that are relatively compatible with policy alteration (SDE and KE), and are not likely to occur in parties with ideational values, normative orientations and policy legacies that are diametrically contrary to first-order alterations of the existing policy paths (IRL). In Serbia, throughout the two decades attempts to introduce first-order changes in ethnic policies usually resulted in party splits (foundation of SPO, DSS, LDP, SNS) rather than alteration of policy courses of original parties (SRS and DS). These findings are in line with historical institutionalist arguments and confirm thesis 1.

5. Both case studies confirm thesis 2, revealing the crucial contribution of political parties in perpetuating and reproducing the particular ethnic minority policy courses of the respective states, as shown by legislation enacted in periods of various party rule. The proneness of political party policy attitudes and policy practices to path dependence in the ethnic policy sphere determines considerable difficulties for the reversal of state minority policies. – The case study of the Vojvodina Hungarians exemplifies the difficulties of reversal of ethnic minority policies pursued by the state. Policy reversal costs are translated by political

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parties into path-dependent and self-reinforcing dynamics of collective reaction and social interpretation. The reduction of Vojvodina’s autonomy contributed to shaping the structure of political cleavages at the time of a “critical juncture”, i.e., at the outset of the multi-party system. In Serbia, political parties enabled decades-long historical continuity of the standards of nationality rights protection enshrined in the 1974 constitution of Vojvodina. By preserving these standards in parties’ policy agendas and ideational values, ethnic Hungarian, regionalist (LSV) and nation-wide political parties (DS, SPO, G17+) bridged the centralist stage of Vojvodina’s institutional arrangement and restored these standards in the 2009 Statute of Autonomy. – In Estonia, the EU’s pressure to alter citizenship and language policies in the late 1990s did not result in alteration of party policy program attitudes on ethnic issues. Accordingly, due to political parties’ intransigent ethnic policy stances, the general citizenship and language policy path of the Estonian state persisted through the major critical juncture represented by EU conditionality. In liberalizing naturalization requirements to non-citizens’ children and Estonian language requirements in the private sector, the EU contributed to the consolidation of the Estonian citizenship and language policy paths, as it did not demand overall policy reversal.

6. Both case studies confirm thesis 3, revealing that political parties’ proneness to path dependence in the sphere of ethnic minority policies imposes limitations on the shaping of party policies in terms of policy expertise (acquaintance with and professional interpretation of minority needs). Case studies of Estonia’s Russians and Serbia’s Hungarians show that nation- wide political parties are not prone to prioritizing ethnic minority policies. In both countries under analysis, mainstream political parties do not manifest competent expertise in assessing minority needs, relying instead on their own path-dependent ideational values and normative orientations. As a consequence, the legal restorationist approach to citizenship and language policies on the part of the Estonian Congress-based parties determined that the huge share of non-citizens in the country’s population and limited social cohesion still constitute major challenges for Estonia’s integration policies. Prioritizing Estonian language training as a means of fostering naturalization and integration has proved to have limited effectiveness. Sociological survey data suggest that increasing the share of Russians in Estonia’s citizenry is not likely to lead to the country’s direct social and political destabilization, but is likely to overturn the existing balance of parties’ electoral fortunes, creating incentives for perpetuation of existing language and citizenship policy paths.

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7. Support to thesis 3 is lent by the limitations to minority involvement in nation-wide political parties, as revealed in both case studies. In the ethnic minority policy area, policy- oriented politicians tend to be concentrated among minority members, while institutional channels for policy formulation and enactment can be provided by ethnic minority parties or nation-wide parties. Thus in Estonia, legislative amendments initiated by the ERR-based parties (KE and SDE) were the result of intra-party persuasion undertaken by their Russian members. Analogous attempts at voicing and putting minority issues on the policy-making agenda in Congress-based parties were either unsuccessful (RE) or not prominent (IRL in Estonia; SRS, SNS and DSS in Serbia).

8. In line with thesis 3, empirical evidence of political parties’ limited policy effectiveness in the area of ethnic minority policies is provided by both case studies. If the ethnic minority political community has limited influence on the nation-wide level, ethnic minority policy effectiveness is contingent on the political will of nation-wide parties. In policy enactment, nation-wide parties act either as influential allies of ethnic parties (as in case of Serbia’s Hungarians), or as avenues for minority politicians to pursue minority policies (participation of Russian politicians in Estonian parties). The findings suggest that political parties tend to incur crucial limitations to policy effectiveness posed by electoral considerations and the peculiarities of the available alliance structure. Both the experience of Serbia’s Hungarians and that of Estonia’s Russians provide examples of policies initiated by the state or advocated by majority parties that do not correspond to the policy expectations of minority communities (e.g. the failure of the official Estonian integration program elaborated without sufficient minority participation; simplistic visions of minority issues demonstrated by a significant part of the mainstream party elite in Serbia; politicization of the Hungarian National Council and the “Magyar Szó” daily by political parties). The policy ineffectiveness of Estonia’s Russian parties was followed by their electoral marginalization; while Serbia’s Hungarian parties, committed to cultural and territorial autonomy, gave proof of electoral considerations conditioning their policies that were beneficial for majority Hungarian North Bačka and detrimental for Hungarians dispersed across Banat and Srem. A distinction can be made between minority policies implemented by specialized institutions and policy agendas pursued by political parties.

9. In line with thesis 3, limited party policy effectiveness suggests a need to empower non- party-based institutions characterized by ethnic minority-representation and policy expertise within the ethnic minority policy network. Both case studies revealed the availability of minority-responsive and sociopolitically thought-out policy expertise in specialized academic

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circles (the academic origins of Estonian integration program; the Estonian academic community’s warning about the societal preconditions for the dangerous effects of relocating the “Bronze Soldier” monument). Serbia’s case provides examples of institutions with effective expertise in dealing with minority issues, with memberships that are dissociated from political parties, being instead based on expertise criteria (Vojvodina’s provincial secretariats and other executive institutions). The experience of Vojvodina Hungarians suggests that minority policies, once (re- )institutionalized, would benefit if organized according to the principle of professionalism, rather than remaining party-based and politicized. This recommendation is particularly relevant for the Hungarian National Council, which should avoid policy limitations manifested by political parties, with tactical priorities that did not correspond to the priorities suggested by the real minority situation. Thus, scarce attention toward the situation of Hungarian-language education in the subregions of Banat and Srem (where the Hungarian electorate is too weak for the ethnic parties to rely on) has to be compensated for by the Hungarian National Council. The Hungarian-language media could benefit from being independent and not party-based. In institutional terms, a platform for political dialogue involving the whole of Estonia’s population could be achieved by using the positive experience of the presidential Roundtable on Minorities that worked in the 1990s. By ensuring minority representation in its membership and organizing its work according to the earlier principles, the Roundtable could reestablish a platform for policy dialogue connecting the president, the parliament, ministries, political parties, the academic community and minority civil society. A restored Roundtable should, nevertheless, avoid past errors: a mechanism of taking its suggestions in consideration by policy-makers (primarily the parliament) should be established and institutional path continuity ensured, preventing reversal. Restoring the work of the Ministry of Population and Ethnic Affairs could contribute to setting a coherent and proactive policy path aimed at the application of accumulated academic expertise on the non-Estonian community in the official Integration Program, with a particular focus on dealing with the correlation of socioeconomic stratification with ethnic cleavages, considering measures of positive discrimination with regard to the minority community in the labour market. An alternative and more flexible approach to language and employment policies could allow Estonia to benefit from the human resources potential of the country’s Russian- speaking population, turning the linguistic pluralism of the society into an advantageous development incentive for the country with its strategic geographic location.

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192. Shepsle, Kenneth. 1979. Institutional arrangements and equilibrium in multidimensional voting models. American Journal of Political Science 23: 23-57; 193. Shepsle, Kenneth A. 1989. “Studying Institutions: Some Lessons From the Rational Choice Approach”. Journal of Theoretical Politics 1: 131-147; 194. Shepsle, Kenneth. “Rational Choice Instituionalism.” Rhodes, Rod A. W., Sarah A. Binder, and Bert A. Rockman (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 23-38; 195. Simon, Herbert. Models of Man. New York: John Wiley, 1957; 196. Stinchcombe, Arthur L. “Social Structure and Organizations.” March, James G. (ed.). Handbook of Organizations. New York: Rand McNally, 1965, pp. 142-193; 197. Strøm, Kaare and Wolfgang C. Müller. “Political Parties and Hard Choices.” Müller, Wolfgang C. and Kaare Strøm (eds.). Policy, Office, or Voters? How Political Parties in Western Europe Make Hard Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; 198. Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Revenge of the Past. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993; 199. Šešelj, Vojislav. Afera Hrtkovci. Zemun: Srpska Radikalna Stranka, 2007; 200. Taylor, Steven J., and Robert Bogdan. Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods. New York: Wiley, 1998; 201. Thelen, Kathleen, and Sven Steinmo. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Perspective.” Thelen, Kathleen and Sven Steinmo (eds.). Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 1- 32; 202. Thelen, Kathleen. 1999. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 374-77; 203. Todosijević, Bojan. 2002. “Minority Political Parties and Ethnic Voting in Subotica.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol.8, No.3, Autumn 2002: 95-109; 204. Treisman, Daniel. After the Deluge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999; 205. Von Beyme, Klaus. Political Parties in Western Democracies. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985; 206. Waters, Mary C. Ethnic Options. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990; 207. Vegel, Laslo. “Multikultura i moderno civilno društvo”. Miloš Macura and Vojislav Stanovčić (eds.). Položaj manjina u SRJ. Beograd: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti, 1996, p. 314; 208. Weingast, Barry. “Persuasion, preference change, and critical junctures: the microfoundations of a macroscopic concept.” Katznelson, Ira, and Barry Weingast (eds.). Preferences and Situations. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005, pp. 161-184; 209. Weiss, Linda. The Myth of the Powerless State. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998; 210. White, Stephen, Judy Batt, and Paul G. Lewis. Developments in East European Politics. London: Macmillan, 1993; 211. Woodward, Susan. Balkan Tragedy. Washington, DC: Brookings, 1995; 212. Zysman, John. 1994. “How Institutions Create Historically Rooted Trajectories of Growth.” Industrial and Corporate Change 3: 243-83; 213. Etniškumo studijos. Baltijos jūros regiono rusai: mažuma ir valstybė, 2007/2. Documentation 1. Law on Publication of Federal Regulations (1976/1980), Official Journal of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, 43/76, 11/80. 2. Law on the Official Use of Language and Alphabet, Official Journal of the Republic of Serbia, No. 45/91. 3. Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Official Journal of the APV, No. 17/91. 4. Law on the Protection of Rights and Freedoms of National Minorities. Official Journal

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of the SRY, No. 11, 27. 02.2002. 5. Law on Establishing the Jurisdiction of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Official Journal of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, No. 6/2002, 7.2.2002. 6. Law on Local Self-Government, Official Journal of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, No. 9/02, 26.02.2002; 7. Law on National Councils of National Minorities, Official Journal of the Republic of Serbia, No. 72/2009; 8. Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. Official Journal of the APV, No. 17/2009; 9. Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. “Opinion on Estonia”. 14 September 2001, http://web- static.vm.ee/static/failid/412/1st_OP_Estonia.pdf, accessed 1 March 2012; 10. Commission of the European Communities. "Regular Report from the Commission on Estonia’s Progress Towards Accession." Brussels, 13 October 1999, p. 15; 11. Council of the European Union. 1999. “Council Decision on the principles, priorities, intermediate objectives and conditions contained in the accession partnership with the Republic of Estonia.” Official Journal of the European Communities” 335: 35-40; 12. Decision of the Administrative Collegium of the Supreme Court on the case 3-3-1-29- 05Riigi Teataja, III 2005, no. 22, art. 232, p. 13; 13. Dogovor ob osnovah mezhgosudarstvennyh otnosheniy RSFSR i Estonskoj Respubliki. Tallinn, 12 January 1991. http://www.sibupk.nsk.su/New/06/Migration/1/2/estonia/dog.doc, accessed 1 January 2011; 14. European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, Report on Estonia, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/Country-by-country/Estonia/EST-CbC-IV-2010-003- ENG.pdf, accessed on 1 March 2012; p. 14-15; 15. International Organisation for Migration. Estonia’s Non-Citizens: a Survey of Attitudes to Migration and Integration. Budapest: IOM, 1997; 16. “Itogovaya rezolyutsiya s’yezda RPE.” Tallinn, 29 January 2012. http://rusparty.ee/%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%8F- %D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8E%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F- %D1%81%D1%8A%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B4%D0%B0- %D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BF%D0%B0/, accessed on 1 March 2012; 17. Ministry of Culture. “Integration in Estonian Society 2000-2007”. March 14, 2000. http://www.kul.ee/webeditor/files/integratsioon/state_programme111.pdf (accessed May 18, 2011); Estonian Cooperation Assembly. “Estonian Integration Strategy 2008-2013,” (April 10, 2008). http://www.kogu.ee/public/documents/Loimumiskava_2008-2013_ENG_VV_11.06.pdf (accessed May 18, 2011); 18. Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, Report by the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène, Addendum: Mission to Estonia, A/HRC/7/19/Add.2, 17 March 2008, http://www.adh-geneva.ch/RULAC/pdf_state/Sp-Rapp-Racism-2008.pdf, accessed on 1 March 2012; 19. Rahvarinde I kongress. Dokumendid. http://www.rahvarinne.ee/rr/81/; Response of Toomas Hendrik Ilves to Max van der Stoel on the issue of stateless children. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.cilevics.eu/minelres/count/estonia/970604a.htm Tallinn, 04 June 1997; 20. 1999. Riigikogu valimised. http://www.erakonnad.info/1999.html, accessed on 18 May 2011. 21. 2007. Riigikogu valimised. http://www.erakonnad.info/2007.html, accessed on 18 May 2011; 22. Eesti Statistikaamet (Statistical Office of Estonia). Eesti rahvastik rahvaloenduste andmetel (Population of Estonia by population censuses). 1996. http://www.stat.ee/dokumendid/26380, accessed on 5 Semtember 2011;

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23. Eesti Statistikaamet (Statistical Office of Estonia). Eesti rahvastik rahvaloenduste andmetel (Population of Estonia by population censuses). http://www.stat.ee/dokumendid/26380, accessed on 5 September 2011; 24. Migrant Integration Policy Index – Estonia. http://www.mipex.eu/estonia, accessed on 1 September 2011; 25. Vabariigi valiskomisjon. Kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimised. http://www.vvk.ee/varasemad/?v=k05/, accessed on 18 May 2011.

Daily press materials 1. Afanasyev: uspeshnoe sotrudnichestvo s sotsdemami stanet novym slovom v mestnoj politike. http://www.dzd.ee/655814/afanasev-uspeshnoe-sotrudnichestvo-s-socdemami-stanet-novym-slovom-v- mestnoj-politike/, accessed on 1 March 2012; 2. Eesti rahvuslik liikumine, “Aasta rahvuslaseks valiti Ilmar Tomusk”, http://www.rahvuslikliikumine.ee/index.php?page=aasta-rahvuslaseks-valiti-ilmar-tomusk, accessed on 1 March 2012; 3. ERR. “Sotsdemy gotovy priniat’ Russkuyu partiyu v svoi ryady”. 25 November 2011. http://rus.err.ee/topnews/292f0bd7-24b9-4b52-b07e-4e4e938d1aa0, accessed on 1 February 2012; 4. Ernits, Peeter. “Kodakondsusameti endine peadirektor Andres Kollist: Nende eesmärk oli venelaste elu põrguks muuta.” Postimees, 7 February 2000; 5. “Ilves: russkij kak gosudarstvennyj? Ne zadavayte smeshnyh voprosov!” Delfi, 11 December 2011; 6. Jõesaar, Tuuli. “Kodakondsuseta inimeste arv langes alla 100 000”. Eesti Päevaleht, 6 June 2011; 7. “Mikser-uzhe-v-osnovnoj-shkole-shag-za-shagom-nuzhno-vse-bolshe-prepodavat-na- estonskom.” Delfi, 30 November 2011. http://rus.delfi.ee/daily/estonia/mikser-uzhe-v-osnovnoj-shkole- shag-za-shagom-nuzhno-vse-bolshe-prepodavat-na-estonskom.d?id=62523260, accessed on 1 March 2012; 8. Obraschenie predsedatelya Sotsial-demokraticheskoy partii Svena Miksera. http://rus.delfi.ee/daily/estonia/mikser-nekotorye-partii-schitayut-upravlenie-gosudarstvom-privilegiej-etnicheskih- estoncev.d?id=62350076, accessed on 1 March 2012; 9. “Obrashchenie Tsentristskoy Patrii k russkoyazychnoy Estonii”. Postimees, 18 September 2009. http://rus.postimees.ee/?id=166325, accessed 18 May 2011; 10. Ojakivi, Mirko. “Eesti järgmine suur eesmärk: rahvuse ja kultuuri säilitamine” [The next great Estonian objective: the preservation of the nation and of the culture], Eesti Päevaleht (February 7, 2011); 11. “Otkrytoe obraschenie Russkoy Shkoly Estonii k Svenu Mikseru.” 29 November 2011. http://www.dzd.ee/651550/otkrytoe-obrawenie-russkoj-shkoly-jestonii-k-svenu-mikseru/, accessed on 1 March 2012; 12. Raun, Alo. “Olukord vene valijate seas: sotsid tõusevad, Kesk langeb.” Postimees, 04.01.2012. http://www.postimees.ee/691262/olukord-vene-valijate-seas-sotsid-tousevad-kesk-langeb/, accessed on 1 March 2012; 13. Repman, Ksenija. “Krupneyshie politicheskie partii Estonii ne delyat svoih izbirateley po natsional’nosti”. Postimees, January 17, 2011; 14. Russkaya Partiya Estonii predlagaet sotrudnichestvo sotsial-demokratam. 25 November 2011. http://rus.err.ee/estonia/f803a5de-81d1-4aea-83a5-7d7da723289f, accessed on 1 March 2012; 15. Savisaar, Edgar. “Kakim mne viditsya buduschee Russkogo voprosa”. April 20, 2011. http://www.keskerakond.ee/savisaar/rus/2011/04/20/, accessed 18 May 2011; 16. “Tšerepanov: ob’edinenie RPE s sotsdemami izmenit paradigmu politiki v Estonii.” Aktualnaya kamera, 12 January .2012, http://rus.err.ee/interview/48d62a4a-a200-4bf4-b0b1-8c7a63fe81d3, accessed on 1 March 2012; 17. Veller, Mihail. “Mnogo raboty – znachit, mnogo perspektiv“. Nezavisimaya Gazeta,

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March 5, 2010; 18. Vetik, Raivo. “Kelle oma on Eesti riik, kui ta on rahva oma?” Eesti Päevaleht, February 27, 2007; 19. Vzglyad, “Maksim Grigor’ev: demokratija po-estonski”, June 28, 2006.

Party programs

Serbia:

1. Program i statut Demokratske Stranke Srbije. Belgrade: DSS, 1993; 2. Program i statut Demokratske Stranke Srbije. Belgrade: DSS, 1994; 3. Demokratska stranka – Pismo o namerama. In: Nove stranke Srbije – dokumenti novih političkih stranaka i grupa u Srbiji. Beograd: Institut za političke studije, 1990; 4. Demokratska Stranka, Program i statut, Belgrade: DS, 1992; 5. Demokratska Stranka, Program, Belgrade: DS, 1995; 6. Program Demokratske Stranke. http://www.ds.org.rs/dokumenti/ds-program.pdf, retrieved 2011-09-05; 7. Program Demokratske Stranke Srbije. http://dss3.orion.rs/wp- content/uploads/downloads/2011/02/04-Program-%E2%80%93-Demokratske-stranke- Srbije.pdf; 8. G17+. Program, 28 March 2004, http://www.g17plus.rs/v2/images/stories/dokumenti/program-g17-plus.pdf; 9. Građanski savez Srbije – Platforma. In: „Republika“, 16-30 June 1992, p. 23; 10. GSS. Predizborna politička platforma, "Republika", 1-15 October 1992, p. 16-18; 11. Građanski savez Srbije – Izborni program, „Republika“, 16-31 December 1992, p. 16- 17; 12. Hungarian Coalition. 2008. A Magyar Koalíció autonómiakoncepciója, http://www.vmsz.org.rs/article.php?lg=hu&id_article=4613. (accessed May 18, 2011). 13. Skupština Građanskog saveza Srbije – Politička deklaracija. In: „Republka“, 1-15 April 1996, p. 17-18; 14. Liberalno Demokratska Partija. Dogovor za preokret. Izborna platforma Liberalno demokratske partije. http://www.ldp.rs/kampanja/izborna_platforma_ldp.1318.html; http://www.ldp.rs/upload/documents/2011/Izborna%20platforma%20- %20DOGOVOR%20ZA%20PREOKRET.pdf; 15. Liberalno Demokratska Partija. "Vojvodina bez granica". http://www.ldp.rs/o_nama/program/srbija_bez_granica_2008/vojvodina_bez_granica.53.html; 16. Liga Socijaldemokrata Vojvodine. May, 1992. “Teze o minimalnim pravima naroda Vojvodine u oblasti informisanja, upotrebe jezika i pisma, obrazovanja i kulture”. http://www.lsv-zr.org.rs/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=21:programska- naela&id=46:teze-o-minimalnim-pravima-naroda-vojvodine-u-oblasti-informisanja-upotrebe- jezika-i-pisma-obrazovanja-i-kulture&Itemid=14&lang=cir. Retrieved 2011-09-05. 17. Liga Socijaldemokrata Vojvodine. Predizborni program LSV i Koalicije “Zajedno za Vojvodinu – Nenad Čanak”. April 2008. http://www.lsv.org.rs/files/upload/52.pdf. Retrieved 2011-09-05; 18. Liga Socijaldemokrata Vojvodine. Program i statut LSV. http://www.lsv.org.rs/files/upload/218.pdf; 19. Program Srpskog Pokreta Obnove, http://www.spo.org.rs/file/doc/program-spo- eds.pdf; 20. Programske osnove Socijalističke Partije Srbije, July 16, 1990. Programske osnove i statut Socijalističke Partije Srbije. Belgrade: SPS, 1990, p. 3-42; 21. Osnove programa SPS, Belgrade: SPS, BIGZ, 1992;

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22. Program Socijalističke Partije Srbije. http://sps.org.rs/Dokumenta/PROGRAM%20SPS.pdf; 23. SRSJ. Novi program reformi. In: „Republika“, 16-31 March 1991, p. 6-8; 24. SRSJ. Program reformista – Predlog programa SRSJ u Srbiji. In: „Republika“, 1-31 August 1991, p. 16-19; 25. Programska deklaracija Srpske Radikalne Stranke, „Velika Srbija“ 1991 (9): 6; 26. Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke. „Velika Srbija“ 1991 (9); 27. Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke, in: Šešelj, Vojislav. Srpska Radikalna Stranka. Belgrade: ABC Štamparija, 1995, p. 94-99; 28. Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke. „Velika Srbija“, July 1997; 29. Program Srpske Radikalne Stranke, http://www.srpskaradikalnastranka.org.rs/pdf/misc/20091023-program.pdf, p. 27-28; 30. Udruženje za jugoslovensku demokratsku inicijativu – Manifest. In: Nove stranke Srbije – dokumenti novih političkih stranaka i grupa u Srbiji. Belgrade: Institut za političke studije, 1990, p. 121-123.

Estonia:

1. Eesti Ettevõtjate Erakond. Põhikiri ja programm. Tallinn: Eesti Ettevõtjate Erakond, 1990; 2. Eesti Keskerakonna põhikiri ja programm. Tallinn: Eesti Keskerakond, Spin Press, 1994; 3. Eesti Keskerakonna põhikiri (vastu võetud erakonna 7. kongressil 19. veebruaril 2000 Tallinnas). Eesti Keskerakonna II programm (vastu võetud erakonna 6. kongressil 24. augustil 1997 Viljandis). Tallinn: Eesti Keskerakond, Spin Press, 2000; 4. Eesti Keskerakonna põhikiri (vastu võetud Eesti Keskerakonna X kongressil 21. augustil 2005 a. Rakveres); Eesti Keskerakonna III programm (vastu võetud Eesti Keskerakonna X kongressil 21. augustil 2005 Rakveres). Tallinn: Eesti Keskerakond, 2006; 5. Eesti Koonderakonna programmilised seisukohad. Eesti Koonderakonna Juhatus. Tallinn: Hansar, 1993; 6. Eesti Koonderakonna programm. Tallinn: Eesti Koonderakond; Pärnu: Trükk, 1997; 7. Eesti Maaliidu programm. Eesti Maaliidu põhikiri. Tallinn: Eesti Põllumajanduse Infokeskus, 1991; 8. Eesti Maarahva Erakond: põhikiri, programm, valimisplatvorm. Tallinn: Eesti Maarahva Erakond; Pärnu: Trükk, 1995; 9. Eesti Rahvusliku Sõltumatuse Partei: põhikiri & programm. Tallinn: ERSP, 1989; 10. Eesti Reformierakond: valimisplatvorm, laiendatud valimisplatvorm, valimisnimekiri. Tallinn: Eesti Reformierakond, Uniprint, 1995; 11. Eesti Reformierakonna programm ja põhikiri. Tallinn: Eesti Reformierakond, Uniprint, 1998; 12. Eesti tuleb tagasi: Eesti Rahvusliku Sõltumatuse Partei valimisprogramm 1992. Tallinn: ERSP, 1992; 13. Eestimaa Rahvaliidu põhikiri ja programm. Tallinn: Eestimaa Rahvaliit, 2000; 14. Eestimaa Rahvaliit. Põhikiri. Programm (vastu võetud Eestimaa Rahvaliidu kongressil 10. juunil 2000). Tallinn: Eestimaa Rahvaliit; Võru: Võru Täht, 2001; 15. Eestimaa Rahvaliit. Põhikiri (kinnitatud ERL IX kongressil 8. juunil 2002). Programm (kinnitatud ERL X kongressil 20. septembril 2003). Tallinn: Eestimaa Rahvaliit, ETPV Trükikoda, 2004; 16. Elu : liberaalne leht. Rapla: ELDP, 1990; 17. Erakond Mõõdukad: programm. Põhikiri. Tallinn; Tartu: Mõõdukad; Tallinn: Pakett, 1998; 18. Isamaa valimisprogramm 1992. Tallinn: Vaba Maa, 1992; 19. Isamaa valimisprogramm 1995. Tallinn:1995; 20. Isamaaliidu programm "Eesti 2000". Tallinn: Isamaaliit, Vaba Maa, 1998; 21. Isamaaliidu programm: kinnitatud Isamaaliidu suurkogul 7. mail 2002. a. Tallinn: Tallinn: Isamaaliit, Online Trükitööd, 2002; 22. IRL-i programm 2011-2015. http://www.irl.ee/et/IRL-i-programm-2011-2015; 23. Russkaya Sbornaya. “Antidiskriminatsionnaya programma Russkoy Obshchiny Estonii”. Tallinn, February 19, 2011;

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http://www.slavia.ee/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5875:2011-02-03-12-00- 15&catid=161:-riigikogu-6-2011&Itemid=221. (accessed May 18, 2011); 24. Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond. “Program”; http://valimised2011.sotsdem.ee/programm/loimumine/ (accessed May 18, 2011); 25. Russkaya Partiya Estonii. Programma. http://rusparty.ee/%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BC%D0 %B0/ (accessed May 18, 2011).

Stenographs of the Estonian Parliament

1. Keeleseaduse eelnõu esimene lugemine. 14. veebruar 1995. http://riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&day=21&date=792748860&pkpkaupa=1&paevakord=19 00002240; 2. Keeleseaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 21. veebruar 1995. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=793353720#pk1900002276; 3. Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (390 SE) teine lugemine. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=960980400#pk2000006807; 4. Riigikogu valimise seaduse, kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse ja keeleseaduse muutmise ja täiendamise seaduse eelnõu (1073 SE) esimene lugemine. 8. detsember 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=913104000#pk1900005515; 5. Riigikogu valimise seaduse, kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse ja keeleseaduse muutmise ja täiendamise seaduse eelnõu (1073 SE) teine lugemine. 15. detsember 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=913708800#pk1900005560; 6. Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (390 SE) teine lugemine. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=960980400#pk2000006807; 7. Riigikogu valimise seaduse §-de 2, 2.1 ja 26 ning kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse §-de 3, 3.1 ja 26 muutmise seadus (880 SE). 21. November 2001. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1006340400#pk2000008302; 8. Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (974 SE) esimene lugemine. 17. oktoober 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1161068400#pk2000013346; 9. Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (974 SE) teine lugemine. 18. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1169107200#pk2000013712; 10. Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (974 SE) kolmas lugemine. 20. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1171958400#pk2000013848; 11. Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1077 SE) esimene lugemine. 17. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1169031600#pk2000013704; 12. Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (902 SE) esimene lugemine. 21. september 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1158822000#pk2000013266; 13. Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1077 SE ja 902 SE) teine lugemine. 7. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1170846000#pk2000013777; 14. Keeleseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1077 SE ja 902 SE) kolmas lugemine. 8. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1170921600#pk2000013793; 15. Keeleseaduse eelnõu (808 SE) esimene lugemine. 13. oktoober 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0 &date=1286972321&paevakord=7069; 16. Keeleseaduse eelnõu (808 SE) teine lugemine. 16. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&date =1297865056&paevakord=8165#pk8165; 17. Keeleseaduse eelnõu (808 SE) kolmas lugemine. 23. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&date =1298462989&paevakord=8294#pk8294; 18. Välismaalaste seaduse eelnõu esimene lugemine. 8. juuni 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=739522800#pk1900000708; 19. Välismaalaste seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 15. juuni 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=740127600#pk1900000754; 20. Välismaalaste seaduse eelnõu teise lugemise jätkamine. 21. juuni 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=740646000#pk1900000797; 21. Vabariigi Presidendi poolt tagasisaadetud "Välismaalaste seaduse" uus käsitelu. 8. juuli 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=742140000#pk1900000829;

223

22. Kodakondsuse seaduse eelnõu esimene lugemine. 10. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=784454700#pk1900001986; 23. Kodakondsuse seaduse ja Eesti Vabariigi Ülemnõukogu otsuse "Kodakondsuse seaduse rakendamise kohta" muutmise seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 15. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=784886400#pk1900002000; 24. Kodakondsuse seaduse § de 4, 12, 14 ja 15, Eesti Vabariigi Ülemnõukogu otsuse "Kodakondsuse seaduse rakendamise kohta" muutmise seaduse ning Eesti Vabariigi Ülemnõukogu otsuse "Kodakondsuse seaduse rakendamise kohta" muutmise seaduse eelnõu ja kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu teise lugemise jätkamine (kodakondsust käsitlevate õigusaktide osalise muutmise ja kehtetuks tunnistamise seadus). 17. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=785059320#pk1900002016 25. Kodakondsust käsitlevate õigusaktide osalise muutmise ja kehtetuks tunnistamise seaduse eelnõu (658 SE ja 671 SE) kolmas lugemine. 22. november 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=785491200#pk1900002023; 26. Kodakondsuse seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 14. detsember 1994. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=787406460#pk1900002101; 27. Kodakondsuse seaduse eelnõu kolmanda lugemise jätkamine. 19. jaanuar 1995. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=790502640#pk1900002158; 28. Kodakondsuse seaduse §de 13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 23, 28, 29 ja 32 muutmise ning §ga 14 seaduse eelnõu. 18. november 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=911390400#pk1900005434 29. Kodakondsuse seaduse §-de 13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 23, 28, 29 ja 32 muutmise ning §-ga 14 seaduse eelnõu. 8. detsember 1998. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=913104000#pk1900005517; 30. Kodakondsuse seaduse §-de 34 ja 35 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (53 ja 319 SE) teine lugemine. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=960980400#pk2000006803; 31. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (942 SE) esimene lugemine. 8. mai 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1020852000#pk2000008808 32. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (180 SE) esimene lugemine. 18. november 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1069142400#pk2000010202; 33. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (180 SE) teine lugemine. 4. detsember 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1070524800#pk2000010274; 34. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (180 SE) kolmas lugemine. 10. detsember 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1071054000#pk2000010300; 35. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (954 SE) esimene lugemine. 26. märts 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1017129600#pk2000008673; 36. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (954 SE) teine lugemine. 25. aprill 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1019718000#pk2000008790; 37. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (954 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 17. detsember 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1040112000#pk2000009430; 38. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) esimene lugemine. 16. september 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1063695600#pk2000009953; 39. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) teine lugemine. 14. oktoober 2003. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1066114800#pk2000010048; 40. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) kolmas lugemine. 11. veebruar 2004. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1076497200#pk2000010486; 41. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 9 muutmise seadus 113 SE I. 19 September 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=en_vaade&op=ems&eid=143166&u=20111129214505; 42. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 9 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (113 SE) esimene lugemine. 22. november 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&date =1195719060&paevakord=1159; 43. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (53 SE) esimene lugemine. 26. mai 1999. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=927712800#pk2000005785; 44. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 35 lõike 4 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (1081 SE) teine lugemine. 15. oktoober 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1034665200#pk2000009163; 45. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 9 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (113 SE) esimene lugemine. 22. november 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&date =1195719060&paevakord=1159#pk1159; 46. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (126 SE) esimene lugemine. 22. november 2007. www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1195715100#pk1160; 47. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (306 SE) esimene lugemine. 4. november 2008. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0 &date=1225785865&paevakord=2919;

224

48. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (796 SE) esimene lugemine. 16. november 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0&date =1289902533&paevakord=7384#pk7384; 49. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (68 SE) esimene lugemine. 25. oktoober 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1319526300#pk9081; 50. Vabariigi Presidendi poolt tagasisaadetud põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse uus käsitelu. 15. september 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=748090800#pk1900000875; 51. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse muutmise seaduse eelnõu (341 SE) teine lugemine. 12. november 1996. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=847785600#pk1900003484; 52. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse § 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (341 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 10. september 1997. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=873889200#pk1900004097; 53. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (274 SE) esimene lugemine. 15. veebruar 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=950601600#pk2000006398 54. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (274 SE) teine lugemine. 23. märts 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=953798400#pk2000006509; 55. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seaduse eelnõu (274 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 4. aprill 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/index.php?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=954835200&#pk2000006517; 56. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) esimene lugemine. 25. märts 2009. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0 &date=1237990259&paevakord=3960; 57. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) teine lugemine. 25. november 2009. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0 &date=1259153179&paevakord=5334; 58. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 2. juuni 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0 &date=1275484519&paevakord=6572; 59. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse eelnõu (412 SE) kolmas lugemine. 9. juuni 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&pkpkaupa=1&toimetatud=1&toimetamata=0 &date=1276088259&paevakord=6654#pk6654; 60. Vähemusrahvuse kultuuriautonoomia seaduse eelnõu teine lugemine. 30. september 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=749376000#pk1900000927; 61. Vähemusrahvuse kultuuriautonoomia seaduse eelnõu teise lugemise jätkamine. 26. oktoober 1993. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=751622400#pk1900000984; 62. Vähemusrahvuste kaitse raamkonventsiooni ratifitseerimise seaduse eelnõu (429 SE) esimene lugemine. 13. november 1996. http://riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&day=25&date=847886400&pkpkaupa=1&paevakord=19 00003500#pk1900003500; 63. Vähemusrahvuste kaitse raamkonventsiooni ratifitseerimise seaduse eelnõu (429 SE) teine lugemine. 21. november 1996. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=848563320#pk1900003529; 64. Sõjahaudade kaitse seaduse eelnõu (1001 SE) esimene lugemine. 9. november 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1163059200#pk2000013442; 65. Sõjahaudade kaitse seaduse eelnõu (1001 SE) teine lugemine. 20. detsember 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1166612400#pk2000013630; 66. Sõjahaudade kaitse seaduse eelnõu (1001 SE) eelnõu kolmas lugemine. 10. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1168426800#pk2000013661; 67. Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seaduse eelnõu (1000 SE) esimene lugemine. 9. november 2006. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1163059200#pk2000013441; 68. Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seaduse eelnõu (1000 SE) teise lugemise jätkamine. 13. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1171353600#pk2000013803; 69. Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seaduse eelnõu (1000 SE) kolmas lugemine. 15. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1171526400#pk2000013834; 70. Pomerants, Marko. "Eesti turvalisuspoliitika põhisuunad aastani 2015" 2010. aasta aruanne. 15. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=steno&stcommand=stenogramm&date=1297753500.

Party voting outcomes in the Estonian Parliament

1. Keeleseaduse muutmise seadus (390 SE). Hääletustulemused. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=14.06.2000&nr=9;

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2. Riigikogu valimise seaduse §-de 2, 2.1 ja 26 ning kohaliku omavalitsuse volikogu valimise seaduse §-de 3, 3.1 ja 26 muutmise seadus (880 SE). Hääletustulemused. 21. November 2001. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=21.11.2001&nr=2; 3. Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduse muutmise seadus (974 SE). Hääletustulemused. 20. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=20.02.2007&nr=2; 4. Keeleseaduse muutmise seadus (902 ja 1077). Hääletustulemused. 8. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=08.02.2007&nr=7; 5. Keeleseadus (808 SE). Hääletustulemused. 23. veebruar 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=haaletus&hid=1309385&op=ems&content_type=text/html&new=1; 6. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (53 SE). Hääletustulemused. 14. juuni 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=14.06.2000&nr=4; 7. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (942 SE). Hääletustulemused. 8. mai 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=08.05.2002&nr=3; 8. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (180 SE). 10. detsember 2003. Hääletustulemused. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=10.12.2003&nr=4; 9. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (954 SE). Hääletustulemused. 17. December 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=17.12.2002&nr=6; 10. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (68 SE). Hääletustulemused. 11. veebruar 2004. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=11.02.2004&nr=1; 11. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 9 muutmise seadus (113 SE). Hääletustulemused. 22. november 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&hid=188559&new=1&u=2011112921 4541; 12. Kodakondsuse seaduse muutmise seadus (68 SE). Hääletustulemused. 25 October 2011. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=haaletus&hid=1425209&op=ems&content_type=text/html&new=1; 13. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseaduse §-de 9 ja 52 muutmise seadus (274 SE). Hääletustulemused. 4 April 2000. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=04.04.2000&nr=2; 14. Põhikooli- ja gümnaasiumiseadus (412 SE). Hääletustulemused. 9. juuni 2010. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?page=haaletus&hid=1064787&op=ems&content_type=text/html&new=1; 15. Sõjahaudade kaitse seadus (1001 SE). Hääletustulemused. 10. jaanuar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=10.01.2007&nr=2 16. Keelatud rajatise kõrvaldamise seadus (1000 SE). Hääletustulemused » 15. veebruar 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=15.02.2007&nr=2; 17. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 35 lõike 4 muutmise seadus (1081 SE). Hääletustulemused. 15. oktoober 2002. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&dt=15.10.2002&nr=1; 18. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seadus (126 SE). Hääletustulemused. 22. november 2007. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&hid=188727&new=1&u=2011120722 5136; 19. Kodakondsuse seaduse § 5 muutmise seadus (306 SE). Hääletustulemused. 4. november 2008. http://www.riigikogu.ee/?op=ems&content_type=text/html&page=haaletus&hid=438920&new=1&u=2011112922 142.

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1. List of the persons interviewed

Serbia:

Sándor Páll, leader of the Democratic Fellowship of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMDK) (Novi Sad, 25 May 2009); Béla Csorba, assistant of the president of the commune of Temerin (Democratic Party of Vojvodina Hungarians, VMDP) (Novi Sad, 4 June 2009); András Ágoston, leader of the Democratic Party of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMDP) (Temerin, 26 August 2009); László Józsa, chair of the Hungarian National Council in Serbia, vice president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) (Subotica, 28 August 2009); Petar Teofilović, provincial ombudsman, Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Novi Sad, 19 August 2009); Zoltan Gobor, deputy ombudsman of Vojvodina for national minority rights protection (Novi Sad, 19 August 2009); György Schöpflin, Member of the with Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union, part of the European People’s Party; the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. (Forlì, 28 October 2009); Miloš Gagić, chairman of the Executive Board of the Council of the Province of Vojvodina of the Democratic Party (DS) (Novi Sad, 14 August 2009); Petar Ćirović, deputy president of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) (Novi Sad, 03 November 2009); Aleksandra Jerkov, spokesman of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV) (Novi Sad, 2 November 2009); Radovan Radovanović, member of Parliament, working group for national councils of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV) (Novi Sad, 2 November 2009); Nemanja Starović, vice president of the City Committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Renewal Movement and spokesman for the party (SPO) (Novi Sad, 14 August 2009); Dane Pribić, president of the Youth Network of Vojvodina of the G17 Plus party, member of the Provincial Assembly of Vojvodina (G17+) (Novi Sad, 3 November 2009); Đorđe Raković, Serbian Progressive Party, Novi Sad (SNS) (22 August 2009); Đurađ Jakšić, president of the city committee of Novi Sad of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) (29 August 2009); Srđan Bogosavljević, director of the Strategic Marketing Media Research Institute, Belgrade (Belgrade, 15 March 2010); Ana Dević, University of Glasgow (Novi Sad, 15-16 June 2010.); Vladimir Ilić, Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade, Director of the Zrenjanin Centre for the Development of Civil Society (Belgrade, 25 June 2010); Antal Bozóki, advocate, president of the civic organization of Hungarians in Serbia for human rights “Argus” (Novi Sad, July 2009).

Estonia:

Sergei Ivanov, member of the Riigikogu, member of Tallinn City Council, delegate of the Reform Party (Tallinn, April, 2008); Aleksei Semjonov, director of the Legal Information Centre for Human Rights (Tallinn, April, 2008);

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Mihhail Stalnuhhin, head of Narva City Council, member of the Estonian Centre Party (Narva, 8 February 2011); Dimitri Klenski, leader of the Russian Party (Tallinn, 11 March 2011); Aleksandr Korobov, “Nochnoy dozor” / “Öine vahtkond“ (3 February 2011).

Consultations with scholars and experts dealing with ethnicity issues:

Alexander Astrov, Assistant Professor of Political Theory and International Relations at the Department of International Relations and European Studies, Central European University in Budapest; Mati Heidmets, Head of Centre of Educational Policy, Professor; Tallinn University; Kristina Kallas, Member of the board of the Institute of Baltic Studies; Veronika Kalmus, Associate Professor, PhD, Institute of Journalism and Communication, University of Tartu; Iris Pettai, Estonian Institute for Open Society Research, Head of the Department of Sociological Studies, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Economics and Sociology; Vello Pettai, Director of the Department of Political Science, University of Tartu; Raivo Vetik, Professor of Comparative Politics, Director of the Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn University.

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Appendix 2. Structure of the semi-structured interview questionnaire used in the research for interviews to representatives of political parties

I. Ethnic aspect of the party’s ideational dimension 1. How does the party define the ethnic characteristics of the target group it aims to represent? 2. How is the party’s membership defined in ethnic terms? 3. Does the party have special electoral strategies toward ethnic minority voters?

II. The party’s normative orientations toward the most relevant minority policy issues 4. What are the most relevant problems faced by the given ethnic minority, in the respondent’s view? 5. What are the party’s stances on particular ethnic minority policy issues? 6. How does the respondent assesses current ethnic minority policies in particular areas? 7. What are the social and political characteristics of the given ethnic minority, as perceived by the respondent? 8. How does the respondent assess the current situation of inter-ethnic relations? 9. How does the respondent assess the minority’s political influence?

III. The party’s contribution to shaping ethnic minority policies 10. Is there an intra-party framework for ethnic minority policy formulation? 11. The party’s participation in formulating and enacting ethnic minority policies in particular areas. 12. Which parties constitute the alliance structure of the respondent’s party when formulating and enacting ethnic minority policies?

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