TY - JOUR
T1 - The paradox of minority accommodation
T2 - Eastern Europe after 30 years
AU - Bustikova, Lenka
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, European Consortium for Political Research.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - The article discusses some of the paradoxes of minority accommodation in Eastern Europe 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the course of doing so, it focuses on four specific issues: volatility, sequencing, a shift from nationalism (group) to social conservatism (grid), and on the radicalisation of mainstream parties. Volatility is tied to the ebb and flow of shifts in the status quo associated with minority accommodation, which elucidates both why radical right mobilisation accelerates and why it loses steam. The expansion of minority rights leads to political ‘extreme reactions’. Sequencing matters since minority accommodation coincided with democratisation in Eastern Europe, so the struggle over minority rights is confounded with a concurrent regime change. Shifts from group to grid refer to the recent rise in socially conservative issues as sources of polarisation. Finally, extremist parties can threaten democratic pluralism. Nevertheless, large radicalised mainstream parties that control parliaments, not small extremist parties, subvert the institutions of democratic oversight. The threat originates from the mainstream and is exacerbated by the fact that liberal democracy has not ‘locked in’ in most of Eastern Europe.
AB - The article discusses some of the paradoxes of minority accommodation in Eastern Europe 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the course of doing so, it focuses on four specific issues: volatility, sequencing, a shift from nationalism (group) to social conservatism (grid), and on the radicalisation of mainstream parties. Volatility is tied to the ebb and flow of shifts in the status quo associated with minority accommodation, which elucidates both why radical right mobilisation accelerates and why it loses steam. The expansion of minority rights leads to political ‘extreme reactions’. Sequencing matters since minority accommodation coincided with democratisation in Eastern Europe, so the struggle over minority rights is confounded with a concurrent regime change. Shifts from group to grid refer to the recent rise in socially conservative issues as sources of polarisation. Finally, extremist parties can threaten democratic pluralism. Nevertheless, large radicalised mainstream parties that control parliaments, not small extremist parties, subvert the institutions of democratic oversight. The threat originates from the mainstream and is exacerbated by the fact that liberal democracy has not ‘locked in’ in most of Eastern Europe.
KW - Central and Eastern Europe
KW - Liberal democracy
KW - Minority rights
KW - Polarisation
KW - Radical right
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U2 - 10.1057/s41304-020-00266-x
DO - 10.1057/s41304-020-00266-x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087683884
JO - European Political Science
JF - European Political Science
SN - 1680-4333
ER -