KINPOL: Observatory on Kin-State Policies

ASN 2020 European Conference: Nationalism and Populism in Semi-Peripheries: Central and Eastern European Responses to Global Challenges, 1 – 3 July 2021, Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvár/ Klausenburg, Romania

In 2001, a kin-state’s engagement was welcomed by the Council of Europe as a novel form of minority protection. Without any doubt, in many cases, the kin-state’s support has been of paramount importance for protecting the identity and promoting the culture of many minority ethnocultural groups. However, in recent years, kin-state engagement in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has evolved in ways that challenge any attempts to justify it as minority protection. Rather, we notice a proliferation of a neoliberal state rationality regarding trans-sovereign identity politics manifested more acutely in the multiplication of policies that facilitate the access to citizenship for co-ethnics abroad and are justified by a need to rectify internal labour shortages (e.g., Hungary, Poland, or Bulgaria), as well as in the efforts of many states to use the ties with co-ethnics abroad to strengthen their regional influence (e.g., Russia, Romania, or Serbia). Against this backdrop which suggests an instrumentalisation of kin-state engagement in CEE, this roundtable discussion organised by KINPOL Observatory on Kin-state Policies brings together scholars to discuss the benefits, drawbacks and limits of a kin-state’s engagement in CEE in the context of current policies and normative guidelines.     

CHAIR: Levente Salat (Babeş-Bolyai University)
PARTICIPANTS: Myra Waterbury (Ohio University); Andreea Udrea (University of Glasgow); Zsuzsa Csergő (Queen’s University, Canada); Erin Jenne (Central European University); and Tamás Kiss (The Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities)

The full programme is available to view. 

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First published: 29 July 2020