Minorities in Turkey II: Ideology and Discrimination

This article focuses on the ideological roots of the repressive and discriminatory mentality/philosophy that has shaped democracy and minority policies in Turkey. My aim is to analyze the consequences of this mentality, with an emphasis on hate speech and discrimination. To this end, I summarize the consequences of the issues and policies discussed in the previous article, and discuss their future implications for both the state and the people of Turkey. I conclude that it is necessary to refer to citizens not through the ethno-religious term Turk, and still less as Muslims, but through the thoroughly territorial term Türkiyeli (of Turkey), and to do all that is necessary to ensure such a transformation in mentality.

Marginalization as a Structural Constraint: How Group Position Shapes Out-Group Hostility

Theories of out-group hostility have long held that attitudes about marginalized groups are important predictors of policy support. These theories, however, have mostly examined the attitudes of white people and sexual orientation has rarely been a category of analysis. Thus, we know less about whether these theories are conditional on group position in racial and sexual hierarchies. This paper argues that processes of marginalization shape out-group hostility. Using comparative relational analysis, I examine support for pro-minority policies among white lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people, straight people of color and whites. I find that ethnocentrism is not a general predictor of out-group hostility among the members of marginalized groups. Alternatively, group-targeted homophobia, racism, and nativism predict opposition to pro-minority policies, but the members of marginalized groups have more egalitarian attitudes overall. These findings challenge long-held conventional wisdoms about prejudice, underscoring the importance of centering on marginalized groups in public opinion.

Making an Ethnic Group: Lemko-Rusyns and the Minority Question in the Second Polish Republic

Drawing on ethnographic and archival materials, this paper examines the ethnic politics of the Second Polish Republic by taking into account the experiences of the Lemko-Rusyn population, a minority East Slavic group inhabiting the peripheral mountainous area in southern Poland. It illustrates the changing policies towards Lemko-Rusyns and discusses the different responses of the local population to these policies, demonstrating the inadequacy of categories imposed from above as well as manifold motivations behind people's political views, choices of national identification, and religious conversions. In so doing, the article has three main objectives. First, in line with recent critical scholarship on nationalism in the Second Polish Republic, it attempts to problematize the – frequently exaggerated – difference between ‘federational’ and ‘assimilationist’ conceptions, exposing the discriminatory nature of interwar minority politics, as experienced locally. Second, moving beyond the interwar period, the article presents the long-term consequences of the interwar policies and the events of the Second World War, including a series of ethnic cleansings that took place in the aftermath of the war as well as present-day discourses on and policies towards ethnic and national minorities. And third, in discussing state actors' agency in the domain of minority policies, it calls for a more thorough recognition of the agency of the people who are the target of those policies. The article considers all these issues by presenting a history of a Lemko-Rusyn locality and its inhabitants, as recorded in school records, state reports, and oral histories.

Introduction

The story of interwar Poland has traditionally been told within the historiographical framework of national minority policies in the post-1918 eastern European states. And yet, as this introductory chapter argues, it can be understood only within the context of prevailing global discussions about how notions of civilization justified claims to sovereignty. With its Polish minority, Ukrainian majority, and large Jewish population, the borderland province of Volhynia became a testing ground for various attempts to both civilize and nationalize a “backward” region. This chapter offers an introduction to Volhynia’s geography and pre-1918 history, an exploration of the second-tier actors who claimed to be importing Western civilization, and a discussion of the book’s major historiographical interventions. The case of Volhynia allows scholars to reconsider the dichotomy between civic and ethnic nationalism, to reimagine ideas of national indifference, and to trace how Poles engaged with concepts of imperialism and European nationalism.

Political Culture

Greek political culture has been characterized by a tension between, on the one hand, modern institutions and the participant values these have instilled, and on the other hand, the traditional/parochial values of the past. This chapter aims to explain the ways in which the participant and parochial elements of Greek political culture have interacted with reference to four dimensions of political culture, including types of engagement, citizenship, and political equality, solidarity, and the politics of consensus, and finally social structures of co-operation. While the Greek political system proved surprisingly resilient during the post-dictatorship era, and Greece’s membership of the European Union entailed a process of Europeanization, the 2008 eurozone crisis exposed its inherent tensions and systemic weaknesses, revealing its propensity for instability, extremism, and illiberalism. At the same time, however, the fragmentation of the party system and the entry of a few new political personnel have also facilitated the possibility for some reforms in the areas of human rights, minority policies, Church–State relations, and foreign policy. This suggests that political culture has also evolved, illustrating that, while as the literature argues, political cultures shape democratic institutions and to a great extent determine their stability, at the same time institutions also shape political cultures.

The Mechanics of Consensus: Nonterritorial Cultural Autonomy and the Russian State

Russia’s institutions on nonterritorial cultural autonomy (NTCA) can be broadly situated within the country’s political community, in the sense that they—for the most part—recognize the government’s rules of engagement and its role as decision maker, leading to overarching consensus and pursuit of shared objectives. At the same time, they remain at the periphery of the political community. This article outlines the reasons for NTCA institutions’ peripherality and limited influence upon Russia’s minority policies. Such reasons are linked to external factors—Russia’s undemocratic political system—but also to conditions intrinsic to NTCA institutions themselves—forms of passivity and (non)participation, and blurred boundaries between NTCA institutions and state actors. The interaction of such factors generates the noted prevailing consensus between NTCA institutions and the Russian state. Interview data further reveal that representatives of NTCA institutions are far from monolithic: the said external and internal factors affect them in different ways, resulting in variations in forms of consensus and cooperation with state actors. This, in turn, allows for multiple interpretative frameworks of state–civil society coexistence in the sphere of Russia’s diversity management.

Historical-Sociological Background of the Relationship between China and Xinjiang Region

China’s minority issue always is a hot topic among scholars from west and east, and Chinese rule in Xinjiang Region is one of the hottest. As Uyghur secessionist’s numerous violent clashes are defined as desperate resistance in the west and terrorist attack in China, the discrepancy is too obvious to ignore. This discrepancy not just influences the public opinion but also the international diplomatic policy and academic investigation. This paper, as a preparation for the further investigation on the China’s Xinjiang policy, examined the background of the China-Xinjiang relationship from multidimensional perspective. By reviewing historical records and comparing them with Chinese official claims and Uyghur secessionist’s claim, this article located Xinjiang region's position inside both Chinese nationalism and Uyghur independence movement. Also Chinese official minority policies are examined as they are considered as key factor for Uyghur independence movement.