ECPR-workshop on `Sub-Sovereign European Nations'
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 97 21:04:09 -0500
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: ECPR-workshop on `Sub-Sovereign European Nations'
From: MINELRES moderator \ Internet: ([email protected])
Original sender: Lukas H. Meyer \ Internet: (lhmeyer@barkhof.
uni-bremen.de)
ECPR-workshop on `Sub-Sovereign European Nations'
Andreas Follesdal and I have been planning and preparing an ECPR-workshop,
titled `Sub-Sovereign European Nations. Accomodating non-exclusive or non-
territorial claims of Roma/Sinti, Jewish and Saami minorities'. It will take
place at the University of Warwick, March 23-29 1998. The web-page is http:
//www.sv.uio.no/~andreasf/SUB_SOV.HTM
Yours sincerely,
Lukas H. Meyer, D.Phil.
Universitaet Bremen
FB 8, InIIS
Linzer Str. 4
D 28359 Bremen
+ 49 421/218-7598
+ 49 421/218-7248 (fax)
-----------------------------------------------------------
This workshop considers the normative foundations of the claims of the
Roma/Sinti and Jewish minorities in Eastern Europe and of the Saami people.
Conceptual and normative analyses are brought to bear on non-exclusive
claims to cultural rights and political autonomy
for these groups, where territorially based federal solutions seem
unworkable or unnecessary. The workshop also considers the likely
significance of the EU for emergence and resolution of such
conflicts.
Topic
The topic of this workshop is the normative foundations of claims to
minority rights, focussed on cultural and ethnic conflicts emerging in
Eastern Europe, and the likely significance of the EU
for the emergence and resolution of such conflicts. This focus is not only
intellectually in the forefront, but is also pro-active: identifying some of
the likely dilemmas to emerge, and some standards for assessing proposals
for their resolution. The workshop concentrates on the difficult cases of
indigenous people and minorities which do not make exclusive claims to
territory, where territorially based federal solutions are unworkable or
unnecessary, for instance because several groups live intermingled and hence
have overlapping claims to land, or because the interests are not secured by
focussing on territorial control. The claims and institutional arrangements
recommended for treatment of indigenous
minorities, the Saami in particular, may serve to throw light on some,
though not all of these issues. The main task of the contributions to the
workshop will be to bring the results of the legal, conceptual and normative
analyses of minority rights to bear upon the specific claims to cultural and
political autonomy of particularly the Saami and minorities of Eastern
Europe which do not make exclusive claims to territory. In so doing we will
test, so to speak, the normative plausibility of alternative accounts of the
legitimacy of minority rights and of the claims to autonomy of at least some
of the minorities of Eastern Europe.
The state of the field: Existing research
The claims of minorities pose important theoretical challenges to the
liberal political theories consonant with the values and general norms of
Europe -- freedom, equality and solidarity. Within the broad field of
liberal normative political theory, several authors have recently
contributed important perspectives on the normative grounds of claims
regarding minority cultures, among them Will Kymlicka, Michael Walzer,
Joseph Raz, and Charles Taylor. One might want to contrast a liberal
contractualist approach (John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin), and a more
comprehensive liberal approach (J.S.Mill, Raz, and possibly Kymlicka).
One main goal of the workshop is to investigate the implications and
plausibility of these two liberal normative approaches, and others. Can they
be brought to bear on the difficult cases of indigenous people and
minorities which do not make claims to territory?
The situation of cultural minorities in Eastern Europe has been studied
extensively. For an overview of what their situation has been since the end
of the Cold War one might want to consult the works of Janusz Bugajski (see
bibliography). More specific studies on particular conflicts between
majority and minority cultures can be found e.g., in a collection of essays
recently published by the United Nations University Press. However, none of
these works provides a thorough normative analysis of the claims of these
minorities.
There have been quite a few studies on Jewish minorities and the Roma/Sinti
in Eastern Europe. On Jewish Minorities, on might want to consult Bernard
Wasserstein's monography which contains a concluding chapter pertaining to
the situation of Jewish Minorities since 1989. Also John D. Klier has
presented historical accounts of the fate of these minorities. Both `The
Society for Endangered People' and `Human Rights Watch' have published
reports on the situation of Roma in Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania. A few social scientists have also provided
more analytical accounts of what their fate has been since 1989.
Again, while clearly aware of the normative issues at stake, few of these
works provide a thorough normative analysis of the claims of these
minorities. The situation of the Saami indigenous population of the Kola
peninsula and the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland, has been
discussed in several domestic documents in the Nordic countries, and legal
issues have been extensively discussed. However, again, the issues of
normative political theory must be further developed. There is quite an
elaborated literature addressing conceptual issues pertaining to minority
rights. Among the more recent contributions to this discussion is a
collection of essays edited by Juha Raikka.
Participants and types of papers
Participants of the workshop are invited to address the following three sets
of questions.
1. Grounds for Minorities' Claims to Autonomy and Equal Respect
The nature of cultural interests, claims to ancient first use, and
historical experiences of injustice, appear prima facie to be very important
for understanding, and evaluating the normative force of
minorities' political claims to cultural autonomy and political
selfdetermination. - What characteristica of minority groups entitle members
of such groups or the groups themselves to specific rights? - What is the
significance of the history of the relationship between majority and
minority culture for answering this question? - What type of claims are
plausible under what circumstances, and why? In particular, what claims to
cultural autonomy as well as political self determination of minority groups
are legitimate in the context of a system of European liberal democracies,
and within the European Union?
Will Kymlicka and others have recently distinguished between three types of
cultural minorities: ethnic groups, national minorities and indigenous
people. Is the distinction as drawn meaningful and
normatively significant for the issues arising in Eastern Europe? More
particularly, is this distinction important for understanding the claims of
Jewish minorities or the Roma/Sinti? Some of their claims -- regarding the
relevance of territory and/or political/jurisdictional autonomy -- might cut
very close to the received conception of the nation state, and would seem to
require a trans- or interstate response. The history of these minorities in
Europe suggests that the legitimacy of theEU in part hinges on
whether it can facilitate a just response to the sound claims of such
minorities. - Do Jewish minorities or the Roma/Sinti enjoy special normative
claims to cultural rights? Do they face special risks within a territorially
based system of states? Do their claims draw support by these groups'
characteristica of both ethnic minorities and national/religious minorities;
or by the experiences of historical injustices?
The normative claims to preservation and control over indigenous populations
have received much attention by political and legal philosophers, but the EU
has only recently faced the issues wrought
by the Swedish and Finnish Saami populations. - How do the grounds of
Saami's and other indigenous peoples' claims to autonomy compare to the
ground of the similar claims of Jewish minorities and of the Roma/Sinti in
Eastern Europe? - In particular, what implications does the fact that these
minorities and indigenous people do not make claims to exclusive use of land
have for the appropriateness of certain institutional responses to their
positive claims to cultural as well as political/jurisdictional autonomy? -
What are the normative implications for an emerging federation of European
states? Is the normative standing of indigenous peoples different in
relevant ways from the standing of other minorities in Europe?
2. Empirical Contributions
The workshop is primarily concerned to promote well-informed normative
political theory regarding the claims to cultural protections of minorities
in Europe. This requires an account of how the interests of minorities, and
the threats to their cultures, are affected bythe emerging EU polity, where
the self-determination of nation states and regions are re-shaped. The EU
faces a resurgence of ethnic unrest, calls for secession and new division of
powers and federal arrangements, quite possibly an effect of the trans-
national regimes of EU. The future membership in the European Union may
affect the emergence and development of such movements--as well as the
institutional responses. Several institutional arrangements --consociational
, (quasi-)federal -- have evolved in Europe in response toethnically and
culturally heterogenous states. Participants who wish to provide empirical
papers with a clear interface towards normative issues, are urged to do so.
We particularly welcome contributions addressing - examples of successfully
installed legal regulations of minority problems within Europe, - examples
for planned attempts at such regulations and in the historicfailure of such
attempts, - the legal and political framework in which European minority
groups make their demands to cultural and political autonomy, - the
differences between ethnic groups, national minorities and indigeneous
people with respect to both their claims, and the degree to which they tend
to be met by European governments, and the European Union, - the practices
by which specific demands of minority groups are met by European states,
governments and societies, - the politics of modifying institutional
responses at the EU level, so as to deflect the need and apparent benefits
of violent upheaval.
3. Normative assessment of institutional proposals
The workshop will stress normative assessments of institutional arrangements
. On the basis of alternative accounts of why cultural membership matters we
will investigate into the question of what institutional responses are to be
preferred under what circumstances. Such assessments naturally depend on
empirically well-informed accounts ofalternative institutions, and will
hence emerge during the workshop itself. This is indeed one important
function of the workshop. However, prepared normative contributions of this
kind are also strongly appreciated.
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