Kin-state politics and minority political strategies

Seminar Abstract:

My larger project investigates how ethnic minority political actors in Central and Eastern Europe triangulate their strategies – meaning their goals, organization, and mobilization - among domestic politics in the state of residence, connections to kin-state political actors and institutions, and the European Union as an emerging sphere of political opportunity and claims-making. The talk will focus on my preliminary and ongoing research into one crucial aspect of this: the effects of kin-state politics and policies on ethnic minority political strategy as seen from the relationship between the Hungarian government and ethnic Hungarians in Romania. In the talk, I will map the ways in which we can understand these evolving cross-border politics, present my preliminary conclusions about this specific case, and outline the possibilities for future comparison.