Zsuzsa Csergö is Associate Professor and Head of the Political Studies Department at Queen’s University in Canada. She is also the President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN). Her research addresses questions of nationalism, democratization, and the influence of EU integration on state-minority relations in post-Cold War Europe. Ada-Charlotte Regelmann is a Project Manager at Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, focusing on the social inclusion of marginalised groups in European societies. Previously, she was a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, and Maynooth University, Ireland. Her research explores the impact of Europeanisation on nation-state-building and social integration in post-communist Europe.

The series, Austrian Studies in English, founded in 1895 and comprising some 250 volumes since its inception, offers a platform for the publication of important studies concerned with the languages, the literatures and cultures of anglo-phone countries.

Ethnic diversity is on increase in Europe; at the same time, there is evidence of growing anti-immigrant feeling in some countries, such as Spain (especially in the Southern provinces). In order to build a politically united and democratic Europe, the accommodation of ethnic diversity and the integration of ethnic minorities are both key challenges. This book tries to explain ethnic problems in Europe.

Katharina Crepaz investigates how two-dimensional ('top-down' and 'bottom-up') Europeanization processes affect minority communities by using a comparative approach, encompassing cases from both „old" (pre-2004) and „new" EU member-states. The author thereby bridges two dichotomies made in the literature so far, and outlines how Europeanization takes place in non-acquis areas. She does so by looking at four very different case studies: the German-speaking minority in South Tyrol/Italy, the Bretons in France, the German minority in Silesia/Poland, and the Italian minority in Istria/Croatia.

Considers the complications of race, religion, sexuality, and gender in Europeanizing from below

What are the societal effects of Europeanization? How successful is the EU’s project to create an overarching European identity representative of all its citizens, transcending national boundaries, and including those previously excluded as national minorities? This study addresses these questions by adapting the Social Identity Theory’s (SIT) concept of “social identity” to the discussions of “European identity,” offering a novel approach that remedies previous definitional and ontological problems of the term. The conceptualization of a “European social identity” is generated here to invite a reconsideration of conventional understandings of how minorities’ group identities are formed. Presenting itself as a challenge to nations and nationality, the European integration process has yet to achieve its supra-national ideal, falling instead into the trap of nationalizing those who are subsumed under the category of minorities in practice—arguably because of a faulty theoretical understanding of the term. The new “Others” of Europeanization have been chosen specifically to emphasize, despite the EU’s “united in diversity” rhetoric, the marked lack of united destiny and common heritage of selected European nationals. Among these new Others, Russophones in the Baltic states, the Roma people, populations of the Western Balkans, immigrants and guest workers, and Muslims residing in European countries have all been excluded from Europe’s new social identity. Through in-depth historical analysis, this book aims to correct this problem, providing both European studies and broader political science literatures with a new understanding of minorities that is more dynamic both in practice and theory.

In the different projects of the Thematic Network on Humanitaian Development Studies, there is an underlyin note which is both intended and spontaneously recorded after its activities. We refer to the European dimension and the idea of sharing approaches and perspectives into the analysis on a number of working themes. The initial intentios is, therfore, to create common language and shared points of reference where variety could be read and further understood.

This book is concerned with European identities among ethnic minorities who live along the eastern border of the European Union. Based on findings from quantitative and qualitative empirical research conducted with minority groups in eight nation-states on both sides of the new eastern border of the EU, it investigates their attitudes and perceptions of the EU based on their constructions of European identity. Adopting a comparative approach, the author explores different processes of identity construction across several age and ethnic minority groups, to develop a theory of European identities in which ethnic identities can be seen as a missing link in explaining relationships between different national, regional and supranational identities. With new insights regarding the political, cultural and instrumental contents of European identity and its emergence, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in ethnic identity, European integration and identity research.

This book is concerned with European identities among ethnic minorities who live along the eastern border of the European Union. Based on findings from quantitative and qualitative empirical research conducted with minority groups in eight nation-states on both sides of the new eastern border of the EU, it investigates their attitudes and perceptions of the EU based on their constructions of European identity. Adopting a comparative approach, the author explores different processes of identity construction across several age and ethnic minority groups, to develop a theory of European identities in which ethnic identities can be seen as a missing link in explaining relationships between different national, regional and supranational identities. With new insights regarding the political, cultural and instrumental contents of European identity and its emergence, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology and politics with interests in ethnic identity, European integration and identity research.

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