The interest in minority protection emerged during the period of democratic transition, particularly of ethnically segmented postcommunist societies after the end of the Cold War. Minority issues became prominent as postcommunist states lined up as potential candidates for EU membership and the respect for and protection of minority rights was an essential part of criteria these states had to fulfil before EU accession. Minority rights protection has constituted an important ‘gatekeeping’ criterion for EU membership. Its monitoring remains a powerful instrument to mediate tensions and to adjudicate discriminations in the present-day Europe. In many countries, minority rights standards have been transposed in domestic legislation, but whether these norms constitute a legitimate background which states accept, sustain and promote is the focus of this book. This volume takes on the task of analysing the diffusion of minority rights norms across the European continent. It looks specifically at the oft-neglected process of compliance meaning not only the formal adoption of European laws but also their implementation within the domestic context. The contributions analyse the political rhetoric, legal transposition and behavioural compliance in a range of European states, East and West, to assess compliance to norms of minority protection. This book was published as a special issue of Perspectives on European Politics and Society.

This volume presents a systematic collection of the various international legal sources that define the rights of religious minorities. In a time of increasing tensions around religious minorities, this volume presents a systematic collection of international and European documents on the protection and promotion of religious minorities’ rights. The code includes documents from the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union. An index system connects the various sources and norms, and emphasizes the strengths and the weaknesses in the legal frameworks of international and European institutions. While allowing for further research on the historical and conceptual development in the area, the code provides the reader with a new, easily accessible tool facilitating experts and actors who wish to improve the knowledge and protection of religious minorities. This book will be an invaluable resource for students, academics and researchers interested in law and religion, international law, public law and human rights law, the code is also a powerful tool for minorities themselves, and for advocates of their rights.

This open access book provides an in-depth look into the background of rule of law problems and the open defiance of EU law in East Central European countries. Current illiberal trends and anti-EU politics have the potential to undermine mutual trust between member states and fundamentally change the EU. It is therefore crucial to understand their domestic causes, context conditions, specific processes and consequences. This volume contributes to empirically informed theory-building and includes contributions from researchers from various disciplines and multiple perspectives on illiberal trends and anti-EU politics in the region. The qualitative case studies, comparative works and quantitative analyses provide a comprehensive picture of current societal, political and institutional developments in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Through studying similarities and differences between East Central European and other EU countries, the chapters also explore whether there are regional patterns of democracy- and EU-related problems.

In Minorities, their Rights, and the Monitoring the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, Malloy and Caruso have collected a number of essays authored by prominent European experts on minority rights with aim to provide a first ever description and analysis of the processes guiding the monitoring of the Convention. The volume addresses both the technical and political side of the monitoring, and it brings in not only views from the host of the Convention, the Council of Europe, but also from the external players that interact with the Convention in the course of seeking to protect Europe’s national minorities

This volume, Minority Self-Government in Europe and the Middle East: From Theory to Practice, is novel from several perspectives. It combines theory with facts on the ground, going beyond legal perspectives without neglecting existing laws and their implementation. Theoretical discussions transcend examining existing autonomy models in certain regions. It offers new models in the field, discussing such critical themes as environmentalism. Traditional concepts such as self-determination and well-known successful autonomy examples, including the Åland Islands, Basque and Catalonian models, are examined from different perspectives. Some chapters in this volume focus on certain regions (including Turkey, Syria, and Iraq) which have only recently received scholarly attention. Chapters complement one another in terms of their theoretical inputs and outputs from the field.

In order to gain access to the EU, nations must be seen to implement formal instruments that protect the rights of minorities. This book examines the ways in which these tools have worked in a number of post-communist states, and explores the interaction of domestic and international structures that determine the application of these policies. Using empirical examples and comparative cases, the text explores three levels of policy-making: within sub-state and national politics, and within international agreements, laws and policy blueprints. This enables the authors to establish how domestic policymakers negotiate various structural factors in order to interpret rights norms and implement them long enough to gain EU accession. Showing that it is necessary to focus upon the states of post-communist Europe as autonomous actors, and not as mere recipients of directives and initiatives from ‘the West’, the book shows how underlying structural conditions allow domestic policy actors to talk the talk of rights protection without walking the walk of implementing minority rights legislation on their territories.

Despite the worldwide dramatic spread of religious-based discriminations, persecutions, and conflicts, both official data and academic literature have underestimated their role as a root cause of contemporary migrations. This multidisciplinary study aims to overcome this gap. Through an unprecedented collection of theoretical analysis and original empirical evidence, the book provides unique data and insights on the role of religion in the trajectories of asylum seekers and migrants – from the analysis of the religious geography of sending countries to the role of spirituality as a factor of resilience and adaptation. By enhancing both academic and political debate on these issues, the book offers the possibility of regaining awareness of the close link between religious freedom and the quality of democracy. Contributors include: Paolo Gomarasca, Monica Martinelli, Monica Spatti, Andrea Santini, Andrea Plebani, Paolo Maggiolini, Riccardo Redaelli, Alessia Melcangi, Giancarlo Rovati, Annavittoria Sarli, Giulia Mezzetti, Lucia Boccacin, Linda Lombi, Donatella Bramanti, Stefania Meda, Giovanna Rossi, Beatrice Nicolini, Cristina Giuliani, Camillo Regalia, Giovanni Giulio Valtolina, Paola Barachetti, Maddalena Colombo, Rosangela Lodigiani, Mariagrazia Santagati, Fabio Baggio, Vera Lomazzi, Paolo Bonetti, Laura Zanfrini, Mario Antonelli, Luca Bressan, Alessandro Bergamaschi, Catherine Blaya, Núria Llevot-Calvet, Olga Bernad-Cavero, and Jordi Garreta-Bochaca.

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 book examines the growing tension between social movements that embrace egalitarian and inclusivist views of national and global politics, most notably classical liberalism, and those that advance social hierarchy and national exclusivism, such as neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and national populism. In exploring issues relating to tensions and conflicts around globalization, the book identifies historical patterns of convergence and divergence rooted in the monotheistic traditions, beginning with the ancient Israelites that dominated the Near East during the Axial age, through Islamic civilization, and finally by considering the idealism-realism tensions in modern times. One thing remained constant throughout the various historical stages that preceded our current moment of global convergence: a recurring tension between transcendental idealism and various forms of realism. Transcendental idealism, which prioritize egalitarian and universal values, pushed periodically against the forces of realism that privilege established law and power structure. Equipped with the idealism-realism framework, the book examines the consequences of European realism that justified the imperialistic venture into Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America in the name of liberation and liberalization. The ill-conceived strategy has, ironically, engendered the very dysfunctional societies that produce the waves of immigrants in constant motion from the South to the North, simultaneously as it fostered the social hierarchy that transfer external tensions into identity politics within the countries of the North. The book focuses particularly on the role played historically by Islamic rationalism in translating the monotheistic egalitarian outlook into the institutions of religious pluralism, legislative and legal autonomy, and scientific enterprise at the foundation of modern society. It concludes by shedding light on the significance of the Muslim presence in Western cultures as humanity draws slowly but consistently towards what we may come to recognize as the Global Age. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003203360, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Focusing on the transnational LGBT movement that has gained unprecedented momentum, this study is a timely contribution to debates both scholarly and popular.