The literature on “everyday nationalism” foregrounds constructivist practice theory as well as interpretivist methodologies. Our project—Making Identity Count—does something similar but with an aim to advance the study of International Relations rather than the study of nationalism. Here, we suggest that these two approaches are basically complementary, and that a theoretical and methodological cross-fertilization between them may yield new insights in both fields.

This article explores how the concept of minority national-cultural autonomy (NCA) has been defined and practiced in contemporary Estonia, combining data from interviews and previously unanalyzed archival sources to trace debates and policymaking processes back to 1988 and ascertain: why (and for whom) NCA was adopted; the functions ascribed to NCA institutions; and the effectiveness and legitimacy of the model in the eyes of different “noncore” ethnic communities. In so doing, the article uses NCA as a fresh lens for analyzing the more general politics of post-Soviet state and nation-building in the country, situating this case within the “Quadratic Nexus” framework. Estonia’s NCA law is generally viewed as irrelevant to ongoing issues of diversity governance in the country. However, Finnish and Swedish minority autonomies have been established and, in recent years, there have been three applications to establish a Russian NCA. None have been approved, and yet some authors see them as evidence that NCA could (and should) have a role to play in bringing about a more meaningful accommodation of ethnic diversity. Having reviewed the evidence, however, the article concludes that this claim is misplaced.

This article analyzes women’s socio-political participation and activism within the nonviolent civil resistance movement in prewar Kosovo between 1989 and 1997, as well as the movement’s gender dynamics. This Albanian-led resistance movement emerged during the early 1990s with the principal goal of building a parallel state, seeking independence from Serbia, and offering means of survival for the population. This project required the participation of all Albanian citizens, and although the participation of women was massive, this has gone largely unrecognized. This article will explore the principal features of women’s participation and activism within this movement, what kind of gendered dynamics were developed, and the principal forms of resistance they encountered against their full and active participation through an analysis of women’s activism both within the Women’s Forum of the Democratic League of Kosovo and within independent women’s organizations.

This article assesses the characteristics of the parastate; a territorial entity that operates outside the formal structures of international law and sovereign recognition. The primary obstacle for parastates transforming declarative statehood into constitutive sovereignty is the nature of their creation, which is seen as a violation of another state’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Parastates are thus prevented from becoming equal members of the international community with access to and decision-making in international organizations and governing bodies. Left outside these groups, parastates remain disputed territories dependent on patron state sponsorship and blocked from improving their status by international actors that deny sovereign recognition. Despite these limitations, parastates have a noted record of endurance that can last decades as long as the international status quo prevents the host state from regaining control of the contested territory. This article concludes that while options for ending frozen conflicts of parastates are not impossible, they are extremely costly and highly risky. Without decisive diplomatic and military leverage favoring the host state, parastates will continue to endure for the foreseeable future.

Russia remains the destination of choice for Tajik migrants. Its migration policies have profound implications for migrants’ legal status and capacity to remit and return home. This article draws on ethnographic research in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and explores how the enforcement of Russia’s immigration laws affects Tajik migrants and their families. By 2016, over 300,000 Tajik migrants were issued entry bars (zapret na v’ezd) for three or more years for two or more administrative offenses, including the lack of a work permit or a residential registration and a traffic violation. Migration and the transnational lifestyle increase agency among Tajik men and women, informing gender transformations. Entry bars produce temporary constraints to spatial and social mobility as migrants readjust to well-defined gender roles in their home country. We note how immigration laws affect men and women in different ways, contextualizing the gendered effects of entry bars through the lens of gender relations and understandings of masculinity and femininity in Tajikistan. We argue that the constraints to migrants’ mobility developed by Russian migration policies inform the reconstitution of gender relations in Tajikistan.

Since the late 1980s, the interpretations of policy toward Hungary’s minorities—most notably the country’s 1993 minority law and the minority self-governments established as part of a system of nonterritorial autonomy (NTA)—have been the subject of debates in politics and academia in at least two critical respects. Aside from the declarative character of the law, foremost has been the question of Hungary’s kin-state activism toward Hungarians abroad and the implications this has carried for domestic minority issues. A second—and related—question has concerned the extent to which cultural autonomy and minority rights are in accordance with the needs of the Roma, by far the country’s largest ethnic minority group. A growing number of scholars have accepted the argument that the minority law was enacted because of concerns regarding Hungarian minorities living in the neighboring countries. In our view, it is more appropriate to ask instead how Hungary’s kin-state policies have influenced the opportunities for domestic groups, and, in particular, how Hungary fits into the broader context of post-Communist state- and nation-building projects. This is the approach we take in this article, which aims to unpack and reconcile the complex and seemingly contradictory findings on the Hungarian case. Our conclusions are drawn from a content analysis of parliamentary debates on the minority law—something that has never previously been undertaken. This is supplemented by semi-structured interviews with former and current politicians and minority activists.

Croatia and Serbia are two countries that started their paths toward the EU with similar conditions. Nevertheless, in 2018, the end of this study’s period, the two countries are characterized by different outcomes regarding European integration. This paper puts forward one key determinant for the more successful Europeanization process of Croatia—resolved statehood problem—and claims that the unresolved statehood problem in Serbia led to higher adoption costs of EU rules. Therefore, this article seeks to improve the theorization of the relationship between Europeanization and the statehood problem.

The Kosovo Albanian political movement in the 1990s contained three fluctuating factions with distinct strategies: boycotting Serbian institutions, participating in elections, and resorting to an armed insurgency. This article shows how expectations of external assistance, primarily from the Clinton administration, influenced which strategy was to dominate the movement at certain periods. It also shows how the movement successfully conflated the issues of human rights and the ethnonationalist secessionist agenda, even though the secessionist agenda predated the claims of human rights violations following the rise of Slobodan Milošević to power in Serbia. In the end, the article discusses how the Clinton administration’s failure in the Rambouillet peace talks, the diplomatic result of the NATO attack on Serbia, and the fall of Slobodan Milošević set the foundations for freezing the conflict and turning Kosovo into a parastate.

Political debates on the Baltics, and in particular Estonia, have often pointed to “nationalisting” and exclusive narratives constructed at the institutional level. Accordingly, emphasis has been put on the lack of opportunities for Russians to integrate into an Estonian context. While acknowledging the shortfalls of the Estonian political project, this article contrasts these views in two ways. By emphasizing people’s agency and their capacity to question, contrast, or even reject the identity markers proposed by Estonian official narratives, we maintain that the integration of Russians might be more advanced than insofar claimed by other studies. We then look at the way identities are lived in an everyday context by inhabitants of Estonia to counterpose national narratives proposed by the state and its political institutions, with the way people live and whether they accept these narratives. By doing this, we explore the role of the everyday in the reconstruction of national identity narratives, in which citizens actively participate in their individual capacity. We suggest that, from a James Scott “infrapolitics” perspective, these micro-actions have a fundamental role in the reshaping of a national identity and its acceptance among citizens.

Stalin’s collectivization campaigns and the associated famine killed millions in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, yet the two countries commemorate the events quite differently. In Ukraine, the Holodomor (death by hunger) occupies a prominent place in the public sphere and is remembered most frequently as a genocidal policy against the Ukrainian nation. In Kazakhstan, the famine takes up little space in the public arena, and officials remain reluctant to call it a genocide. This article explores these differences using two models explaining variation in the politics of memory: one emphasizing the instrumental calculations of political elites and the other emphasizing the historical and cultural constraints that frame contemporary debates. These two models complement each other rather than compete. The contest over the famine in Ukraine was in part a consequence of eastern and western Ukraine’s differing histories, but it intensified when governing politicians deployed the memory of the famine instrumentally in the 2000s. In Kazakhstan, political calculations led the regime to emphasize unity and stability over divisive debates about the past, but historical factors made depoliticizing the famine feasible.

Though the 1932–1933 Famine affected both Ukraine (UkrSSR) and Russia (RSFSR), there is still no clear concept of the causes of the Famine and its scale. This study is undertaken to make a comparative assessment of the 1932–1934 direct losses within and between UkrSSR and RSFSR in order to answer the questions as to whether the major grain-producing areas of both republics suffered from the Famine to the same extent and whether the intensity of regional losses was determined exclusively by the grain specialization of the region. Our results show that the regions seriously affected by the Famine comprised a much larger proportion (in terms of territory and population) of UkrSSR than of the RSFSR. The highest excess deaths in UkrSSR are found in the regions that did not play a major role in grain procurement, while in the RSFSSR four grain-producing regions suffered the most. Our analysis suggests that (a) the link between Famine losses and grain procurement is not confirmed in Ukraine, but is partially confirmed in Russia, and (b) extremely high losses are mostly found in the regions where repression policies were much more severe than those introduced elsewhere and for which nationality may be a key factor.

This article focusses on the issue of “traditional Islam” in Russia and the practices associated with it. Employing an approach that combines the concepts of lived religion and everyday nationalism, those practices are taken into consideration that are often interpreted in terms of vernacular Islam and regarded skeptically, if not outright rejected, by proponents of a more global Islam. Discussed in detail are commemoration ceremonies for the dead, prayers in the cemetery, saint veneration and local pilgrimage, the mawlid celebration and the use of prayer beads. These practices indicate an outlook on life, where Muslim believers cultivate a close connection to their environment and maintain personal relations to various human and more-than-human beings, thus creating the space for an exchange crossing the boundary between life and death. The article contributes to the anthropological study of Islam in Russia and—by focusing on religious practice—specifically attempts to capture the main characteristics of “traditional Islam.”

This article explores nation-building processes in the Transnistrian imagined community. While some scholars describe Transnistria’s nation-building strategy as a civic, multicultural project, the analysis of recent demographic and educational data corroborated with the close examination of local media content and official discourses—all point to the emergence of a distinct political culture marked by the increasing use of the Russian language in the public sphere, and the politicization of the Moldovan identity. Discourses about ethnic and national identity in the region have evolved as the Transnistrian elites reimagine the political community as part of the Russkii Mir. These circumstances suggest that, in the long run, the breakaway region might function as the southeastern frontline of Russian irredentism with the elites of the Pridnestrovska͡ia Moldavska͡ia Respublika continuing to call on the Russian Federation to annex the parastate instead of seeking a peaceful reintegration into Moldova.

The number of internally forcibly displaced persons is growing every year across the globe and exceeds the number of refugees. To date, Ukraine has the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Europe, with about 1.4 million people forced to flee from the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Employing Massey’s concept of ‘power geometry’, the modalities of borders, and taking an intersectional approach, this article theorizes how IDPs are situated politically within a protracted conflict. Such an approach offers the chance to see how the reaction to the war brings authorities to see displaced people as a static category and reproduces a war-lexicon in policies, which fractures the space of everyday life. Drawing upon qualitative research on IDPs, the civil society, international organizations, and public officials in Ukraine, the article concludes that intersections of gender and older age with displacement, and the lack of state recognition of these differing groups of IDPs, together with the lack of the economic resources for social policy, produces multiple forms of social exclusion.

This article examines the OSCE HCNM experience with regard to situations where cultural autonomy arrangements exist and discusses the potential contribution of such arrangements to managing ethnic diversity. It reviews some of the salient issues that have arisen with regard to the legal and political framework of these arrangements. This article highlights the importance for bodies of cultural autonomy to comply with good governance principles, including respect for diversity within minority groups and insists on a more inclusive approach to autonomy.

The research focusing on return migration from the perspective of migrants’ relationship with the country of origin has emphasized the emotional and economic ties. Quite often, these ties have been examined separately and there is little indication of what counts more. This article addresses this gap in the literature and analyzes the extent to which the sense of belonging, media consumption, networks of friends, and regular visits in the country of origin could affect the intention to return. It controls for remittances, voting in the elections of their home country, and age. The empirical analysis uses an original dataset including individual level data. This was collected through an online survey in January 2018 on a sample of 1,839 first generation migrants from Romania.

This article gives an overview of the current position of minority self-governance within the Serbian legal order and its multilevel governance structure, with a particular focus on issues deriving from the missing legal determination of national minority councils. Although Serbia’s 2009 Law on National Minority Councils was welcomed by the international community, both national minority councils and public agencies have from the very beginning of its operation expressed serious concerns relating inter alia to the unspecified legal status of the councils. This has resulted in frequent misunderstandings in practice and, rather than being real self-governments of national minorities under public law, the councils are usually treated as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or organizations under the influence of political parties. Instead of presenting (international) political and social scientific approaches to the legal character of non-territorial autonomy in general, the article focuses on concrete legislative solutions and Constitutional Court practice regarding issues relevant to the de jure status of national minority councils in Serbia, such as election rules, competences, and funding.

This article proposes an analytical framework to address why implemented autonomy outcomes may differ across ethnic republics in the Russian Federation. Composed of a long-range factor, inter-ethnic boundary making, and a short-term factor, titular elites’ representation in the ethno-regional state, the framework is applied to a synchronic comparison of three republics of Russia with differing autonomy outcomes for the 2010s, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Yakutia, reliant upon state-generated data and fieldwork. Titular elites’ representation in the ethnoregional state is used as a proxy for titular elites’ bargaining capacity with the central state. It is argued that an “integration–distinction balance,” or rather, higher inter-ethnic integration combined with robust consciousness of inter-ethnic distinction, can contribute to titular elites’ bargaining capacity with the center, which can lead to greater autonomy outcome for the ethnic republic.

This article traces the evolution of “everyday nationalism” in North Korea and assesses its relationship to authoritarian resilience. It argues that coercion and the prospect of coercion play important roles in policing the contours of everyday nationalism. The state is able to infuse nationalism and authoritarian control into everyday life, but the “success” of its efforts has limits. This is due to social changes and the ways that material failures nurtured doubts about the legitimacy of the government among some citizens. It draws on data from North Korean state media, secondary historical literature, and 58 semi-structured interviews with North Koreans living in South Korea.

Based on research in Kazakhstani and Russian archives, this article is a regional study of the 1931–1933 Soviet famine. It compares Soviet policies in the southern and northern “halves” of the Aral Sea region. While the Kazaks in the northern part of the region suffered from the famine, the Karakalpaks in the south did not. The article explains this difference by underscoring the role of the main transportation infrastructure connecting Central Asia to Russia, the Orenburg-Tashkent railway. The railway crossed the northern, Kazak, part of the Aral Sea region and made massive livestock and grain procurements possible, while the absence of any reliable transportation route connecting Karakalpakstan to Soviet industrial centers contributed to shielding the Karakalpaks from the famine. The article also investigates the consequences of the famine for the Aral Sea fishing economy. The famine led to the inversion of the relative economic importance of the northern and southern parts of the sea: if before the famine fishing was concentrated in the former, after the famine it had shifted to the latter. Finally, the article situates the administrative detachment of Karakalpakstan from Kazakstan in 1930 within the context of Stalinist economic policies in Central Asia.