EU Conditionality and Minority Rights: Translating the Copenhagen Criterion into Policy

Human and minorities map an area in which the EU's external relations have pushed for a (partial) rethinking of the EU's internal values, objectives and policies. While minority issues have been at the forefront of the enlargement rhetoric and are often singled out as a prime example of the EU's positive stabilising impact in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the EU has in fact promoted norms which lack a basis in EU law and do not directly translate into the acquis communautaire. The analysis of EU conditionality presented in this paper will proceed in two steps. Firstly, the EU's minority criterion will be 'unpacked' both in terms of its inherent dilemmas and the way in which the EU translated it into an institutional process. Secondly, this paper locates the EU's minority criterion in the domestic political context of three accession countries (Hungary, Slovakia, Romania) in order to establish the balance between internal and external incentives for policy change and the effectiveness of EU conditionality. The empirical evidence suggests that, on balance, international actors and a vaguely defined European norm framed the debates and perceptions and affected the timing and nature of specific pieces of legislation, while the domestic political constellations and pressures ultimately had a more significant effect on the institutional and policy outcomes.Copenhagen criteria; minorities; Hungary; Slovakia; Romania

Monitoring the monitors: EU enlargement conditionality and minority protection in the CEECs

Die Frage des Minderheitenschutzes stellt einen extremen Fall bei der Analyse der Verbindung zwischen den Voraussetzungen für eine EU-Mitgliedschaft und der Erfüllung dieser Voraussetzungen durch die Beitrittskandidaten dar. Einerseits fehlt es auf diesem Gebiet fast vollständig an europäischem Recht, die Praktiken innerhalb der EU sind vielfältig und internationale Standards unklar. Gleichzeitig legt die EU im Erweiterungsprozess jedoch auf diese Frage viel Gewicht. Die Verfasser untersuchen, inwieweit die Haltung der EU sich in den Staaten Ostmitteleuropas in veränderten Maßnahmen zum Minderheitenschutz niederschlägt. Behandelt werden der Prozess der Überwachung durch die EU, die Vorgaben der EU, das Zusammenspiel mit Aktivitäten anderer internationaler Organisationen wie Europarat und OSZE sowie die Auswirkungen auf die Aufnahmekandidaten. Ein enger zeitlicher Zusammenhang zwischen den Anforderungen der EU und Änderungen im Minderheitenschutz in den Staaten Ostmitteleuropas zeigt sich nicht. Die regelmäßigen Berichte der EU zum Verlauf des Konvergenzprozesses in den Kandidatenländern zeichnen sich vielmehr durch Inkonsistenz und Formalismus aus. Eine substanzielle Bewertung der Implementation eines Minderheitenschutzes fehlt demgegenüber. (ICEÜbers)'The issue of minority protection is an extreme case for analyzing the problem of linkage between EU membership conditionality and compliance by candidate countries. While EU law is virtually non-existent, EU practice is divergent, and international standards are ambiguous, the issue has been given high rhetorical prominence by the EU during enlargement. The analysis in this article follows a process tracking approach to study the relationship of EU conditionality to changes in minority rights protection in the CEECs. The authors examine how the EU's monitoring process has operated, what its benchmarks have been, how the EU process has interacted with those of other international organizations, such as the Council of Europe and OSCE, and evaluate what its impact has been on the candidate countries. In conclusion, the authors find that EU conditionality is not closely temporally correlated with the emergence of new strategies and laws on minority protection in the CEECs. Instead, the EU's main instrument for accession and convergence, the Regular Reports, have been characterized by ad hocism, inconsistency, and a stress on formal measures rather than substantive evaluation of implementation.' (author's abstract

Online Appendix to: A Border Regime in the Making? The Case of the Contact Line in Ukraine

The central aim of the paper is to analyze the ceasefire line in eastern Ukraine, widely referred to as the "Contact Line," as an evolving border and a potential social and political boundary. We conceptualize the ceasefire line both as a special type of border that divides conflicting parties and a formerly integrated population and as a border regime managing different forms of mobility. Our mixed method approach combines ethnographic and survey data. The analysis of the formal border regime regulating the access to the divided territories is broadened by a perspective that foregrounds the local residents’ practices and perceptions. The article highlights different mobilities and the informal variations in the border practices along and across the ceasefire line as well as the social and political identities accompanying these practices

Die Krim - regionale Autonomie in der Ukraine

'Die Krim-Problematik ist das Resultat einer wechselvollen Geschichte, postsowjetischer Politik und nationaler Mythenbildung. Auf das krimtatarische Khanat folgten die Zugehörigkeit zum Russischen Reich seit 1783, der Transfer an die Ukrainische SSR 1954 und die regionale Autonomie der unabhängigen Ukraine seit 1991. Ihre ethnische Zusammensetzung - die Krim ist die einzige Region der Ukraine mit einer russischen Bevölkerungsmehrheit und einer krimtatarischen Minderheit -, ihre sozioökonomische Struktur und ihre geopolitische Lage machen sie zu einem spezifischen Mikrokosmos. Die Krim ist die einzige Region innerhalb der Ukraine, die einen verfassungsmäßig garantierten Autonomiestatus erhielt. Noch vor dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion ist Anfang 1991 eine Krim-ASSR errichtet worden, die ab 1992 als 'Autonome Republik der Krim' den postsowjetischen Gegebenheiten angepaßt wurde. Die ukrainische Staatsverfassung von 1996, die einen unitaren Staat vorschreibt, wird durch diese 'Autonome Republik' um ein föderales Element ergänzt. Die Krim ist ein wichtiges Beispiel für die Bedeutung von regionalen Faktoren bzw. Akteuren sowie von Institutionen im Verlauf von politischen und wirtschaftlichen Transformationsprozessen. Der vorliegende Bericht untersucht die Gründe für die Einführung und Beibehaltung des Autonomiestatus, den konkreten Inhalt dieser Autonomie und ihre Implikationen für verschiedene Politikbereiche. Diese Fragen werden in den Kontext des politischen, wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und außenpolitischen Profils der Krim eingebettet.' (Textauszug)'The Crimean issue is a product of Crimea's diverse history, post-Soviet politics and national myth-making. The era of the Crimean Tatar Khanate was followed by Russian domination since 1783, the transfer to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 and the regional autonomy of independent Ukraine since 1991. Crimea's ethnic composition - it is the only region within Ukraine with an ethnic Russian majority and a Crimean Tatar minority -, its socio-economic structure and geopolitical location turn it into a specific microcosm. Crimea is the only Ukrainian region with a constitutionally guaranteed autonomy status. Already before the collapse of the Soviet Union the Crimean ASSR was established at the beginning of 1991 - from 1992 onwards it had to be readjusted to post-Soviet conditions. The Ukrainian state constitution of 1996, which devises a unitary state, is complemented by the federal element of the 'Autonomous Republic of Crimea'. Crimea is one of the best examples of the significance of both regional factors and actors and the role of institutions during political and economic transition processes. This study investigates the reasons for the introduction and preservation of the autonomy status, the concrete content of this autonomy and its implications for various policy areas. These questions will be embedded in the context of Crimea's political, economic, social and foreign policy profile.' (extract

Power ideas and conflict: ideology, linkage and leverage in Crimea and Chechnya

In this article, we not only extend the concept of linkages and leverage to the realm of conflict studies, we also add an important linkage – ideas about political power which we call power ideas – and we expand on the causal mechanisms that turns linkages into leverage in a conflict situation. We examine the impact of the power ideas of nationalism and Islamism in the cases of two major conflicts in the region: Crimea and Chechnya. Within-case comparison of episodes of conflict-prevention vs. annexation (Crimea in the 1990s vs. 2014) and violent conflict vs. cooptation in Chechnya (1990s and 1999 onwards) provides the empirical basis to assess the scope and limitations of the international context allowing for the activation of power ideas and their transformation into leverage

Crimea referendum – our experts react

Yesterday Crimean voters backed a proposal to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. We asked a number of experts for their reactions to the referendum and their views on what might happen next

Similarity Regression predicts evolution of transcription factor sequence specificity

Transcription factor (TF) binding specificities (motifs) are essential to the analysis of noncoding DNA and gene regulation. Accurate prediction of the sequence specificities of TFs is critical, because the hundreds of sequenced eukaryotic genomes encompass hundreds of thousands of TFs, and assaying each is currently infeasible. There is ongoing controversy regarding the efficacy of motif prediction methods, as well as the degree of motif diversification among related species. Here, we describe Similarity Regression (SR), a significantly improved method for predicting motifs. We have updated and expanded the Cis-BP database using SR, and validate its predictive capacity with new data from diverse eukaryotic TFs. SR inherently quantifies TF motif evolution, and we show that previous claims of near-complete conservation of motifs between human and Drosophila are grossly inflated, with nearly half the motifs in each species absent from the other. We conclude that diversification in DNA binding motifs is pervasive, and present a new tool and updated resource to study TF diversity and gene regulation across eukaryotes

Bulletin der deutschen Slavistik 24.2018

Jahrbuch der Deutschen Slavistik mit Forumsbeiträgen zu Digital Humanities, Rubriken zu Personen, Publikationen, Preisen, Wirkungsorten, wissenschaftlichen Abhandlungen