Ethnopolitical Dynamics in the CEE EU Member-states: Trends and Prospects

Abstract

The article is focused on the current ethnopolitical dynamics in the EU’ CEE Member­States and on the peculiarities that distinguish this sub­region among another ones in the EU area. The main phenomena analyzed are the establishment of the conservative right regimes in Poland and Hungary, the attempts to build the ethnocratic Nation­State in some Baltic States, the politization of the cross­frontier etnic minorities issue as well as the traditional stigmatization of the Roma minority. There are some frame factors influencing the intensive manifestation of the above­mentioned trends: the peculiarities of the Nation­building process in the region of the traditional imperial domination are juxtaposing with the modern globalization and regional integration trends challenging the ambitions of the adepts of the Nation sovereignty. These are the cases of Poland and Hungary whose historical background has formed favorable conditions for the rightconservative renaissance. Yet the Baltic project of the ethnic Nation­State construction proved its impossibility amid the socioeconomic and demographic trends of nowadays Europe.

Keywords

• ethnopolitical dynamics
• nationalism
• discrimination
• right populism
• right conservatism
• ethnic minorities
• crossfrontier minorities
• european integration