Introduction – National Minorities between Protection and Empowerment
Publisher: Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe Volume: 10 pages, pdf Description: This special issue examines some of the complexities intrinsic to the journey from the protection of national minorities to their empowerment, both at the theoretical level, and through the analysis of empirical data from three case studies. The special issue was compiled following the workshop ‘National Minorities between Protection and Empowerment: Contemporary Minority Politics in Europe’, at the 41st Joint Sessions of Workshops of the European Consortium for Political Research (Mainz, 2013). The workshop was chaired and co-organized by Tove Malloy (Director, European Centre for Minorities Issues) and David J. Galbreath (Professor in International Security, University of Bath). It explored the relationship between European approaches to minorities in a post-Cold War environment, and how European governments and institutions are moving (or could move) beyond management and protection of minorities towards their empowerment.