Predstavljanje etničkih manjina postalo je dio teorije demokracije i demokratskog predstavništva prihvaćanjem grupnog pluralizma kao realnog temelja demokracije, a socijalnog predstavništva kao ...prihvatljivog modela demokratskog predstavništva. Time je nastalo proturječje između socijalnog predstavništva koje zahtijeva da u predstavničkoj skupštini budu zastupljene sve relevantna skupine i dominantnog liberalnog shvaćanja u kojem predstavništvo nije mehanizam zaštite kolektivnih interesa, nego zaštite individualnih prava i osiguranja kompetentnog zakonodavnog tijela. U suvremenoj teoriji manjinskog predstavništva liberalna se shvaćanje nastoji reinterpretirati i dopuniti s elementima socijalnog predstavništva, te se tako oblikuju ideje i načela za razmatranje modela i politike manjinskog predstavništva. To je i polazište za kritičko ispitivanje hrvatskog modela političkog predstavljanja nacionalnih manjina.
Can a Muslim Be an Indian? Pandey, Gyanendra
Comparative studies in society and history,
10/1999, Letnik:
41, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
I want to begin this paper with two simple points. One is that nations are established by constructing a core or mainstream—the essential, natural, soul of the nation, as it is claimed. The other is ...that minorities are constituted along with the nation—for they are the means of constituting national majorities or mainstreams. Nations, and nationalisms, are established by defining boundaries. However, these are not always—or perhaps, ever—sharply or easily defined. Nationalisms have therefore commonly moved along the path of identifying the core or mainstream of the nation. Alongside this emerge notions of minorities, marginal communities, or elements,Brackette F. Williams makes the point as follows in her discussion of ethnicity in the context of territorial and cultural nationalism. Like tribe, race, or barbarian, she notes, the label ethnicity identifies those who are at the borders of empire or nation. “Within putatively homogenous nation-states, this border is an ideologically produced boundary between ‘mainstream' and peripheral categorical units of this kind of ‘imagined' social order.” Williams, ‘A Class Act: Anthropology and the Race to Nation across Ethnic Terrain,' Annual Review of Anthropology, 18 (1989), 439. the fuzzy edges and grey areas around which the question of boundaries—geographical, social, and cultural—will be negotiated or fought over.
Benhabib argues that the tension between universal human rights and democratic self-determination cannot be resolved. Distinguishing between the principle of rights, on the one hand, and ...context-specific `schedules of rights', on the other hand, helps, however, to specify the scope of both norms. I show that applying this idea to questions of citizenship requires further elaboration in three respects: (1) Benhabib's argument for porous rather than open borders, which does not fully address the challenge of global distributive justice; (2) norms for access to citizenship, which need to cover also transnational affiliations between sending states and their external populations; and (3) necessary constraints on democratic self-determination. I suggest replacing the principle of self-determination with a principle of self-government that does not include a unilateral right to determine the territorial or membership boundaries of the polity.
The Silesians are an ethnic or national group that coalesced in the nineteenth century. During the subsequent century, they survived repeated divisions of their historical region of Upper Silesia ...among the nation-states of Czechoslovakia (or today its western half, that is, the Czech Republic), Germany, and Poland, which entailed Czechization, Germanization, and Polonization, respectively. The ideal of ethnolinguistic homogeneity, a typical goal of Central European nationalism, was achieved in post-war Poland. After the end of communism (1989) and the country's accession to the European Union (2004), this ideal is still aspired to, though it appears to stand in direct conflict with the values of democracy and rule of law. The Silesians are the largest minority in today's Poland and Silesian speakers are the second largest speech community in this country after Polish-speakers. Despite the Silesians' wish to be recognized as a minority, expressed clearly in their grassroots initiatives and in the Polish censuses of 2002 and 2011, Poland neither recognizes them nor their language. This inflexible attitude may amount to a breach of the spirit (if not the letter) of the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, both of which Poland signed and ratified. The case of the Silesians is a litmus test of the quality of Polish democracy. In order to resolve the debacle, the article proposes a genuine dialogue between representatives of Silesian organizations and the Polish administration under the guidance of observers and facilitators from the Council of Europe and appropriate international non-governmental organizations. Adapted from the source document.
