Kymlicka’s Defence of Minority Rights: A Summary

Kymlicka begins to give reasons for his defence of minority rights with a specious analogy to religious (or human) rights in taking into consideration the fundamental incompatibility of these two kinds of rights. It seems defensible that both minority and religious (or human) rights are exercised by individuals. It does not seem defensible that state elites can even in principle play a neutral, or hands-off, role in respect of the choice of language in which the state activities are carried out. As an example, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka1995, 111) refers to the use of languages in courts: ‘The state can (and should) replace religious oaths in courts with secular oaths, but it cannot replace the use of English in courts with no language’. Not unrelatedly, the notion of human rights contributes to a particular worldview, in which participation in state institutions shareable by all tends to be viewed as non-discriminatory and participation in state institutions reserved for some tends to be viewed as discriminatory. As an example, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka1995, 58–60) refers to the desegregation of education in the United States in the past century, whereby schools that were used by black and white people separately came to be viewed as discriminatory and schools that were used by black and white people in common came to be viewed as non-discriminatory. The upshot has been to legitimize the integration of minorities – and ‘minority cultures’ – in ‘mainstream society’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka1995, 59). Accordingly, in this view, state elites found it justified to address – or respond to – the most salient apparent needs of national minorities with ‘benign neglect’, to adapt Nathan Glazer’s language (see Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka1995, 3).

To restate Kymlicka’s arguments being brought to the fore so far, minorities can be at permanent risk of undergoing an unfair diminution of their status vis-à-vis the majority group. (Practically speaking, the latter process may entail a likelihood for the minority group of being ‘outvoted or outbid on matters that are fundamental to the survival and flourishing of its culture and community’ – Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002a, 371). To be sure, it is the case that minorities themselves can in principle engage in nation-building just as majorities; but, after all, why ought it not be so? As Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 21) explains – given that the norm of neutrality (see above) is a myth – the concern becomes whether ‘majority efforts at nation-building create injustices for minorities’. In other words, in the theory of minority rights Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 21) strives to assert, ‘the standard for evaluating minority rights claims is no longer ethnocultural neutrality but ethnocultural justice’. Interestingly enough, theorists of group rights make a claim that both minorities and majorities face the same challenges when it comes to their survivability (e.g. Orgad Reference Orgad2016; Newman Reference Newman and Pentassuglia2017). This is because majorities as well as minorities exist as collective entities and therefore must enjoy ‘personal autonomy and the right to identity’ (Orgad Reference Orgad2016, 182).

A key to understanding Kymlicka – and his theory of minority rights – lies in the revisability of our ends.

It is important for humans to be capable of being wrong. Why? For one thing, humans could be instructed, say, by the government with regard to how to avoid making mistakes; but, clearly, this would be misguided or outright fallacious, given that governments, to continue our example, can be lacking in trustworthiness, etc. More importantly, at the risk of sounding banal, humans can know that they are right with regard to something in the case only in which they have known what it is like to be wrong with regard to something. The implications for our theorizing of minority rights defence of the above appear to be far-reaching, however. For such a perspective implies that only by way of having access to language or culture, which is a valuable good in and of itself, can humans enjoy having ‘access to a range of meaningful options’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka1995, 83). Therefore, through the preservation and the maintenance of one’s language or culture one is guaranteed a medium, which enables one to make sense of the world. Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka1995, 105) calls the latter succinctly ‘an intelligible context of choice’ regarding humans’ beliefs-or-values-systems. Also, he uses the term ‘societal culture’ as a re-statement of the above.

State elites’ hypothetical commitment to the protection of minority rights, then, serves to uphold the liberty of individual members of minority communities or cultures – hence Kymlicka’s argument for a liberal theory of justice with respect to minority rights.

Kymlicka rounds up his defence of minority rights by framing it in terms of guarantees for minorities about external protections – vis-à-vis majorities – as well as in terms of having provisions for minorities about ‘internal restrictions’ – vis-à-vis minorities’ members. The former are intended to reduce the vulnerability of minorities to the potentially exploitative behaviours of majorities, while the latter are intended to provide for guarantees for (the safety of) those who wish to abandon – or revise – the particular cultural habits, or traditions, of belonging in a given minority community, or group.

Kymlicka’s defence of minority rights is compelling not least because he goes out of his way to suggest that majorities do not see it in their self-interest to protect the rights of national cultural minorities. For instance, the diversity which minorities bring to society at large can be seen as a benefit to all. Yet, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka1995, 123) notes: ‘To date, most majority cultures have not seen it in their “enlightened self-interest” to maintain minority cultures’. Indeed, as this article aims to argue, state elites are not spontaneously inclined to further the cause of minority rights.Footnote ¹ What is more, they may well hinder the granting of these rights to national cultural minorities. In Kymlicka’s view, therefore, in order to affect policy, we may be well-advised to make use not only of arguments that appeal, say, to diversity, but also of those that appeal to justice.

It bears emphasis that Kymlicka clearly does not view ‘arguments which appeal to justice’ as a panacea. Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka2007, 122; also Reference Kymlicka, Uberoi and Modood2015, 218) argues in particular that a number of large-scale sociological processes, for example involving ‘the desecuritization of ethnic relations and a consensus on human rights’, may make or break multiculturalism’s flourishing. Also, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka2007, 122) recognizes majorities’ fears and minorities’ potential role in assuaging them.

Kymlicka’s Defence of Minority Rights: Problems with his Argumentation

Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka2001, 33, emphasis in original) holds that the debate over minority-rights defence ‘is over’, because no one academically knowledgeable would agree to that ‘minority rights are inherently unjust’. Perhaps that is so. At the same time, however, one finds it difficult to accept the notion that few state elites ‘continue to think that justice can simply be defined in terms of difference-blind rules or institutions’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka2001, 33, emphasis in original). As a matter of fact, Kymlicka cannot credit fully the authorship for the above notion. The main reason for this is that Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka2001, 33) talks about ‘thoughtful people’ and not, in the first instance, about state elites as I do. Yet this ambiguity plagues Kymlicka’s theorizing of minority-rights defence in the following ways.

Kymlicka openly admits that the institutionalization of minorities’ rights faces numerous obstacles, especially in places that are not democratically consolidated such as the countries of East Central Europe (ECE). For instance, there exist fears of minority irredentism shared by state elites, particularly so in ECE. It follows, then, that in order to increase the probability of state elites’ honouring of minority rights we should attempt to do away with ‘such’ fears in particular in ECE. In this respect, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 67) draws the lesson that where the issue of minority rights is submerged by the issue of securitization ‘there is little room for asking what package of minority rights would be fair or democratic’. The key task of political theorists, therefore, becomes opening up the possibilities of changing an elite-based discourse such that an emphasis is being put on justice rather than securitization. (This latter process can involve, for example, attempts by international actors such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to instil in the ECE states the idea that, in some circumstances, autonomy might be the ‘normal’ rather than the ‘exceptional’ form of minority rights protection – Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002a, 386.) This is necessary because the process of desecuritization especially in ECE is unlikely to occur unless we manage to ‘change majority views’ concerning an appropriate or a justice-based form of minority rights protection (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002a, 386).

The above argument (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 67) either stands or falls, however, depending on whether people come to ‘accept [the] premise’ about whether national cultural minorities deserve some limited, or unlimited, amount of rights. One wonders, though, if such a premise has something to do with justice at all. Unfortunately, there is almost nothing in Kymlicka’s work that would help us to judge what the motives are for people changing their attitudes towards minorities’ rights. It is worthwhile to point out here that Kymlicka draws on a quote from Jay Sigler in order to buttress the liberal theory of minority rights such that the latter theory is grounded in practice. So, following Sigler, Kymlicka (see Reference Kymlicka1995, 127, emphasis added) argues that the provision of a liberal theory of minority rights ‘does not create a mandate for vast change. It [provision of theory] merely ratifies and explains changes that have taken place in the absence of theory’. The above statement of Sigler requires a leap of faith, though, as it is being used in Kymlicka’s own work. At any rate, what is the empirical basis for the belief that people came to accept a given amount of rights for national cultural minorities because they have found these rights to be just?

Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka2001, 33), then, draws a stunning conclusion about the liberal defence of minority rights, which is that ‘the burden of proof has shifted’ as regards the question of whether minority rights are intrinsically unfair. ‘And the burden of proof surely rests on those who would deny national minorities the same powers of nation-building as those which the national majority takes for granted’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka2001, 29). The problem with this statement is that it is not obviously clear that state elites find it to be persuasive, as this article aims to show.

To be sure, when it comes to the question of minority rights, state elites may find it necessary to come to terms with the fig leaf dilemma. Namely, they may be impelled to engage in some sort of self-justificatory behaviour (e.g. on the level of rhetoric) to the effect that they are not causing any obvious harm to national cultural minorities (cf. Fedotov Reference Fedotov2015). In this case, we would likely not be mistaken were we to assume that state elites do the above out of normative or moral considerations rather than out of justice-based ones. After all, were one to be put face-to-face with one’s own pig-like behaviour one would likely be inclined to cover it up rather than to invoke the principles of justice. Moreover, those state elites who take recourse to justificationist tactics, pertaining to alleged minority rights infringements, are the ones who have resisted the most the granting of rights to national cultural minorities. So whatever changes have taken place in state elites’ policies towards national cultural minorities in ECE and elsewhere, they were apparently the result not of state elites’ justice-based considerations but of something else, for example the activities of minorities themselves.

It may be fair to ask, at this point, whether we are being unjust to political theorists, such as Kymlicka, by charging them with neglecting to produce evidentiary support for their theoretical claims. According to my view, such a charge would be indeed unjust, if not misplaced! At the same time, political theorists such as Kymlicka clearly do themselves – as well as an epistemic community – a disservice when they theorize justice about minority rights at such a high level of abstraction that it becomes well-nigh impossible to relate it in any meaningful way to concrete political experience.Footnote ² What is more, current discussions of justice and of minority rights may contribute to a disconnect between what is being theorized about and what is being enacted in, for instance, the political sphere. Thus, political theorists, such as Kymlicka, might do better if they threw their theoretical nets wider. The latter process can incorporate, for instance, the behavioural (political) strategies of the elites representing minorities, such as a politics of consensus and a politics of confrontation (more on this below).

The liberal defence of minority rights developed (most famously) by Kymlicka is meant to be applicable to both the ECE states and those in the West. The main reason for this is that minorities’ attempts (both in the West and in ECE) to promote these minorities’ rights tend to constitute minorities’ reaction to majorities’ efforts to engage in nation-building, which can be an encroachment on the rights of national cultural minorities. ‘People talk about “troublesome minorities”, but behind every minority that is causing trouble for the state, we are likely to find a state that is putting pressure on minorities’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka2001, 2). As already noted, Kymlicka draws our attention to the fact that the institutionalization of minority rights in ECE will likely be a more challenging process than in the West owing to issues of securitization and the like. That being said, it remains unclear, according to Kymlicka’s view (and that of others), which alternatives – to a liberal defence of justice and of minority rights – there are for the ECE states. Kymlicka recognizes the virulence with which majority nationalists can oppose the accommodation of the claims by minority members to justice regarding minority rights, and who moreover themselves may be intolerant towards each other, in ECE (see, for example, Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 70). ‘But to say it [the engagement by minorities in their own kinds of nation-building] is difficult is not to say it is impossible. In any event, what is the alternative?’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 70).

To sum up, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 69, 73) suggests that those kinds of nation-building in which minorities in the West have engaged in, for example some variant of ‘democratic multination federalism’, have the potential to be applied in ECE; however, ‘the implementation of them is likely to be more difficult’ than ‘in Western democracies’.

Here, Kymlicka appears to assume, tout court, that Western democracies have agreed to liberalize their minority rights policies due to certain justice-based principles and that the ECE states have no other choice but to follow suit. (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002a, 393, indeed talks about the evolution of certain principles in the West, for example the fact that citizens there came to ‘accept the legitimacy of secessionist mobilization’ on the part of minorities.) This seems to be the case, because he shies away from invoking such principles when it comes to making concrete empirical claims. So, in the above example, people recognize it as the legitimate right of national cultural minorities to organize themselves for secession ‘because the stakes of secession have been dramatically reduced, both for the majority group in the rump state and for internal minorities’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002a, 393, emphasis added). Further, speaking of federalism-level arrangements for national cultural minorities, one hears that ‘most multination Western countries now see the attempt to suppress minority nationalism as counter-productive, and see federalism is a way of stabilizing multination states. Perhaps people in ECE may, in time, come to share that perception’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 63, emphasis added).Footnote ³ In contradistinction to the foregoing, the role of justice-based principles, of which Kymlicka speaks elsewhere, is conspicuous by its absence. We may, then, safely conclude that there exists an apparent disconnect between the liberal theory of justice and of minority rights and concrete political experience.

At any rate, the above is suggested by the particular ambiguities that plague Kymlicka’s theorizing of minority-rights defence as discussed previously.

Kymlicka’s Defence of Minority Rights: A Change of Focus

Kymlicka sets out to elaborate his liberal defence of minority rights by drawing a distinction between forms of nation-building of majorities and those of minorities. The basic thrust of the liberal theory of justice and of minority rights, as noted, is to make it explicit that majority nation-building has been a reality and that minority nation-building has been a possibility, even if a mostly only legitimate one. To simplify his analysis, Kymlicka subdivides the above two nation-building projects into first- and second-order dialectics, pertaining to majority and minority nation-building, respectively. It is evident that such a dichotomized view of majority and minority nationalisms has to do with Kymlicka’s central concern to set apart minority nationalisms as not inherently unjust, provided they do not fail to abide by the ‘boundaries of liberalism’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 28) (see above). However, I believe that it is necessary to introduce a third-order dialectic, which takes into account the complex intermeshing of nation-building projects of majorities and of minorities. In order for this to happen, I submit, political theorists such as Kymlicka must begin to take seriously the views of both majority and minority populations concerning a given ethnic conflict.

Kymlicka makes an interesting case to the effect that in the West it is typically the minorities who have – historically speaking – suffered at the hands of the majorities, whereas in ECE it is typically the majorities who have – historically speaking – suffered at the hands of the minorities.Footnote ⁴ For one thing, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002b, 63) overstates his case that in the West minorities were oppressed or mistreated by majorities rather than vice versa, which follows from the fact that the running theme in the liberal theory of justice and of minority rights is that Western democracies have opposed minority rights for exactly the same reasons as the ECE states: ‘for example fear of disloyalty and separatism’. (After all, if Western democracies have had ‘such’ fear, this implies that these democracies had their own share of historic traumas, pertaining to the rights of national cultural minorities.) Arguably most importantly, Kymlicka uses the theme of historic injustice for majorities, specifically, throughout ECE in order to make an argument about the difficulties involved in any attempts to successfully apply the liberal theory of justice and of minority rights in this region. Such a take on the problem obviates the need to make use of the fact that minorities may, or may not, ‘reach out’ to majorities with an intent to alleviate fear of the majority regarding disloyalty of the minority. The above patterns, however, are at the heart of ethnic conflicts, in politics, both in Western democracies and the ECE states.

The third-order dialectic, pertaining to the actual intermeshing of majority and minority nationalisms, then, must start with the basic recognition of a majority population’s perhaps legitimate anxieties or concerns with respect to minority rights. Indeed, Kymlicka (e.g. Reference Kymlicka2007, 190) himself comes close to admitting as much when he argues that it is desirable to make a distinction between the majorities’ politicking about those anxieties or concerns and the substantive issues underlying those anxieties or concerns. In actuality, Kymlicka spells out how minority and majority nation-building projects can intermesh. Majorities routinely make false accusations about minorities’ ostensible intention to harm the state’s national interests (e.g. by wanting to secede) (see, for example, Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka2007, 193). Minorities routinely back down regarding claims to power-sharing arrangements, etc (see, for example, Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002a, 366–367). And, on top of that, international society can weigh in by renegotiating the perceived costs of secession, etc (see, for example, Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Kymlicka and Opalski2002a, 393). Space opens up for normative claims, whereby minorities facing up to the implications of the minority’s secession for the majority would seem to evince a just course of action and majorities not facing up to the implications of the majority’s politicking for the minority would seem to evince an unjust course of action.

The political representatives of minorities routinely make compromises with regard to their demands over minority rights in order to meet halfway those of the political representatives of majorities in the arena of politics. Likewise, minority political representatives routinely refuse to consider the prima facie validity of the particular demands of majority political representatives in order to press the minority rights agenda tout court. Yet in terms of justice-based roadmaps, the above two tacks continue to be what they are, to wit, two divergent courses of action (Parsons Reference Parsons2003). Put otherwise, there is little else, for the elites representing national cultural minorities, to go by, in strategizing how to do politics, other than to appeal to political expediency, which itself is a matter of dispute amongst these elites (Csergő Reference Csergő2002; Csergo Reference Csergo2007).

Kymlicka is very well aware of the above problem. Consider how he puts his finger on the central political dilemma facing the elites representing national cultural minorities, which is how to assure maximal minority rights protection without at the same time eliciting a nationalist backlash. ‘In order to avoid state repression, national minorities need to keep their demands below [the particular repression-defined] threshold, while simultaneously trying to negotiate [this] threshold upwards. But where is [the above] threshold’? (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka2007, 193). Characteristically, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka2007, 194) goes on to argue that in the West the given, repression-defined, threshold as regards minority rights claims is ‘very high’ (e.g. including minorities’ claims to secession) and that in ECE the given, repression-defined, threshold as regards minority rights claims is ‘very low’ (e.g. including minorities’ claims to elementary education in their mother tongue) today. However this may be, Kymlicka does not devote excessive attention to the possibility that minorities’ actions such as a politics of consensus and a politics of confrontation, can crucially affect majorities’ responses to these minorities’ claims to the variable forms of minority rights protection, the corollary being not extensive theorizing about whether such claims are just or unjust from the perspective of the complex intermeshing of majority and minority nation-building projects. Regrettably, and especially in the latter (second) regard, much work remains to be done. Such a task is made more complicated by the fact that liberal multiculturalism is itself upended as new kinds of threat impinge on ‘state-minority relations’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka, Uberoi and Modood2015, 241–242).

For illustrative purposes, we may use Kymlicka’s own example of a privately funded Albanian-language university in Macedonia. Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka2007, 192) suggests that in Macedonia the creation of such a school had been securitized: ‘The government of Macedonia … declared that it would be a threat to the very existence of the state if the Albanian minority in Macedonia were to have a university operating in their own language’. Now, in Macedonia, such a state of affairs may well be a reflection of the fact that there is little political trust between the Albanian minority elite, on the one hand, and the Macedonian ruling elite on the other. Further, the evidently small potential for trust-based political relationships between the Albanians and the Macedonians has most certainly to do with a long sequence of events in post-socialist Macedonia wherein Albanians and Macedonians saw one another’s actions as unfair, or simply unjust. Therefore, it won’t do to simply state that ‘Independent observers have difficulty seeing how a privately funded Albanian-language university can threaten the existence of a state’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka2007, 193). At any rate, what is the point of the above statement?

Still, Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka, Uberoi and Modood2015, 235) does make room, in theorizing multiculturalism’s spontaneous expression, for the possibility that neither the majority nor the minority showcase the acceptance of ‘ideas of multiple and complementary loyalties and identities’. In theory, facilitation of such acceptance would seem to evince a just course of action.

To summarize, I have argued in the foregoing that state elites’ policies towards national cultural minorities are the product of the complex intermeshing of majority and minority nation-building projects. Further, my argument has been that both minority and majority political representatives step on each other’s toes due to historical or cultural reasons. We need, then, to adopt a comprehensive view of majority and minority nationalisms, rather than see them in isolation. Accordingly, political theorists like Kymlicka would do themselves – as well as an epistemic community – a good service if they begin to look closely into how minorities’ actions may have possibly politically significant effects on these minorities’ (political) relationships with majorities. What is more, the above effects should be approached within the justice-based perspective. Therefore, I aim to raise some particularly thorny issues related to ethnic politics in the several European states – as seen from an ethical viewpoint. I aim to do so in the example of ethnic politics in Romania, Ukraine, Austria and Slovakia.

Kymlicka’s Defence of Minority Rights: Application

I do not mean to argue that politics per se should be held accountable to ethics. Rather, I mean to argue that it is important to know what justice requires with respect to the art of politics. (As noted, the art of ethnic politics is the pursuit of either a politics of consensus or a politics of confrontation.) By consensual politics, I understand a politics that accommodates the most salient apparent demands or needs of majority and minority. By confrontational politics, I understand an exclusionary politics that excludes these most salient apparent demands. As it stands, one may be legitimately puzzled at how daunting it is to categorize, or describe, actions as being just or unjust. Simultaneously, nothing in liberal multiculturalism militates against making normative claims with reference to a context of majority–minority wheeling and dealing about worldly issues. If theorists of multiculturalism have something to say about justice for someone’s nationalism tout court, then why not say something about justice for someone’s nationalisms tout court? If I understand Kymlicka (Reference Kymlicka, Uberoi and Modood2015, 244) correctly, this is exactly what he calls for when he says that there is a host of ‘unresolved issues confronting theorists of multiculturalism’, and that is that.

In 1989, the Romanians and Hungarians in Romania did away with the communist dictatorship. Following this, the Hungarian minority elite in Romania moved, fairly aggressively so, to separate, or unmix, Hungarian-language and Romanian-language educational institutions such as secondary or post-kindergarten schools in Hungarian-populated areas throughout Romania, undoing a state of affairs that was the legacy of the Nicolae Ceauşescu rule. This process of separation/unmixing proved to be rather disruptive, specifically so for the Romanian pupils. One leading Hungarian political figure in Romania readily agreed that there had been some ‘excesses … [as well as some] irresponsible attitudes’ (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts 1990). Now what does justice require in the above instance of ethnic politics? Should the Hungarian minority elite not have proceeded with the prompt reform of Hungarian-language education after the 1989 anti-communist Revolution in Romania? If so, it is quite apparent, at least to some Hungarians in Romania, that this would have meant the continuation of assimilationist policies in education also after the fall of Communism. Should the Hungarian minority elite have proceeded with the prompt reform of Hungarian-language education after the 1989 anti-communist Revolution in Romania? It is quite apparent that, at least to some Romanians in Romania, this has meant unnecessary stress on unsuspecting young Romanians. Granted, abstract answers to these specific questions may be difficult to find; but, at any rate, what is the alternative?Footnote ⁵

Since becoming an independent state in 1991, Ukraine has faced the dilemma of how to guarantee the use of the Russian language in all walks of life without at the same time jeopardizing the sole official status of the Ukrainian language. Ukraine has succeeded in neither of these two goals. On the one hand, Ukrainian ethnic nationalism is a major obstacle to the use of the Russian language in Ukraine in all walks of life. On the other hand, Russophone elites in Ukraine have made inroads into the sphere of official use of the Ukrainian language. It may be pointed out that, as regards the use of the Russian language in Ukraine, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe, which is the Strasbourg-based pan-European organization for the protection of human rights, calls on Ukraine to regulate official use of this language, though not in ways that are ‘to the detriment of the official [or the state] languages and the need to learn them’ (Council of Europe 1992, 2). Now what does justice require in the above instance of ethnic politics? Should Russophone elites in Ukraine not have pressed the possibility of giving the Russian language the status of second official language alongside the Ukrainian one? If so, it is quite apparent that this would have meant, to some Russophones in Ukraine, the preservation of the possibility of Russophones being assimilated into the dominant Ukrainophone society. Should Russophone elites in Ukraine have pressed the possibility of giving the Russian language the status of second official language alongside the Ukrainian one? If so, it is quite apparent that this would have meant, to some Ukrainophones in Ukraine, the upholding of the quasi-Soviet factual policy of non-independence in the realm of linguistic rights. Granted, abstract answers to these specific questions may be difficult to find; but again, at any rate, what is the alternative?

Austria has experienced multiple incursions by the Slav peoples to the South of its borders, in particular after the First and the Second World Wars, into the southern part of Carinthia. Carinthia became an integral part of Austria as a result of the 1920 plebiscite, in which the Slovene minority had tipped the popular vote in favour of the South of Carinthia being joined to Austria rather than the Yugoslav Kingdom. Consequently, there arose in Carinthia the mythology of Urangst (primordial fear), in which the Slav peoples to the South of Austria’s borders are seen as a real and imaginary threat to the territorial unity of Carinthia and of Austria at large. This mythology of Urangst ‘has left a hindering legacy for inter-ethnic and cross-border relations in Carinthia’ (McLaughlin Reference McLaughlin, Delanoy, Helbig and James2007, 37). Now what does justice require in the above instance of ethnic politics? Should the Slovene minority elite not have called for the maximum amount of Slovenian-language (and German-language) road signage in Carinthia? If so, it is quite apparent that this would have meant, to some Slovenes in Carinthia, the drastic diminution of the status of Slovenes who are autochthonous in Carinthia. Should the Slovene minority elite have called for the maximum amount of Slovenian-language (and German-language) road signage in Carinthia? If so, it is quite apparent that this would have meant, to some Germanophones in Carinthia, tackling the language dispute in Carinthia in a perfunctory manner. Granted, once more, abstract answers to these specific questions may be difficult to find; but once more too, at any rate, what is the alternative?

A large part of what is today Slovakia was historically a component of Hungary; its Hungarian name is Felvidék (Upper Hungary). Needless to say, for many Slovaks, the use of the word ‘Felvidék’ to refer to contemporary Slovakia by Hungarians in Slovakia can be offensive. In a move to pre-empt possible negative reactions by the Slovaks to politically sensitive words such as Felvidék, the Hungarian minority elite in Slovakia created ‘a list of sensitive topics’ meant to reign in some of the radically-minded Hungarian political leaders in Slovakia (Czech News Agency 2002). It is questionable though whether it had had any real political influence. Now what does justice require in the above instance of ethnic politics? Should the Hungarian minority elite not have approved a number of taboo-like phrases in reference to ethnic politics in Slovakia? If so, it is quite apparent that this would have meant, to some Slovaks in Slovakia, the factuality of the Hungarians’ insensitivity to the Slovaks’ neuroses about Slovakia’s past. Should the Hungarian minority elite have approved a number of taboo-like phrases in reference to ethnic politics in Slovakia? If so, it is quite apparent that this would have meant, to some Hungarians in Slovakia, the curtailment of the right of the Hungarians to free speech – to say the least. Granted, abstract answers to these specific questions may be difficult to find; but, at any rate, what is the alternative?

Finally, I aim to present some instances of the rhetoric of majority political representatives regarding two themes central to liberal multiculturalism: ‘benign neglect’ and securitization. For this I draw upon my own fieldwork in Romania, Ukraine, Austria and Slovakia.

Kymlicka’s Defence of Minority Rights: An Analysis

Kymlicka obviously grasps the factual political significance of the themes of ‘benign neglect’ and of securitization in the context of ethnic politics in the ECE states – and perhaps Western democracies too. Consider what he has to say about the theme of ‘benign neglect’, specifically, as it is viewed in the context of ethnic politics in ECE. ‘What we see in Eastern Europe … is an unholy alliance of liberal intellectuals and majoritarian nationalists, both of whom invoke American models to justify rejecting the claims of national minorities’ (Kymlicka Reference Kymlicka2001, 273). Therefore, what follows should not be interpreted as being meant to point out that of which political theorists such as Kymlicka are not cognizant. Instead, it should be interpreted as being meant to complement the central argument being made here, which is that the liberal theory of justice and of minority rights has an ambiguous relationship with how the empirical world is and can be.

In 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2015 I carried out numerous rounds of interviews with political leaders in Romania, Ukraine, Austria and Slovakia; the interview sample includes many, many dozens of interviews (including with several heads of state and many ministers).Footnote ⁶ The minority groups in question are the Hungarian minorities in Romania and Slovakia, the Russophone population in Ukraine, and the Slovene minority in the southern Austrian province of Carinthia.