There are two main trends in the field of nation-building studies. One subset of the field focuses on democratic nation building, seeking to answer questions of how people can live together in divided societies and presenting institutional recommendations. The other subset examines autocratic nation building, or how those in power utilize nation building to maintain their position of dominance. Scholars examine both types of nation building from above, examining government policies and elite action, and from below, analyzing the practices and emotions of non-elites. While there has been much progress in the field of nation-building studies, I suggest that we focus more on the conceptual differences between democratic and autocratic nation building, address the interactions of elites and non-elites in nation-building practices, and disaggregate analyses to take into account in-country variation in nation building.

Using Hungary as a case study and focusing on legislative policies and the practical application of hate crime legislation, this article shows the various ways legal policy can become misguided in the labyrinth of identity politics, minority protection, and penal populism. The first mistake states can make, the author argues, is not to adopt hate crime legislation. The second error arguably pertains to conceptualizing hate crimes as an identity protection but not a minority-protection mechanism and instrument. The third fallacy the author identifies concerns legislative and practical policies that conceptualize victims based on self-identification and not on the perpetrator’s (or the wider community’s) potential perception and classification. The fourth flaw concerns the abuse of the concept of hate crime when it is applied in interethnic conflicts wherein members of minority communities are perpetrators and the victims are members of the majority communities. The fifth is institutional discrimination through the systematic underpolicing of hate crimes.

“National group” is one of four victim groups that is explicitly protected by international criminal law from genocide. At the core of any genocide lies an element of identity. Yet, the fixed group categories that the law provides for seemingly do not conform to the fluidity of group identities. Is the law at all able to account for identity fault lines? By recourse to research on identity construction and otherness, this article argues that the interpretation of the law of genocide can benefit, structurally and legally, from insight into the forces at work before a genocide erupts. In recognizing the perpetrator’s definitional power over the victim group, the courts should increasingly focus their investigation into the mind of the génocidaires and their perception of the national victim group. In addition to discussing the dynamics of intergroup conflicts leading up to a genocide, this article also looks at the jurisprudence of criminal courts on the issues of nationality, national groups, and national identity for the crime of genocide.

Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People declares that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. It also includes several symbolic and operative provisions which are designed to strengthen the Jewish character of the state. The Basic Law purports to legally define and entrench the particular rather than universal values of Israel—the values that distinguish Israel from other nations rather than those that are shared by other nations. It anchors the Jewish identity of the state in its formal constitutional structure. My aim in this article is to present the history of the constitutional evolution of Israel and then to describe the conservative reactions to the constitutional liberalization of Israel. Then, I turn to examine the Basic Law, its provisions, and the arguments of advocates and opponents. Last, I evaluate its impact on the Israeli legal system. I shall argue that the Basic Law is part of a systematic attack on democratic liberties in Israel that may eventually transform Israel from a liberal democracy to an authoritarian democracy.

Irish Travellers are a traditionally nomadic ethnic minority indigenous to Ireland. Although recognized as an ethnic minority in adjacent jurisdictions, the Irish state persistently and explicitly denied recognizing Travellers’ separate ethnicity and pursued assimilationist policies designed to eradicate Travellers’ differences. However, in the late 1980s and 1990s, the state recognized the structural disadvantage and social stigma to which Travellers are subjected, naming them as a protected group in equality legislation, as well as laws addressing incitement to hatred. Through these interventions, the state afforded Travellers rights on the basis of their collective identity as Travellers, while continuing to deny their ethnicity. After sustained campaigning, Traveller ethnicity was recognized by the prime minister of Ireland in 2017. This article explores the reasoning behind, and legal significance of, that statement of recognition in Ireland.1 We outline the evidence in support of ethnic recognition as a prelude to addressing the question of whether recognition is likely to afford the community any additional rights. We conclude that this is unlikely given the protections afforded to the group prior to ethnic recognition, though we argue that recognition may give the community a firmer basis for arguing for the activation of these preexisting rights.

What role do nationally celebrated holidays play for groups that are not considered—or do not consider themselves—to be part of the majority nation of a state? What function do holidays specific to minority group cultures serve under regimes that discriminate against those groups? This article explores holidays as a forum for contestation for the national identity proposals promulgated by the state in repressive regimes. We argue that national holidays are meaningful sites of identity contestation for four reasons: the role of holidays in heightening identity salience, the malleability of identity narratives, the relative lack of institutional barriers to acts of celebration, and the significance of refusing to participate in celebrations. We collected the data through interviews and participant observation of the Hui in China and the Kurds in Turkey. We employ ethnographic observation and intertextual analysis to compare these identity narratives. We find that the Hui legitimize their group’s existence by co-opting the traditional Spring Festival, or by outwardly insisting they are not celebrating while still engaging in festivities. In contrast, Turkey’s Kurds resist the government’s co-optation of the spring celebration of Newroz as a Turkish national holiday.

This article focuses on two Muslim groups, Azeris and Muslim Ajarians, who are differently perceived and treated in post-Soviet Georgia. Georgian ethno-religious nationalism bases Georgianness on an ethnic affiliation to Kartvelian roots and religious adherence to Georgian Orthodoxy, and determines one’s level of inclusion in the nation accordingly; those who do not fulfill these criteria, such as Azeris, are excluded from the nation. Muslim Ajarians, despite being Georgians, also face exclusion from Georgian identity. Based on the concept of ethnodoxy, which is defined as linking of “a group’s ethnic identity to its dominant religion,” this article argues that Muslim Ajarians, who are Georgian Muslims, an unaccepted category in Georgia, receive differential treatment by their Christian fellows, whereas recognition of the religion and ethnicity of Azeris is a factor that comparatively diminishes the pressure on the community. This research demonstrates that the visibility of Muslim Ajarians’ religious practices in the public space and the construction of places of worship is less tolerated than in the case of Azeris, who have no means of becoming “proper Georgians.” The findings of fieldwork in Georgia manifested that, although minorities have various problems in Georgia, Muslim Ajarians are subjected to more differential treatment than Azeris.

This article traces changes in Polish administrative approaches toward indigenous Upper Silesians in the 1960s and 1970s. By commissioning reports from voivodeship leaders in 1967, the Ministry of Internal Affairs recognized that native Silesians held reservations toward Poland and, moreover, that postwar “Polonization” efforts may have backfired. These officials further understood the need to act quickly against “disintegration” trends. Although administrators in Katowice and Opole noted that relatively few Silesians engaged in clearly anti-Polish activities, these leaders still believed that West German influence threatened their authority in Silesia. Increasing West German involvement in the area, particularly through care packages and tourism, seemed to support this conclusion. In response to fears of West German infiltration and the rise in emigration applications, local authorities sought to bolster a distinctly Silesian identity. Opole officials in particular argued that strengthening a regional identity, rather than a Polish one, could combat the “tendency toward disintegration” in Silesia. This policy shift underscored an even greater change in attitude toward the borderland population: instead of treating native Silesians as an innate threat to Polish sovereignty, as had been the case immediately after the war, the administration now viewed them as essential for maintaining authority in western Poland.

Premised on elite accommodation, consociations provide little consideration for citizens’ input on institutional change. Likewise, valuable analyses of cross-community political participation in divided societies have emerged in recent years, yet whether the relationship between the grassroot and formal political process has broader consequences remains to be fully explored. The article examines the conditions in which nonelectoral participation takes place and the ways in which actors involved therein negotiate constraints for continuous cross-community mobilization. The structure of political systems and the nature of deep divisions in Northern Ireland and Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina invite a comparison of the consequences of nonelectoral political participation in these two illustrative case studies. The article concludes that while the formal political context shapes the likelihood of engagement on a cross-community basis, whether nonelectoral participation changes the structure of political decision-making depends on the willingness and ability of those involved to cooperate with formal institutional politics.

Starting from 2015, the Russian-speaking residents in Germany have expressed their anti-refugee position in the form of rallies and rising voting support for the right-wing populist party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Due to the absence of social cues, unlimited space, immediate responses, and minimal censorship online, platforms for communication have reflected the offline mobilization and became the major platforms for the spreadability of discriminatory discourse. This article sets out to investigate why Russian-speaking internet users residing in Germany justify anti-refugee discourse and how they construct the notion of “others.” Based on the netnographic analysis of the chosen online discussions and conducted interviews with its members, this article argues that, with the appearance of new “others,” Russian-speaking migrants have redefined their symbolic boundaries in order to draw the line between the incoming migrants and themselves—people with a migrant background. In many ways, participants of the analyzed discussions employed the politicized civilizational rhetoric that allowed them to redefine existing categorizations. This research explores, for the first time, the reasons lying behind the online populist activity of the Russian-speaking residents in Germany.

In our article we examine changes experienced by media and memory systems in Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis. Using as an example a popular Russian blogging platform, LiveJournal, we scrutinize how the digital practices related to commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany are influenced by the growing instrumentalization of Second World War memory for media propaganda and manipulation. Using topic modeling to analyze a large set of data on Russian users’ interactions with the platform, we examine how hegemonic and alternative interpretations of the Second World War interact on LiveJournal and how their interactions are influenced by the growing antagonism between Russia and the West. Our findings suggest that LiveJournal constitutes a fractured memory system, which is characterized by uneven representation of Second World War experiences and the growing influence of pro-government actors promoting hegemonic war narratives. However, our observations also show that instrumentalization of the past in the context of the Ukraine crisis does not necessarily interfere with digital practices of Second World War commemoration with the latter remaining unaffected by the events in Ukraine.