Les partis minoritaires, des partis "comme les autres"? Les expériences de l'UDMR en Roumanie et du MDL en Bulgarie
Résumé
Over the past decade, numerous studies have been devoted to the dynamics of ethnopolitics and in particular to the impact of the partisanization of ethnicity on the relations between majority and minorities, as well as on the accommodation of minority demands. Most of them have concluded in the existence of a vicious circle that favors an everexpanding politicization of identity and an intensification of existing ethnic conflicts. By contrast, an abundant literature has pinpointed what was perceived as the sobering effect of EU conditionality and EU membership on both minorities and majorities. The comparison between the political trajectories of the UDMR in Romania and the MRF in Bulgaria precisely aims at testing both assumptions. How can we explain the kinds of demands formulated by minority parties (and their changes in time and space), their positioning on the local political scenes, and their impact on minority/majority relations? To what extent are they influenced by EU integration? The paper shall argue that EU processes as such do not overdetermine the nature and the acceptability of minority demands. Understanding its impact on ethnopolitics requires that one takes into account the particular historical trajectories of minorities and majorities in each case, the modes of construction of ethnic cleavages, their territorialization and their institutionalization. This way, one may grasp the ways in which changes in opportunity structures - in a context of democratization, EU integration, and globalization - affect the strategies of both minority and majority political entrepreneurs.
Domaines
Science politique
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