Supporting Equality or Emphasizing Difference? State Policy on Interethnic Relations and Conflict in Central Europe

• In Event: 228 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 01. Comparative and Transnational Culture

Abstract

The Czech and Slovak governments execute contrasting policies on interethnic relations between majority and Roma populations with differing results for interethnic conflict. The Czech strategy to support equality, contributes to the saliency of the symbolic threat to majority group, leading to more visible conflict. The Slovak strategy to emphasize difference, counterintuitively to common perceptions about segregation, helps keep interethnic relations peaceful. Though once belonging to the same state, differing assumptions about ethnicity helped lead to diverging strategies for relations with the most socially marginalized populations in Europe. Through examining government policy and activities, I first identify and describe the two governments’ policies on interethnic relations. I then analyze the effects of these differing strategies for majority/Roma conflict in each country. I present data collected during in-country interviews conducted from June 2014- June 2015 with activists, government officials, and non-profit employees at the state and local level.

Interethnic conflict takes a more visible form in the Czech Republic, where the government strategy challenges majority populations to reform their attitudes and reexamine racist institutional practices. The majority reacts to the symbolic threat to their perceived superior status. In Slovakia, implementation is less enthusiastic, more deferential to claims of white superiority, and based on the assumptions that differences between groups explain segregation. Thus, multiethnic states pursuing active integration policies should expect backlash from the threatened majority, while more complacent states may avoid conflict, yet perpetuate inequitable ethnic relations.

Author

• Sara Jean Tomczuk, University of Washington