| Abstract [eng] |
Assimilation, Accommodation, and Exclusion Integration of the Romani Community in Lithuania After the Independence The research puzzle that is guiding this research emerges from two (one empirical and one theoretical) observations. The first one is related to the apparent discrepancy between Lithuanian contempt towards the Roma community and the state choice of integration policies targeted to them in the context of nation-building. Not always, people attitudes manifest through state intervention. However, in the context of an intense nation-building process that encourages national sentiments, such attitudes are more likely to reveal a collective state of mind. Therefore it is not hard to imagine that the negative attitudes towards the Roma are an example of a broader national sentiment (ethnos). However, the Lithuanian state has targeted the Roma with a mixed type of policies. Some reflect this negative sentiment and are predicted clearly by the ethnic-based theories of nationalism. From these theories perspective, Lithuania’s ethnic character of nation-building explains why language is so important to outline what is consider national and what is not like the Roma language, for example. Even when from an ethic/civic perspective, some policies that “betrayed” the “ethnic sentiment” like Lithuanian citizenship can be justified neither of these perspectives can account for what determinates the choice of a state. This leads me to my second, theoretical observation. The insufficient ability of traditional nationalist theories to clearly account for all the types of policies a state is likely to take in cases like the Romani. The integration of minorities is a part of diverse literature focused on nation-building. The way different theories explain and define the relations between the state and its minorities is strongly related to their understanding of the nation. While some theories, called primordialist by some typologies, see the nations as fixed and given, others consider them as fluid and changing, modernist, for example. However, the studies on the choice of integration policies are strongly influenced by the ethnic theories that see only two possible outcomes of integration: exclusion or assimilation. An alternative to solve address this limitation is presented by Harri Mylonas and his politics of the national building framework. According to Mylonas, the dichotomies of assimilation versus exclusion do not capture the full range of the observed variation. In his proposal, Mylonas extends a bridge between nationalism studies and international relations, focusing on the importance of international and geostrategic concerns for nation-building policies. (Mylonas 2012, 5) From a reversed-neoclassical realism, Mylonas proposes that a state choice of integration policies towards a particular group is determined by the states' foreign policy goals and the presence of external power. In the case of Lithuania and the Roma community, this choice of policies would be conditioned by the European Union in its role of an external power and sponsor for the Roma community. Summing up, motivated by the empirical experiences and observation about the discrepancy between the politics of nation-building and minority integration in Lithuania, this thesis sets out to explain it, by including the external actor (the EU) into the explanatory framework while at the same time testing Mylonas framework applicability for the Roma case in Lithuania. |
