РЕГИОНАЛИЗМ И МНОГОУРОВНЕВАЯ ПОЛИТИКА ПО ЯЗЫКОВОМУ ВОПРОСУ В СТРАНАХ ЕВРОПЫ

Abstract

Introduction: European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, adopted by the Council of Europe, has become an important regulator of language policy in the signatory and ratifying countries. As a result, language policy towards minorities, turns out to be a bright example of multi-level governance (MLG) – a new pattern of political interactions, which is characterized not by hierarchical system of subordination to one center (the state), but pluralistic, dispersed activity of many actors interacting at different and interconnected levels of power. MLG, however, differs across various regions, since subnational actors intend to be self-sustained players of political interactions to varying degrees. Objectives: to identify the mechanisms of regionalist parties’ impact of on the involvement of regional actors in multi-level governance and to determine how it influences on the strength of language policy towards minorities. Methods: large-N comparative analysis and comparatively oriented case-study. Results: a large-N comparative analysis of 134 regions from countries that have ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages has confirmed that the strength of regionalist parties has a positive effect on the scope of guarantees and preferences that minority languages receive in regions. The case-study of the Serbian Vojvodina, the most typical case, allows to expose the mechanisms of the impact of regionalists. Being represented in the regional authorities, regionalist parties not only promote language issues on the public agenda, but also achieve more energetic involvement of regional actors in policy formulation and making decisions on language policy at the national level. At the initiative of regionalist parties, first in Vojvodina, and then throughout the country, ethnic councils were institutionalized as significant actors in language policy. Thus, non-state actors are actively involved in the language policy, which is fully consistent with the MLG approach. Conclusions: regionalist parties and movements have a significant influence on the strength of language policy towards minorities. Its strength demonstrates a stable and statistically significant impact both on the volume of obligations undertaken in relation to regional languages, and on the degree of their implementation. Another significant factor is the presence of a kin-state among the linguistic minority.