Nationalist legacies and European trajectories: post‐communist liberalization and Turkish minority politics in Bulgaria

Abstract

The politics of ethnic minorities in post‐1989 Central East and Southeast Europe (CESE) has been characterized by an apparent paradox between, on the one hand, well‐integrated minority parties at the national level, on the other hand, strong demands for decentralization and local self‐government. This article examines the impact of post‐communist reforms, since the late 1990s taking place within the frame of European integration, on ethnic politics and state‐minority relations in CESE focusing on the case of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria. It argues that liberalization cum European integration in CESE states fundamentally transform inherited national divisions, and integrate minorities in existing political and state institutions. At the same time, such integration is constrained by the legacy of state socialism that consolidated ethnic differences by embedding them in economic‐territorial structures. In doing so, it set the frame for the growth of a fundamentally distinct minority politics on a regional basis that diverges as much from the traditional nation‐state model as from the liberal approach to post‐communist democracy, market reform and European integration.