This article argues that the inclusion of ethnic Hungarian parties within the Slovak and Romanian democratic oppositions during the early years of democratic transition was a critical element for the peaceful management of interethnic relations in these two multiethnic new democracies. Contrary to what the existing literature suggests, violent conflict was averted despite the absence of institutions specially designed to manage interethnic relations, the exclusion of ethnic minorities from government, and quasi-majoritarian political environments. In the two studied cases, interethnic opposition coalitions resulted from the adoption of basic democratic political institutions, which constrained actors across the ethnic divide to cooperate based on a minimal consensus agenda. More broadly, this article questions the claim that multiethnic countries are unlikely candidates for peaceful democratization, and suggests that as long as participation in democratic processes, either in government or in opposition, is possible for ethnic minorities, violent conflict can be averted.
"For these societies [divided along ethnic lines], special sets of institutions seem to be required to insure that minorities who might be excluded by majoritarian systems be included in the decision-making process and that interethnic compromise and accommodation be fostered rather than impeded. Donald L. Horowitz, "Constitutional Design: An Oxymoron?" in Ian Shapiro and Stephen Macedo, eds., Designing Democratic Institutions (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 253.
2.
Michael E. Brown, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict, Rev. ed., International Security Readers (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press , 2001); Ted Robert Gurr, Peoples Versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000); Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder, Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War ( Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 2005), Jack L. Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict, 1st ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000).
3.
Historically, the population of Transylvania also included Saxons and Szeklers, the firsts of Germanic origins, the seconds of Hungarian or Hunic descent. This work does not include these two ethnic groups, since in the early 1990s the main lines of conflict were between Romanians and Hungarians, with Szeklers siding with the Hungarian minority and the Saxon community counting only around 100,000 members (1992 data, according to the 2002 census, they are 59, 764).
4.
For a detailed account of the history of the ethnic relationship in these two countries, see: Mihaela Mihailescu, Dampening the Powder Keg: The Role of Democratic Oppositions in Fostering Ethnic Peace in Post-Communist Romania and Slovakia (University of Minnesota, 2006).
5.
Bratislava, Verejnost, Slovak, 9 March 1990. Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS Daily Reports-Eastern Europe, 23 March 1990 (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-90-057), 25-26.
6.
Bucharest, Monitorul Oficial , Vol. IV, No.63, 30 March 1993.
7.
Bucharest, Adevărul, 17 November 1995.
8.
John T.Ishiyama and Marijke Breuning, Ethnopolitics in the New Europe ( Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 72.
9.
Tom Gallagher , "Romania: Nationalism Defines Democracy," in Wojciech Kostecki, Katarzyna Zukrowska, and Bogdan Góralczyk , eds., Transformations of Post-Communist States (2000), 185-201, Zsuzsa Csergo, "Beyond Ethnic Divisions: Majority-Minority Debate About the Post-Communist State in Romania and Slovakia," East European Politics and Societies16: 1 (2002): 1-31, Michael Shafir, "Radical Politics in East Central Europe. Radical Continuity in Romania," RFE-RL East European Perspectives2: 16 (2000), Abby Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), Kevin Deegan-Krause, "Accountability and Party Competition in Slovakia and the Czech Republic" ( Notre Dame, 2000).
10.
RFE/RL Reports, 17 August 1992.
11.
Judith G. Kelley , Ethnic Politics in Europe: The Power of Norms and Incentives (Princeton, Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2004 ); Kevin Deegan Krause, "The Ambivalent Influence of the European Union on Democratization in Slovakia," in Paul J. Kubicek, ed., The European Union and Democratization (London, New York: Routledge, 2003), 56-86; Tim Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Post-Communist Europe ( Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 122-31.
12.
Rui De Figueiredo and Barry Weingast, "The Rationality of Fear: Political Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict" in Barbara F. Walter and Jack L. Snyder, eds. Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention ( New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); V.P. Gagnon, "Ethnic Nationalism and International Conflict: The Case of Serbia," in Michael E. Brown, ed., Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict ( Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
13.
Ishiyama and Breuning, Ethnopolitics in the New Europe, 55; see also Jiri Musil, ed., The End of Czechoslovakia (Budapest, London, New York: Central European University Press, 1995), 90.
14.
It is often assumed that unitary states are inherently less prone to violence because they reflect less salient ethnic identities. Conversely, violent conflict is more likely in ethnic federal systems precisely because strong preexistent ethnic identities require such a system and explode once the state weakens during democratization. However, scholars of democratization, such as Jack Snyder, have convincingly argued that it is the way in which democratization takes place that makes ethnic identities more or less salient and violence more or less likely, not preexisting ethnic divisions based on immutable identities. Additionally, one can hardly hypothesize a direct causal relationship between ethnic federalism and violence since, even within the modest pool of cases that Eastern Europe provides, federalism led both to violent dismemberment, as in Yugoslavia, and to peaceful separation, as in Czechoslovakia. It is true that a unitary state does not have the institutional framework that facilitates the emergence of competing authorities the way federal states do. See Valerie Bunce, Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics (Cambridge , and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), ch.6. However, as we shall see in Romania, for example, a unitary but ethnically heterogeneous state can be a source of interethnic tensions during democratization as minorities argue that the organization of the state does not reflect the ethnic realities on the ground.
15.
I specifically focus on political oppositions instead of civil society, since integration in the political process is most likely to inspire hopes of real influence over policy making for ethnic minorities. While undoubtedly important, the role of civil society, and of non-governmental organizations in particular, falls beyond the scope of this project. The contribution of civil society in maintaining the channels of communication between ethnic majority and minority open has been thoroughly analyzed for the Romanian case by Gabriel Andreescu in a book that surveys the 1990-2000 time frame and in which the author explicitly links the work of NGOs with the lack of Yugoslav-style interethnic violence. Gabriel Andreescu, Ruleta: Romani Si Maghiari, 1990-2000 (Polirom, 2001).
16.
Janusz Bugajski , Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe ( Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), 345.
17.
Bugajski, Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe, 345-46.
18.
The Slovak political situation in 1990 to 1992 made the VPN a possible contender for Hungarian votes, just as communist nostalgia, present within the Hungarian community as well as in the Slovak society at large, made the SDL another attractive contender. These Slovak parties were nevertheless neither long-standing nor serious enough threats to the ability of the main Hungarian parties to gain their community's votes.
19.
Decree law no.8 from 31 December 1989. This generous approach can only be understood in light of the unique circumstances of the 1989 violent overthrow of Nicolae Ceauseşcu's highly controlling communist dictatorship, circumstances that required bold gestures. Thus, the ethnic tolerance of the political party decree was possible in December 1989, in the wake of a popular uprising that started in the multiethnic Romanian city of Timiöoara around the figure of a Hungarian pastor, László Tökés.
20.
However, Article 8 of the constitution underlined that political parties "contribute to the definition and expression of the political will of citizens, while observing national sovereignty, territorial integrity, the legal order and the principles of democracy." With the FSN accused of neo-communism and the opposition accused of monarchism, Romanian MPs preferred such vague nationalist wording to an outright and detailed debate as to the legitimate bases of party creation. However, the question of outlawing the UDMR as an anti-national organization was repeatedly raised by the Romanian extremist parties. Furthermore, since it appeared on 25 December 1989 and was recognized on 26 December, the UDMR did not form under the provisions of the Decree Law No.8 as the other Romanian parties did. It was legalized in virtue of the Law on Judicial Organizations from 1924 and the Decree No.31/1954. Formally therefore the UDMR was not a party per se, although it behaved as such throughout the 1990s.
21.
In a 1994 interview, the KDH leader, Jan Čarnogurský commented on the SNS repeated calls for outlawing ethnic Hungarian parties: "That is out of the question. Hungarian parties operate in the Slovak republic on the basis of generally valid civic rights guaranteed by the constitution of the Slovak republic and the election law, which allow for the creation of any parties, except fascist ones." Interview of Jan Čarnogurský by Pavol Minapik in Bratislava, Prague, Rude Pravo, Czech, 6 October 1994, 1. Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS Daily Reports-Eastern Europe, 12 October 1994 (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-94-197), 5.
22.
Daniel Barbu , "Sistemul Electoral Si Finantarea Actorilor Politici," Sfera Politicii110-111 (2004): 50-59. Not surprisingly, Romanian nationalists proposed on several occasions replacing PR with single member districts, restricting therefore the UDMR's electoral impact to only two counties where the Hungarians had an overwhelming majority. These proposals were rejected, however, due to the united opposition of smaller parliamentary parties whose own electoral fortunes were jeopardized by such change.
23.
In the circumscriptions where the UDMR won seats, the district magnitude was Arad 7, Bihor 9, Brasov 9, Cluj 11, Covasna 4, Harghita 5, Maramures 8, Mures 9, Satu Mare 6, Salaj 4, Sibiu 6, Timis 10. This allowed the Union to win twenty-sine seats in the House of Representatives, albeit the Hungarians are in net majority only in Harghita and Covasna, where incidentally the magnitude is lowest.
24.
Ludmila Malikova, Politico-Administrative Relations under Coalition Politics in Slovakia (2003 [cited 2006]); available from unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/nispacee/unpan003674.pdf.
25.
Stephen M. Saideman , David J. Lanoue, and Amy Cox, "Guarantees or Monopolies: Understanding the Impact of Thresholds on Ethnic Conflict" (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, San Diego, CA, 2006), 1-14.
26.
Law 68 from 15 July 1992, Law for the Election of the House and Senate, Art.6.
27.
Article 59 (2) 1991 Constitution. This restriction made sense since each minority group had the right to one honorary seat in parliament. Indeed, article 59 guaranteed the political representation of minorities' organizations in the legislature, so that "organizations of citizens belonging to national minorities, which fail to obtain the number of votes for representation in the Parliament, have the right to one deputy seat each, under the terms of the electoral law." While the numerous Hungarian minority never had to resort to these guaranteed seats, and while giving single honorary seats to minorities does not mean giving them actual political power, article 59 did create the institutional conditions for the effective ethno-political mobilization of the Hungarian minority.
28.
Tom Gallagher , Romania after Ceausescu: The Politics of Intolerance (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 182.
29.
However, after the election, MKDH reneged on the agreement to form a single parliamentary group and the three parties ran on separate slates during the November 1994 local elections, often as rivals. John T. Ishiyama and Marijke Breuning, Ethnopolitics in the New Europe (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 71.
30.
László Nagy, MOS chairman in Slovak Spectator, Vol.4, No.10, 21 May 1998, available at http://www.slovakspectator.sk.
31.
Domokos was well-known and well-respected among Romanian politicians, who saw him as a rational partner. For instance, in January 1992, Câmpeanu, Coposu, and Cunescu, among other opposition and civil society figures, signed a letter wishing the UDMR leader quick recovery after a cerebral accident: "Dear Mr. Domokos Géza, We heard with sadness the fact that your health has been deteriorating lately and has required time in the hospital. And this happens at the very moment when our collaboration and the personal relations among our parties and organizations members of the CDR, have started to bring results. The union of truly democratic opposition forces has become a reality and a source of hope for the future of our country. We sent you our wishes of speedy recovery so that you can return to your family and beside us, those who have the renewed determination to work together [. . .]." Geza Domokos, Esely (the Chance) (Miercurea Ciuc: Pallas-Akademia, 1996), Vol. III, 90-91.
32.
Carter Johnson , "Democratic Transition in the Balkans: Romania's Hungarian and Bulgaria's Turkish Minority (1989-99)," Nationalism and Ethnic Politics8: 1 (2002): 18.
33.
Duray Miklós, Onrendelkezesi Kiserleteiuk (Mery Ratio Samorin, 1999), 305.
34.
"In Slovakia the old regime politicians preserved considerable control over development in the period prior to the 1990 founding elections. . . . At the level of the political elite, the assumption of power by the victorious HZDS represented an important strengthening of personnel continuity with the old regime." Sona Szomolanyi , "Slovakia: From a Difficult Case of Transition to a Consolidated Central European Democracy," in Slavic Research Center, ed., Democracy and Market Economics in Central and Eastern Europe (2004), 158.
35.
Vladimir Tismaneanu, "Romanian Exceptionalism? Democracy, Ethnocracy, and Uncertain Pluralism in Post-Communist Romania," in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott, eds., Politics, Power, and the Struggle for Democracy in South-East Europe (1997), 425-26.
36.
These opposition leaders were often repatriates, such as PNL's Radu Câmpeanu, PNŢ-CD's Ion Ratiu, or the Slovak Democratic Party's Martin Kvetko. Voters were put off by the fact that these leaders did not experience the harsh living conditions of communism and considered disingenuous their sudden concern for their country.
37.
Both the PNL and the PNŢ-CD had internal disputes between the old and the new guards. The PNL solved them by splitting into several parties. The PNŢ was under the authority figure of Corneliu Coposu and remained so until the senior's death in Nov. 1995. It is only then that the party softened its monarchist position.
38.
Tismaneanu, " Romanian Exceptionalism? Democracy, Ethnocracy, and Uncertain Pluralism in Post-Communist Romania," 429.
39.
Tismaneanu adequately described the Romanian political system between 1990 and 1996 as "presidentialism with ethnocentric and dictatorial undertones." Vladimir Tismaneanu, Balul Mascat ( Iasi: Polirom, 1996), 31. See also Cristian Preda, Tranzitie, Liberalism Si Natiune (Bucharest: Nemira, 2001), 170.
40.
Darina Malova , "Slovakia," in Hanspeter Neuhold, Peter Havlik, and Arnold Suppan, eds., Political and Economic Transformation in East Central Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 55. See also Andrew Janos, East Central Europe in the Modern World: The Politics of the Borderlands from Pre- to Postcommunism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 386; Zora Butorova and Martin Butora, "Political Parties, Value Orientations and Slovakia's Road to Independence ," in Gordon Wightman, ed., Party Formation in East-Central Europe: Post-Communist Politics in Czechoslovakia , Hungary, Poland, and Bulgaria (Aldershot, 1995), 121. Butorova and Butora speak of Mečiar's "raw majoritarianism"
41.
Peter A. Toma and Dusan Kovac, Slovakia. From Samo to Dzurinda (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press , 2001), 327. See also Haughton, Constraints and Opportunities of Leadership in Post-Communist Europe; Tim Haughton, "Vladimir Meciar and His Role in the 1994-1998 Slovak Coalition Government ," Europe-Asia Studies54: 8 (2002): 1319-38. While acknowledging Mečiar's authoritarian excesses, Stanislav Kirschbaum takes a more moderate view of the Slovak PM's behavior. Kirschbaum is more attuned to the reasons behind Me?iar's behavior, noting both the politician's personality and the circumstances that led to his decisions. Kirschbaum points to Mečiar's genuine concern for Slovakia's particular economic, political, and national situation. This is especially evident when Kirschbaum addresses Mečiar's ambivalence regarding privatization, his confederal position, and his foreign policy. See Stanislav J. Kirschbaum , A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival , 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 253-98.
42.
Jakub Zielinski , "Translating Social Cleavages into Party Systems: The Significance of New Democracy," World Politics54: 2 (2002): 184-212.
43.
The CDR was created in November 1991 under the slogan "we can only make it together." It united under a common protocol thirteen opposition parties and a number of civic organizations with the clear objective to take over power using a common strategy in the 1992 local and general elections. The CDR was thus primarily "a phenomenon of negation and resistance," built on the shared antipathy towards Iliescu and the FSN, an antipathy that transcended ethnic boundaries. Dan Pavel and Iulia Huiu, Nu Putem Reusi Decat Impreuna: O Istorie Analitica a Conventiei Democratice, 1989-2000 (Iasi: Polirom, 2003), 13.
44.
RFE/RL Reports, 10 November 1992.
45.
Radio Bucure?ti cited by Rompres in English, 1122 GMT, 9 Nov. 1992 in FBIS Daily Reports-Eastern Europe, 9 November 1992 (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-92-217), 29.
46.
Donald L. Horowitz, "Making Moderation Pay: The Comparative Politics of Ethnic Conflict Management," in Joseph V. Montville, ed., Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies ( Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1990), 451-75.
47.
Gyarmath János, interview with author, Bucharest, 2004 .
48.
The UDMR became part of the opposition's protocol for the 1996 presidential elections, in which Hungarians votes were critical to the victory of the opposition's candidate, Emil Constantinescu's. The protocol also included the Social Democratic Union (USD) created around the Democratic Party (PD) a splinter from Iliescu's FSN. Interestingly, after the elections, the CDR could have had the majority with the USD only. It decided to include the UDMR, trusting more his ethnic partner than the PD. Indeed, from 1996 to 2000, the UDMR proved to be the most reliable and disciplined of all parliamentary parties as well as a pole of stability for the CDR government.
49.
Jan Čarnogurský, interview with author, October 2004. See also Sabrina P. Ramet, ed., Eastern Europe: Politics, Culture, and Society since 1939 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 131.
50.
Prague, CSTK in English, 2057 GMT, 4 November 1992 in FBIS Daily Reports-Eastern Europe, 4 November 1992 (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-92-217), 12.
51.
Nepszabadsag, from 14 March 1994 cited in Bratislava Republika in Slovak, 10 May 1994, pp.1-2. Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS Daily Reports- Eastern Europe, 12 May 1994 (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-94-092), 7.
52.
Miklós, Onrendelkezesi Kiserleteiuk, 309. Duray linked the fact that Slovak parties were not willing to include Hungarians in the government to the position Hungarians had against Slovak independence. "Because of it, it was unconceivable for Slovak politicians to have Hungarians in the government." Interview with author, October 2004.
53.
Bratislava Rozhlasova Stanica Slovensko Network in Slovak, 1000 GMT , 10 May 1994. Translation by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS Daily Reports-Eastern Europe, 11 May 1994 (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-94-091), 6, and Miklós, Onrendelkezesi Kiserleteiuk, 305.
54.
Budapest Pesti Hirlap, 16 March 1994.
55.
Josef Moravčík, interview with author, Oct. 2004.
56.
Sharon Fisher , "An Education System in Chaos," Transition1: 16 (1995): 49.
57.
However, a closer look at the vote reveals that although the opposition voted in favor of government, the public vote requested by the parliamentary majority influenced the outcome. As opposition members were forced to publicly state their opinion, they feared that voting against the law would expose them to national-populist allegations of betraying the national interest. This helps explain why, several months later, in February 1996, the KDH and the MKDH agreed to lodge a complaint with the Constitutional Court against the Language Law. See Carol Skalnik Leff, The Czech and Slovak Republics, Nation Versus State (Boulder, CO: Westview Press , 1997), 165; and Pieter van Duin and Zuzana Polackova, "Democratic Renewal and the Hungarian Minority Question in Slovakia," European Societies2: 3 (2000): 347-48.
58.
A 3/5 majority was needed to elect a new president, and no such majority existed in the Slovak parliament. The Slovak constitution stipulated that in such cases the attributions of the president would fall onto the PM, which would have meant a complete power take over by Mečiar.
59.
TASR, 30 May 1997 in World News Connection (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-97-150).
60.
TASR, 2 Dec. 1997 in World News Connection (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-97-336). That said, the SDK program contained only marginal references to minorities, and SDK leaders made few public comments related to minorities.
61.
Sme, 4 November 1998 in World News Connection (PrEx 7.10: FBIS-EEU-98-338).
62.
Interviews with author, Bucharest, 2004 .
63.
Bacso Laszlo , interview with author, October 2004.
64.
Sarkozy Klara , interview with author, October 2004.
65.
Josef Moravčík , interview with author, October 2004.
66.
Duray Miklós, interview with author, October 2004.
67.
Remus Opriş, interview with author, Bucharest, 2004 . Tineretul Liber, 21 March 1992 notes: "A convention [CDR] that would eliminate the political formation of the Hungarian minority would suffer a decline in prestige and credibility in the eyes of good old Europe ."
68.
Peter Weiss, interview with author, October 2004.
69.
Pavel and Huiu, Nu Putem Reusi Decat Impreuna. O Istorie Analitica a Conventiei Democratice, 1989-2000, 228-29.
70.
SDK representative (requested anonymity), interview with author, October 2004.
71.
Kelley, Ethnic Politics in Europe. The Power of Norms and Incentives , 48.
