Abstract
This chapter discusses the notions of ethnic parallelism and the “Minority Society”, which have occupied a central role in the political program and self-representation of Transylvanian Hungarian elites since the interwar period and which were taken for granted by community leaders after 1989. Also, the chapter provides an overview of the thick institutional network meant to underpin the Hungarian societal segment (or pillar), which has played a key role in reproducing ethnic boundaries . The chapter emphasizes that ethnic parallelism can be regarded both as an ethno-political program and as a social reality, but in this latter respect encapsulation is far from perfect, as some fields are imperfectly encapsulated (e.g., education, the churches, mass media), while others are primarily not ethnically integrated (e.g., the economy).
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Notes
- 1.
In case of unranked systems of groups (1) ethnicity is not associated with certain social positions and (2) ethnic groups have channels of social mobility controlled by their own elites. This is, of course, an ideal type in a Weberian sense, as ethnic stratification is never perfectly symmetrical and elites of dominant groups always control more institutional channels than elites claiming to represent minorities. However, the usefulness of this concept becomes evident if one compares the relation between Roma and non-Roma on the one hand and that between Hungarians and Romanians on the other. In Romania to be Roma is a social stigma and signifies a marginal status (in spite of the fact that not all Roma are poor). Further, Roma elites control very few channels of mobility and, consequently, socially mobile Roma often depart themselves from their ascribed ethnic category. Contrary, the label of Hungarian does not mark any social status and (as we will see in this section of the volume) Hungarian elites control a wide range of institutions serving as channels of mobility.
- 2.
The British indirect rule is a well-known example. Here, the colonial administration relied on pre-existing power structures. Thus rulers, chiefs became mediators between the colonial administration and its subjects, while the population did not even interact with a unified administration.
- 3.
We define and discuss in details the terms of marked and unmarked in Chapter 10.
- 4.
Our own translation from Hungarian.
- 5.
The question “who owns the state” was posed recently by Wimmer (2002).
- 6.
“Purely social” was used by interwar Transylvanian political thinkers with the meaning of extra-state or non-administrative power/action.
- 7.
In the interwar period, ethnically divided cooperative movements were rather strong in Transylvania. See Hunyadi (2006).
- 8.
Egry (2014) argues that before World War I, Hungarian elites in Transylvania (especially those who lived in regions where the majority population was ethnic Romanian) often complained that the state was not sufficiently nationalizing, meaning that it was not efficient enough in consolidating Hungarian national interests. Today, Romanian elites in Harghita/Hargita and Covasna/Kovászna counties (with a Hungarian-majority population) express similar ideas.
- 9.
See Livezeanu (1995).
- 10.
This expression (etnikai burok in Hungarian) was used by Zoltán Biró (1998).
- 11.
The fluidity, situational, and contextual character of ethnic identities is often emphasized in the literature. We agree with those authors who do not take for granted this fluidity but emphasize that it varies greatly depending on the psychological and social price of leaving one’s own group or category (Jenkins 2008; Wimmer 2013).
- 12.
Kymlicka’s theory on multicultural democracy is also relevant here. According to him, state should support minority cultures, as individuals can enjoy individual freedoms only inside their own societal culture (Kymlicka 1995).
- 13.
Bárdi’s works (2006) contain detailed discussions of this issue. We thank Nándor Bárdi for pointing out the conceptual continuity that extends back to the Communist period.
- 14.
Obviously, full consociation is more than building parallel institutions and the political preconditions of consociation (segmental autonomy, grand coalitions, minority veto, and proportionality) are clearly missing in Romania. See Lijphart (1977).
- 15.
See also Culic (2016).
- 16.
Many institutions were “reestablished” (or at least took the names of ones existing in the interwar period).
- 17.
See also the introductory chapter of our volume for the relation between ethnic institutions and boundary maintenance .
- 18.
In 2003, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences carried out a wide-scale investigation aiming to create an exhaustive inventory of the Hungarian institutions (Csata et al. 2004). This investigation was repeated by the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities in 2009/2010 (Kiss 2010; Dániel and Kiss 2014). Several other projects focused on distinct subdomains of the institutional web (Barna 2004; Dániel 2014).
- 19.
- 20.
DiMaggio and Anheier (1990) used the notion of sector. We use “domain” in order to avoid confusion between domains of activity and sectors defined by ownership (public, private, nonprofit).
- 21.
It should be mentioned that Dániel (2014) argued for the use of fields without any reference to (externally defined) sectors. However, he had also defined externally (and a priori) his object of research and then reified it as a field (defined by internal processes) without any convincing analysis of the internal processes. We think that it is better to maintain the conceptual distinction between our own (a priori) classification and the structures that could be found following a detailed meso-level analysis.
- 22.
As for the (always relative) autonomy of different fields, Bourdieu used the metaphor of “prism” and “refraction”. The question is to what extent an institutional structure is able to transform external influences “according the specific logic of the field” (1993, p. 164).
- 23.
One might compare our model to the International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations (Salamon and Anheier 1996).
- 24.
According to several media sources, the Hungarian Government aims to build one or more hospitals to serve Hungarian citizens living in Romania. See Magyar kórház épül Erdélyben? Népszava, 5 June 2015 (Accessed at: http://nepszava.hu/cikk/1059438-magyar-korhaz-epul-erdelyben). This would be, of course, an important step toward ethnic parallelism in health care.
- 25.
On this dual power structure in the Székely Land , see Tánczos (1998).
- 26.
On Hungarian-language usage in the administration, see Toró (2017).
- 27.
In Hungarian: Romániai Magyar Pedagógusok Szövetsége . It administers the Educational Allowance provided by the Hungarian state for each family having children enrolled into the Hungarian-language educational system.
- 28.
See in details Dániel (2014).
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Kiss, T., Kiss, D. (2018). Ethnic Parallelism: Political Program and Social Reality: An Introduction. In: Kiss, T., Székely, I., Toró , T., Bárdi, N., Horváth, I. (eds) Unequal Accommodation of Minority Rights. Palgrave Politics of Identity and Citizenship Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78893-7_5
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