Hungarian minorities and majority nations in post-communist transition

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of post-communist transition on the Hungarian minority and majority nation relations in Slovakia from the collapse of Communism until 2006. The frame of the analysis are the triadic nexus and the dual model of ethnopolitics. The minority – titular relations analysed through the focus on how the resource distribution and its changes effects the power struggle between the two actors. It is assumed that the power struggle is fought for the cultural survival on one side and for the strengthening cultural dominance on the other side, as well as gaining as much from the distributable resources as possible. Minor changes in the power structure can be seen on the gains or losses of the minority, while major changes means the change of the ethnopolitical regimes. The main founding of the research is that we can differentiate two periods, in the first the minorities suffer losses, in the second the minorities achieve major gain, however the basic characters did not change between the two periods. The minority’s resources are insufficient for achieving its demands which are opposed by the titular nation. This regime which sentence the minority for eternal minority can be conceptualized as an ethnic democracy.