Civic nationhood and the challenges of
minority inclusion
The case of the post-communist Czech Republic
NADYA NEDELSKY
Macalester College,USA
ABSTRACT This article explores the theoretical debate over how best to
conceptualize the `civic nation' and its implications for minority inclusion. By
examining the Czech government's treatment of the Roma minority according to a
four-part measure of civic inclusiveness, it assesses the extent to which the regime's
foundation on the `civic principle' has produced a political community that actually
treats all citizens equally. The article thereby both critically assesses the claim that
the use of the civic principle is inherently conducive to minority inclusion and civic
equality and attempts to demonstrate that the term `civic' remains useful for analyz-
ing and classifying types of community.
KEYWORDS citizenship q equality q national identity q political culture q
Roma
INTRODUCTION
The invocation of the `right' of ethnic nations to self-determination is one
of the defining features of nationalist politics in the post-communist world.
New states throughout Central and Eastern Europe have been founded
upon this principle, producing regimes in which one particular ethnic nation
is constitutionally designated as the source of the state's sovereignty. In
some of these countries, the exclusion of ethnonational minorities from this
essential relationship to the state has prompted the allegation that minori-
ties are denied full political membership, producing serious ethnonational
tensions. Given the tendency in the region to use the ethnic nation as the
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building block of new political communities, the Czech Republic stands out
as something of an exceptional case. The country's constitution uses
the `civic principle', founding the state in the name of `We, the citizens
of the Czech Republic in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia' and resolving to
build the Czech Republic `as the home of free and equal citizens' (Parlia-
ment of the Czech Republic, 1992a). Not only is reference to the `right of
nations to self-determination' absent, the word `nation' is not used once in
the document.
The difference between the Czech Republic's definition of the citizenry
as the source of state sovereignty and the ethnic definition of sovereignty
predominant in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe raises the
question of what sort of conceptual distinction can be made between these
types of community. The starkness of the contrast invites the use of the two
oppositional models of nationhood traditional to the study of nations and
nationalism: the civic, wherein membership in the nation is derived from a
form of citizenship that is based on ethnically neutral political criteria; and
the ethnic, which bases membership on ethnic descent. The legitimacy of
the civic/ethnic dichotomy has, however, become the subject of consider-
able controversy in recent years. In particular, some analysts have pointed
out that many liberal analyses that use the dichotomy imply or express a
view that the civic model is normatively preferable to the ethnic. This judge-
ment is commonly based on the belief that the civic model provides a
neutral framework for community in which civic bonds overarch, and
thereby undermine, the relevance of potentially divisive differences within
a polity. Analysts critical of the traditional dichotomy argue that such
claims misrepresent the range of practical tendencies displayed by real (or
purported) civic nations ­ particularly with regard to minorities ­ and
thereby present a false case for their normative superiority. Such reassess-
ments have led some scholars to argue for a reconceptualization of the
civic/ethnic distinction and others to suggest that the concept of the `civic
nation' involves so unrealistic a representation of community that it is
useless as an analytical tool.
In this article, I argue that the new Czech state, and in particular its treat-
ment of its Roma minority, presents an interesting case through which to
explore these controversies. I begin in Part I by providing an overview of
the debate over the civic nation as a concept. I then lay out my case for why
the peculiarities of the Czech case both offer insight into issues central to
this debate and point towards a different way of analyzing and characteriz-
ing communities that are founded on the civic principle. In Part II, I
examine the foundations of the new Czech regime, looking at Czech
perspectives on the civic principle and the nation in historical context, the
new constitutional definition of the source of state sovereignty, and the
Czech citizenship law's effect on the Roma. In Part III, I assess the extent
to which the Czech Republic can properly be characterized as a `civic'
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political community by applying a four-part measure of civic membership
to the situation of the Roma minority. In Part IV, I look at the new Czech
Conception of Government Policy towards Members of the Roma
Community Designed to Facilitate Their Social Integration (Office of the
Government of the Czech Republic, 1999) and assess its initial effects. In
the final section, I offer my conclusions on the implications of the Czech
case for categorizing types of community.
PART I: THE CIVIC NATION ­ MODEL OR MYTH?
a) The debate
The conceptual distinction between the civic and ethnic models of nation-
hood owes much to the work of Hans Kohn, who argued that western and
eastern nationalisms are essentially opposite types. According to Kohn,
`while Western nationalism was, in its origin, connected with the concepts
of individual liberty and rational cosmopolitanism current in the eighteenth
century, the later nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia
easily tended towards a contrary development' (1994: 164). Kohn uses the
example of German nationalism to define the eastern type, observing that
it `substituted for the legal and rational concept of "citizenship" the infi-
nitely vaguer concept of "folk"', whose `roots seemed to reach into the dark
soil of primitive times and to have grown through thousands of hidden
channels of unconscious development, not in the bright light of rational
political ends' (1994: 165). Kohn's highly influential view of nationalism
thus distinguished between the rational, universalistic civic nationalism of
the West and the irrational, particularistic ethnic nationalism of the East.
Kohn's implied, if not explicit, normative judgement concerning the
desirability of the western conception of nationhood has been carried
forward in some more recent analyses of the politics of `civic' and `ethnic'
nations, particularly in the post-communist context. Michael Ignatieff's
work is frequently cited as representative of such analysis (see also Pfaff,
1993: 87). According to Ignatieff, the civic model `envisages the nation as a
community of equal, rights-bearing citizens, united in patriotic attachment
to a shared set of political practices and values' (1993: 3­4). Jürgen
Habermas has also provided an influential defense of the civic nation,
arguing that `[t]he nation of citizens does not derive its identity from some
common ethnic and cultural properties, but rather from the praxis of
citizens who actively exercise their civil rights' (1992: 3, emphasis in
original).1 In his view, it is `constitutional principles rooted in a political
culture' rather than `an ethical-cultural form of life as a whole' that provides
the basis for civic nationhood (1992: 17). Habermas emphasizes that it is
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critical to distinguish between the political community and `sub-political'
communities because without such a distinction the majority culture will
become overbearing and violate the rights of other cultures to equality and
`mutual recognition' (1994: 134­5). While Habermas devotes more atten-
tion than Ignatieff to the potential tension between the universalistic state
and the particularistic claims of various communities living under it, both
agree that the bonds of civic nationhood are produced by political prin-
ciples and practices that transcend the ties of ethnocultural identity ­ a
normatively desirable outcome from a liberal perspective.2
Will Kymlicka and Anthony Smith, among others, have challenged such
conceptualizations of the civic nation. Both point out that there is little
historical evidence to support claims that civic nations are based on exclus-
ively rational political ties and that the regimes that employ a civic defi-
nition of sovereignty are essentially culturally neutral. According to Smith,
the barrier to such claims
springs from the internal contradiction at the heart of the national state
between a universal conception of citizenship, with its uniform rights and
duties, and an inevitably particularist conception of the `people,' i.e. the
community of which each citizen is a member. Here we have to return to the
ethnic basis of so many nations. (1995: 98)
Kymlicka illustrates this argument with the American example, observing
that when the US was founded, the majority of the new nation's members
had common roots in English language, literature and religion (1995: 200,
n. 15). While Kymlicka acknowledges that in building the new nation the
American founders placed emphasis on particular political principles
(`liberty, equality, democracy'), he argues that it is wrong to `conclude from
this that American nationalism is ideological rather than cultural. . . .
Ideology shaped, but did not replace, the cultural component of national
identity' (1995: 200, emphasis in original). In a similar vein, Nicholas Xenos
(1996) argues that the collective identities that leaders of civic nations
appeal to within the citizenry tend to draw strongly on a view of national
community as natural and familial rather than strictly political.3
Given that civic nations are not culturally neutral, there is no reason,
argue Smith and Kymlicka, to assume that minorities will readily be granted
membership in such communities. Indeed, civic nations often require that
ethnic minorities relinquish or privatize important elements of their distinc-
tive identity `as the price for receiving citizenship and its benefits' (Smith,
1995: 101). Thus, even though minority individuals have citizenship rights,
the marginalization or repression of their cultures and attempts to assimi-
late their members can cause ethnonational conflict just as easily as ethnic
nationalism ­ as happened, for example, with both the native Americans in
the US and the Kurds in Turkey (Kymlicka, 1999: 132). In other cases,
majorities may reject the voluntary assimilation of minorities, a reaction
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
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that met Jewish attempts to assimilate in France (Smith, 1995: 97). By
exploring empirical examples of communities based on the civic model,
Smith and Kymlicka offer a serious challenge to claims that the civic nation
is inherently conducive to minority membership and therefore normatively
superior to communities based on the ethnic model.4
Taking the criticism of the civic nation a step further, Bernard Yack and
Kai Nielsen find the concept so ideologically loaded and empirically uncon-
vincing as to be of little analytical use. According to Yack, the definition of
civic nationhood as a `rational and freely chosen allegiance to a set of
political principles' reflects a `mixture of self-congratulation and wishful
thinking' (Yack, 1999: 105). It is less an analytical tool than a liberal project
to `find and preserve a form of national community that is compatible with
liberal political commitments' (1999: 115). While expressing sympathy with
the envisioned goal, Yack argues that the relationship between inherited
culture and political principles is so deeply intertwined as to make a
dichotomy based on nations of choice versus nations of inheritance unten-
able:
It may be reasonable to contrast nations whose distinctive cultural inheritance
centers on political symbols and political stories with nations whose cultural
inheritance centers on language and stories about ethnic origins. But it is
unreasonable and illegitimate to interpret this contrast as a distinction between
the rational attachment to principle and the emotional celebration of inherited
culture. (1999: 106)
Thus, according to Yack, the category of `civic' nation offers a false distinc-
tion from other types of national community and is best categorized as a
`myth'. Nielsen also argues that the dichotomy between the civic and the
cultural nation is insupportable, observing that `[t]here is no purely political
conception of the nation, liberal or otherwise' (Nielsen, 1999: 127). Given
the necessary relationship between culture and national community, he
concludes that `[t]alk of civic nationalism had better be dropped from our
political vocabulary (including the vocabulary of political theory), if we
wish to be clear and coherent in our analyses in the real world' (1999: 127).
b) Relevance of the Czech case for an investigation of the civic nation
One of the key problems that the scholars surveyed above find with the
traditional conceptualization of the civic nation is that some analysts who
use it are at the same time advocating it, at times seemingly without regard
to real cases that undermine their broad normative claims. This issue of
overlapping analysis and advocacy is worth expanding upon here, as its
application to the Czech case leads in an interesting direction. In this regard,
Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper develop a persuasive cautionary
argument concerning the use of terms that are at once `categories of social
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and political practice' ­ or terms that are used in everyday experience and
in the construction of political ideologies and argumentation ­ and
`categories of social and political analysis' (2000: 4, emphases in original).
The problem that Brubaker and Cooper identify is that analysts may
conflate ideological representations, empirical observations and conceptual
categories and thereby reify and reinforce particular ideological construc-
tions of such terms as `identity' and the `nation' (see also Zubrzycki, 2001:
360). This brings me back to the case at hand. According to critics, analysts
often use the concept of civic nationhood to prod states into adopting it as
a model, and members of states that are based on the model invoke it to
congratulate themselves on an idealized vision of their political communi-
ties. Here the Czech case offers an interesting twist. There is no doubt that
the Czech constitution is based upon the `civic principle' whereby the `free
and equal citizen' provides the foundation of the state. From an analytical
perspective, therefore, the new political community falls under the category
of a civic nation. At the same time, neither the constitution nor the country's
leaders claim to have established a civic nation; no nation at all is invoked
in the state's founding document. I will argue in this article that the exist-
ence of a Czech nation with ethnocultural and historical moorings is never-
theless strongly implied, but not given formal political standing in the
constitution. Moreover, post-communist Czech governments have been
widely criticized by international observers and domestic human rights
groups for their treatment of the state's Roma minority. In the Czech
Republic, the kinds of tensions between universal citizenship norms, on the
one hand, and the dominance of a particular ethnonational majority and
unequal treatment of a minority, on the other hand, that critics of the
traditional conception of civic nationhood highlight do exist, but without the
claim of civic nationhood. I propose that the absence of this claim allows us
to step back from the question of what really constitutes a nation, wherein,
as Yack argues, it is difficult ­ if not impossible ­ to untangle the bonds and
identities produced by political ideas from those that are cultural and
historical. The Czech case is thus promising in terms of the theoretical
reassessment of civic nationhood because it unlinks the concept's two
central elements: the civic and the national. Once we retreat from the claim
that the use of the civic principle in itself produces a category of nation-
hood, we can refocus on the question of the civic principle's relevance for
structuring the relationship between the state and a diverse citizenry and
thereby assess whether the descriptive term `civic' retains some theoretical
significance for categorizing communities.
In this article, I argue that it does. It is my view, following Ronald Beiner,
that the adjective `civic' need not imply that culture is `politically irrelevant'
in a particular community and, moreover, that shared citizenship offers a
way of `transcending' cultural differences and `preoccupations' (1999: 14).
It is useful here to return to the sine qua non of the traditional definition
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of civic nationhood: a citizenship based on political rather than prepolitical
criteria. Moving forward from this core (but away from some traditional
theorists), I would argue that what is essential to the resulting community's
nature is neither the absence of any cultural, historical or linguistic ties, nor
its members' exclusive identification with political principles, but the
equality of the individual inherent in universal citizenship. It is this equality
that fundamentally defines the relationship between the citizen and the
state as well as the political relationships within the citizenry. Thus, I
propose that `civicness' can be measured as the extent to which the
community of citizens actually accords equality of membership regardless
of concurrent pre- or sub-political identities or memberships such as those
based on race, class, ethnonationality, religion or gender. In other words,
the higher the level of civic equality, the more `civic' the community ­
although clearly no community will ever be purely civic according to this
measure.
One way of applying this measure is to look at the status of groups within
the political community that have a different ethnocultural identity from
the society's majority. To do this in the Czech case, I draw on a model of
the different dimensions of the relationship between the state and its
minority citizens offered by Ivan Gabal in his analysis of the problems of
Roma integration in the Czech Republic. It is my view that Gabal's four
dimensions represent progressively higher levels of membership in the
community of citizens: the first involves `negative protections against
violent discrimination and persecution' based on minority status (1999: 74);
the second dimension concerns `protection against nonviolent discrimi-
nation' through `the guarantee and full enforcement of civil and human
rights even for members of minorities' and the maintenance of a funda-
mental equality of opportunity for minorities to participate in the public,
political, social, economic and cultural areas of the society's life (1999:
74­5); the third dimension involves state protection of the `right to self-
fulfillment and development of one's own ethnic, national, or cultural
identity' (1999: 75), wherein Gabal focusses on the `internal life of the
minority community'; and the fourth and final dimension involves `the full
integration of the minority into the society' and the opportunity for
mobility in `all positions and levels inside the majority society' (1999: 75).
It appears to me that this measure assesses the realization of two key
political principles: civic equality and freedom from state interference
sufficient to sustain and develop individual or community identities. This
freedom is a necessary correlate to equality on the scale of membership
because a community based on universal citizenship should in principle
neither privilege certain ethnocultural groups nor require ethnocultural
conformity beyond certain limited bounds (such as, for example, a common
language in the political sphere, knowledge of the community's history and
curtailment of cultural practices that are legally prohibited).5
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In the following case study of the relationship between the Czech state
and its Roma minority, I use these dimensions to assess the extent to which
the regime's foundation upon the `civic principle' has produced a `civic'
political community. I thereby attempt to further substantiate the validity
of criticisms holding that the use of the civic principle neither ensures the
cultural neutrality of the state nor guarantees all citizens equal membership
in a civic `nation'. At the same time, I hope to demonstrate that the term
`civic' nevertheless remains useful for analyzing and classifying types of
community because it offers a standard for evaluating the terms of member-
ship, and boundaries thereto, in a polity based on universal citizenship.
Before proceeding, I would like to stress that, in focussing on the Czech
government's responsibility for securing the Roma's civic equality, I do not
wish to understate the complexities of the relationship between the Roma
minority and the ethnic Czech majority. Integration and constructive civic
co-existence require effort from both sides, but the scope of this article
precludes a discussion of the all the dimensions of this problem. I therefore
limit myself to addressing the state's role in guaranteeing equal member-
ship for all its citizens.
PART II: THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE CZECH POLITICAL
COMMUNITY
a) Historical context of Czech perspectives on the civic principle and
the nation
Looking back over the development of Czech political thought from the
mid-19th century onwards, it appears that there are two powerful traditions
concerning the legitimacy and relative priority of the `civic principle' as a
foundational element of political community. The perspective of the post-
communist regime's liberal founders and defenders, which accords all
citizens equal rights and full political membership, has a pedigree that can
be traced back to one of the Czech nation's `fathers', the journalist and
democratic activist Karel Havlic˘ek (1820­56). His contribution to the
`Czech national awakening' included influential essays on the nature of a
just political community, which he envisioned as a voluntary association of
free and equal individuals, bound together by a rational rather than an
organic bond. This view of the autonomy and equality of the individual
strongly influenced the `founding father' and first president of the first
Czechoslovak state (1918­38), Thomas Garrigue Masaryk (1850­1937), and
thereby contributed to the First Republic's political-philosophical under-
pinnings. Further, many Prague Spring reformers and, after them, Charter
77 dissidents (including current President Havel) called for a return to
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
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meaningful citizenship, whereby the government's legitimacy derives from
the consent of the entire citizenry and its power is limited by the civil rights
of the individual. The new Czech regime thus reflects continuity with this
enduring tradition in Czech political thought.
At the same time, the exclusive use of the civic principle has no prece-
dent in Czech state-building. A second tradition of political thought that
both defines the Czech nation in ethnic terms and views it as the proper
source of state sovereignty has always existed alongside ­ and in some
tension with ­ the more civic tradition. Although it demonstrated a strong
commitment to individual rights, the First Republic was based on the ethnic
principle, with the Czechoslovak nation enjoying elevated `state-forming'
(státovorn) status. Thus, while all citizens of the First Republic were
constitutionally guaranteed equal protection by the law, the minority
nationalities did not have the same relationship to the state as members of
the Czechoslovak nation. Moreover, in practical terms, this nation's
constituent elements did not enjoy equal status to one another. As David
Paul argues, the Czechoslovak nation was to embody `the best elements of
the Czech tradition' (1979: 216). In the view of the state's founders,
membership of such a nation would gradually elevate the lesser developed
Slovaks to the level of their Czech co-nationals. The traditional bases of
Slovak national identity were therefore expected largely to give way to this
Czech-dominated identity. The short-lived Third Republic (1945­8) was
also based on an ethnic conception of nationhood that served to justify the
brutal postwar expulsion of the Sudeten Germans and some ethnic Hun-
garians from the state's territory (acts whose political repercussions
continue to this day). Finally, although the communist state's leaders hoped
to overcome national divisions through the development of a socialist
political identity that would overarch and eventually supplant ethnona-
tional identity, Slovak nationalism's tenacity and its assertiveness in the
1960s provided evidence of the failure of this project and led to the state's
federalization along ethnic lines.
Thus, the post-communist Czech leaders' decision to jettison the ethnic
definition of sovereignty that had undergirded each preceding Czecho-
slovak regime (and even justified ethnic cleansing after the Second World
War) in favor of a purely civic one represents a striking divergence from a
longstanding element of the Czech political tradition. The fact that the
liberal elements of Czech political culture have always co-existed in some
tension with an ethnic understanding of nationhood, combined with
historical patterns of Czech political and cultural dominance within the
common Czecho-Slovak state, provides an important context for an explo-
ration of the boundaries of membership in the new political community. It
also offers some insight into why the post-communist Slovak leaders
reacted so negatively when the Czechs scolded them for elevating the ethnic
principle over the civic in the frustrating debates over post-communist
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state-building. Ultimately, the two nations' incompatible visions of the
future state ­ which the Czechs saw as a strong federation and the Slovaks
as a confederation of sovereign nation states ­ led to deadlock and the
`velvet divorce'.
b) Defining the new Czech political community
The constitution I turn now to a closer examination of the constitutional
definition of sovereignty that provides the foundation for the new Czech
state. As I stated in the introduction, the preamble to the Czech consti-
tution founds the state in the name of `We, the citizens of the Czech
Republic in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia'. Both the lack of any mention
of a nation in the document and the relative ease with which the source of
sovereignty is defined are very unusual in the post-communist Central and
Eastern European context. For example, constitution-building in both
ethnically mixed Slovakia and largely homogeneous Poland (the Czech
Republic's northern and southern neighbors) was marked by intense
debates over whether the entire citizenry or the dominant ethnic nation
should be named as the state's founding entity. In the end, neither state
adopted the civic principle: Slovakia used an ethnic definition, while Poland
produced `an ambiguous if not contradictory definition of the nation' that
attempted to combine the civic and ethnic principles (Zubrzycki, 2001: 636).
In the Czech Republic, however, there was relatively little debate over the
proper source of state sovereignty. The dominant perspective conformed to
then Prime Minister Václav Klaus's statement that the `foundation of the
state is the free citizen' (1992). Pavel Pes˘ka, the director of the Department
of Constitutional Law at Charles University, objected that `[i]t is absurd,
even though the civic principle is rightly emphasized, that the existence of
the Czech nation would not be mentioned in the entire constitution' (1992).
The main resistance to the constitution's definition of sovereignty came,
however, from representatives from Moravia who argued that Moravian
national identity was not properly recognized (see, for example, `Komise
C˘ NR o návhru ústavy', 1992). During the parliamentary debate over the
constitution, the Movement for Self-Governing Democracy-Society for
Moravia and Silesia (HSD-SMS) deputy Jir˘í Bílý proposed that the phrase
`civic society' (which the document's preamble pledged to respect) should
be supplemented by the phrase `proceeding from the principle of the equal
rights of nations' because `states are established not by citizens, but by
nations' (Parliament of the Czech Republic, 1992b). His fellow deputy from
southern Moravia Jir˘í Drápela (Liberal Social Union) also asked that the
constitution open with the words `We, citizens of the Czechomoravian
[c˘eskomoravské] Republic in the Czech lands, in Moravia, and in Silesia'
(1992b). Interestingly, this was the only proposed revision of the preamble's
opening words and it remains within the boundaries of the civic model.
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
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Vice-Premier Jan Kalvoda argued against the Moravians' proposals, declar-
ing that the rights of nations `have no place at the head of the constitution'
(1992b). Kalvoda's position won out and the constitution was passed
without the Moravian amendments.
Clearly, therefore, the Czech Republic is founded on the civic principle.
At the same time, it is important to note that the new constitution states
explicitly that the new political community represents a `renewal of an inde-
pendent Czech state', true to the traditions of the ancient Czech crown
lands as well as the previous Czechoslovak states (see Bakke, 2001). Given
both the ethnic foundations of these states and the traditional definition of
the Czech nation according to ethnic criteria, it is difficult to argue that the
ethnic Czech national identity does not have a special and defining relation-
ship to the new republic. Indeed, the political discourse sometimes points
to such a relationship. For example, former Czech Prime Minister Miloš
Zeman's speech on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the First
Czechoslovak Republic opens with the salutation `Esteemed fellow
citizens', but then proceeds to speak about the situation of `our nation'
during the 19th century when it was nearly assimilated under the pressure
of `stronger neighbors' and almost lost `its most precious cultural value, its
own language' (Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, 1998).
Still, the constitution neither grants the Czech nation formal dominance nor
privileges its language as the `state language' ­ a critical issue in Slovak
constitution-building. The new state is rather to be the `home of the free
and equal citizen'.
Citizenship law As the citizen was the new state's primary rights-bearing
entity, the question of who may be granted citizenship was of defining
importance to the character of the new political community. According to
the Law on the Acquisition and Loss of Czech Citizenship (passed on 29
December 1992), only those who held `Czech citizenship' in the Czecho-
slovak state were entitled to automatic citizenship in the new state. This
`Czech citizenship' was based on citizenship laws that accompanied the 1969
federalization of the communist state, under which all Czechoslovak citizens
were also given the designation of either `Czech' or `Slovak' according to
their place of birth. Those born after the promulgation of these laws inher-
ited their status from their parents. These new designations were, however,
only relevant within the country: `Czechoslovak' remained the internation-
ally recognized citizenship. It was also a simple matter to change one's desig-
nation if one moved to the other republic.6 The designation was not printed
on passports or similar identification and had `no relationship to any rights,
privileges, or duties' (CSCE, 1996). This `citizenship's' lack of significance is
reflected in a December 1992 article in the Slovak Pravda, which asked, `Do
you know whether you are a citizen of the Slovak Republic or the Czech
Republic?' (see `Narodili ste sa na Slovensku?', 1992).
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While the law gave automatic citizenship to Czech citizens, those
deemed Slovaks by the 1969 law were considered foreigners who had the
right to apply for citizenship according to `marginally less restrictive
conditions than those which apply to other potential immigrants' (CSCE,
1994). These requirements proved to be a particularly serious barrier to
Roma access to citizenship. Because nearly all the Czech Roma were
murdered in the holocaust (or, in Roma terminology, the devouring), most
Czechoslovak Roma were either born in Slovakia or have Slovak parents.
Thus, even though only one-third of the 200,000­300,000 Roma living in the
Czech Republic at the state's founding7 were born in Slovakia, according
to the 1969 law they are mostly Slovak (Miklušáková, 1999: 267). For those
who fell under this designation, a complicated bureaucratic process
followed, involving municipal, federal and Slovak authorities. As Human
Rights Watch reported, `[e]ven for educated people, the process was obtuse
and confusing. But for many Roma, who suffer disproportionately from low
levels of education and literacy, it was at times incomprehensible. . . . For
many, the very notion of citizenship was confusing' (1996). Nongovern-
mental organizations (NGOs) stepped in to assist Roma applicants, but
found that the authorities were not always cooperative and sometimes
intentionally obstructive, misrepresenting rules or withholding details of
appeal procedures (CSCE, 1994; Human Rights Watch, 1996).
By far the most important obstacles, however, were the law's two main
requirements of a clean criminal record for five years and proof of two
years' permanent residence. The clean record was particularly difficult as it
did not take into account the severity of the crime. With Roma unemploy-
ment ranging from 70­90 percent in some areas (Office of the Government
of the Czech Republic, 1997: 24), convictions for small-scale crimes such as
robbery and theft are common, especially among young men (`How Many
Forms Must a Czech Gypsy Fill in?', Guardian, 23 September 1994).
Proving permanent residence has also proved difficult for the Roma as a
housing shortage and the processes of privatization and restitution have
complicated the post-communist housing situation. Many Roma live in
apartments overflowing with family members, and local authorities are
often unwilling to register all the inhabitants of illegally overcrowded
dwellings.8
`As Czech officials admit', the CSCE reported in 1994, `virtually every
person excluded from Czech citizenship under the new law is a Roma'.
Prime Minister Klaus responded to concerns about this differential impact
by arguing that `the conditions for obtaining citizenship are binding for all
applicants who are citizens of other states, and do not apply to specifically
designated groups of persons' (`V. Klaus píše Romům', 1993). This avowal
of strict government neutrality has, however, come under serious scrutiny.
While Human Rights Watch cautions that the charge is difficult to prove
conclusively, there is evidence suggesting that the law was written `with the
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
97
specific intent of hindering citizenship for Roma and facilitating their
removal from the Czech lands' (1996). Much of this evidence came from
interviews that the group conducted with a large number of people that had
either fallen under the scope of the law or who had kept track of its effects.
Two further pillars appear to support this allegation. The first is an
internal 1991 government document that addressed the possibility of the
`catastrophic scenario' of a mass influx of Roma into the Czech lands if the
common state was dissolved. Portions of the report were leaked to the press
in 1992, two aspects of which were subjected to particular scrutiny. One was
the proposal that the government `take advantage of the departure of
useless individuals from enterprises, particularly for reasons of structural
change, and of the moving away of citizens of the Roma nationality to
Slovakia' (`Romská hrozba?', 1992). The second particularly controversial
element was the government's stated plan, in the event of the state's disso-
lution, `[t]o take measures toward the prevention of the mass migration of
Roma into the Czech Republic' (`Romská hrozba?', 1992).
The second pillar involves a series of developments during the latter half
of 1992. As the state moved closer to dissolution, tensions grew in the econ-
omically depressed industrial areas of northern Bohemia between ethnic
Czechs and the Roma communities whose numbers were growing because
of migration of Slovak Roma to the area to live with family and friends. The
representatives of several northern Bohemian towns responded by
demanding that the Czech government `grant state citizenship as well as the
permanent residence status only with the concurrence of the municipalities'
(Krasnický, 1992) and that `Czech citizenship be granted only to people
without a criminal record who were recommended by the municipality in
which they resided' (Pehe, 1993: 20). It seems unlikely that it was a coinci-
dence that the citizenship law reflected the Bohemian mayor's demands
concerning both the clean criminal record and a role for municipalities in
according citizenship.9
The citizenship law drew a fair amount of criticism both domestically and
internationally. It was estimated that in July 1998, over five years after the
law's enactment, at least 15,000 people had yet to legalize their residence
in the state (Miklušáková, 1999: 522, n. 257 [endnote]). After several
smaller modifications over the years, parliament passed a law in 1999 to
allow former citizens of Czechoslovakia who have lived in the Czech
Republic since 1993 to gain citizenship through a simple declaration. The
Czech citizenship law thus finally shed its most controversial aspects.
However, for the first six years of the Czech Republic's existence, the
government pursued a policy that promoted the exclusion of the Roma
from full membership of the new state. As Jan Rusenko, a member of the
Roma Democratic Congress, saw it, the law was `only an administrative way
of separating the wheat from the chaff' (Šidlo, 1993). It thus appears that
Czech citizenship policy may be an example of what Robert Hayden terms
NEDELSKY q CIVIC NATIONHOOD AND MINORITY INCLUSION
98
`bureaucratic "ethnic cleansing"' (1992: 668). Any claims concerning the
Czech state founders' strict adherence to the `civic principle' must be
assessed with this context in mind.
PART III: HOW CIVIC IS THE CZECH REPUBLIC?
DIMENSIONS OF CIVIC EQUALITY IN THE 1990S
I turn now to the question of how successfully the Czech Republic has
realized its foundational civic principle in terms of the provision of equal
membership to citizens belonging to the Roma minority, which I gauge
according to Gabal's (1999) four dimensions of minority integration.
Although space prohibits a full exploration of the complex issues involved
in each of these dimensions, I expect that an overview of these issues will
be sufficient to establish whether or not the Czech Republic has met the
requirements of these dimensions.
Dimension 1: does the Czech state protect its minorities from violent
discrimination and persecution?
In 1996, Human Rights Watch observed that `[r]acist attacks ­ and the
government's lack of response ­ are the most serious concern of Roma in
the country today'. Six years later, the same remains true. The govern-
ment's response has been particularly criticized for five tendencies: 1) when
gangs of skinheads attack Roma, only a few individuals are actually prose-
cuted; 2) crimes are infrequently prosecuted under the provisions for racial
motivation; 3) perpetrators are charged with lesser crimes than warranted
by the seriousness of the attacks; 4) courts are biased in dealing with Roma
testimony; and 5) police abuse of Roma is insufficiently punished, if at all
(Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, 2001; European Roma
Rights Center [ERRC], 1997b). In addition, observers point out that,
because of their low level of education, many Roma have an inadequate
understanding of the legal system, which leaves them `open to abuse'
(Human Rights Watch, 1996).
These disturbing tendencies are well illustrated by the tortuous govern-
ment response to the 1993 murder of Tibor Danihel, a 17-year-old Roma.
Danihel drowned after being chased into a river by a group of around 40
rock-throwing skinheads in the town of Písek. According to various reports,
the head of the district prosecutor's office, the judge in charge of the case
and the deputy mayor all publicly made light of the crime, suggesting it was
a prank that had gotten out of hand (ERRC, 1997a, 1998). When the case
finally reached court (which was filled with skinhead observers), the charges
were thrown out against most of the accused and only two were convicted
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
99
of `damaging the health resulting in death', for which they were given
suspended sentences of one year (Human Rights Watch, 1996). The verdict
was annulled on appeal by the regional court and returned for further
investigation. The new indictment again did not contain a murder charge
against any of the four defendants, accusing them instead of a `violation of
civic co-existence' (ERRC, 1997a). In March 1997, the district court handed
down sentences of 22­31 months for three of the defendants and a
suspended two-year sentence for the fourth, sentences affirmed by the
regional court in June 1997. In February 1998, the supreme court ordered
a retrial, stating that the light sentences constituted an `abuse of the law to
the benefit of the accused' (RFE/RL, 1998). Finally, in June 1999, three
skinheads were convicted of racially motivated murder and attempted
murder and sentenced to prison terms ranging from six-and-a-half to eight-
and-a-half years (RFE/RL, 1999b).
According to Hana Fristenská, the Czech government's response to
`interethnic violence' has developed in several stages. The first (from
1990­92) was characterized by a `complete lack of reaction to the growing
intensity of racist violence' (1999: 249). During the second stage (from 1993
to the first half of 1995), the government came to understand that
conditions were worsening, but failed to fully recognize the relationship
between the Roma's situation and the attitudes of the majority society
(1999: 251). The next turning point came in the second half of 1995, largely
as a result of widespread outrage at the light sentences handed down to a
group of skinheads who beat to death a Roma named Tibor Berki in front
of his family. The state was thus prompted to tighten its policies on racially
motivated violence. Two years later, however, when a stream of Czech
Roma left the country to apply for refugee status in Canada and the UK,
many referred in their applications to the lack of police protection from
skinhead violence. In October 1997, the Czech government published a
report (often referred to as the `Bratinka report') on the situation of Roma
in the country, which included a number of recommendations to improve
the situation. Its proposals included: 1) the minister of the interior screen-
ing candidates for the police force for prejudice and racism; 2) admitting as
many Roma candidates as possible to police training schools; 3) preventing
the formation of groups based on racial or ethnic intolerance and fascism;
and 4) securing financial support for programs aimed at the prevention of
criminality and drug dependency in the Roma community (Office of the
Government of the Czech Republic, 1997, `Návrh usnesení': 2­310). In
addition, the report proposed that the Ministry of Justice closely follow
racially motivated crime and inform the government regularly about
observed trends (1997, `Návrh usnesení': 4).
The central government's various efforts did lead to some improve-
ments. Even before the Bratinka report, the European Commission against
Racism and Intolerance (ECRI, a body of the Council of Europe) noted
NEDELSKY q CIVIC NATIONHOOD AND MINORITY INCLUSION
100
that the prosecution of racially motivated crime by the government had
shown a `marked improvement over recent years' (1997: 9). At the same
time, ECRI stated that neither police enforcement nor sentencing policy
had been particularly vigorous or consistent. Moreover, observers reported
that the denial of equal protection continued to occur primarily at the lower
levels of the criminal justice system.11 As Roma activist Ondrej Gina told
the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, while `Roma are equal to
other citizens in the eyes of the country's constitution and laws . . . in
practice it is difficult and sometimes impossible for Roma to obtain protec-
tion at the local or district level' (CRD, 1997d, from website). Human
Rights Watch agreed with this assessment, reporting that Roma's rights are
often violated in local `police stations, courtrooms and administrative
offices' (1997d, from website). ECRI has expressed concerns about `the
compatibility of local actions with national priorities' (2000: 11). It there-
fore appears that serious differences exist between central and some local
government views on the legitimacy of civic equality as a guiding principle
for practice in the criminal justice system.
With regard to dimension 1, it is clear that the Czech government has
not succeeded in guaranteeing its minority citizens the most basic level of
civic membership: effective protection from violent discrimination and
persecution.
Dimension 2: does the Czech state guarantee protection for its
minority citizens against non-violent discrimination?
Local government policies directed at the Roma Non-violent
discrimination against the Roma is far more prevalent than violent discrimi-
nation; it has also been the subject of considerable debate and conflict in
the Czech Republic. In particular, the specific targeting of local policies and
decrees against Roma has sparked a number of confrontations between
central and lower levels of government. The first occurred at around the
time of the Czecho-Slovak `velvet divorce', when the Jirkov city council
passed a decree (which its members admitted was directed at the Roma)
allowing authorities to evict people from apartments they deemed unsani-
tary or overcrowded (Human Rights Watch, 1996). The decree also placed
restrictions on visitors to the city, requiring them to obtain approval from
the town hall and limiting their stay to a week. A family could only have
visitors twice a year and the police were given the power to enter an apart-
ment where they suspected that unregistered guests were staying. The
general prosecutor declared that the so-called `Jirkov decrees' violated the
Charter on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, but no action was taken
against the city authorities. Five other northern Bohemian towns quickly
followed Jirkov's lead, adopting measures based on certain aspects of the
decrees.
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There have been a number of less dramatic controversies that have
nevertheless drawn public attention to the issue of local government
discrimination against Roma. In 1996, the mayor of Kladno was charged
with inciting racial hatred after banning Roma children from a public
swimming pool during a hepatitis outbreak (Lemon, 1996). His eventual
conviction (after one acquittal) sparked a debate in the Czech press over
the permissible scope of local policy (see, for example, Miroslav Korecký,
1996). In 1999, yet another scandal erupted when it was revealed that
government employment offices had been marking Roma files with an `R'
as a signal to potential employers (Kim, 1999: 62); the policy was quickly
prohibited (RFE/RL, 1999d).
Probably the most striking example of local government policy directed
against Roma is the Ústi nad Labem wall, which became a topic of inter-
national scrutiny in May 1998. Reacting to complaints from ethnic Czechs
living near a tenement building housing a large number of Roma families,
a municipal council in Ústi nad Labem decided to build a wall in front of
the Roma dwelling. According to Mayor Ladislav Hruska, the wall was `not
racially motivated', but intended to `separate the decent people from those
who are not' (RFE/RL, 1998). The central government responded by
declaring the wall racist and discriminatory and ordered the council execu-
tive to reconsider the decision. The council reconsidered, but approved a
resolution declaring that the decision did not violate Czech law. In October
1999, the Chamber of Deputies voted by a large majority to overturn the
council's decision. That same day, however, the city moved pre-emptively
to complete the project.
The wall's completion provoked renewed internal and international criti-
cism, and President Havel called on the city to tear the wall down immedi-
ately (RFE/RL, 1999c). After negotiating with government leaders, the
Ústi nad Labem council agreed to remove the wall in exchange for a 10m
crown (about US$285,000) subsidy from the Czech government, part of
which reportedly went to buy out ethnic Czech families (RFE/RL, 1999a).
While the removal of the wall did allay tensions, the matter was not closed.
The local authorities appealed to the Czech constitutional court concern-
ing the Chamber of Deputies' power to overrule local decisions and, in
April 2000, the court ruled that the lower house of Parliament did not have
this power (RFE/RL, 2000; Rusek et al., 2000).
The patterns of political conflict over the wall's legality again reveal
serious tensions between central and local government perspectives on the
boundaries of policy. Moreover, this conflict's resolution appears to reflect
both confusion over the balance of power between the state and local
government and the lack of a straightforward legal framework for chal-
lenging state-sponsored discrimination. It also leaves no clear precedent to
guide local and national government through similar controversies in the
future.
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102
Education policy Another particularly important aspect of the second
dimension of minority membership in the community of citizens is the
protection of equality of opportunity. One of the most basic ways that such
equality may be secured is through education. There is, however, a general
consensus among Roma leaders, human rights activists and Czech govern-
ment representatives that one of the most important reasons for the Roma's
continuing marginalization is their very low level of education. According
to official estimates, less than 20 percent of Roma students finish the ninth
grade and less than 5 percent graduate from high school (US State Depart-
ment, 2000). University graduation is accordingly even lower. There is also
a consensus on the reason for this state of affairs: following a pattern of
placement carried over from the communist school system, Roma children
are 15 times more likely than non-Roma children to be sent to `special
schools' for those with serious learning disabilities (ERRC, 1999).
There is, however, no evidence that a higher proportion of Roma
children have such disabilities than the rest of the population, except
possibly within the small Vlachi group whose members sometimes marry
within families (Gross, 1993). Nevertheless, the funneling of Roma children
into these schools is `often quasi-automatic' (ECRI, 2000: 15). There appear
to be two main reasons for this. The first is their insufficient knowledge of
the Czech language.12 Reflecting their Slovak origins, many speak a `hybrid
Czech that includes elements of Slovak, Hungarian, and Romani and often
uses Romani grammatical elements and cases' (CRD, 1997b, from website).
Because the tests to determine whether a student should be sent to a special
school are language-oriented, children who are not fluent in Czech are at a
serious disadvantage.13 The second reason is cultural, as many Roma
families (uneducated themselves) place little value on formal education.
Teachers often react by placing Roma children at the back of regular class-
rooms where they are largely ignored by staff (Gross, 1993) and often
abused by other children (ERRC, 1999: 50­1). Moreover, as Roma activist
Karel Holomek observes, `[i]n school the children learn nothing of Roma
history, let alone anything positive' (cited in Horejší and Slezáková, 1995).
Many Romani children experience the regular curriculum as `white history',
`white music', `white customs' (New School Foundation, 1997: 1). Because
of the pervasive sense of the classroom as a `hostile, foreign environment',
many Roma parents prefer that their children attend schools where there
are many other Roma children (1997: 1). In fact, normal intelligence test
results may be disregarded if the parents want the child transferred to a
special school (CRD, 1997a). At the same time, an ERRC report offers
numerous examples of parents being pressured to allow the transfer of the
child (1999: 27­8). Moreover, both the Bratinka report and nongovern-
mental sources have condemned the placement tests as biased; as the
ERRC has argued, they are `dependent upon the projected cultural unifor-
mity of the people tested' (1999: 33).14
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
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Thus, although `[i]n theory, the procedure which governs sending
children to special schools is colour blind' (CRD, 1997a), it has clearly
created a de facto segregated school system (New School Foundation 1997).
As Fristenská argues, the discrimination is `systemic' (1999: 258) and has
had a devastating effect on the Roma. Until a new measure was passed in
late 1999, a person holding a degree from a special school was prohibited
by law from further study in a regular secondary school.15 The prospects for
graduates of a special school are limited to unskilled and poorly paying jobs
(CRD, 1997a). This situation in turn produces and aggravates such
problems as crime, high unemployment and drug abuse, marginalizing the
minority politically while fostering their dependency on the state (New
School Foundation, 1997). Indeed, as the ERRC report succinctly states,
`remedial schools create what they are designed to treat' (1999: 21).
Moreover, the situation makes government-sponsored affirmative action
difficult as there are almost no suitable Roma candidates for promotion
(Uhl, 1996). This effectively enforces second-class citizenship on the Roma,
as most are not prepared for the rights and responsibilities of full political
membership. As state officials admit, the education of Roma children is one
of `the most fundamental problems' facing Czech society (Office of the
Government of the Czech Republic, 1997, `Pr˘edkládací zpráva': 3).
Access to privately owned public spaces One further indication that
the state does not effectively protect its minority citizens from non-violent
discrimination is the pervasive denial of access to public spaces, including
restaurants, discos, hotels, cafes and bars. Although such discrimination is
unconstitutional, the government has not provided its citizens with effec-
tive legal means to protect themselves against discrimination in the public
sphere. In fact, there is no specific legal prohibition against the denial of
services based on race or ethnicity in public spaces. When such offences are
prosecuted, they are usually dealt with according to statutes against inciting
racial hatred ­ a tactic that has proved relatively unsuccessful.16 The result
is a public sphere in which constitutional principles are very often
overridden by popular prejudice. ECRI has therefore called upon the
Czech Republic `to establish a comprehensive body of anti-discrimination
legislation covering all fields of life and to implement it effectively'
(2000: 4).
Based on the evidence presented above (which only skims the surface of
these deep-seated problems), it is clear that the Czech Republic has failed
to achieve the requirements of the second dimension of civic membership.
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104
Dimension 3: does the Czech state secure the right to the self-
fulfillment and development of minority ethnic,national or cultural
identity?
Addressing this question may seem a bit odd given that security from
neither violent attack nor non-violent discrimination exists for the Roma in
the Czech Republic. Still, the importance of Romani cultural development
should not be underestimated. As the Czech government states in its 2001
report on Compliance with Principles Set Forth in the Framework Conven-
tion for the Protection of National Minorities, the Ministry of Culture offers
a subsidy program to promote `development of cultural activities of persons
belonging to national minorities with the aim to create conditions for
preservation of their own cultural identity' (2001). Examples of such
government-funded developments include several Roma publications and
a museum of Romani culture in Brno (CRD, 1997b).17 Czech law requires
that public television and radio grant access to minorities, although the
decisions about when and how often programs air have been made by the
station management (CRD, 1997b). Scheduling may therefore not be ideal
from the standpoint of program producers. Jarmila Baláz˘ová, who has
worked in Roma-themed media, also observes that programming during
the 1990s offered a largely one-dimensional portrayal of the Roma (1999:
332). On a more positive note, Roma groups have organized an annual
Khamoro festival, held in Prague, that celebrates Roma culture and
addresses issues of importance to the minority such as women's role in
society, co-existence with the majority population and the relationship
between modern life and Roma traditions (RFE/RL, 2002b).
The Roma have also been active in forming groups to promote their own
interests. During the post-communist period, a large number of Roma civic
organizations have sprung up (122 were registered by December 1998) and
five political parties have been registered as well (Vermeersch, 2001). A
problem for these parties, however, is that the Roma population is too small
to reach the 5 percent threshold for parliamentary representation. Roma
politicians must therefore find room in other parties. Karel Holomek
observes that unfortunately both the government and parliament sent very
unwelcoming signals to the Roma in the early years of Czech statehood
(1999: 305). He also argues that Roma representatives, who `markedly
differ and always will differ from the majority', face a difficult task in
balancing the requirements of relating effectively both to their constituen-
cies and to the larger society (1999: 309). At this time of writing, following
the June 2002 elections, there are no Roma representatives in the Czech
parliament (see RFE/RL, 2002a).
It appears, therefore, that the development of Roma identity does
continue in the Czech Republic. Such development must, however, be seen
in the context of the state's failure to secure the first two dimensions of
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
105
Roma membership in the community of citizens. Given the threat of
violence and the pervasive non-violent discrimination directed against the
Roma, assimilative pressures could be characterized as extreme. At the
same time, assimilation is potentially unfeasible under current conditions
given the racist character of the exclusion. Indeed, even Monika
Mihalic˘ková, the only Roma member of parliament from 1998­2002, has
been repeatedly barred from entry to certain public areas in her own
hometown of Brno.18
Dimension 4: has the Czech state provided the conditions for the full
integration of the Roma minority into the majority society?
Taking the evidence offered above into account, the answer here is, simply,
no. The government has, however, produced a new Conception of Govern-
ment Policy towards Members of the Roma Community Designed to Facili-
tate Their Social Integration (Office of the Government of the Czech
Republic, 1999). I turn now to this revised approach and to an assessment
of its initial effects.
PART IV: THE NEW CONCEPTION AND ASSESSMENTS OF
ITS IMPACT
As the 1990s moved towards a close and Roma continued to seek asylum
in western countries, the Czech Republic came under increasing pressure,
both internationally and from domestic human rights organizations, to
address the Roma's situation. In particular, EU officials made clear to
Czech leaders that an improvement in the state's relationship with the
Roma would be one of the requirements for EU membership. To this end,
an Inter-Ministerial Commission for Romani Community Affairs was
established and set to work on drafting a new government strategy. In April
1999, the government approved the Conception of Government Policy
towards Members of the Roma Community Designed to Facilitate Their
Social Integration. In a marked departure from the Bratinka report's
approach, which had emphasized strict state neutrality with regard to the
ethnocultural identity of its citizens and which dealt with the Roma as a
disadvantaged social group rather than an ethnic minority,19 the Concep-
tion takes as its goal the Roma's integration into a `multicultural society'.
The Conception sets 12 tasks for the government to undertake in the next
two decades: 1) the elimination of discrimination; 2) affirmative action (or
`positive discrimination'); 3) guaranteed minority individual and group
rights; 4) the incorporation of Roma culture and history into the general
NEDELSKY q CIVIC NATIONHOOD AND MINORITY INCLUSION
106
education of all children; 5) education reform to allow Roma children full
equality within the system; 6) Roma participation in decision making on
Roma community affairs; 7) the provision of free legal, social and psycho-
logical counseling; 8) education at all schools in tolerance `aimed at building
a multicultural society'; 9) instruction for judges and those working in the
judicial system on issues regarding racism and Roma affairs; 10) research
on methods of ethnic co-existence; 11) subsidy of non-profit groups that
offer social education programs to Roma youth; and 12) an employment
policy that decreases Roma unemployment while placing more emphasis
on `people's positive motivation to work'.
While the Conception offered a vision of sweeping reform, the version
that was ultimately enacted in June 2000 was `severely weakened' (ERRC,
2002). The number of tasks for ministries was significantly reduced, the plan
to assist Roma businesses was discarded, and a proposal to establish an
Office of Ethnic and Racial Equality with the power to issue legally binding
rulings on racial discrimination cases was rejected in favor of an advisory
role for the Inter-Ministerial Commission for Romani Community Affairs
(Sobotka, 2001). Moreover, although the Conception set a December 2000
deadline for a review by eight ministries on the question of how to
strengthen anti-discrimination laws, the deadline was missed. The ERRC
reported to the UN in mid-2002 that it could not discern any progress in the
fulfillment of this task, attributing this to `the Czech Government's
apparent lack of real will to make substantive improvements' (2002).
Doubts concerning the government's claim to embrace a new approach
towards the Roma were also raised by the Conception of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Relation to the Romani Problematic, published in
December 2000. The document sets out several goals for the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs: the first is the `Europeanization' of the Roma `problem-
atic' (to be accomplished by promoting the idea that both the problems of
the Roma and their solution should be explored in a multinational
European context);20 the second point suggests that the positive measures
that the Czech Republic has taken should be emphasized abroad; the third
that criticisms of the country's treatment of the Roma should be rejected
(the document explains that this does not involve the assertion `that racism
and cases of discrimination do not exist here, but only the rejection of
interpretations suggesting that just these phenomena are the fundamental
cause' of the problems of Roma co-existence with the `majority society'); a
fourth point concerns the `distorting description of the Roma problematic
exclusively in terms of human rights' (according to the document, human
rights are only one aspect of the problem and `not at all a pivotal aspect.
The Roma problematic is first and foremost a social problematic'). The tone
of this conception is clearly quite different from that passed by the govern-
ment, and its contents have been described as `cynical' (Sobotka, 2001).
In May 2002, the Czech Helsinki Committee published a report on
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
107
human rights in the Czech Republic in 2001. According to the report,
between 70,000 and 100,000 Roma have now emigrated. The reasons for
this vast migration indicate the persistence of the problems outlined above:
racist violence and widespread discrimination in the systems of criminal
justice, public administration, the provision of services, education (and
particularly the `segregation' of Roma children in special schools), as well
as in employment and housing (Czech Helsinki Committee, 2002).
Moreover, the answer to the question of what the émigrés hoped for in their
new homes abroad was almost always the same: `a dignified life' (2002).
CONCLUSION: SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE CZECH CASE
FOR THE CATEGORIZATION OF COMMUNITY
Based on the evidence presented above, I conclude that Roma citizens have
not been granted full membership of the Czech Republic. They do not
enjoy substantive civic equality and, while their freedom to develop their
identity is of a higher level, its worth is diminished by pervasive discrimi-
nation and fear of violence. According to the measure I employ, the Czech
political community's level of `civicness' is very low. At the same time, the
state's constitutional incorporation of the civic principle is neither irrele-
vant nor inconsequential, as it provides the basis for demands that the
government and citizenry respect and protect civic equality. It also offers a
solid foundation for a framework of civil rights law (an underused poten-
tial in the Czech Republic). The constitutional protection of civic equality
thus provides a stronger recourse for besieged minorities than a regime that
incorporates any kind of stratification of citizenship based on prepolitical
criteria.
Ultimately, I would categorize the Czech Republic as a political
community based on the civic principle that has largely failed to realize the
principle's requirements. I further propose that a designation such as
`political community based on the civic principle' may profitably be substi-
tuted in other cases where the term `civic nation' would traditionally have
been applied, for three reasons. First, although this designation does not
offer the kind of neat oppositional counterpart to the `ethnic nation' that
the concept of the `civic nation' does, it provides a way of distinguishing
between communities of citizens and ethnic nations ­ a distinction that
remains relevant and necessary. While the ethnic nation refers to a type of
prepolitical community that may exist under a variety of different political
circumstances, a community based on the civic principle requires a political
configuration that secures the equal provision of rights and duties for the
entire citizenry. These are clearly very different types of community even
if they co-exist within the same state (as they do in the Czech Republic).
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108
Second, it leaves open to question the relationship between what is claimed
and/or attempted in a particular state and what has been accomplished. This
avoids one of the key problems with the concept of the civic nation; namely,
that it not only indicates the use of the civic principle, but also implies that
such use has in fact produced a community that is best characterized as a
nation. As the debate I surveyed in Part I indicates, such a claim is open to
numerous challenges, particularly with regard to the purported neutrality
of the state in relation to the citizenry, the relative importance of culture
versus political ideas and practices in providing the bonds of such a nation,
and the openness of such nations to ethnocultural minorities. The validity
of these challenges is further substantiated by the Czech case. And, finally,
although it is probably impossible to construct a political system that fully
realizes civic equality, assessing gradations of success towards this goal does
offer some insight into the nature of membership and community in a polity
based upon the principle of universal citizenship.
This is not to argue that the concept of the civic nation can never appro-
priately be applied; it is possible that a community based on the civic prin-
ciple that fulfills all four dimensions of civic equality discussed above could
offer a level of equal membership that rises to the level of nationhood. The
Czech case simply does not throw light on this matter. It is, however, an
example of a political community in which a full exploration of questions
of membership requires an analytical framework that both recognizes the
importance of founding principles and allows for a distinction between
these principles and political practice.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Barbara Falk, Elisabeth Bakke and the anonymous reviewers
for their invaluable assistance in revising this article.
Notes
1 Michael Walzer (1994) provides a similar account of the civic nation.
2 According to Nicholas Xenos, `It is safe to say . . . that for all the theorists of
civic nationalism, a normative commitment to liberal democracy underlies their
scholarly projects, and thus that there is a political thrust to their work' (1996:
215).
3 In the American case, Xenos points particularly to Lincoln's Gettysburg
Address (1996: 225­8).
4 While Smith continues to use the concepts of civic and ethnic nations, albeit
with the above qualifications attached, Kymlicka has in recent writings moved
away from it, preferring to differentiate between liberal and illiberal types of
nation building. For his earlier position, see Kymlicka (1995: 24) and, for his
more recent position, see Kymlicka (2000).
5 In defining the boundaries of permissible state policy in promoting elements of
ETHNICITIES 3(1)
109
common identity, I draw here on Kymlicka's definition of liberal nation building
(2000).
6 This remained the case until the end of 1992, which caused a rush of applications
for Czech citizenship before the dissolution of the Czecho-Slovak state (see
`Thousands of Slovaks Seek Czech Citizenship', 1992).
7 The number of Roma in the Czech Republic is disputed, as only slightly under
33,000 people declared Roma ethnicity in the 1991 census. It is clear, however,
that the numbers are much higher. The population of the Czech Republic is
about 10 million (see CSCE, 1999: 53).
8 Recognizing this problem, the Czech constitutional court ruled in 1994 that
`permanent residency means actual residency and not one that is reflected only
in official files'. Nevertheless, many authorities continued to demand formal
documentation (Human Rights Watch, 1996).
9 According to information provided to the Canadian Immigration and Refugee
Board by Ladislav Zamboj, a representative of the Prague-based Tolerance
Foundation and the Citizenship Counseling Committee of the Czech Helsinki
Committee, roughly 50 percent of applicants were not recommended for
citizenship by municipal authorities. The Ministry's authorities were not obliged
to follow this recommendation, but they did cite the recommendation when
rejecting an application (CRD, 1997c).
10 The pagination of the Bratinka report begins anew in separate sections. I
therefore also include the name of the section I am citing.
11 The Czech Republic has two separate police forces: the national and the
municipal. They function independently, under different regulations, and have
different areas of competence. The national police force operates under the
Ministry of the Interior's Police Presidium, while the municipal police are
managed by city councils.
12 As a recognized minority nationality, the Roma are entitled to education in
their own language. This is not, however, a right that Roma leaders have been
interested in realizing. As Jan Rusenko of the Roma Democratic Congress
stated, `We do not have an interest in purely Roma schools. If children leave
the eighth grade speaking only Romani, it would be like graduating from a
special school' (Šidlo, 1993).
13 Addressing this problem, the October 1997 Czech government report stated
that `[i]n the matter of psychological examinations it is necessary to explicitly
reject' the designation of `linguistic handicaps' as a `kind of mental handicap'
(Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, 1997, `Pr˘edkládací zpráva':
15).
14 The ERRC report offers an illuminating example of a question `in which a child
was evaluated as mentally handicapped among other things because he could
not state that "knife", "fork" and "spoon" belong to the category of "cutlery",
although the word is not in common usage among Romani families' (1999: 33).
15 In December 1999, legislation was passed allowing qualified Roma students to
re-enter mainstream secondary and upper-level schools. According to the US
State Department (2000), the `legislation was drafted by Parliament's sole
Romani representative and constituted a significant step in opening access to
higher education to the Romani minority'.
16 See, for example, the case of Ivo Blahout, as discussed in US State Department
NEDELSKY q CIVIC NATIONHOOD AND MINORITY INCLUSION
110
(1999), `Vyhazov z rokycanské hospody' (1996) and Ludmila Hegnerová
(1996).
17 For further details on the Ministry of Culture's role in supporting Roma cultural
development, see Office of the Government of the Czech Republic (1997,
`Pr˘edkládací zpráva': 20­3).
18 Monika Mihalic˘ková filed a civil suit against a club owner who refused her entry
and won (Erlanger, 2000).
19 The Bratinka report uses the term `Roma community' rather than `Roma
minority nationality'. It explains this choice of terminology by pointing both to
the low levels of official self-identification with the Roma nationality in the 1991
census and to
the reality that what we are dealing with is not problems of nationality
politics (preservation of language, schools in the native language, etc.), but
with social problems (low living standards, high unemployment levels, etc.).
Also, the most current needs and demands of the Roma are not political
demands, as are characteristic of other minority nationalities in the Czech
Republic, but rather demands for specific forms of societal, including social,
assistance. (Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, 1997,
`Důvodová zpráva': 1)
20 Sobotka (2001) offers a photocopy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs document
in her online article. The translation is mine.
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ETHNICITIES 3(1)
NADYA NEDELSKY is assistant professor of international studies at
Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She received her doctorate
in political science from the University of Toronto in 2001. Her publi-
cations include an article on the wartime Slovak state in Nations and
Nationalism 7(2), 2001, and a forthcoming article on nationalism and
minority rights in post-communist Slovakia in Ethnic and Racial Studies
26(1), January 2003. Address: Department of International Studies,
Macalester College, 1600 Grand Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105, USA.
[email: nedelsky@macalester.edu]