Introduction and Overview
This study examines the effect of international norms in policy formation towards Roma in the period from 1989 until 2002. Among the many competing definitions of public policy, despite their variations, policy science agrees that public policies result from decisions made by governments.  Decisions to do nothing are just as much policy as are decisions to do something.  Thomas Dye offers a particularly succinct definition of public policy, describing it as ‘anything a government chooses to do or not to do.’  (Dye: 1972)  Studying policies towards Roma, the process and actors involved since 1989, offers insights into interactions between different levels: governmental, inter-governmental, NGO, think-tank and activist and further explains influence of international human and minority rights norms.

Historically, Roma have been the most impoverished group in Europe, living at what some called “margins of societies” without access to political power for centuries.  Roma fall in the category of people, whose national minority status was recognized only after the fall of communism and who continue to experience growing level of hostility and discriminatory treatment in their home countries.  During the 1990s, the policy towards Roma, discussed at trans-national and domestic levels, has been pulled between minority and human rights concept.  While the first mostly concedes positive rights to group the later assigns negative rights to individual.   In light of the unique situation of Roma both concepts run into limitations.  National minority concept, bound with territoriality principle does not fully apply on the situation of Roma.  Gheorghe argues:  “In my opinion, participation in this system may tend to skew or deform the process of ethnogenesis, inventing in with a false perspective which does not stem from our needs.”  Human rights concept, on the other hand, does not accommodate the aspiration of some Romani politicians for meaningful (trans-national) political recognition.

Within the context of post-communism, conventional wisdom on the significance of Romani issues, however, tended to view the problem as a very recent development whose origins lay in the collapse of communism, which escalated attention to rising level of nationalism and minority rights.  Yet few detected the misconception.  Isaiah Berlin wrote in 1991, “In our modern age, nationalism is not resurgent; it never died.” Similarly, Will Guy, re-examines the effect of communist policies towards Roma: “communism is often seen as a colossal steamroller crushing Romani identity ruthlessly and yet, paradoxically and also grudgingly, it is admitted to have somehow improved the situation of most Roma.”  Thus, the policies from the time of communism must be studied “[with] far more discerning and scholarly way than simply to dismiss all communist policy as deformity of democracy.”

The influence of civic diplomacy on policy making resonates with James Rosenau’s point about the coexistence of state-centered and multi-centered system. (Rosenau, 1997)  In particular when looking at interpenetration of different levels, Roma policy formation has been a process involving both rivalry and complicity, close to Rosenau’s theses on changing concept of power as perceived traditionally by international relations.  Various players such as non-governmental, advocacy, Romani organizations, researchers and think-tanks have had significant impact in shaping the cognitive map about Romani issues.  Council of Europe and the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), inter-governmental bodies influencing the process of Romani policy formation perform at symbolic, toothless level, yet, their mission statement  ‘enlarging community of states that share same values and ideas of human rights’ seems to get fulfilled.  The European Union equipped with more powerful leverage of Copenhagen criteria, requiring stability of minority and human rights, rule of law and institutions guaranteeing democracy in the EU member and accession states has made huge impact in Roma policy change.  It is known that the international bureaucracy can have some autonomy and that inter-governmental organisations are not merely diplomatic arenas where states pursue their policies of power by other means.  Moreover, all regional construction mentioned above seem to be a response for a moment to a manifest need for new political spaces.  My task of analysing the effect of norms is all the more difficult, because territory itself has become relative to other spaces in which political aspiration and choices take place.

I seek to find answer to four research questions, as they relate to Roma, the policies towards Roma, people and institutional structures involved:

1. What do international human rights norms and structures have to do in shaping the domestic policy towards Roma?
2. What are the similarities/ differences between the countries and time in the policy formulated and why?
3. Why and how do fortuitous events such as regime change fail to explain the influence of variables such as policy-subsystems involved and the extent of public support in the policy formation towards Roma?
4. What could be the likely solution to political under-representation of Roma at the national and trans-national level and what are the political representation alternatives that the Roma developed over time?

These questions are the topic of this project.  States have chosen different paths of policy of Roma integration.  Some states, such as the Czech Republic and Hungary, have radically changed their approach to Roma and now see them as an integral part of the nation.  Others, like Slovakia, Poland and Germany have made incremental policy adjustments to accommodate Roma rights, but have avoided altering the ideas of nationhood or provide effective structures for political participation of Roma.

How states come to change their approaches to Roma is an important and timely issue, especially in the current debate over a beginning era of ‘post-national constellation’, where by “[…] expanding the parameters of implementation of human rights, the nation state made possible […] more abstract form of social integration beyond the borders of ancestry or dialect.”

Modified on September 29, 2002