One of the oldest states in Europe has never suppressed any nation’. The minority treaty, nationalist indignation and the foundations of interwar ethnic democracy in Poland

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7930836
AutoresWiktor Marzec (0000-0002-0722-7625, Institute for Social Studies University of Warsaw Warsaw Poland, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen27
Número4
Páginas1080-1096
Fecha de publicación2021-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaNations and Nationalism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1345-5078 • E-ISSN: 1469-8129
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/nana.12765
OpenAlexW3201754224
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas22

This article investigates the internal impact of the Minority Treaty of Versailles, regulating minority rights and protection in the emerging interwar Polish state. The parliamentary debate on the Treaty was a critical juncture structuring the political sphere and arguably fostered the birth of ‘ethnic democracy’ in Poland. Performing a sequential analysis of the debate, I study the reconfiguration of political positions which locked the actors into their strategic entrenchments. Unexpectedly, the nationalist right defended the treaty because of their involvement in the Versailles negotiations. The left tried to delegitimize the treaty and simultaneously tip the scales of the domestic politics in favour of the minorities. This shifted the levers of implicit assumptions about the political community and effectively blocked the political efficacy of the treaty on the domestic level. Such refraction effects must be considered when one is studying convergence, diffusion and the role of international agreements and pressures

Democracy · Ethnic nationalism · Nationalism · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Treaty · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies