Minority civil society and nonprofit sectors in Eastern Central Europe

Transcription

1 András Morauszki Minority civil society and nonprofit sectors in Eastern Central Europe Case studies of Košice and Pécs Abstract Third sector research has already pointed out the role and importance of the third sector in modern societies. Studies show that nonprofit and civil society organizations play an even more important role in minority communities with limited capability of using public sector institutions to promote their specific interests or to protect their rights. Despite this fact relatively few studies have been presented on the topic. This paper seeks to examine the minority civil societies in two Central European cities in two different states. Both are multicultural cities, the largest minority communities being the Hungarians in Košice and the Roma communities, but beside these German, Rusyn, Croat and other communities are present in these cities as well. Based primarily on interviews conducted with representatives of minority organizations and other documents (e.g. news articles, blog entries) this paper seeks to contribute to our better understanding of the specific characteristics of minority organizational systems by exploring the main common and specific problems these minority communities face if and how minority organizations address these problems how they perceive their role and position in modern societies how and why these organizations do or do not cooperate with other minority or majority nonprofit or political organizations, businesses and public sector institutions 1

2 In the last decades, there have been several international studies focusing on the third sector and its role in the modern societies. The main reason was the evident economic impact of the nonprofit organizations. The comparative studies of Lester Salamon and others showed the importance of these organizations in national and global economy, in the production of GDP and employment (Salamon et al. 1999: 8 17). Other studies showed that the role of the nonprofit organizations is not confined to the economy. Grassroots initiatives play an important role in the democratization of the society and the production of social capital. Based on a comparative study of 11 countries, Lester Salamon and his coauthors distinguished five functions of the third sector: service, innovation, advocacy, expressive and leadership development role, community building and democratization. Based on their results the organizations of the third sector have a more or less significant impact in all these dimensions (Salamon et al. 2000). These studies show that the nonprofit organizations are an important part of modern societies. Parallel to these international comparative studies, there have been several theories concerning the role of these organizations in the economy and the division of labor between state, market and the third sector, the behavior of nonprofits compared to public institutions and enterprises, as well as the relationship of the nonprofit organizations with the state, market and households. In the multiethnic states of Central and Eastern Europe parallel to the appearance of the mainstream voluntary and nonprofit organizations and the rapid expansion of the third sector, the minorities formed their own ethnic organizations. Although these organizations sum up to thousands, and have a central role in the institutional systems of ethnic and national minorities, only relatively few studies have been carried out on this topic. There is still much, that is not known about minority organizations. The main reason is, that the available studies on the minority institutional systems focused for the most part on the description of the sector in terms of size, composition by legal forms and fields of activity, funding. These studies often apply more or less explicitly the theories of mainstream nonprofit organizations and civil sector in the analysis of the ethnic organizations. However, as Kiss pointed out, this often leads to the misinterpretation of the ethnic institutional systems (Kiss 2006: ). In this paper we try to contribute to our better understanding of the institutional systems of autochthonous ethnic minorities in Central Europe. First, we provide a short overview of the most important concepts of civil society, nonprofit organizations and minority institution, and then we proceed to review the mainstream theories of the nonprofit sector and theories of 2

3 minority institutions. After this we present the methodology, questions and main findings of our research. Civil society Nonprofit organizations Minority institutions Both in informal and in the professional discourse there is a variety of concepts that are used to describe the organizations in question, which concepts often vary across countries. All of these more or less knowingly emphasize different aspects of these organizations. Some speak about civic, voluntary, non-governmental, nonprofit organizations, or nonprofit, community or third sector or use other terms, which are often used as synonyms, mutually interchangeable concepts. These terms, as we have mentioned often put emphasis on specific aspects of more or less the same set of organizations: independence from the public sector, role of volunteer work and voluntary activities, relationship to civil society, or that the profit of the organization is not used to the benefit of the owners, but to achieve the organizations goals (Bartal 2005: 11 12). However, for the purpose of this paper we find it necessary, to clarify the most basic concepts that are used. The term civil society has a long history. In its modern sense, according to the definition of Cohen and Arato, civil society is a sphere of social interaction between economy and state. Civil society has to be distinguished from the political society (i.e. parties, political organizations, political publics) and economic society (i.e. organizations of production and distribution), which arise from the civil society, but seek to control and manage state power and economic production. In contrast, civil society is characterized by subordinating strategic and instrumental criteria to the patterns of normative integration and open-ended communication. The political role of civil society is not to control power, but to generate influence by means of democratic associations and unconstrained discussion in the cultural public sphere. Civil society is created through forms of self-constitution and selfmobilization. It is institutionalized and generalized through laws [...] that stabilize social differentiation. It has to be distinguished from the sociocultural lifeworld, to which it belongs. However, civil society refers only to the structures of socialization, association, and organized forms of communication of the lifeworld that are institutionalized or in the process of being institutionalized. In this model, civil society, political society and economic society are all mediating spheres between the lifeworld and the system. Civil society can gain 3

4 influence over political and administrative processes through the mediating spheres of the political and economic society respectively (Cohen Arato 1994: x-xi). Civil society is a public sphere, which consists of free associations, civic organizations, characterized by a relatively high level of voluntariness and autonomy, which are diverse in terms of the values and beliefs of their members and coexist in peace (Fennema 2004: 431). In the structural-operational definition of nonprofit organizations used for the purposes of international comparative studies dominate formal criteria: the organizations have to be (1) organizations institutionalized to some extent, (2) private, institutionally separate from the government, (3) non-profit-distributing, (4) self-governing, able to control their activities (5) voluntary, i.e. non-compulsory and including some meaningful degree of voluntary participation (Tice et al. 2001: 9). At last, we have to examine the concept of minority organizations/institutions. Károly Tóth in 2006 stresses that the self-definitions of the minority institutions are mostly based on ethnic and ideological criteria, and the formal, legal criteria, on which the definition of nonprofit organizations is based, are secondary from the organizations point of view. For example, most of these are not even officially registered (Tóth 2006). Tóth, Kiss and Fennema in their respective papers propose alternative criteria for the definition of ethnic organizations, which are listed in Table 1 (Tóth 2006: 224, Kiss 2006: 140, Fennema 2004: 440). Table 1: Definition criteria of ethnic organizations Tóth 2006 Kiss 2006 Fennema 2004 self-definition as ethnic organization ethnic composition of membership language used operate in the area, where the ethnic group lives target group target group ethnic character of goals and activities ethnic composition of leadership language used target group (based on mission statement) ethnic composition of membership ethnic composition of leadership 4

5 It is not required for an ethnic organization to satisfy all these criteria, organizations may qualify as ethnic/minority if they meet at least some of the requirements. Kiss mentions for example cases of mixed language-usage, ethnically mixed membership, the difference between declared and actual goals and activities, which may not have an ethnic character even if they target the ethnic community (e.g. some sports organizations) (Kiss 2006: 140). Sociological theories of the civil society and nonprofit sector While in the case of civil society and nonprofit sector definitions, the analytical distinction and autonomy of the sector from the state and economy is central, the theories try to position the entities of the civil society and the nonprofit organizations in the system of relations of the social institutions, the state and market, the households and informal sphere. As mentioned above, there is a constant interaction between the civil society on one hand and political and economic society on the other that is crucial from the aspect of democracy. However, it is also important for both to maintain their own distinctive logic of operation. Contrary to the normative view of the civil society in public opinion, according to which civil society and political society should be strictly separated, it is the essence of the former to interact with the latter. The loss of this interaction is as detrimental as the colonization of the lifeworld (Arato Cohen 1992, Gerő Kopper 2013). In the structural functionalist theories nonprofits are considered political actors, insofar as they influence political decisions, and by means of their economic activities are important institutions of the state redistribution. In the welfare mix and welfare pluralism theory the emphasis is on the relationship, interdependence of the state, economy, informal and nonprofit sector, the tensions and transitions between these sectors. The nonprofit sector is described as an intermediate area of complex interactions, which connects the other three sectors. In its relationship with the state, the emphasis shifts from autonomy to cooperation, with the economy on the adaptation of practices, with the informal sector on the formalization of subcultural interests coming from the latter (Evers 1995). 5

6 Minority institutional systems As mentioned above, in the self-definition of minority institutions, ethnic criteria have a priority over legal characteristics. Dénes Kiss warns that the mainstream theories of the civil society and the nonprofit sector should be applied with caution and assessed critically to prevent misleading conclusions on the nature of ethnic institutional systems. In the case of minority institutional systems, the nonprofit sector gains an ethnic character, and as a result, the state is associated with the majority and the nonprofit sector with the minority. Beside this, the mainstream theories fail to take into consideration the power relations inside the nonprofit sector, which are present in the case of minority institutional systems (Kiss 2006: ). Kiss proposes a different model of the minority institutional system, as that derived from the mainstream theories, in which minority institutions constitute distinct institutional subsystems, based on their pursued goals. Kiss differentiates the administrational, educationalscientific, religious, political, cultural and economic sub-systems. Except the latter one, which consists of businesses, all of these sub-systems consist of both public institutions and nonprofit organizations. The civic/nonprofit character of the organizations is secondary to their belonging to a specific institutional sub-system. Formally, most of these organizations are civic nonprofit, but are often analogous to majority institutions, established by the minority elites, which imitate the public institutions of the majority. The proportion of nonprofit organizations is usually higher in minority institutional systems because public institutions cannot be used to promote specific minority interests. As a result interorganizational relations may be horizontal, as well as vertical, power relations, even within these sub-systems. The proportion of actual civic organizations is smaller, than the proportion of nonprofits. The organizations within a sub-system are not necessarily in contact, but those that are, form fields, which are network-like entities. The actual relationship may be competition as well as cooperation. These minority fields are connected to the respective majority field and, if there is such, to the kinstate s respective field. They operate in the intermediate space between these two majority fields with varying autonomy. This situation brings the potential multiplication, doubling of financial sources, but because these fields have to adapt to the logic of both linked fields may prevent the forming of explicit and consistent rules governing the field (Kiss 2006: ). 6

7 Fennema in his paper on ethnic communities conceptualizes ethnic communities as the networks of ethnic organizations connected through overlapping membership or interlocking directorates (Fennema 2004: 438). Although Fennema writes primarily about ethnic communities in Western Europe, most of his conclusions are applicable to the ethnic communities of Central Europe, too. For instance, most of the ethnic organizations in Hungary and Slovakia are state-funded associations, which Fennema considers as professional organizations, which are created for lack of autonomous ethnic organizations. Although this may create state-dependent organizations, it also may have a positive impact on the formation of ethnic civic communities (Fennema 2004: ). Although the high level of professionalization is usually not true for the ethnic organizations in Hungary and Slovakia, but the efforts of the states both host states and kin-states to foster the formation of ethnic Hungarian communities are evident. Regarding the interethnic contacts, these are mostly present on the level of ethnic elites, overlapping membership is not typical. Furthermore, these contacts are mostly institutionalized in the forms of multicultural expert meetings and advisory committees, without which democratic governance of ethnic communities would be impossible (Fennema 2004: 438) Fennema also offers a typology of ethnic organizations, and distinguishes ethnic interest organizations, which are based on common socio-economic interests, ethnic political associations based on a shared perception of the common good, which try to access the political power structure and influence political decisions, and finally ethnic identity organizations, which is a residual category for those ethnic organizations, that don t qualify as interest or political organizations, as all ethnic associations are based on a common identity (Fennema 2004: ). Description of the research: research localities and used methods Present paper is the first part of my PhD thesis, which encompasses a larger research project on the topic of the institutions of national and ethnic minorities in Central Europe. The research is to be carried out on three locations: Košice (Slovakia), Pécs (Hungary) and Timișoara (Romania). These three cities have been selected because of their regional 7

8 importance and multiethnic character. These cities serve as regional centers for many national and ethnic minorities. In Košice according to the 2011 census from the total population of 240,688, the largest ethnic groups are the Hungarians (2.65%), Romani (2%), Rusyns (0.68%), Czechs (0.65%), Ukrainians (0.3%) and Germans (0.13%), but there are other smaller national minorities (Bulgarian, Polish, etc.). Košice has a regional importance especially in the case of the Roma community, many institutions, e.g. the Roma theatre Romathan, schools operate in this city. But Košice is the regional centre of the Hungarians in the eastern part of the country. The proportion of Hungarians is much higher in the western parts of Slovakia, in some parts they form the local majority, but in eastern Slovakia their situation is much more comparable to the other minority communities. The Rusyns live mostly in East Slovakia, however in their case, Prešov is more important as a center as Košice, but there are organizations in Košice, too. The situation is similar in the case of the other ethnic communities, they have some organizations in the city, however, their institutional system is not as complex, as that of the Roma, and especially the Hungarian community. The total population of Pécs in 2011 was 146,990. The largest communities are the Germans (4.47%), Romani (2.14%), and Croats (1.31%). Other nationalities include the Serbs, Romanians, Russians, Arabs, Poles, Bulgarians, Greeks and others. Pécs is the primary center for the Croats, which operate their most important institutions, i.e. theatre, schools, media in Pécs, but Pécs is one of the centers of the German community and the Roma, the latter living in high proportions in the northeast counties of Hungary, too. These minorities have a relatively complex institutional system, which consists mostly of schools and cultural institutions. In Timișoara, from the 319,279 residents 5.12% were Hungarians, 1.37% Germans, 1.3% Serbs, 0.69% Romani, the other nationalities being Ukrainians, Slovaks, Jews and others. As we can see, all three cities give home to a large number of people belonging to ethnic and national minorities. Beside this Pécs was European Capital of Culture in 2010, Košice in 2013, and Timișoara is one of the candidates for this title for 2021, along Iași, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, and Arad. The paper is based on the first part of the research, which relies on the qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with the representatives of ethnic nonprofit organizations in these cities. 8

9 So far, only the interviews from Košice and Pécs are available, so the presented results apply to these two cities. The interviews started in the fall of Currently 8 interviews are available for the purpose of the analysis. 4 interviews have been conducted in small groups of 2 to 4 people, in the case of the Hungarians in Košice there were 7 participants, and there were 3 individual interviews as well (21 subjects in total). The interviews were ethnically homogeneous, except one which was made with one representative of two German organizations in Košice and a representative of an interethnic organization. The main topics of the interviews were: how these organizational leaders define their organizations and the concepts of civic organizations and minority (i.e. Roma, Hungarian, German, Croat) organizations; how they perceive the problems of their target audience and the role of nonprofit organizations in the society; what are the conditions, under which these organizations operate, with special emphasis on financial resources and the attitudes of these representatives towards the host-state and kin-state funding of organizations; finally the last topic was the cooperation of nonprofit organizations within and across ethnic and national minorities and with the majority. In the building of the databases of organizations we relied on the following sources: in the case of Košice, the Registers and Evidences of the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic contains the registered organizations. The list can be filtered by the field of activities and municipalities. Hungarian, Romani, Czech and Moravian organizations appear as separate fields of activities and the categories Nationalities and Other nationalities contain all the other minority organizations. 1 In Pécs I had to rely on the Register of Civic Organizations made available by the courts of justice on the webpage Unfortunately, in the identification of minority organizations I had to rely on the name of the organizations. In the case of Timișoara there is a database of organizations by the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities. This database contains only minority organizations and can be filtered by municipality. The main problem of the first two registers is, that they only contained organizations that are registered, while the third database contains non-registered associations as well. 1 Both in Slovakia and in Hungary the commonly used terms for ethnic minorities are nationalities ( nemzetiségek in Hungarian, národnosti in Slovak), national minorities ( nemzeti kisebbségek in Hungary) or nationality minorities ( národnostné menšiny in Slovakia). In Hungarian one often distinguishes between national minorities that have a kin-state and ethnic minority that doesn t. The latter refers exclusively to the Roma. The distinction does not involve legal differentiation in the status of the two types of minorities. In the paper I will use the terms interchangeably. 9

10 The interviews are not representative of the nonprofit sector of the cities or the country as a whole. The goal was to explore the relevant standing-points, attitudes and opinions of the operators of minority organizations in relation to the topics mentioned above. We must stress out, that our conclusions are applicable to the autochthonous ethnic communities in Central Europe, which consist of citizens of these states, that have the right and the ability to form their own institutional system, which means, that these conclusions are not necessarily true in the case of migrants living in these countries or ethnic communities living in other parts of the world. The second part of the research will consist of a survey of the organizations. The questionnaire will consist of question on the basic characteristics of the organization, conditions of operation, and relationship with other institutional actors inside or outside the city and the country. The goal is to contribute to our better understanding of not only the conditions within which these organizations operate but also the structure of minority institutional systems in Central Europe using the methods of network analysis. Main results In the following section we would like to present our findings based on the qualitative analysis of the interviews made with the representatives, mostly leaders of ethnic organizations in Košice and Pécs. First we will discuss the topic of how these organizations define themselves, what are the most important characteristics, basically the definition of an ethnic organization and of a civic organization. Ethnic organization and civic organization Unsurprisingly, all of the interview subjects accepted the term ethnic organizations in regard to the organization that they represented. One of the reasons is that the basis of the sampling was, that these organizations are either registered in the official database as nationality organizations, in the case of Košice, or have names, that indicate that they are probably formed on an ethnic basis. In the interviews, all most aspects mentioned in the literature, i.e. self-definition, ethnic composition of membership and leadership, used language, target group 10

11 and activities appeared, however not every aspect was equally important for every ethnic group. Self-definition was mentioned only rarely, and even if it was, it has to be supported by other characteristics. The most important of these was that the activity of the organization has an ethnic character. In association with this, the main activities of the so called ethnic organizations are connected to the culture and history of the given ethnic group, the preservation of national identity through education, language, culture and community building. If the organizations have other activities, they have to represent the interests of the community, they view everything from the ethnic group s point of view and through the lense of ethnicity. This was made explicit especially in the interviews with Roma organizations, which often focus on social issues, advocacy and others, that are not strongly connected to Roma identity, culture or language and the target group of their activities is often the majority population. Although it was rarely mentioned explicitly, based on the interviews, we may conclude, that at least implicitly the ethnic composition of the organization s leadership is an important aspect as well. This is often taken for granted, as the representatives of these organizations often perceive, that the majority (and often the co-nationals living in the kin-state) either lacks the information necessary to understand the problems of the minority, is not interested in representing the minority, or if the majority is interested it is because of these activities are funded by the state, or simply because they think that the main motivation behind these activities is the national identity of the given member. However, this aspect was important in the case of the Roma organizations, which stress out the importance of the participation of the Roma community in the advocacy of their interests. The language was especially important in the case of the Croats in Pécs and Hungarians in Košice, although some activities of the Hungarians in Slovakia are bilingual. The reason for this is to target not only the minority, but also the majority, and thus inform them about the situation of the minority and the events of the organization. The latter is true for the Roma in Košice as well. On one hand they consider it the mission of the organization to extend the use of the Romani language; on the other hand they try to reach the majority in order to influence their opinions about the Roma community. The issue of language, however did not surface in the interviews with Roma in Hungary. The reason is, beside the one mentioned above, that the mother language of the majority of Roma in Hungary is Hungarian. Romani and Boyash are 11

12 only spoken by a relatively smaller fraction of the population. The issue of mother language emerged in the interviews made with the representatives of German organization in Pécs, too. However, a significant fraction of the German population in Hungary does not consider German their mother language, so the language was not as important an aspect of ethnic German organizations as in the case of others. As mentioned above, the ethnic compositions of the target group is not always essential to consider an organization ethnic. The reason is that the target group of the organizational activities is often the majority. Some of the German organizations in Pécs, and most of the Roma organizations aim at influencing the opinions of the majority on the minority. Beside this, the events are mostly open to everybody, who is interested. The definition of a civic organization was especially important in the interviews in Pécs and with the Hungarians in Košice. In Slovak language the most commonly used term for these organizations is either nonprofit ( nezisková organizácia ) or non-governmental ( mimovládna organizácia ). In regard to these terms, there is a general consensus, and the definition is mostly negative: they do not distribute surplus revenues as profit and are independent from the state. Usually this means that they fit in distinct legal categories, i.e. are associations or foundations. However, in the case of civic organizations ( civil szervezet ), there is a discussion in Hungary and among Hungarians in Slovakia, and the applicability of the term civic organization to these ethnic institutions is questioned by some scholars, too (Kiss 2006). In the general discussion the main question is how these should relate to politics. Kiss warns, that the majority of minority organizations, that are formally civic organizations or nonprofits are merely the analogs of majority public institutions, which should not be regarded as civil society organizations (Kiss 2006: 144). The interview subjects mostly didn t give a normative definition of a civil society organization, rather a set of characteristics. In the interviews the characteristics of civic organizations centered around four more or less dominant criteria: voluntariness, political independence, financial basis and contact with the community, the last being seemingly the less universal among these. The voluntariness is connected especially to the leadership and the active members of the organizations. Based on the interviews, an organization may be considered part of the civil 12

13 society, if it consists of civilians, who are committed to the cause and are willing to sacrifice their time and energy (and for a smaller extent money) on the mission of the organization and who do not receive payment for their work. This commitment, based on the interviews, often derives from the person s national identity and sense of responsibility for other members of the community or the community itself, however, especially in the case of younger members, volunteerism may be perceived as a hobby. Other aspect of voluntariness is, that these organizations are less hierarchical, than other institutions and as a result are more flexible. This flexibility is, based on the interviews, mostly financial. Of course, these latter aspects were not mentioned by the representatives, often employees of the more professionalized organizations. However, even these stressed out, that a civil society organization is mostly financed from grants, which in these cases meant the grants of the Ministry of Culture of Slovakia and the Ministry of Human Capacities of Hungary in first place. According to the interviewees, civil society organizations are those, that neither receive regular normative funding, nor do they engage in business activities. This was however not a demand towards the civil society organizations, only the description of the present state of these organizations. The support of the communities and sponsorship as a source of funding rarely emerged in the discussions. The fact, that these organizations are mostly financed from grants was perceived in a negative way, as non-ideal. The ideal state for these organizations would be, based on their opinion, either regular normative funding or in one case funding by the communities and especially the members themselves. The third important characteristic of civil society organizations was, according to their representatives, that it is not a political organization. This does not mean that its activity is entirely apolitical. The interviewees admit that the advocacy of interests is itself a political activity; however, the organization doesn t make commitments to, or follow the interests of any specific political party. This of course doesn t rule out the occasional or even regular cooperation with politics and parties on specific issues or events, however the organization has to follow the interests of the members and the target group. Regarding the membership of politicians, it is possible, until they don t form the majority of the organization s leadership and don t try to use the organization to further the interests of a given party. Seemingly the less important characteristic of a civic organization was that it has direct contact with the ethnic community, and therefore has more information about its state and can 13

14 assume the role of intermediary between the community on one hand and the selfgovernment, state, non-ethnic organizations and other actors on the other. However, this aspect only emerged in the interviews with the Roma organizations in Košice and Pécs. Activities of ethnic organizations As the organizations consider themselves the representatives of the ethnic community, it is an important question, how they perceive the state of the represented community. In this aspect, there is a significant difference between the Roma community and the other ethnic communities. In the first case, both in Košice and in Pécs the most important problems are unemployment, low educational levels, residential segregation, poor quality of housing, stereotypes, and that the Roma have no real opportunities to formulate their own interests. The other problems, like the weakness of Roma communities, week Roma identity and others are the results of these. The other ethnic minorities are more integrated in terms of employment, schooling. In their cases the main problem is assimilation and the migration of especially the young members of the community to other regions and abroad in pursuit of better job opportunities. In the case of the Hungarians in Košice another reason behind the migration to Hungary is that many young people study there and don t return after graduation. In general both the Roma and the other ethnic groups are satisfied with the legal framework concerning minorities. Only some representatives of the Hungarian organizations in Košice expressed the need for some form of cultural and educational autonomy or at least a law on national minorities. Beside these problems, the main interest that the interviewed organizational leaders expressed is to set up and maintain the institutions of the minority, especially the school system. But do the ethnic organizations address these problems, and if yes, how? Naturally, one of the central topics of the interviews was what the most important activities of the minority nonprofit organizations are. Based on the interviews, we may conclude, that these organizations are mainly active in culture, organizing events cultural events in first place, but also lectures on history, youth camps and supporting institutions mostly schools. There are some organizations that focus on youth in first place (e.g. student associations, scouts), while others focus on the general minority population. The latter try to reach the youth as well as the adult generation, however because of the different cultural preferences, 14

15 they are not always as successful, as youth organizations, but otherwise there is no significant difference in the main activities. The importance of cultural activities is dual. The main goal of these minority organizations is to strengthen the community and to reach the members of the respective nationality and as a result strengthen their national identity, sense of pride and reverse the trend of assimilation in the ethnic group. As a byproduct they expect, that as the communities and the interpersonal ties of the people become stronger, fewer people decide to leave the region and look for employment elsewhere. According to the subjects this is the most important role of ethnic minority organizations which they have to achieve together with the schools and other institutions of the ethnic minority. The target groups of these activities are mostly the members of the represented ethnic group. The other role of cultural activities is most evident in the case of the Roma organizations and some German associations. For these, the cultural and other events (e.g. lectures on minority history) and the minority media are not only ways to strengthen identity and community, but also to shape majority opinions and stereotypes, as these cultural events present a non-stereotypical, more favorable and from the majority s point of view more acceptable picture of the respective ethnic group. However in our opinion, the strong focus on cultural and other events is not only the effect of the ethnic character of the organizations, but it partly results from the fact, that before the change of regime cultural activities were the only tolerated forms of civic engagement and is further augmented by the financial support systems of both the host country and the kin-state in this case Hungary and Croatia, a notable exception being Germany, that does not support cultural activities, only infrastructural investments (e.g. purchase of computers and other equipment). In Slovakia Csemadok is the oldest and is still one of the most influential organizations, a cultural organization, which was established by the Communist Party of Slovakia in In the following decades, Csemadok was central in the recruitment of ethnic Hungarian elite in Slovakia, and many nonprofit leaders or their family members were or still are Csemadok members. Beside culture and other events advocacy of interest is not so typical, however there are some organizations, which try to undertake this task. Advocacy in this case often means to acquire better funding for nonprofit organizations and public institutions of the minority. In addition two of the interviewed organizations both in Košice have been established to foster cooperation within and across ethnic communities. The former organization s main goal is to 15

16 coordinate the Hungarian civic sector in Košice, especially its events. However, from time to time it organizes the Round Table of Hungarians in Košice, where the organizational leaders discuss all the tasks and problems of the ethnic Hungarian community in Košice. The other organization is an association of the organizations of the minorities, that don t have their own clubhouse or other place to organize their events. In addition this organization has its own events as well, that foster the interethnic cultural cooperation. In the past, there was an interethnic organization in Pécs as well, which tried to assume the advocacy role on national and EU level, but this organization doesn t exist any more On the whole, these ethnic nonprofit organizations strive to establish a parallel institutional system alongside the majority institutions, principally but not exclusively in the spheres of culture and education. They often themselves imitate the operation of the cultural institutions and technically act as complements of the existing, or substitutes for some nonexistent minority cultural institutions (e.g. Cultural and community centers, theatres, press-centers, etc.), basically in every aspect, but the low level of professionalization and the lack of normative funding, which they strive for. The Roma organizations in Pécs are somewhat different. Although they stress the importance of the cultural activities, it is not or not only to strengthen the Roma identity and community, but as mentioned above to shape majority opinions and stereotypes. However, the center of their activity is not culture, but the empowerment and social integration of marginalized Roma communities through social welfare projects, education and training, counselling services and other activities on one hand, and the raising of awareness of the situation of Roma. So their target group is both the Roma population and the non-roma population. In these activities they typically cooperate with local government and public institutions, and often mediate between the Roma community and these institutions. Their comparative advantage lies in that they can use their relative independence, to try less established methods to address social exclusion provided they acquire the necessary funding. However, based on the interviews made with Roma leaders in Košice, these focus mostly on culture and media, but in contrast to the other nationalities, they don t target solely their own ethnic group, but try to shape the opinions of the non-roma population as well. According to them, social welfare is primarily the responsibility of the state, but they admit, that nonprofits may be valuable partners, because they have more direct access to the local communities. 16

17 Beside their actual activities in the interviews we discussed what other roles civic organizations could assume in order to address the problems of the represented community. The answers to this question were diverse. Many have acknowledged the need to exercise more control over politics and to strengthen the sector s advocacy role, either in the form of lobbying for better funding (e.g. Germans in Pécs, Hungarians in Košice), protection of rights and interests by creating specialized organizations (Roma in Košice) or protests, policy recommendations or simply by encouraging the public activity of the ethnic community (e.g. Hungarians in Košice). According to some leaders, minority nonprofits should assume the role of elites and leaders of the ethnic community (e.g. some Croats in Pécs and Hungarians in Košice). Presently many organizations seem to delegate these task, that is advocacy, rights protection, lobbying, elite role, to some other organization the minority self-governments in Hungary or some umbrella organization of which they are members (e.g. Round Table of Hungarians in Slovakia, Round Table of Rusyns in Slovakia). Conditions of operation Based on the interviews, we may conclude, that the operation of these organizations can be characterized by a low level of professionalization, which stems from financial instability. The interviewed organizations rarely had paid employees and often they didn t have their own office or any other realty. For example almost all the Croat organizations have their office in the August Šenoa Club owned by the Croat Self-government and many German organizations not only civic organizations, but the local German self-government as well reside in the Lenau House. And if an organization has some property, it is often perceived as a financial burden, for what they have to acquire additional funds each year. This comes from the fact, that the majority of these organizations is financed from small grants offered by the national government of Slovakia or Hungary. In Slovakia it is the Fund for the Culture of Minorities of the Government Office of Slovakia, which previously belonged to the Ministry of Culture. In Hungary, the main source is the Ministry of Human Capacities. In addition, some minority communities Hungarians in Košice, Germans and Croats in Pécs may acquire additional funds from their respective kin-states. The interview subjects typically agreed that it s the duty of the state to support the cultural organizations of the nationalities, because they, as any other citizen of the state contribute to the national budget in the form of taxes. They were also grateful for the kin-state support. However these 17

18 sources are not sufficient to ensure financial stability, and especially organizations, that have high operating costs tend to have financial problems. As a result, organizations are dependent on these grants and perceive it as a pressure to apply for funding to as many calls as possible, sometimes even if it doesn t fit the organization s mission. However, based on the interviews, there is no intention on the side of the organizations to further diversify their income sources. On the other hand, in our opinion, the support systems of both the host country and the kinstates reinforce this financial dependence by choosing to support many organizations with relatively small amounts. The support system of the state was established immediately after the regime change to assist the formation of the third sector in these countries and still plays an important role in the funding of the third sector in general. In addition, the ethnic communities are mostly small and cannot sustain their institutional systems and minority activities don t attract as much funding from the general society and the businesses as other activities and organizations, such as healthcare, charities, children and youth, or corporate foundations (Kuti 2003, Bódi 2000, Marček 2006). The interviewees criticized the system for being biased at their expense (e.g. Germans in Pécs, Hungarians in Slovakia), short project durations (Roma in Pécs, Hungarians in Košice), for the decisionmakers incompetence and lack of information about the applicants (Hungarians in Pécs), and that there is no opportunity for feedback (Roma in Pécs). As a solution, several organizations proposed some form of normative funding or the establishment of a fund that would cover at least the operating costs. These were especially organizations with paid employees that fulfill public service (e.g. Roma Media Centre in Košice) or organizations with own office space (e.g. Germans in Pécs). Another proposed solution was some form of cultural and educational autonomy for the Hungarians in Slovakia. On the other hand, there are some organizations, that are professionalized, have paid employees, and are able to acquire more funding, for instance from the EU Structural Funds. Among the interviewed organizations, Roma organizations in Pécs reported, that they have projects financed by the European Union. The Roma in Košice and the other minorities on the contrary reported that they are not ready to acquire such funding. The main critique towards EU funds was, that the project duration is often too short to achieve sustainable effect and that sometimes organizations that aren t themselves Roma organizations, and allegedly lack the necessary expertise are more successful, than some Roma organizations in securing such funding. 18

19 As mentioned above, other sources are less typical, although some organizations receive financial support from the municipality (e.g. Croats in Pécs, Roma in Košice), however in Hungary this usually happens through the local minority self-governments, which do not necessarily distribute these among the organizations. In Hungary associations are obliged to have membership fees, but these are usually small and cover only a small fraction of the organization s expenses. No other sources were mentioned in the interviews. In the interviews surfaced other, non-financial difficulties as well. One of these was that the ethnic communities are relatively small in these cities, and as a result it is difficult for the organizations to attract new members, especially among young people. Especially, if new youth organizations are formed in the city, these are sometimes met with criticism from the other organizations. The reasons are probably diverse: They may be perceived as a threat to the older organization, because they compete for the same potential members and resources; In addition, these new organizations can be critical of the old ways these other organizations represent. In the case of Roma, the communities are not necessarily or not only small, but also marginalized, which makes recruitment even more difficult. Intra-, interethnic and cross-sectorial cooperation In this section we will discuss the ethnic organizations relationship to other institutions and organizations. The relationship with the state (both host state and kin-state) is limited to financial support, which we discussed in the previous section. In the interviews we mostly focused on the interorganizational relations and the relationships with the local governments, public institutions and the kin-state. Some organizations are members of an umbrella organization (e.g. The Round Table of Hungarians in Slovakia), or local organizations of bigger statewide or international organizations (e.g. Csemadok, Hungarian Scout Association in Slovakia, Matica Hrvatska, Hungarian Association of Croats). These have of course more or less close relationships with the other member/local organizations. Others are themselves umbrella organizations (e.g. Community of German Youth in Hungary, Forum of Hungarians in Košice, Club of National Minorities, etc.), whose raison d'être or at least one of their function is to foster the cooperation of the members. In addition in Pécs the Croats have the August Šenoa Club and 19

20 the Germans have the Lenau House, which several local organizations use as office spaces and for events. However, with the exception of the Croats, the interorganizational networks seem to be sparse. The Germans and Roma in Pécs reported that the interorganizational relationships are weak and would need improvement; the organizations had to learn to cooperate. These organizations are often relatively specialized, and the organizations do their projects separately. Sometimes interpersonal conflicts hinder the formation of interorganizational ties. In Košice, both the Hungarian and Roma organizations reported interorganizational cooperation. The Croats have probably the densest network of the ethnic communities we interviewed. Of the antecedents listed by Brass and his co-authors (Brass et al. 2004: ) previous interpersonal ties and the motive of resource acquisition seem to be the most important. The interpersonal ties are usually present in every ethnic community, the leaders know each other personally, and know the activities of each other s organizations, and there are cases of overlapping membership as well, but these are not always sufficient. The main motive is usually financial: the organizations provide space for or support other organizations events. Interethnic cooperation doesn t seem to be a priority, and the motive is often external, for instance the European Capital of Culture projects provided opportunities for the cultural organizations to present themselves on multiethnic cultural events. The only exceptions seem to be the Roma organizations, which see interethnic cooperation as a way to increase their influence. In Hungary such cooperation happens mostly on the level of minority selfgovernments, in the form of multiethnic advisory committees, and in Slovakia on the level of umbrella organizations, such as the Round Table of Hungarians in Slovakia but is not typical on the local level. These organizations have different target group, address different problems (e.g. Roma non-roma differences), prefer to organize events in their own language and these discourage interethnic cooperation. In Pécs and in Hungary in general minority self-governments are often the principal partners of voluntary organizations. This was especially true in the Croat case, where there is strong overlapping in leadership and membership as well, and the local, county and national Croat self-government support the activities of the nonprofits, provide infrastructure, etc. The overlapping membership is visible in the Roma and German case as well, however, the 20