Ethnicised citizenship and the post-socialist model of diversity management : the case of Slovenia’s ‘unrecognised’ minorities from former Yugoslavia

Mandelc, Damjan (author), Ješe Perković, Ana (author), Učakar, Tjaša (author)

This article examines how Slovenia’s post-communist approach to diversity management marginalizes minorities from the former Yugoslav republics. The constitution grants cultural rights and parliamentary representation to Italian and Hungarian minorities, but communities from Bosnia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Croatia are excluded from these protections. Recognised mainly by religious affiliation, these groups have limited access to formal minority rights. Their fight for recognition is fragmented, lacking unified political representation, and the 1992 “erasure”—the removal of thousands from the permanent resident registry after independence—still undermines their sense of belonging. Drawing on theories of racialized citizenship, belonging, multiculturalism, and social mobility, the article examines how exclusionary legal frameworks create hierarchies of belonging that hinder mobility for these unrecognised minorities. The qualitative interviews with descendants of Bosnian migrants reveal intergenerational struggles with recognition, ambivalent experiences of citizenship, and discrimination. Set in the post-communist Eastern European context, the study argues that even under the pressures of EU integration, citizenship regimes remain divided along ethnic lines. This division maintains structural inequalities and marginalizes certain groups despite their long-term residence and formal citizenship. The study contributes to debates on ethnicised citizenship and diversity management by showing how legal exclusion, historical legacies, and fragmented minority politics limit belonging and mobility in post-communist societies.

• Language: English
• Keywords: ethnicised citizenship, minority recognition, post-socialist Europe, post-Yugoslav minorities, politics of belonging, Slovenia
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2025
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 1-17
• Numbering: Vol. 9, iss. 4, 120
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-175549
• UDC: 323.1
• ISSN on article: 2313-5778
• DOI: 10.3390/genealogy9040120
• COBISS.SI-ID: 255660291
• Publication date in RUL: 03.11.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Genealogy
• Shortened title: Genealogy
• Publisher: MDPI AG
• ISSN: 2313-5778
• COBISS.SI-ID: 526740249

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
• Description: A creative commons license that bans commercial use, but the users don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: državljanstvo, etnične skupine, manjšine, priznanje, postsocialistična Evropa, pripadnost, Slovenija

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P6-0194
• Name: Problemi avtonomije in identitet v času globalizacije