Making Citizens Beyond the Borders
The decision to extend citizenship to nonresidents grows out of specific identity projects undertaken, most often, by right-wing governments and results in fluid and variable conditions of membership.
A Laboratory of Citizenship: Shifting Conceptions of Citizenship in Yugoslavia and its Successor States
This paper focuses on shifting conceptions of citizenship in Yugoslavia, from its establishment in 1918 to its disintegration in 1991, and in its successor states from early 1990s to the present. It analysis the history of Yugoslavia and its successor states as an instructive and rare example of how citizenship can be used for different and even opposing goals: as a tool of national integration in the first Yugoslavia (1918-1941), as a tool of socialist re-unification after the failure of the previous national integration and the ensuing inter-ethnic conflicts (1945 to the mid-1960s), as a tool of cooperation among nations and their republics in a socialist multinational (con)federation (beginning in the late 1960s and continuing until 1990), as a tool of fragmentation and dissolution (1990-1991) and, finally, of ethnic engineering in Yugoslavia’s successor state. It also shows that during the last decade citizenship was used both as a tool of reconciliation and of new divisions. It remains to be seen if the introduction of European citizenship, following the eventual EU integration of all of Yugoslavia’s successor states, will be yet another experiment in a century-old Balkan laboratory of citizenship.
Thailand's Muslim Minorities: Assimilation, Secession, or Coexistence?
THAILAND is a predominantly Buddhist country. For most people its very name conjures up images of saffron-robed monks, temple bells, and statues of the Buddha-images that travel brochures or impressions gained during a fleeting visit do little to dispel. Yet a more careful scrutiny of the Thai scene reveals signs of a very different religious tradition existing side-by-side with the Theravada Buddhist establishment. For Thai Islam, its presence indicated equally by the halal foodstall in a crowded Bangkok market or by the silhouette of a minaret against a rural skyline, continues to flourish throughout much of the country. Today an estimated 1,750,000 people, about 4% of the total population, are Muslims, making Islam the second religion of Thailand.' This article briefly outlines the historical background and geographical distribution of Islam in Thailand, drawing particular attention to the ethnic diversity of the various Thai Muslim peoples, before analyzing the nature of contemporary political relationships between the Thai Buddhist establishment and Thailand's Muslim minority. Even though there can be no precise date for the introduction of Islam to Thailand, it is evident that Arab and Persian Muslims en route to