Institutional Dynamics of State-Minority Relations: The Case of Roma Communities in Slovakia

The study addresses the absence of a comprehensive institutional analysis framework in the academic literature on state-minority relations. It does so by employing a framework of analysis based on Skocpol’s analysis of structural factors and Ostrom’s multi-level institutional analysis to understand the processes of radical and incremental institutional change. The article is empirically grounded in a case study of Roma communities in Slovakia. More specifically, it maps and analyzes the evolution and change of institutional frameworks of state-minority relations in the context of Roma communities in Slovakia from the 1960s to 2020. Drawing from archival materials, interview findings, and document analysis, this article shows how post-socialist Slovakia radically redefined and diversified its institutional framework for Roma communities at different institutional levels, which subsequently continued to change at an incremental pace. Overall, the study aspires to offer a more dynamic institutional approach to the study of state-minority relations, which are currently dominated by more static regime- and rights-based approaches, and to contribute with a prospectively useful framework for understanding the developments of state-minority relations in the broader post-Soviet space and beyond.