The Ethnic Hungarian Minority in Serbia : Between Ethnopolitics and European Politics

Abstract

This article focuses on Serbia's largest minority group, the ethnic Hungarians, and the party of the Alliance of Vojvodina's Hungarians/VMSZ. VMSZ emerges as an ethnic minority party that has developed a distinctly (right-wing) ideological profile. This profile appropriates and combines elements from Hungarian 'illiberal democracy' and Serbian 'stabilitocracy'. VMSZ aligns with its larger partners' (the Serbian Progressive Party/SNS and the Civic Democratic Union/FIDESZ) willingness for Serbia to join the EU under the condition that the EU 'reforms' towards a more conservative and sovereigntist direction so that it can also accommodate governments with 'divergent' outlooks on liberal democracy (e.g. stabilitocratic Serbia).