The East European Gypsies
Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics

In this 2001 book a social scientist explains the predicament of Gypsies and their relationship to societies.

Zoltan Barany (Author)

9780521804103, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 September 2001

422 pages, 16 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.79 kg

"Zoltan Barany's work represents one of the first attempts to study the Gypsies from a social-science perspectives....I recommend it highly for those interested in the place of the Roma in Eastern Europe, as well as for students of the position of minorities within the region in general." Slavic and East European Journal

This 2001 book is an attempt by a social scientist to explain the predicament of Gypsies (or Roma), Eastern Europe's largest ethnic minority, and their relationship to the region's states and societies. Barany examines the Gypsies' socioeconomic and political marginality and policies toward them through seven centuries and in seven East European states. He illuminates the reasons why the Roma have consistently occupied the bottom of social, economic, and political hierarchies regardless of historical period or geographic location. Barany argues that the current nostalgia of many Gypsies for the socialist period is easy to understand, given the disastrous effect of the post-communist socioeconomic transformation on the Roma's conditions over the last decade. He explains the impact of Gypsy political mobilization, and the activities of international organizations and NGOs, on government policies. This pioneering multidisciplinary work will engage political scientists, sociologists and historians, as well as students of ethnic and racial studies.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. The Analytical Framework: 1. Regimes, states, and minorities
2. Marginality and ethnic mobilization
Part II. Non-Democratic Systems and Gypsy Marginality: 3. The gypsies in imperial and authoritarian states
4. The Roma under state-socialism
Part III. The Gypsies in Emerging Democracies: 5. The socioeconomic impact of regime change: gypsy marginality in the 1990s
6. Romani mobilization
7. The international dimension: migration and institutions
8. State institutions and policies toward the gypsies
9. Romani marginality revisited
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Political science & theory [JPA], Ethnic studies [JFSL], Society & social sciences [J], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Regional studies [GTB]