Institutionalization of ethnic political actors in Austria-Hungary: The examples of Galicia and Bukovyna

Abstract

The article examines the institutional processes in the ethnopolitics of Austro-Hungary concerned with the rights and needs of ethnic actors and the processes of internal and external institutionalization of Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Romanian and German political actors in Galicia and Bukovyna. The legal basis for the formalization of political participation of citizens and the policy priorities of the state are characterized in terms of ethnic awakening. We trace a genesis of ethnic catalyst of the political mobilization and determine the relationship between the occupational structure and the lines of social division expressed in the ethnic terms. The platforms and strategies of the political parties founded along the ethnic lines are analyzed. We also examine the mobilization factors of electoral and protest participations, the catalysts of competition among the ethno-national communities with different statuses, the variability of protection of the group interests, and the compromises and consensuses of the formalized and unformalized ethnic actors.