The Construction of National Identity and its Challenges in Post-Yugoslav Censuses

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882 Social Science Quarterly dominant factors explaining Yugoslav self-identification during this period were residence in urban centers, membership in the Communist Party, and parents of mixed background. Throughout the socialist period, censuses were based on self-identification. Thus, for example, in the last Yugoslav census of 1991, the questions about national identity, religion, and mother tongue were left open. Besides Yugoslavs and Muslims, smaller minorities experienced considerable numerical shifts during the socialist periods. These changes were not the result of demographic changes, but rather of ethnic mimicry (i.e., the self-identification with categories other than one’s own background due to external factors). This remains particularly noticeable among Roma, whose numbers in censuses consistently lay well below those estimated by the state and experts (Guijzings, 2000:147–50). The last Yugoslav census was held in March 1991, few months prior to Slovenia’s and Croatia’s declaration of independence in June, amidst growing tensions in the country. These tensions were also reflected in the census. The number of Yugoslavs declined by nearly half to 3.01 percent of the population, still larger in number than Montenegrins or Hungarians. However, the collapse of the League of Communists, and the capture of the Yugoslav project by Slobodan Milošević, contributed to the decline of its popularity. Furthermore, the Albanian population of Kosovo boycotted the census in 1991, in protest against Serb dominance, and the abolition of the province’s autonomy two years earlier. State Categories As argued above, censuses constitute a site in which the ethnic entrepreneurs negotiate identity categories and their salience. The state, as in the case of the post-Yugoslav censuses, as well as elsewhere, is hardly a neutral arbiter of identities. Prior to the 1990s, different states offered varying categories depending on their self-conception as a multinational, multireligious, or nation-state. By offering particular choices, states co-determine the outcome and shape the discourse over identity. The formulation of questions asked in census forms, and the categories offered, do not take place in a vacuum, and the ability of the state to arbitrarily determine categories is constrained. In addition to the categories created in the census, the role of the state (i.e., the timing and enumerators) is also crucial in the process of census. This is particularly true in the case of substantial minorities, who often speak a different language than the majority and have a legacy of conflict. The recruitment of minority enumerators is thus important, yet this does not address potential intragroup pressures or tensions among different minorities. Finally, in addition to the categories at the point of census taking, the categorizations employed in the census results matter. Here, the state has to decide which categories to aggregate, and which to ignore or subsume into larger categories. Thus, the identity-shaping role of the state extends well beyond the census categories, which we will focus on here. There are three sources that constrain the choices of states: (1) established patterns (i.e., the way in which these categories existed in the past, as reflected through past censuses and the legal framework); (2) social expectations and debate, informed not only by the dominant community, but also by minorities, in as much as they are able to articulate themselves; and (3) E.U. and international standards that are aspired to by the states, and that dictate certain procedures and categories. The current categories provided in all post-Yugoslav censuses have evolved continuously since the first postwar census held in Socialist Yugoslavia in 1948.
The Construction of National Identity and its Challenges 883 Although most post-Yugoslav states often sought to break with the Yugoslavia legacy, census categories remained largely unchanged. Unlike earlier critical junctures—the establishment of nation-states and the two world wars—that brought ruptures in the census categories, the dissolution of Yugoslavia occurred along existing internal borders and even the new states inherited the institutions and the international patterns of the republics. While the states reconfigured the hierarchy of nations, granting greater power to the dominant nation in new constitutions (especially in Croatia and Macedonia), no successor state denied recognition to minorities (Jović, 2011). In the first postindependence census held in the early 2000s, the old categories largely remained, with minor shifts. Thus, following a decision of Muslim intellectuals in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993, the name of the Muslims changed to Bosniaks to create a greater distinction for religious identity and also assert greater ownership over the Bosnian state (Dimitrovova, 2001). All post-Yugoslav states followed this shift by allowing their citizens to identify as Bosniaks, even if not all Muslims followed suit. The new nation-states that replaced Yugoslavia often introduced new identity categories, resulting in the often-deliberate fragmentation of minorities. In the 1990s, highlighting smaller minorities also served to downplay larger communities. Serbia, under Milošević, recognized the Egyptian and Ashkali minorities distinct from Roma, as well as the Slav Muslim Gorani in Kosovo and Bunjevci, and the Catholic South Slavs like the Croats in the northern province of Vojvodina. Subsequently, as we shall see in more detail in the next sections, census categories are shaped by public debate, in addition to historical patterns. Political parties, religious leaders, and NGOs have taken an active part in both seeking to determine the categories, and subsequently in mobilizing citizens to make particular identity choices. Finally, international standards and the monitoring of the European Union have also shaped the conduct of the census, including the construction of categories. In part, this can be attributed to the European Union’s professional standards and networks of statistical offices, and to the external assistance and financial support provided to the census in the region by the European Union. E.U. engagement has been particularly significant, as the European Union has a particular interest in supporting the development of reliable statistics in potential member states. As a result, it has provided expertise and established the Technical Coordination Group (TGC) ahead of the censuses in 2009, with census offices in all countries of the Western Balkans. The European Union and United Nations not only provided advice on the censuses, but also established monitoring missions at the request of the governments in Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Bosnia. In Kosovo, with a strong international presence and a controversial census due to the contested nature of Kosovo’s statehood, the E.U. official in charge of the census met with the prime minister Hashim Thaçi and the International Monitoring Mission (composed of E.U. and U.N. officials) to publicly declare the questions posed on national identity and religion to be in line with international standards (Collaku, 2011). The approach taken by the European Union, which had funded and observed the first post-Yugoslav census in Macedonia in 1994, focused on the census as a neutral statistical exercise. Viktor Friedman noted the gap between the international observers’ technical understanding of the census and the deeply political and contested significance it held domestically (1994:84). Macedonia and Kosovo’s constitutions both contain provisions linking political representation to population share and group rights, and, as a result, there is clearly an internationally sanctioned constitutional logic to determining the citizens’ national identity. Generally speaking, considering the international mediation of the constitutional arrangements in Bosnia, international and E.U. standards on census neither require questions asking about
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The Construction of National Identity and its Challenges in Post-Yugoslav Censuses

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