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

884 Social Science Quarterly
national or religious identity, nor particularly discourage them. E.U. and U.N. guidelines
on census note that the questions regarding national and religious identity should be open
and voluntary. The practice in Europe is broad, and state policies vary greatly, ranging
from not asking about national identity, to voluntary questions, to closed questions (Perry,
2013:8–10).
Significantly, the U.N. census recommendations note that the category of ethnicity
should allow for multiple identities. This recommendation is followed by only a few
countries, including those in our case studies. It also notes that “no internationally relevant
criteria or classification can be recommended” (U.N., 2008:140; UNECE, 2006:96) due
to the diversity of groups and the difficulties of establishing universal categories; such
categories have to be context specific.
The state-led census process reflected these three, sometimes conflicting, features. All
countries under consideration here asked about the respondent’s ethnicity or nationality,
as well as religion and mother tongue.
In analyzing the questionnaires, we need to consider the following questions
1. To what degree are the different identity questions linked?
2. Were there specific choices of questions offered, and what opportunities for opting
out existed?
3. To what degree was the indication of identity voluntary?
While the Yugoslav census had offered an open, write-in question for national identity,
mother tongue, and religion, and did not require citizens to answer the national identity
question, the post-Yugoslav censuses vary in some aspects.
They all list the three questions on national identity, mother tongue, and religion
together—usually following the question on citizenship. This suggests a nexus between the
questions. 3
This link is most explicit in Serbia and Macedonia. This link is apparent in the Macedonian
law on the abandoned 2011 census, which determines that the census will identify
“ethnic characteristics, including ‘national identity, mother tongue, and religion’” (Zakon
za popis, 2010:Art. 9). Similarly, in Serbia, questions about national belonging, language,
and religion are grouped together under the heading “ethnic markers.”
Even where such an explicit link does not exist, the connection is clear. The order on
all forms was first national or ethnic identity, followed by either language or religion,
creating a logical flow from national identity to other identity markers. Thus, religion and
language are suggested to be a function of national/ethnic identity, 4 rather than distinctive
and discreet individual markers of identity. This linkage was also criticized by NGOs
advocating secularization in Serbia (Krstić, 2013) (Table 1).
Greater variation existed in the degree to which the categories are predetermined. Croatia
used the most narrowly predetermined form, with the only identity category explicitly offered
being the dominant majority (Croat, Catholic, Croatian language) and other options
having to be stated by the citizen enumerated. Serbia, on the other hand, predetermines no
categories on the form, and all three responses are to be written in, which closest resembles
the Yugoslav census practice. Bosnia and Kosovo follow the Croatian approach by offering
3 For the census forms from Montenegro, see http://www.monstat.org/userfiles/file/popis2011/POPISNICA
%202011.pdf. For Bosnia, see http://www2.rzs.rs.ba/static/uploads/popis/obrasci/Obrazac_P1.pdf. For Serbia,
see http://media.popis2011.stat.rs/2011/obrasci/Popisnica-latinica.pdf. For Croatia, see http://www.dzs.
hr/Hrv/censuses/census2011/forms/P1-WEB.PDF. For Kosovo, see http://ask.rks-gov.net/rekos2011/
repository/docs/R3ENG.pdf (in English).
4 The terminology varies between national identity and ethnic belonging. Such variation does not arise when
asking for mother tongue or religion.