Ethnic Citizenship in the Slovenian State

A case for Slovene nationalism: initial citizenship rules and the erasure*

“…Yet how did ordinary people understand Article 40? My own fieldwork (Zorn 2005) and the work of several other researchers (Beznec 2008; Lipovec Čebron 2008; Mekina 2008; Muršič 2008) has shown that actual and potential applicants understood it in a variety of ways related to general perceptions of citizenship status: many understood it instrumentally, but for some, its implications were symbolic. Those who expressed the symbolic undertones can be further divided into two groups: those who equated citizenship status with ethnic belonging (‘Why should I become a Slovene, when I was not one?’) 5 and those who understood it as a matter of subjugation (‘I felt guilty, less worthy because I was not a Slovene.…”

“…This act (which will be explained in greater detail below) can be viewed not only as an ethnically motivated violation of individuals' rights, but also, in a symbolic sense, as ‘punishment’ for an alleged lack of loyalty and failure to assimilate. Persons erased from the registry were stripped of the right to reside in Slovenia (in their homes with their families), the right to cross state borders, and the right to work; they were denied access to health care, pensions, and social benefits, and some were even detained and deported (Blitz 2006; Dedić, Jalušič and Zorn 2003; Lipovec Čebron 2008; Pignoni 2008; Zorn 2005). Despite the severity of its consequences, this administrative measure remained publicly invisible for a decade.…”

Integration Policies in Migration Between Nationalising States and Transnational Citizenship, with Reference to the Slovenian Case

“…For more on how more than 18,000 people and their families lost the legal basis for their existence in Slovenia soon after the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s see Zorn (2005).…”

Anti-Refugee Sentiment without Refugees: Human Rights Violations and Social Work in Post-Socialist Countries of Southeastern Europe in their Social Contexts

“…The statuses of permanent resident and citizen were conflated in a decidedly illegal manner. These so-called Erased were essentially treated as illegal migrants vulnerable to detention and deportation (Zorn 2005(Zorn , 2009. 13 The quiet elimination of legal statuses and social rights was not just a caesura in a new democratic state, but a constitutive part of it.…”