ABSTRACT
Most nation states in Southeastern Europe (SEE) have proactive policies targeting their
ethnic kin. Co-ethnics living in neighbouring countries have, more often than not, been
given access to external citizenship either as full citizenship or other citizenship-related
rights by kin-states.1 The governments of the kin-states have, for various reasons (often-
times instrumental), argued that they are responsible for the protection of their co-ethnics
residing in the neighbouring countries and offered them the benefit of their country’s citi-
zenship. In the context of state dissolution and various types of frozen conflicts or other
forms of intrastate disputes, phenomena still common in many parts of SEE, this external
citizenship has frequently caused tensions between kin and host states. Kin-states together
with nationalising host-states and national minorities constitute a specific constellation of
conflicting nationalisms, the so-called ‘triadic nexus’ (Brubaker, 1996) common to post-
1989 Europe.
