ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the threat of being left outside of or marginalized within political communities for an increasing number of individuals in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. With the unraveling of federal relations and the creation of new states in the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, members of the old communities have had to reestablish their citizenship. Ethnic Russians living in Estonia could claim Russian citizenship and continue, under certain terms, to live in Estonia. The inclusion of individuals in or their exclusion from the rights and obligations of citizenship, moreover, is significant because of what people have come to understand as the foundations of minimally democratic communities. Development of the notion of citizens as competent decision makers is complicated by the use of both individual rights and collective rights in defining the enjoyment of citizenship. Privatization and reinstatement of property in Eastern Europe underscore the obstacles for women’s full enjoyment of citizenship.