Timofey Agarin teaches Comparative Politics at Queen’s University Belfast, where he is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict. His research interests are ethnic politics and their impact on societal transition, including majority-minority relations, non-discrimination, migration and civil society, with a particular focus on post communist states in Central Eastern Europe.

• Introduction: The (not so) surprising longevity of identity politics: contemporary challenges of the state- society compact in Central Eastern Europe 1. Authoritarian footprints in Central and Eastern Europe 2. Weak pluralism and shallow democracy: the rise of identity politics in Bulgaria and Romania 3. Caesarean politics in Hungary and Poland 4. In Europe’s Closet: the rights of sexual minorities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia 5. Nation before democracy? Placing the rise of the Slovak extreme right into context 6. Latgale and Latvia’s post- Soviet democracy: the territorial dimension of regime consolidation 7. Consolidated technocratic and ethnic hollowness, but no backsliding: reassessing Europeanisation in Estonia and Latvia

Timofey Agarin teaches Comparative Politics at Queen’s University Belfast, where he is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict. His research interests are ethnic politics and their impact on societal transition, including majority-minority relations, non-discrimination, migration and civil society, with a particular focus on post communist states in Central Eastern Europe.

• Introduction: The (not so) surprising longevity of identity politics: contemporary challenges of the state- society compact in Central Eastern Europe 1. Authoritarian footprints in Central and Eastern Europe 2. Weak pluralism and shallow democracy: the rise of identity politics in Bulgaria and Romania 3. Caesarean politics in Hungary and Poland 4. In Europe’s Closet: the rights of sexual minorities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia 5. Nation before democracy? Placing the rise of the Slovak extreme right into context 6. Latgale and Latvia’s post- Soviet democracy: the territorial dimension of regime consolidation 7. Consolidated technocratic and ethnic hollowness, but no backsliding: reassessing Europeanisation in Estonia and Latvia

Timofey Agarin teaches Comparative Politics at Queen’s University Belfast, where he is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict. His research interests are ethnic politics and their impact on societal transition, including majority-minority relations, non-discrimination, migration and civil society, with a particular focus on post communist states in Central Eastern Europe.

• Introduction: The (not so) surprising longevity of identity politics: contemporary challenges of the state- society compact in Central Eastern Europe 1. Authoritarian footprints in Central and Eastern Europe 2. Weak pluralism and shallow democracy: the rise of identity politics in Bulgaria and Romania 3. Caesarean politics in Hungary and Poland 4. In Europe’s Closet: the rights of sexual minorities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia 5. Nation before democracy? Placing the rise of the Slovak extreme right into context 6. Latgale and Latvia’s post- Soviet democracy: the territorial dimension of regime consolidation 7. Consolidated technocratic and ethnic hollowness, but no backsliding: reassessing Europeanisation in Estonia and Latvia