Contemporary European normative space is in part constituted by the established shared standard of minority protection. This volume analyses the diffusion into and implementation of minority rights in postcommunist Europe. Our contributors estimate the importance granted to these norms by assessing its application across the board of European states.

This book was published as a special issue of Perspectives on European Politics and Society.

1. Introduction 2. No Space for Constructivism? A Critical Appraisal of European Compliance Research 3. Exploring the Implementation of Minority Protection Rules in the 'Worlds of Compliance': The Case of Turkey 4. Implementation Unwanted? Symbolic vs. Instrumental Policies in the Russian Management of Ethnic Diversity 5. Which is the Only Game in Town? Minority Rights Issues in Estonia and Slovakia During and After EU Accession 6. The (Non) Implementation of Recommendations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in the Netherlands Explained 7. The Implementation of the ECRML in Slovakia under Construction: Structural Preconditions, External influence and Internal Obstacles 8. The Role of NGOs in Promoting Minority Rights in the Enlarged European Union

Timofey Agarin is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics and Ethnic Conflict in Queen's University Belfast, where he is also the Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict. His research interest is in ethnic politics and their impact on transition from communism in Central Eastern European states. He is interested in the interplay of social and institutional change in postcommunism in issue areas of non-discrimination, minority protection, migration and civil society. Timofey has published in Ethnopolitics, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Ethnicities, Nationalities Papers and Journal of Baltic Studies. He authored A Cat's Lick? Democratisation and Minority Communities in the post-Soviet Baltic (Rodopi 2010) and edited Minority Integration in Central Eastern Europe: Between Ethnic Diversity and Equality (Rodopi 2009, with Malte Brosig) and Institutional Legacies of Communism: Change and Continuities in Minority Protection (Routledge 2013, with Karl Cordell).

Malte Brosig is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He received his PhD in 2008 at the Centre for International and European Studies Research at Portsmouth University. He has published widely on questions of norm diffusion and minority protection in Eastern Europe. He is an Associate Editor of European Security and Co-chairing the Human Rights Working Group at the German Political Science Association. His work has been published in accredited journals such as: Journal of European Integration, International Peacekeeping, European Security, the European Review of International Affairs, the South African Journal of International Affairs, and the Journal of International Organization Studies at which he is also serving as an editorial board member.