The Relational Evolution of Ethnic Political Identities.

A number of theorists have described ethnic identity as the maintenance of a social boundary between one group and an "other" group in relation to which a group may be defined. However, a full understanding of the processes by which these boundaries are established and maintained requires some attention to their unfolding over time. Informed by a research project that examines competing ethnic narratives on politics, this paper outlines how a relational approach to this complex evidence helps us to better understand these processes of boundary creation and maintenance. The evidence is drawn from daily newspapers over a 10-year period, allowing for a comparison of discourse streams over time in 1) Romanian and Hungarian local newspapers in two cities and 2) Slovak and Hungarian newspapers at the state level. An approach that allows for an examination of the relational and incremental nature of identity can help us to better explain oscillations between extremism and moderation in ethnic politics over time. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]