Poland's Kin-State Policies

<p>The increased engagement of states with their co-ethnics abroad has recently become one of the most contentious features of European politics. Until recently the issue has been discussed predominantly within the paradigm of international security; yet a review of the broader European picture shows that kin-state engagement can in fact have a positive societal impact when it actually responds effectively to the claims formulated by co-ethnic communities themselves. </p><p>Poland's Kin-State Policies: Opportunities and Challenges offers new insights into this issue by examining Poland’s fast-evolving relationship with Polish communities living beyond its borders. Its central focus is the Act on the Polish Card (generally known as <i>Karta Polaka)</i>. Tracing policymaking processes and the underlying political agendas that have shaped them the volume situates Poland’s engagement within broader conceptual and normative debates around kin-state and diaspora politics and explores its reception and impact in neighbouring states (Ukraine Germany Lithuania). The volume highlights how the issue of co-ethnics abroad is increasingly being instrumentalised most especially for the purposes of attracting labour migration to resolve the demographic crisis in Poland. </p><p>The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of <i>Ethnopolitics.</i></p>