Changes in the population census and what they mean in relation to minorities and data collection on nationality
Minority Policy 2020/03

Changes in the population census and what they mean in relation to minorities and data collection on nationality

Svetlusa Surova

Changes in the population census and what they mean in relation to minorities and data collection on nationality

The upcoming population census to be carried out from 15th February to 31st March 2021 will be electronic, integrated and will use self-enumeration method. This census is also important for national minorities. Until now, only one nationality could be given in the population census. In the upcoming census, a second nationality will be surveyed, too. In this article, I analyse how the term „nationality“ is defined and focus on what exactly will be surveyed in the census and how. I examine what the data collected on nationality in the census actually say and the need to approach them critically. The article also looks at how Slovak practice corresponds with the latest scientific knowledge on identity, nationality and other related concepts, as well as with international practice and recommendations for collecting data concerning identities of individuals. First, we will examine why data on people’s identity is collected and whether such data should be collected in the first place.

Do we collect data on race and ethnicity in order to prevent racism and discrimination?

Different countries collect data on national, civic and ethnic identity of people in different ways and for different purposes. Collection of such data is used, for instance, for developing information base for various analyses, evaluation, decision-making and policymaking, including minority policymaking.

At the UN level, statistical categorization of inhabitants and detailed data collection enabling its subsequent classification is considered an important tool for identifying inequities.1 At the global level, the prevailing opinion is that ethnic data collection is significant for adopting measures enabling preservation and survival of different ethnic groups.2 The Council of Europe Commission against Racism and Intolerance also sees ethnic data collection as an important tool for monitoring discrimination, anti-discrimination policymaking, promotion of equal opportunities, as well as for evaluating such measures.3

In its latest opinion, the Advisory Committee for the Framework Convention for Protection of National Minorities (hereinafter ‘the Framework Convention‘) has recommended the Slovak government to continue „collecting data on the situation and access to rights of persons belonging to national minorities regularly in close cooperation with the representatives of minorities,“ in order to draw on reliable data on equality in the process of related policymaking.4 In its fourth opinion, the Advisory Committee has reiterated the need for collecting statistical data on population, but has also recommended to expand such data collection by information from independent research.5

Even though international organisations recommend collecting data on citizenship, national or ethnic identity, language, religion, sex, gender and so on, it is personal6 and very sensitive data. If such data gets misused, minorities face the risk of being exposed to discrimination, exclusion or persecution. Ethnic data can present certain groups of population as either victims or as a burden to society.7 Collecting data on individual identity is a two-edged sword and should be handled very carefully.8

Identity has been a very important concept in social science for several decades. The emerging debate on collecting data about ethnic/national identity of individuals shows the importance of identity not only for individual people, but also for social and political life. In the next part, a brief overview of definitions of terms such as identity, nationality and ethnic identity in social science is introduced.

Defining identity, nationality and ethnic identity in social science

Social scientists agree that identity is not a „thing“ or a „personality trait“. It is not something a person does or does not have. Identity is related to the process of identification; it is a product of social relations and people’s actions.9 In the current and relevant literature, identity is understood as a process and a social construct, not as something „owned“ or „inherent“. In the relevant political science literature, the concept of identity is related to a social category defined by rules of membership and typical attributes, as well as to expected behaviour, socially distinct features one is proud of or sees as unchangeable.10

At the present time, identities are considered fluid, multi-dimensional a personalized social constructs reflecting social and historical contexts.11 There is also a wide-spread view that people can have multiple identities due to their different roles in the society.12 Sociology understands identity as a an agent, but also as a theoretical construct. According to the theory of identity, individuals only exist in the context of a social structure and an individual’s identities can be derived from their roles in the society, groups they belong to, as well as from their personal traits.13

Studies of collective identities of Slovak minority in Serbia showing that members of minorities can have multiple identities they assign different importance and meaning to are one example of the above understanding of the concept.14 A 2020 study has identified multiple and different collective identities and has pointed out complex relations between ethnic, national, subnational and territorial identities. Members of the Slovak minority in Serbia typically have different national, ethnic, regional and other social identities that coexist and differ in the meaning they have for those who bear them.

The term nationality refers to affiliation to the nation in Slovak language. It can be a minority nation or a part of the nation living outside of its country, and also an ethnic group.15 The English equivalent for this term is nationality. In spoken language, English understands the term as affiliation to a nation (including legal affiliation),16 as well as a group of people of the same race, religion and traditions.17 According to the European Convention on Nationality, the concept of „nationality“ means the legal bond between a person and a state and is not related to ethnic origin.18

As a concept, nationality can mean affiliation to a nation in both ethnic and political sense of the word. In the political sense, nationality relates to nationality in terms of citizenship. At the same time, the term nationality is closely connected to other related concepts such as nationalism and nation. The understanding of the concept of nationality is derived from precisely these meanings. In professional literature, nationalism is conceptualised from two perspectives – Primordialist and constructivist perspectives. Primordialists understand national identities as set, exogenous to all other social phenomena and as primary identities in relation to other collective identities. Constructivists, on the other hand, perceive national identity as shapeable and subject to numerous social influences. Classifications of nationalism vary, but there are usually two distinct types: ethnocultural nationalism includes awareness of the shared origin and history whereas civic nationalism draws on the idea of affiliation to the same state. The difference between Primordialist and constructivist positions is in the definition of the concept of a nation.19

The term nation has a different meaning in the Western European and North American countries and its different from its understanding in Southeast Europe.20 In the west, the term is used as a synonym to terms like country, population and citizens of the state. In Southeast Europe, ethnic nation is understood under this term. Such a perception of a nation assumes blood relation and shared attributes such as language, religion and other folkloric features of individuals.  

In the relevant literature, nations are considered ideological constructs creating abstract communities  and representing a connection between cultural groups and the state.21 The currently prevailing view is that nations are a product of nationalistic ideologies. Benedikt Anderson22 defines nation as a mental image of a political community. Although most nations imagine themselves as old phenomena, nations are a result of modernism.

In social science, ethnic identity is understood as the core substance of ethnicity.23 In the past fifty years, scientist have been stressing that ethnicity is a socially constructed phenomenon.24 At the present time, the prevailing opinions indicate that ethnic identity is fluid, relational and situational. Many scientists see ethnic boundaries as constantly changing, but not in an unlimited way.25 However, a lot of literature in the field of comparative policy still considers ethnic identity to be something unique, timeless and fixed .26

Scientists of different schools and approaches have proposed either classification or some unique characteristics of ethnic identity.27 The most commonly used definitions of ethnic identity highlight origin as an important feature of an ethnic group. Origin can be defined in different ways, for instance, by a shared myth about origin, common language and culture or a shared homeland. Nevertheless, Chandra28 has proposed to leave out all the previously used defining criteria when defining ethnic identity in comparative policy. She then defines ethnic identity as a subcategory of identity categories, in which membership is determined by attributes related to origin or attributes supposed to be connected to origin. This is a Minimalist definition of ethnic identity.

As for definitions of terms such as nationality, nation, ethnicity and ethnic identity, constructivism has gained a dominant position. National and ethnic identities are constructs; they are not „natural“.29

Let us now examine how these terms and concepts are understood at the international and the national level.

Conceptualisation of terminology at international and national level

In the UN, ethnicity is considered to be a rather heterogenous concept as it is understood and measured differently in different countries. Criteria for identifying ethnic groups can also differ.30 However, agreement has been reached in the UN that no international criteria for identifying ethnic groups should be recommended.31

In the Council of Europe, the term nation is understood as being „deeply rooted in the culture and the history of people and includes fundamental features of their identity“. In some Council of Europe member states this term is used to describe citizenship while in others it is a denomination of an ethnocultural community. The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly recommendation of 2006 sees an ethnocultural community as a cultural reality, a cultural fact or a cultural status.32

In the Slovak legislation, terms like the nation, national minorities, ethnic groups and nationality are used. However, they are not always clearly defined or explained. The Slovak constitution, the law on language and even the law on Slovaks living abroad33 stress ethnic understanding of the Slovak nation and make difference between ethnic Slovaks, Slovak language and other citizens of Slovakia who are members of national and ethnic minorities.34 The Preamble to the Constitution of the Slovak Republic says „We, the Slovak nation…together with members of national minorities and ethnic groups living in the territory of the Slovak Republic ,“ which means there is ethnic understanding of the Slovak and also minority nations. The last part of the preamble says that the Slovak nation together with minorities constitute the citizens of the Slovak Republic.35

The conceptualisation of Slovak language in the preamble to the law on national language also promotes ethnic understanding of the Slovak nation. It says „Slovak language is the most important feature of the Slovak nation’s singularity, the most precious value of its cultural heritage and the expression of the Slovak Republic’s sovereignty…“.36 The law establishes Slovak language as the national language taking precedence over other languages in the Slovak Republic (Article 1 para. 2).

Nationality is mentioned in the Slovak Constitution several times, but it is not defined there. Fundamental rights and freedoms are guaranteed in the territory of the Slovak Republic, among others,  to all people regardless of their national origin or affiliation to a nationality or an ethnic group. No one shall be aggrieved, discriminated against or favoured on any of these grounds. Everyone has the right to decide freely which national group he or she is a member of. Any influence and all manners of pressure that may affect or lead to a denial of a person’s original nationality shall be prohibited. (Article 12, paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic).

Even though the constitution regulates the fundamental rights of national minorities and ethnic groups living in the territory of the Slovak Republic in Articles 33 and 34, it does not define these terms. It guarantees the members of minorities „that membership in any national minority or ethnic group may not be used to the detriment of any individual“ (Article 33 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic).

Nationality is defined, for instance, in the methodical guideline for filling out statistical summaries in secondary schools as „the affiliation of an inhabitant to a nation or an ethnic group defined by its cultural, ethnic or language attributes, common geographical or political origin or its relation to the population of another nation while the term shall not be limited to citizenship“.37The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (hereinafter the Statistical Office) defines nationality as affiliation of a resident to a nation or an ethnic group.38

Nationality in population census 2021: what will be surveyed, how and why?

The population and housing census taking place at the beginning of next year introduces several new things. The housing census will be performed by municipalities and by city boroughs in case of Bratislava and Košice. The population census will be carried out by self-enumeration method, it will be electronic and compulsory. After that, the results will be integrated, that is data collected from the municipalities and from the residents will be combined with data from the existing administrative sources and registers.39 The population census form will have less questions than before. For the first time, the second nationality will be surveyed.

The main goal of the population census with regard to people’s affiliation to a nationality or an ethnic group taking into account their mother tongue is „to obtain the most accurate, i.e. complex and structured picture of the national composition of the inhabitants of Slovakia including gaining reliable data on the language the inhabitants use at certain stages of their lives and in certain spheres of society“.40 According to the National Action Plan for the Population and Housing Census 2021 for years 2017 – 202041, the affiliation of residents to a nationality or an ethnic group is a criterion requiring a specific approach since it determines implementation of the national legislation, particularly Act no. 184/1999 Coll. of laws on the use of national minority languages as amended.42

In the upcoming census, nationality of residents will be surveyed in two questions. The first one asks the respondents about their nationality and the other asks if they are also affiliated to another nationality.43 As mentioned above, the Statistical Office defines nationality as the affiliation of a resident to a nation or an ethnic group giving opportunity to residents to state data also about their second nationality.44 Such conceptualisation is problematic in terms of definition and content spectrum of the term. The definition is not clear or unambiguous enough since it is based on terms not accurately specified before.

It could be said that the Statistical Office definition of nationality reflects a common or a spoken meaning of the term nationality, but it fails to take into consideration the current knowledge of social science regarding the term nationality and other related concepts such as nation and ethnicity. A nation can be understood in either ethnic or civic, that is political sense of the word, but also from the legal relation point of view. The ethnic understanding of the Slovak nation would, for instance, mean that it is composed solely of ethnic Slovaks. The civic perspective would include all citizens or residents regardless their ethnicity in the Slovak nation, those who have Slovak citizenship or Slovak nationality belong to the political Slovak nation. However, the prevailing view in the current and relevant literature states that nations are social and ideological constructs creating abstract (political) communities. Also, the literature differentiates between nations and ethnic groups. For these reasons, the statistical classification of nationality is not clearly defined as it includes mutually exclusive categories and it does not reflect the latest scientific knowledge in the field of collective identities. This failure can cause problems in the process of collecting and evaluating data on collective identities of individuals.

Individuals can have multiple and different social identities having different meanings for them in different situations. If we applied the definition of nationality or ethnicity as a social category based on defining attributes of its members, we would have to collect data precisely about such attributes, which is impossible to do in practice.

We will now examine how nationality is surveyed in the residents, as well as the wording of questions and the answer choices in the upcoming census. The first question asks: What is your nationality? Residents will be able to state one nationality of their own choice or to choose from a list. If the list does not include the nationality a particular resident wants to state, he or she will be able to add it in their answer.45 The second question asks: Do you have affiliation to another nationality? According to Jasmina Stauder, the spokeswoman of the population and housing census (9th December 2020), the question about the second nationality offers two answer choices: „I do have affiliation to another nationality” a „I don’t have affiliation to any other nationality“. When choosing the first option, residents will be able to choose another nationality they identify with. Residents will not have the option to answer any question in the census with „I don’t know” or „I don’t want to answer”.

I have already mentioned that the population and housing census 2021 is compulsory for all inhabitants of Slovakia. According to Jasmina Stauder, the spokeswoman of the census 2021 (6th December 2020), the residents will be obliged to answer all questions including those related to nationality.

Questions regarding identities of individuals, especially those related to nationality and ethnicity, are very personal and very sensitive. Therefore, they should be voluntary in the first place. The respondents should have the right to decide whether they will answer them or not. At the same time, they should give information about their nationality or ethnicity based on their free will and their free decision, without pressure. Questions concerning nationality and ethnicity should be open questions without pre-set answer choices and should allow more than one answer.

I see the pre-set categories in this case of nations or ethnic groups as problematic for several reasons: they are imposed externally; they do not include any double or multiple identities; their meaning and interpretation can be ambiguous and understood differently by different actors or by the residents themselves. If the starting point here is that different groups are self-defined, then we cannot impose or define categories for them externally. If the census applied the principle of self-identification thoroughly, it would be possible to identify identity categories that may not be a part of the census questionnaire or even international or national practice, but categories that people consider their own and are their lived identities.

Conclusion

Identity is important not only for individual people, but also for communities and for the whole society. Collecting and interpreting data on individual people’s identities can be significantly impacted by concepts used, defining categories and methodology. The use of ambiguous and unclear concepts can not only cause conceptual, but also a practical problem in data collection.  Terminology, concepts and also criteria or variables, on which the data collection is based, need to be defined unambiguously for the purpose of population census. If we are not sure what nationality is, then we cannot collect exact data on it. It is also important to bear in mind that concepts of collective identities represent social constructs. The meanings and interpretations of such social constructs change in time and space and can be currently conceptualised differently from different points of view such as scientific and legal or even in practice, as well as they can be construed differently by individual people.

The way, in which questions and answers are structured, affects the answers and the result of the census significantly. If the Slovak Constitution guarantees the right to freely decide their nationality to everyone, this right cannot be denied, restricted or otherwise affected by pre-set categories and answer choices in the census.

In practice, there can be discrepancy in understanding what nationality is. For instance, the respondents may not give information about their real identity or identities. If the answer choices are limited to one or two nationalities, they will not cover all multiple identities the residents have and live. Therefore, the census cannot be considered „the most accurate and complex structured picture of the national composition of inhabitants“. With regard to questions of nationality or ethnicity, the census cannot provide a real or factual overview of the national and ethnic composition of residents due to terminological and methodological limitations. The population census provides only informative data in relation to national composition and tells us how the respondents decided to answer the questions about their nationality in the given moment and which out of the pre-set answer choices they ticked. Such informative data should not be a precondition for creating or implementing minority rights. Minority rights are a part of human rights and should be defined by the needs of minorities and should not be conditioned by informative data from the census.

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  42. According to this law, citizens belonging to a national minority with permanent residence in a municipality have the right to use the national minority language to deal with official matters providing they constitute at least 15% of the municipality population in two subsequent population censuses. Act no. 184/1999 Coll. of laws on the use of national minority languages, Section 2, para. 1). The following groups are among groups of people, census of which requires special approach: 1) homeless people, 2) marginalized communities, 3) people with disabilities, 4) senior citizens of higher age categories, 5) citizens with regard to their nationality or ethnicity taking into account their mother tongue (for the purposes of the national legislation), p. 13.
  43. Measure no. 44/2020 Coll. of laws  of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic of 9th March 2020 establishing details on the character and structure of data collected about issues according to the list; details on collecting data and template of the census form for population and housing census, Annex 2.
  44. Section 1, paragraph t) Measure no. 44/2020 Coll. of laws
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