This paper examines the domestic effects of rights-based litigation at the European Court of Human Rights concerning the political rights of minority groups in Turkey and Bulgaria. The research is based on fieldwork in these countries carried out between 2008-2010. The key focus of the paper is the comparative exploration of the key determinants that lead actors to turn to Strasbourg and the consequences of such turn domestically. Strasbourg litigation has seen backlash, at worst, and little implementation at best, in both countries despite differences in agent-level attributes leading up to litigation. The paper explains this similarity in outcomes through a combined argument focussing on the attributes of the structuring domestic environment and its interaction with the attributes of structuring ‘transnational’ environment.
