European integration and globalization reveal new processes which hold theoretical and empirical implications upon national minority policy in domestic settings. This paper examines theoretical options produced with Europeanization and transnational human rights on national minority policy, as a result of increasing non-nation state rules, decisions and norms. It explains how these two forces, which are treated largely separately in the literature, establish their presence in domestic settings and become visible in changing state entitlements and domestic policy making. By shaping formal and informal state structures and stimulating new norm articulations, national minorities can become either participants or target groups of resultant opportunities and openings. While Europeanization normally departs from the acquis and involves a transfer of ‘in-built’ policy domains into the domestic setting, transnational human rights enter the scenery in a more unfixed and diversified fashion and direction. By applying the two forces to the context of national minorities in Europe, it becomes obvious that there is a provision and promotion of new incentives of interaction, new modes of mobilization and fresh terms and conditions pertinent to national minorities. With this, new reflections are added to current theoretical attempts in the study of national minority rights in Europe, which are concerned with moving beyond earlier focus on security and justice approaches into a emphasis on ‘integration’ and ‘diversity’ as a result of European integration and other transnational forces. By bridging Europeanization and transnational human rights into one paradigm, the paper contributes to the missing link in coming to terms with new theoretical challenges on national minority policy in contemporary Europe.
