Motivation and Mechanism: The Unfinished Politics of the Roma
What does it take for Roma to move from being represented by others to building lasting political power of their own?
Two thinkers. Two questions. One unfinished political project.
Drawing on the intellectual legacies of Vasile Ionescu and Nicolae Gheorghe, Mensur Haliti examines one of the most consequential unanswered questions in Roma political thought: how can a people who have long been acted upon collectively become a democratic political force capable of acting together?
The argument in brief
Vasile Ionescu and Nicolae Gheorghe approached Roma emancipation from different directions.
Ionescu explored what motivates Roma to act together: memory, dignity and the refusal to accept subordination. Gheorghe examined how collective action becomes organised, democratically accountable and politically consequential.
Their thinking offers two essential parts of the same answer. What remains unfinished is the connection between them.
Both confronted what Gheorghe called “the ethnic trap”: organising as Roma risks reinforcing the boundaries that exclude Roma from power, while organising only as individual citizens can weaken the very solidarity that makes collective action possible.
This essay challenges that dilemma.
The deeper problem, as Mensur Haliti argues, is one of constitutional asymmetry. Roma are routinely treated as a collective by governments, political parties and public institutions, yet lack a durable, democratically authorised institution through which an identifiable membership can exercise collective political authority.
Recognition alone is not enough.
From minority self-government in Hungary to Roma political leadership in Šuto Orizari and electoral politics in Bulgaria, the essay examines why representation, elected office and demographic strength do not automatically translate into independent political power.
What makes the difference is the capacity to act independently: resources, organisation, knowledge and continuity that do not disappear when governments, parties or donors withdraw their support.
The essay concludes with a proposal worth debating and testing: a voluntary, democratically accountable Roma constituency, financed by its members, empowered to elect and remove its representatives, and capable of negotiating on a mandate of its own.
Not a finished blueprint. A political proposition to be tested, challenged and, if the evidence supports it, built.
The question for our generation
The intellectual foundations were laid. The challenge now is whether motivation, democratic organisation and independent capacity can finally be brought together.
Motivation and Mechanism is an invitation to revisit the foundations of Roma political thought, question the limits of existing approaches and consider what it would take to build lasting, accountable political power.
The politics remains unfinished. What comes next is ours to determine.
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Motivation and Mechanism: The Unfinished Politics of the Roma · Mensur Haliti | Roma for Democracy Foundation | 2026