CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Cagalova, Lucia |
|---|---|
| Title | "COVID-19 Does Not Recognize Ethnicity," but Crisis Measures Do: Government Legitimization of Discriminatory Measures Applied to Roma Settlements in Slovakia |
| Summary | COVID-19 saw harsh measures applied everywhere, yet marginalized Roma communities were often subject to discriminatory measures that often did not apply to majority populations. This was the case of Slovakia, where entire Roma settlements were quarantined with the army and police patrolling. This thesis combines qualitative content analysis with the discourse-historical approach to analyze how state officials and political elites justified these discriminatory policies. The findings show that although actors asserted the need to protect the Roma, they primarily relied on rationalizing argumentation that framed Roma settlements as a source of public threat, producing a contradictory discourse that perpetuated societal prejudice against the Roma by scapegoating these settlements. The analysis further reveals that the government anticipated criticism of the discriminatory measures and attempted to deflect it, part by claiming measures were uniform, rational acts of dealing with the pandemic, part by downplaying the repressive function of law enforcement by portraying their presence as necessary assistance during crisis. |
| Supervisor | Sata, Robert |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/cagalova_lucia.pdf |
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