Journal articles on the topic 'Europe, Eastern – Ethnic relations – Political aspects'

The collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe promised bold opportunities for the various ethnic groups populating that vast, diverse region. Yet if history had any lessons to teach these groups it was that democracy, or at least the political systems that emerged in the midst of the rubble of the Berlin Wall between 1989 and 1991, was no guarantor of whatever idealized rights the region's ethnic groups hoped would come in the wake of the collapse of the communist dictatorships that had dominated these parts of Europe for decades. Communism, had, in many instances, done nothing more than stifle the festering ethnic tensions that had exploded in the nineteenth century and short-circuited the complex, lengthy process of resolving these conflicts. Consequently, for those knowledgeable about the essence of these conflicts, it should have come as no surprise that Yugoslavia, for example, was torn asunder by ethnic violence so terrifying that it took the intervention of the Western world's great powers to end the most violent aspects of these wars of ethnicity.

When we compare the contemporary ethnic structure and national policy of Poland and its eastern neighbours, we can see clear asymmetry in both quantitative and legal-institutional aspects. There is currently a markedly smaller population of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians living in Poland than the Polish population in the territories of our eastern neighbours. At the same time, the national minorities in Poland enjoy wider rights and better conditions to operate than Poles living in Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. Additional complicating factor in bilateral relations between national minority and the home state is different political status of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine and different processes of transformation the consequence of which is differentiated state of political relations of Poland with its eastern neighbours. Lithuania, like Poland, is a member of EU, Ukraine, outside the structures of European integration, pursued a variable foreign policy, depending on the ruling options and the economic situation, and Belarus, because of internal policy which is unacceptable in the EU countries, is located on the political periphery of Europe.

The aim of the article is to present the specific nature of research on the issues of national relations in a totalitarian state based on the example of the lands of Central and Eastern Europe under the Soviet occupation from 1939-1941. In order to achieve this, the literature on the subject (in English and Polish) was reviewed as well as the most important methodological problems encountered by researchers. The research program was also outlined, along with a proposal for their conceptualization in the form of signalling the main aspects of the above-mentioned issues, including the specificity of the Soviet occupation of 1939-1941, social and ethnic relations in this area, and the Soviet nationalities policy. Several research methods and postulates were proposed, as well as perspectives and theoretical approaches that could facilitate the study of this complex and controversial subject, e.g., the interdisciplinary nature of research, methods of bottom-up formation of political attitudes of the population (the so-called “bottom-up” method), application of theories of the totalitarian state, and different theories of ethnicity. As a result, an interdisciplinary program of comparative studies of ethnic relations in Central and Eastern Europe under Soviet rule (1939-1941) was outlined, taking into account the transnational character of historical processes and the need to conduct micro historic analyses and case studies that would allow capturing of the diversity of ethnic relations and verify the effectiveness of the policy of the central Soviet authorities. The article argues that it seems obvious that the specificity of the analysed problematics can be properly grasped only by consideration it in the historical and theoretical context, adopting a comparative and transnational approach, from a micro-historical as well as everyday-life perspective that highlights the most important social factors which facilitated changes in interethnic relations.

Background. The increase in the complexity of the social and political situation of Eastern European countries raises questions about securitization of national and ethnic minorities and its impact on the management of ethno-politics in the coun­tries of the subregion. Ethnopolitical management corresponds to the security of the subregion. Research interest in securitization of minority affairs is current, especially after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Research aims. The purpose is to define the role of securitization of national and ethnic minorities issues in the management of ethno-politics in Eastern Europe­an countries. The research area encompasses: Belarus, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The author asks the following research questions: 1) What are the areas of securitization of the issues of national and ethic minorities concerned? 2) How does the securitization of the issues of national and ethnic minorities take place? 3) How does the securitization affect the process of ethnopolitical management in the studied countries? Methodology. An interdisciplinary research approach was applied, integrat­ing methods from political science, international relations and management. The conclusions from author’s own research carried out during foreign study trips in the years 2014–2017 were used. The literature has an interdisciplinary aspect. The realization of the goal is based on the application of a catalogue of research methods, including in detail, the following methods are mainly used in the re­search: system analysis; comparative method; behavioral method; a qualitative approach was also used in the realized research. The article uses the method of critical analysis of literature, where the concept of securitization is referred to. Key findings. The role of securitization of national and ethnic minorities in the management of ethnopolitics in the countries of Eastern Europe is diversi­fied (it concerns different minorities and different areas). Uncontrolled may lead to deepening of the subregion’s security crisis (inter alia, to ethnopolitical con­flicts), hindering the process of ethnopolitical management.

Over the past 25 years, my academic and work experiences have involved and intersected with biopolitics, particularly environmental policy, international relations, and ethics. My academic and teaching experience was in political theory and ethics, and my early research interests turned to emerging recombinant DNA issues, involving the complex interaction of biological science, technology and public policy processes. My scholarly contacts included those with similar concerns, and so I joined with a group of scholars creating the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences. Several years later, my interests brought me to work in a federal agency where public policy decisions often raise important ethical choices, and the political and behavioral aspects of the policy process became more evident. My research centered on issues related to environmental protection. This work was also influenced by my professional friendship with Lynton Caldwell, another APLS founder and a remarkable scholar, whose work on environmental politics was internationally recognized. After the implosion of the Soviet Union, teaching environmental policy for the Agency in Eastern Europe renewed my interest in international relations, which had been my undergraduate focus. The topic of environmental security combined all of these interests. This topic gained substantial attention in policy circles, then declined, but is now being discussed again.

Over the past 25 years, my academic and work experiences have involved and intersected with biopolitics, particularly environmental policy, international relations, and ethics. My academic and teaching experience was in political theory and ethics, and my early research interests turned to emerging recombinant DNA issues, involving the complex interaction of biological science, technology and public policy processes. My scholarly contacts included those with similar concerns, and so I joined with a group of scholars creating the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences. Several years later, my interests brought me to work in a federal agency where public policy decisions often raise important ethical choices, and the political and behavioral aspects of the policy process became more evident. My research centered on issues related to environmental protection. This work was also influenced by my professional friendship with Lynton Caldwell, another APLS founder and a remarkable scholar, whose work on environmental politics was internationally recognized. After the implosion of the Soviet Union, teaching environmental policy for the Agency in Eastern Europe renewed my interest in international relations, which had been my undergraduate focus. The topic of environmental security combined all of these interests. This topic gained substantial attention in policy circles, then declined, but is now being discussed again.

In his article the Author examines the notion of remembrance policy, the importance of remembering the events of the period 1939–1953 for contemporary identity politics in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as well as the course of a conflict about the memory, which escalated between those countries and Russia particularly between 2005–2010. The Author introduces a term “remembrance policy model”, which concerns the balance of powers among political actors in a given state, who influence the shape of this aspect of the state policy. He also analyses the state strategies of the remembrance policy in international relations within the region, with special attention to Lithuania and Ukraine. He examines reasons for the success of the policy of remembering the 1939–1953 events in Lithuania in 1991–2011 and a failure of such policy in Ukraine in 2005–2010. The sources of difference between the effects of these two policies lie, in his opinion, not only in far greater ethnic and identity homogeneity of the Lithuanian society, but also in the fact that the EU gave an early, clear and consistent support for economic, social and political transformation of that country, which was, unfortunately, not provided to Ukraine — either after its establishment in 1991, or after the Orange Revolution in 2004.

Slavs in the European reflection of Iberia. Overview and perspectivesThe author focuses on presenting the major determinants of the ways in which Slavs have been included/excluded within the European horizon on the part of the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula, from Modernity until present-day Iberian-Slavonic cultural encounters. This subject-matter is considered in two of its aspects – on the one hand, newest research trends are discussed; on the other, the author analyses Iberian literary and journalist texts on attitudes towards Slavs.The place Iberians reserved in their reflections on Europe for Slavs – especially from Russia, Poland and the Balkans – was at different times determined by two types of factors: those immanent to any process of “reading the Other,” and those arising from the abundance of ethnic, political and/or national perspectives in which Slavs could present themselves. As a result, ethnic and cultural aspects of Slavonic countries in the common knowledge of Iberians are mixed up with their geographical, national and political connections (as “Eastern Europeans”, “Balkans”, “countries of the former Eastern Bloc and/or Yugoslavia” etc.). Another factor influencing the general trends in the perception of Slavs is geographical distance, making this group an easy target for stereotyping and mythicizing. A category determining the Iberian “reading” of Slavs is also that of the periphery, a notion important (though in different ways) for both the analysed regions. The complex nature of Iberians’ identity had an impact on their relations with Slavs in the 19th and 20th centuries; the resulting attitude, marked as it is by the inferiority/superiority question, was expressed particularly strongly around the process of the 5th EU Enlargement (mid-1990s to 2004), which sealed the emergence of closer Iberian-Slavonic relations intra muros, dating back at least from the collapse of the USSR. These relations were initiated by migrants from the East (who featured in new motives taken up by Iberian literatures), predominantly Ukrainians. Outside of the Peninsula, intercultural encounters took place not in small part as a result of a rapid eastward expansion of Iberian business. Finally, the 21st century saw the establishment and theoretical elaboration of Iberian-Slavonic comparative research. Activities of this kind always imply intercultural encounters and thus are well suited to help work out a scholarly and cultural formula that could yield more coherent depictions of Slavs. The newly founded associations, institutions, research and cultural centres – while respecting the complex identity of each of the Slavonic nations – present to their Iberian partners an image of united Slavs. It is this trend that allows the author to move forward the analysis, and proceed from “overview” to “perspectives.” Słowianie w europejskiej refleksji Iberii. Przegląd i perspektywy Autorka artykułu skupia się na przedstawieniu głównych uwarunkowań sposobów włą­czania/wyłączania Słowian z europejskiej perspektywy przez mieszkańców Półwyspu Ibe­ryjskiego w okresie od nowożytności po współczesne iberyjsko‑słowiańskie doświadczenia kulturowe. Zagadnienia te prezentuje w dwu aspektach, z jednej strony wskazuje najnowsze kierunki badań w tej dziedzinie, z drugiej – analizuje iberyjskie teksty literackie i dzienni­karskie poświęcone postawom wobec Słowian.Miejsca wyznaczane Słowianom przez mieszkańców Półwyspu Iberyjskiego w ich eu­ropejskiej refleksji – przy szczególnej pozycji zarezerwowanej dla Rosji, Polski i Bałkanów – bywały determinowane dwoma typami czynników, immanentnymi wobec każdego pro­cesu czytania Obcego, jak również wynikającymi ze szczególnej mieszaniny etnicznych, politycznych i/oraz narodowych perspektyw, w jakich mogli się zaprezentować Słowianie. W efekcie etniczne i kulturowe cechy krajów słowiańskich mieszają się w przeciętnej wiedzy mieszkańców Półwyspu Iberyjskiego z innymi odniesieniami: geograficznymi, narodowymi i politycznymi (jak „wschodni Europejczycy”, „Bałkany”, kraje byłego „bloku wschodniego” itd.). Wśród ogólnych nurtów recepcji można również wskazać wpływ dystansu geograficz­nego, który czyni ze Słowian łatwy cel stereotypizacji i mityzacji. Kolejna kategoria determi­nująca iberyjskie „czytanie” Słowian to peryferyjność, kwestia istotna (choć w różny sposób) dla obu analizowanych obszarów. Złożoność tożsamości iberyjskiej miała również wpływ na relacje ze Słowianami w XX i XXI wieku. Silniej ta postawa, tak naznaczona problematyką wyższości/niższości, ujawniła się w okresie piątego rozszerzenia Unii Europejskiej (połowa lat dziewięćdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku do 2004 roku), które pieczętowało proces bliższych iberyjsko‑słowiańskich relacji intra muros, trwający co najmniej od upadku ZSRR. Ich ini­cjatorami byli emigranci ze Wschodu (pojawili się na przykład w nowych motywach literatur iberyjskich), przeważnie Ukraińcy. Poza Półwyspem do międzykulturowych spotkań do­chodziło m.in. dzięki znacznej ekspansji na Wschód przedstawicieli iberyjskich kół bizne­sowych. Już w XXI wieku zainicjowano i szeroko rozpropagowano w Hiszpanii i Portugalii iberyjsko‑słowiańskie badania porównawcze. Tego typu działalność, zawsze powiązana ze spotkaniami międzykulturowymi, pomaga w wypracowaniu formuły zarówno badawczej, jak i kulturowej, użytecznej w tworzeniu bardziej koherentnych wizerunków Słowian. Nowo powstałe stowarzyszenia, instytucje, ośrodki naukowe i kulturalne, respektując złożoną toż­samość każdego z narodów słowiańskich, prezentują iberyjskim partnerom również obraz Słowian zjednoczonych. Ta właśnie tendencja pozwala przejść w niniejszej analizie od części pierwszej – „Przegląd” do drugiej – „Perspektywy”.

The article investigates nation-building trajectories and civic identity formation in Eastern Europe. The indicated processes in Eastern European states are notably different from those in the Western part of Europe. They are hindered by the specific historical development of these countries and by a set of local characteristics in particular. Quite often, there are such obstacles as unresolved ethnic conflicts and non-involvement of minorities in the building of common political and public practices within the state. The paper aims at assessing the current situation, evaluating international and interethnic regulation practices in the region and their efficiency, working out criteria of a civic nation formation in Eastern European countries. This is, first of all, a question of sociocultural and political consolidation. Social activism and civic participation are also significant factors. Finally, the very nature of nationalism and the use of the “alien image” in relation to other ethnic groups within the state are important. On this basis, the article proposes a typology of the countries according to the stage of a civic identity formation, and assesses possible future developments. Acknowledgements. This article was prepared with financial support of the Russian Science Foundation [grant № 15-18-00021 “Regulating interethnic relations and managing ethnic and social conflicts in the contemporary world: the resource potential of civic identity (a comparative political analysis)”]. The research was conducted at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO).

The article restates the theory of Nationalism, which it links to the transition from agrarian to industrial or industrializing society. In an agrarian society, culture is used to underscore a complex and fairly stable system of statuses. Political units themselves are complicated and overlapping and ill-defined, and culture does not demarcate their boundaries. In an industrial society, work ceases to be physical and becomes semantic, and society itself is highly mobile. Under these circumstances, a shared and standardized, codified culture, inculcated by formal education, becomes a precondition of social participation and employability. When shared, literacy-linked culture is very important, people identify with it and thus become ‘nationalists’. The article also traces the five stages which Europe has passed in the course of this transition: the perpetuation of the old dynastic/religious political system in 1815, the century of nationalist irredentism, the setting up of a political system in 1918 based on nationalities which was weak and self-defeating, the most intensive period of ‘ ethnic cleansing’ in the 1940s under the cover of war-time secrecy and post-war retaliation, and finally a certain demolition of the intensity of ethnic feeling during advanced industrialism, thanks to the partial convergence of industrial cultures and the softening impact of affluence.

Recognition of regional features, outlining of the contours of regions, tendency to regionalize ethnic, economic, cultural and state-administrative space, and strengthening the ideology of regionalism in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that is Serbia and Montenegro, appear as a practical and political but also as a theoretical problem which includes and combines several scientific disciplines. The phenomenon of regionalism is not contradictory although it is primarily expressed through the numerous conflicts of interests rivalry and antagonisms of political subjects. The problematic side of the phenomenon of regionalism includes the result of an extremely negative and existentially tragic experience of the several years-long disintegration of the complex Yugoslav state. During the partition and disintegration of the second Yugoslavia, there also happened the disintegration of the Serbian ethnic area Growth, support and instigation of regional tendencies occurred in the historical circumstances of secession and did not stop in the post-secession period. Particularization and segmentation of political area, as well as the disintegration of the former state, did not occur in accordance with the norms of internal and international law. Legality was late and was achieved within the transformation of power reflected in the changed territorial policy of the dominant alliance of great powers. The entire past decade was characterized by an extraordinary metamorphosis of political space. Secession trend had the territorial features which included the change of borders and had been long in the focus of the global geopolitical attention. Territories were divided and made smaller. Intensive territorial dynamics within the external silhouette of the de-stated SFR of Yugoslavia resulted in the creation of several state and quasi-state political formations. Former republics became semi-sovereign states. Dispersed and displaced Serbian ethnos was configured in the three territories: in the Republic of Serbia - from which Kosovo and Metohia were amputated and placed under the UN protectorate - in the entire Republic of Montenegro and in the Republic Srpska, located in one part of the former Bosnia and Herzegovina. Demopolitical result of the geopolitical destruction of the Serbian ethnos was a great movement of the Serbian population from the west to the east, and its concentration in the territory of the Republic of Serbia this implied that the Serbs were expelled from their millennia-long abodes in Croatia, parts of Bosnia and from Kosmet. The geo-economic result of the same process was the devastation of the national economic strength west of the Drina and in the southern province. Economic regression occurred also in the national parent-land state. Balkan re-arrangement of the spheres of interest in the post-bipolar period was in 1995. fixed by the interest arrangement of the great powers known under the name Dayton Peace Agreement. Redistribution of the territories from the destroyed state occurred in the post-communist period with the expansion of west-civilization structures to the European east Westernization of the eastern part of Europe, or entire Europe as the other pole of the global West, could be characterized as a dual mega-regionality. Namely, the west is composed of Europe and America; on the other side, there is the global East or its hybrid variation Eurasia. With the disappearance of their common state and its framework, south Slavs found themselves in the seemingly independent, and actually client states. Western delimitation of the south Slavic area moved from the Yugoslav borders towards a wider Balkan demarcation. One could say that the revitalized notion of the Balkans became a new, in many aspects obligatory framework for regional thinking. The Balkan macroregion is further determined by the intentions to expand the European Union. One of the Euro-centric concepts, which is being experimentally employed precisely in the Balkans, is the establishment of the so-called Europe of regions in the peripheral areas. On the other hand, even though the process of the disintegration of the Yugoslav Federation appears to be irreversible, the superordinate Euro-American factor does not give up the possibility of the mezzo-regional initiatives, cooperations, associations and integrations. This "middle" level of dealing with the specificities of the Yugoslav region is related to the states and nations from the former Yugoslavia, or the so-called West Balkans. Naturally, it is not the tendency to revive the silhouette of the previous state, but certainly there is a noticeable intention to achieve a regional linking of the related, now semi-sovereign territories which sometimes belonged to the same state framework. The fourth level deals with microregionalism, that is the relation between the different areas in the newly-created states. It is interesting that the regionalist discourse is mostly cherished exactly in the ethno-heterogeneous Serbian area, although other Yugoslav states also have or had regional tradition and mixed population, like, for example, Slovenia and Croatia Nevertheless, these former Yugo-republics are structured as mono-national states, so the regional policy and ideology of regionalism are still not in the first plane. Regionalism within the newly-formed states could be supplemented with the micron level implying specific sub-regionalism of the highest degree, within the larger regions in the same state. This could be illustrated with Backa, Banat and Srem inside Vojvodina, understood as the northern Serbian region, or Kosovo and Metohia in the south of Serbia, in the province with the same name. In the part of Serbia outside the provinces, similar things could be said for Belgrade with its surroundings, Macva, Podrinje, Sumadija, Raska District etc. Thus, when it comes to the present FR of Yugoslavia, all five levels of regional dynamics have a principled, but insufficiently studied significance. Mega-regional level is related to the mark denoting the global belonging to the West. Macroregional level deals with the European loyalty, that is inclusion of the FR of Yugoslavia into the continental European trends. This trans-continental and continental direction of inclusion implies a historical teleology of the relative eastern belonging to the absolute West, that is Euro-America, and the entrance into the full structure of the European Union. All the mentioned problems of recognition and characterization of the regional phenomenology in the political topography of the world are motivated by the tendency to achieve as clear as possible spatial-temporal national and state orientation The direction is related to the so-called safety dilemma of the nation and the country faced with the change of size and essence of one's own state, with the different geopolitical position and redefined foreign-policy priorities. It is also the case of the changed alliance policy, and the innovated strategy of integration into the old and new global and regional political structures. On the basis of the indicated components of geopolitical context, one could say that the phenomenon of regions and their cognate correlates {regionally regionalization and regionalism) should not be understood exclusively through the legal categories of international law and the so-called constitutional solutions, that is administrative division of the state territory. Actually in the analysis of regions and regionalism in Serbia and the FR of Yugoslavia it is necessary first to discuss the pre-normative or meta-le-gal factors in the creation of the regional issue within the national and state issue, which have the form of the unsolved political problem. Meta-legality is located within the domain of the international relations and geopolitic. Meta-legal or pre-normative factors of the formation or recognition of regions and regionalisms deal with the possibility of the political constitution of the Serbian, that is Serbian / Montenegrin (still Yugoslav) society. Since the unique state area was destroyed in the four-year secession wars and there occurred significant demopolitical changes, war migrations, forceful displacements and expulsion of the population - the ethnic character of many areas was also drastically changed. At the same time, the post-secession existence of the FR of Yugoslavia could be also viewed through the optics of the state residuum. The remaining Serbia or Serbia (temporarily) without Kosovo is certainly not an equivalent for the Serbian ethnic space, nor for the entire Serbian lands. It is not even the FR of Yugoslavia, as a dual con federation of the Serbian / Montenegrin nation. Geopolitical reduction of the SFR of Yugoslavia to a residual creation of the FR of Yugoslavia was not deduced from the legality sui generis, but resulted from a conflict, the defeat of integralism and the victory of separatism, as well as from a new triumphal configuration of power. The impulse implying the statism of the collective rights from the former complex federal necessarily-multinational level was transferred to a lower mononational level. Therefore, the regionalist ideology in the post-secession reality of the residual state almost inevitably, as a tendency, nears the separatory particularism. Even the lost national state and the state entirety are openly denied within the requests for the territorization of the collective rights of various minorities. Naturally these requests do not carry the primary features of the development of democracy. On the contrary, in the majority of cases this implies the rise of parish and tribal consciousness prone to narrow-minded separation. Thus the post-secession requests for the regionalization are often just a slight rhetorical mask for real separatism. For example, they are expressed through the pseudo-national separation of Vojvodina from Serbia, as well as Montenegro from Serbia, or through the establishment of state-like entities in the territorial tissue of Serbia Alleged arguments are found in the unfinished disintegration of the SFR of Yugoslavia on the one hand, and in the prevention of the creation of the so-called Greater Serbia, even within the diminished Serbia That way, even in the post-secession, reduced Serbia one could easily recognize the tendencies of federalization and confederalization, even the amputation of its remaining state space. Additional arguments for the crawling secession and prolonged territorial destruction are found in the ideology of globalization and world trends of relativizing territorial integrity and state sovereignty. On the other hand, the idea about the principled insignificance of borders in Europe without borders, as well as Europe of regions, is emphasized. Thus, it is obvious that the new state and regional delimitations and demarcations are in contradiction with the vision of the trans-statal and trans-national integrity of the European continent. In Serbia itself, me problem of the restructuring of regions is determined by the inherited and unchanged triple division of its territory into the central part and two autonomous provinces in the north and south. Thus every idea for regionalization (expert, party, leader's, NGO and the like) faces the inherited, too narrow constitutional framework and easily slides to the federalization or confederalization of the Republic, and in extreme cases to the independence and sovereignty of ethnic, religious, linguistic and other minorities. Roughly put, the tendencies for territorial separation from the Republic of Serbia still exist in several neuralgic and unstable areas or regions. In Vojvodina, the presented tendencies have the character of a meaningless internal - Serbian autonomy, autonomism, latent separatism. Authentic Serbian autonomy lost its original character long ago and deteriorated into an internal national re-statism. On the other hand, in the furthest south of Serbia, in Kosmet, the UN protectorate is established, but the region is actually occupied and thus the status of the Province is "frozen". In the three municipalities in the south of Serbia, with the relative Albanian majority, Albanian separatism smolders within the platform of the so-called east Kosovo. In the Raska region (Sandzak) there are also strong tendencies for separateness on the religious-ecclesiastical, so-called Bosniac platform, with religious solidarity, and ethnic and territorial unity of all Bosniacs. In the meta-legal or pre-normative situation - which most often denotes political and geopolitical context implying interests, power and force - the inclinations for territorial design are faced with the conflicting ideology of regionalism. Therefore, the constitutional-legal solutions of the former, present and future regions, generated within the self-created legality which does not respect meta-legal, political and geopolitical impulses regardless of how aestheticized and "humanized" they may be - at the end face the practical impossibility of realization.

For centuries Central and Eastern Europe has been the scene of frequent changes of borders and numerous ethnic conflicts. Contemporary ethnic diversity of this region is much smaller, however, the growing nationalisms of the various societies, mutual mistrust, and the temptation of politicians to use ethnic issues in the regional geopolitical competition pose a real threat to the stability and peace in Central and Eastern Europe. The dynamic political, legal, social and economic changes which have been taking place in this part of Europe for three decades now, which overlay its clear civilization division into the Latin and the Byzantine parts and are intensified by historical animosities, must have had an impact on the situation and the perception of minorities. In contrast to Western Europe, the contemporary ethnic diversity of Central and Eastern Europe is primary the consequence of various, often centuries-old historical processes (settlement actions, voluntary and forced migrations, border changes, the political and economic expansion of particular countries), and in the ethnic structure especially dominate the indigenous groups, migrants, particularly from the outside of the European cultural circle, are of marginal importance. Moreover, national minorities are usually concentrated in the border regions of countries, often in close proximity to their home countries, becoming – often against their will – element of the internal and foreign policies of neighbouring countries. The main aims of the article are to explain the threats to peace arising from the attempts to use minorities in inter-state relations and regional geopolitics as well as engaging minority groups into ethnic and political conflicts (autonomy of regions, secession attempts) and still the very large role of history (especially negative, tragic events) in the shaping of contemporary interethnic relations in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the varied ethnic structure typical for this region does not have to be a conflict factor, on the contrary – it can become a permanent element of the identity and cultural heritage of each country.

Western experts claim that the end of the Warsaw Pact and the artificial stability it provided, together with what are routinely called “traditional ethnic animosities,” are the causes of continual and inevitable clashes between states in East Central Europe. This area, a triangle formed by the Adriatic, Baltic, and Black Seas, covers the Western border area of the former Soviet Union, and all of Poland, ex-Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, ex-Czechoslovakia and the eastern territories of Germany. This issue of Nationalities Papers is dedicated to the Hungarian ethnic minorities of East Central Europe, in part to examine the validity of the “traditional ethnic animosity” thesis. Spread among seven states, roughly three and a half to four million souls, they constitute the largest diaspora in Europe, and, in relative terms, are more numerous in states around Hungary than the ethnic Russians outside of the Russian Federation on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Why do some ethnopolitical organizations use violence? Research on substate violence often uses the state level of analysis, or only analyzes groups that are already violent. Using a resource mobilization framework drawn from a broad literature, we test hypotheses with new data on hundreds of violent and non-violent ethnopolitical organizations in Eastern Europe and Russia. Our study finds interorganizational competition, state repression and strong group leadership associated with organizational violence. Lack of popularity and holding territory are also associated with violence. We do not find social service provision positively related to violence, which contrasts with research on the Middle East.

Worldwide, ethnopolitics takes on various shapes. Yet, while politics involving ethnicity can be either conflictual, competitive, or cooperative, analysts typically focus either on instances of conflict or ignore the multiethnicity of states by sticking to “the comfortable integrationist presumptions of the 1950s.” All too rarely does one find analyses of policies that work in difficult situations. This global trend is intensified in the case of Eastern Europe. As this region has suffered instances of ethnic politics gone wrong—most recently in the former Yugoslavia—many analysts assume that constructive approaches to ethnic relations are impossible, even though they are needed more than ever. Here, I outline a model of ethnopolitics which is both democratic and constructive, has been used in East Central Europe in the past, and has potential for the future. In presenting the case for ethnopluralism, I outline a promising alternative to ethnic conflict or neglect.

The political changes which started in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989 have exposed the real ethnic faces of these societies. It has become obvious that the population of these countries were not homogeneous “socialist nations.” During the post-repressive period some ethnic prejudice re-appeared—both between nations and between ethnic groups within these countries.

AbstractWithin the field of International Relations, theoretically informed explanations of the long peace in Europe since 1945 tend to focus on Western Europe, especially the revolution in Franco-German relations. In contrast, German relations with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are ignored, despite the fact that this nexus was a major cause of instability prior to 1945. This article focuses on why the German question in CEE ceased to threaten the stability of Europe after 1945. The article empirically examines the development of the German question in CEE since 1945, which refers here mainly to the Oder-Neisse line and the plight of ethnic Germans expelled from CEE after World War II. It provides a theoretically integrated and chronologically sequenced explanation. First, it argues that Realism primarily explains the successful containment of the German question in CEE between 1945 and the late 1960s. Second, it argues that the Constructivist process of cultural change, which altered German intensions, was primarily responsible for subsequently increasing the depth of peace and stability between Germany and CEE, especially after the Cold War. Finally, it is argued that prior Realist factors and Liberal processes constituted a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for cultural change.

A couple of years ago, I tried to collect information about the ethnic policies in South-Eastern Europe for university teaching. Slovenian colleagues were very cooperative and supplied me with rich information about the social integration policies concerning Roma. This information was enough for resolving the tasks I had at that time. However, step by step, I learned more about the ethnic composition and interethnic relations in Slovenian society. I was struck by the fact that the ethnic picture there was much more complex and complicated than the single case of the Roma minority. In addition, I received a lot of information about Slovenian ethnic minorities in the neighboring countries.

Memory of collective wrongs and atrocities suffered in the past from another nation or ethnic group often burdens a present conflict with strong resentment and makes it appear as a historical repetition or redress. There are many examples in recent history of Eastern Europe, the Balkans included, when vivid and deliberately inflamed historical reminiscences make it virtually impossible to negotiate a compromise solution of a crisis. Only when national memory has been “cooled” and sacrosanct historical places and symbols has lost some of their mobilizing force, may human relations between the enemy communities be restored.

Although there is indisputable evidence of hostile perceptions, the gulf between ethnic groups has not yet caused any substantial violence between Turks and Bulgarians. Compared not only with former Yugoslavia but also with Romania, this must be upheld as a genuine success story in the endeavor to cope with ethnic tensions in post-Communist Eastern Europe. (Wolfgang Hoepken)

AbstractKosovo's declaration of independence on 17 February 2008 has re-ignited debates about the interaction among the fundamental international legal principles of self-determination, sovereignty and territorial integrity. The question of conformity with international law was interrelated to scenarios on the political implications of secession. After more than one year the following article elaborates if the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo had a precedent-setting impact for long-standing autonomist and secessionist conflicts in South-Eastern Europe and in CIS. The Kosovo-precedent formula had its biggest impact in the secessionist conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where a powerful external actor Russia, made effective use of the precedent-formula in its coercive diplomacy against Georgia. Generally speaking, in South-Eastern-Europe, the independence of Kosovo had only minor destabilizing effects with the exception of Bosnia and Hercegovina and Macedonia where political entrepreneurs used the opportunity to play the nationalist card and to profit from worst case scenarios of a disintegration of their country.

Based on the study of various types of sources and analysis of Russian and foreign literature, the author conceptually substantiates an approach to the study of the Balkan region / South-Eastern Europe. One of the main problems considered in the article is the change in the course of the history of the 19 th-21 st centuries the ratio of the concepts of «Balkans/South-Eastern Europe», «Eastern Europe», «Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Europe», «Western Balkans», «Western Balkan countries» and «European Western Balkans». The author characterizes various historical stages of the development of the region in the context of world wars and revolutions of the 20 th century, shows the specifics of political and ethnic processes, the internal political situation in each country and relations between the states of the region, the correlation between the processes of regionalization and globalization. With the disappearance of Eastern Europe in the form in which it existed in 1949-1991, after the anti-communist social and national revolutions in the former socialist countries of Europe in 1989-1992, an integral part of the process of national self-determination was the change in the regional self-identification of each people, society and state. If in the 2000 s, positive dynamics prevailed both in terms of internal political development, intraregional and global international relations, then in the 2010 s, the forward movement has stalled in terms of both the internal economic, social and political development of the states of the region, and the settlement of interethnic and interstate conflicts in the region against the background of a general aggravation of international relations. The article examines the role of regional identification and self-identification as elements of national self-awareness. The author also characterizes the challenges facing the countries of the region in the short, medium and long terms and indicates that the choice of the Balkans / South-Eastern Europe, despite the specificity caused by their historical fate, and all the difficulties of development and conflicts, has already been made: the Balkans (like Russia as well) is an integral part of Europe.

AbstractEurope is on the verge of an unprecedented era of social, economic, and political cooperation. Yet, there is resurgent racism and xenophobia in Western Europe, and in Central and Eastern Europe many of the fragments of the old Soviet Empire have disintegrated into ethnic violence and genocidal warfare. Prejudice is the common source of this ethnic hatred, xenophobia, and racism. The Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction is involved in developing those concepts which will provide the links between the psychological understanding of individual human beings and how they create and sustain destructive conflict in social, political, and ethnic groups. The development of prejudice in an individual and its underlying psychological mechanisms are detailed as part of the formation of identity. The fundamental structures of prejudice are then discussed using crucial new concepts in the psychology of large group processes involved in violent group hatreds.

Germany's role as a kin-state of ethnic German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe stems from a number of factors. At one level it is part and parcel of a unique historical legacy. It is also inextricably linked with the country's foreign policy towards this region. The most profound policy that the Federal Republic of Germany developed in this context after the early 1960s was Ostpolitik, which contributed significantly to the peaceful end of the Cold War, but has remained relevant thereafter despite a fundamentally changed geopolitical context, as Germany remains a kin-state for hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans across Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the former Soviet Union, in Poland, Romania, and Hungary. As such, a policy towards these external minorities continues to form a significant, but by no means the only, manifestation of Ostpolitik.

One of the most common methods of political regime analysis and in particular assessment of their democratic character is a rating approach that envisages political regime classification depending on belonging to one or another group or cluster of democratic and non-democratic countries. Nevertheless this approach usually ignores political-cultural aspects of studied regimes. The article outlines the most commonly used indices of political regime comparison. The example of Central and Eastern Europe region proposes political regime classification taking political-cultural characteristics into account.

This article reassesses U.S. Cold War policy in 1945, with particular emphasis on Eastern Europe. The article considers how the U.S. government proposed to deal with the Soviet Union in the postwar period more generally. The article looks closely at U.S. policy toward Poland and toward Romania and Bulgaria and sets these policies into context in order to determine whether U.S. leaders had “written off” the East European countries by the end of the year, consigning them to a Soviet sphere of influence. The article traces the strategic concept underlying U.S policy and analyzes key aspects of Secretary of State James Byrnes's policy at the July 1945 Potsdam conference and in the October–December 1945 negotiations with the USSR about the occupation of Japan.

Amidst the political changes that swept through central and eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the right to migrate was synonymous in the minds of many with the establishment of democracy. Although the political transition of the 1990s was preceded in some countries by a relaxation of their strict exit regimes, these were only minor measures in comparison with the profound changes to the system of population control ushered in by the political transition to democracy. A mosaic of migration patterns (ethnically based migrations, return migration, labour migration, transit migration) gathered pace during the 1990s throughout the vast region of the former Soviet bloc. As conflict and war broke out in different areas, notably in the Caucasus and south-east Europe, these migratory movements were inflated by huge numbers of refugees, asylum-seekers and displaced persons. The newly independent states underpinned their political transition towards democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights through membership of the Council of Europe and ratification of international conventions which included important guarantees for the rights and protection of migrants and their families. In May 2004, eight of these countries will join the European Union and after a transitional period become integral parts of the internal labour market with their populations enjoying the full freedom of movement rights of EC law. This article outlines the major migration trends in central and eastern Europe since the extension of democracy across the continent, highlights different aspects of labour migration in the region, including the impact of EU enlargement, and refers to some integration issues. This description is preceded by a series of brief historical, political and legal perspectives.

A decade after the end of European and Eurasian communism the once acrimonious debates between “area studies” and “the discipline” have largely subsided. Access to archives, survey data, and political elites has allowed east European countries to be treated as normal arenas of research. Recent work by both younger and established scholars has made serious contributions not only to the understanding of postcommunism but also to broader research questions about the political economy of reform, federalism, transitional justice, and nationalism and interethnic relations. The key issue for students of postcommunism is explaining the highly variable paths that east European and Eurasian states have taken since 1989. Compared with the relative homogeneity of outcomes in earlier transitions in southern Europe and Latin America—extrication from previous regimes followed by long periods of consolidation—the record in the east looks profoundly more varied: a handful of successful transitions and easy consolidations, several incomplete transitions, a few transitions followed by reversion to authoritarian politics, even some transitions that never really began at all. The works under review point scholars toward the study of the institutional legacies of state socialism: the “subversive institutions” of the communist state, the institutional dimensions of ethnic solidarity and mobilization, and the emerging patterns of interinstitutional bargaining in the first years of postcommunism.

The meaning of an inter-religious dialogue has increased in the context of globalization, which has put different ethnicities and religions face-to-face within the fledging "planetary community". Furthermore, it encouraged a remarkably emerging role of religion, in particular in politics. The dialogue became of key importance in Western Europe due to the Muslims turning into the largest diaspora of the region, and Islam – into the second religion after Christianity. The author dedicated this work to investigation of this dialogue's aspects, since the unceasing growth of the Muslim migration and terroristic threats cause the expansion of islamophobia and ethnic tension that have become a destabilizing factor in the region.

The history of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER) railway, which has drawn the attention of scholars almost since the time of its construction, is inseparable from the story of the complicated and tangled relations between one majority group — Chinese — and two large minority groups, White émigrés and Soviet citizens who resided in Manchuria and whose lives were largely related to the CER. These relations are largely ignored by the scholars of the CER, in which the focus is on various diplomatic aspects and the CER is considered to be a key actor in international relations of the countries and whose interests were related to Manchuria. Therefore, this article explores the complicated and tangled relations between Chinese, White émigrés, and Soviet citizens who resided in Manchuria in 1920s — 1930s and whose lives were largely related to the Chinese Eastern Railway. This very aspect, the existence of two minority groups (CER’s soviet staff and White émigrés) who shared the same linguistic, cultural, and ethnic background, but who, on the other hand, were political antagonists, makes the Manchurian case especially unique and interesting. This paper argues that common ethnic identity prevailed over ideological discord. This discord was neutralized by life which they lived together surrounded by culturally, linguistically, and ethnically different majority.

The post-1989 rise of ethnic conflicts in the former Eastern Bloc have led to the renewed salience of minority rights and their prominence in international relations. The 1990s witnessed a proliferation of legal instruments and offices dedicated to minority rights at the intergovernmental level (mainly within the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Council of Europe, but also the United Nations). After decades of arguing that rights of persons belonging to national, ethnic or religious minorities can be sufficiently ensured within the framework of universal human rights, attributed to individuals regardless of group membership, liberal political theorists (most notably Will Kymlicka) have started to advocate the need to supplement these traditional human rights with minority rights (meaning certain group-differentiated rights or “special status” for minority cultures) in order to ensure justice in multicultural states.

The political culture, according to scholar Kavanagh is part of the overall societal culture, and represents a set of basic values, emotions, knowledge, attitudes and convictions, within which the political system operates, shaping and feeding political processes. Culture came as a sequence to efforts to factor the spiritual world of people in explicating policy. Political culture brings to surface some kind of independence of culture from economic factors, and the role of culture in political order and economic development.This paper provides the theoretical aspects of political culture and political systems, within which its reflection is analysed on several aspects of interethnic relations in a democracy. Also, it accentuates the preferred paths of Western Balkan countries, including Macedonia, towards integration with the European Union, which is spiked with many challenges. In the political culture of multi-ethnic societies, ethnic divisions may have an influence. The ethnic principles are still present in the political arena of Macedonia, where although there is some “interethnic reconciliation”, the failure in implementing the Ohrid Framework Agreement, signed in 2001, between Albanians and Macedonians, there are often political contractions, affecting national interests, which is in contradiction to all values of the European Union, mainly with human rights, but also ethnic rights.The object of the analysis of this paper is specifically related to:extended transition of Macedonia,political consensus,role of political parties, andinterethnic relations after the Ohrid Framework Agreement.Political culture in South-Eastern European countries has been analysed in different views, especially in the reform process, where it has an important role.Conclusions of this paper are that Macedonia must fulfil the conditions set forth, both political and institutional, based on the political culture for EU integration, since political culture, according to scholar L. Pye represents a “set of basic values, emotions and knowledge shaping and feeding political processes”.

Ethnicity is found in real-world contexts where non-ethnic forms of identification are available. This conclusion is drawn from an empirical study carried out in the multiethnic town of Kurdzhali in Southern Bulgaria, where members of the Bulgarian majority live alongside the Turkish minority. Drawing on the “everyday nationhood” agenda that aims to provide a methodological toolkit for the study of ethnicity/nationhood without overpredicting its importance, the study involved the collection of survey, interview, and ethnographic data. Against the expectations of some experienced scholars of the Central and Eastern Europe region, ethnic identity was found to be more salient for the majority Bulgarians than for the minority Turks. However, the ethnographic data revealed the importance of a rural–urban cleavage that was not predicted by the research design. On the basis of this finding, I argue that the “everyday nationhood” approach could be improved by including a complementary focus on non-ethnic attachments that have been emphasized by scholarship or journalism relevant to the given context. Rather than assuming the centrality of ethnicity, such an “everyday identifications” approach would start from the assumption that ethnic narratives of identity always have to compete with non-ethnic ones.

The author explores the phenomenon of today's ethnic conflicts which are less frequently turning into the wars between states. The author uses the cases of the countries of former Soviet Union, Western Europe, Africa in order to examine important aspects of the ethnic conflicts settlement. It is concluded that the heart of the problems is the correlation between two fundamental principles of the international law (usually regarded as antagonists in terms of the settlement of such conflicts). Namely, these are the principle of states’ territorial integrity and the principle of peoples’ right to self-determination.

The ghost of Trianon continues to haunt Central Europe. The consequences of the unmaking of the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary still confront diplomats, even more so now in the aftermath of communism and the demise of Soviet hegemony. The plight of Hungarian minorities in Hungary's neighboring states is a constant concern to diplomats as satisfactory accommodation of ethnic minorities fails throughout post-communist Eastern Europe. Specifically, a fear of destabilization on account of a crisis related to the several Hungarian minorities scattered in half a dozen adjacent states is never far from the surface.

Abstract Elections to the Russian State Duma provide a unique context to study the representation of women and ethnic minorities in a national legislature. Russian elections have witnessed dramatic institutional variation, including a shift from semi-democratic contestation to competitive authoritarianism and the use of different electoral systems. Moreover, ethnic federalism has produced political and demographic conditions that promote the representation of titular ethnic groups in ethnic republics. Finally, the transition from a fragmented party system to one controlled by a single dominant party potentially has important potential ramifications for women and minority representation. We use a unique dataset that codes the ethnicity and sex of individual legislators for each election from 1993 to 2021 to examine how regime type, electoral rules, demographic conditions, and party affiliation have affected descriptive representation in Russia. Using similar data on selected states from Eastern Europe, we compare Russia’s experience with that of other postcommunist states as well as the United States.

The ‘Eastern Question’ is one of the most controversial and persistent subjects in the history of international relations. This article looks at two aspects in the evolution of the relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. The first one focuses on the importance of the 18th century in the emergence of the ’Eastern Question’. The second one emphasizes on several episodes that may reopen the debate on the origins of the Crimean War. Our research is an attempt to demonstrate that the ’Eastern Question’ was only a piece of a larger puzzle. The more Russia was influential in world politics, the more her contribution became valuable for the stability of the international system. The idea to challenge in the early 1850’s the heritage of the 18th century in world politics (meaning to marginalize Russia in European affairs), did not serve on the long run neither to the security of the Ottoman Empire, neither to the ’new multilateralism’ put forward by Napoleon III.