Conflicts involve powerful experiences. The residue of these experiences is captured by the concept and language of emotion. Indiscriminate killing creates fear; targeted violence produces anger and ...a desire for vengeance; political status reversals spawn resentment; cultural prejudices sustain ethnic contempt. These emotions can become resources for political entrepreneurs. A broad range of Western interventions are based on a view of human nature as narrowly rational. Correspondingly, intervention policy generally aims to alter material incentives ('sticks and carrots') to influence behavior. In response, poorer and weaker actors who wish to block or change this Western implemented 'game' use emotions as resources. This book examines the strategic use of emotion in the conflicts and interventions occurring in the Western Balkans over a twenty-year period. The book concentrates on the conflicts among Albanian and Slavic populations (Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, South Serbia), along with some comparisons to Bosnia.
Dimitris Stamatopoulos undertakes the first systematic comparison of the dominant ethnic historiographic models and divergences elaborated by Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, Albanian, Romanian, Turkish, ...and Russian intellectuals with reference to the ambiguous inheritance of Byzantium. The title alludes to the seminal work of Nicolae Iorga in the 1930s, Byzantium after Byzantium, that argued for the continuity between the Byzantine and the Ottoman empires. The idea of the continuity of empires became a kind of touchstone for national historiographies. Rival Balkan nationalisms engaged in a war of interpretation as to the nature of Byzantium, assuming different positions of adoption or rejection of its imperial model and leading to various schemes of continuity in each national historiographic canon.
Stamatopoulos discusses what Byzantium represented for nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars and how their perceptions related to their treatment of the imperial model: whether a different perception of the medieval Byzantine period prevailed in the Greek national center as opposed to Constantinople; how nineteenth-century Balkan nationalists and Russian scholars used Byzantium to invent their own medieval period (and, by extension, their own antiquity); and finally, whether there exist continuities or discontinuities in these modes of making ideological use of the past.
The Balkans offer classic examples of how empires imagine they can transform themselves into national states (Ottomanism) and how nation-states project themselves into future empires (as with the ...Greek “Great Idea" and the Serbian “Načertaniye"). By examining the interaction between these two aspirations this volume sheds light on the ideological prerequisites for the emergence of Balkan nationalisms. With a balance between historical and literary contributions, the focus is on the ideological hybridity of the new national identities and on the effects of “imperial nationalisms" on the emerging Balkan nationalisms. The authors of the twelve essays reveal the relation between empire and nation-state, proceeding from the observation that many of the new nation-states acquired some imperial features and behaved as empires. This original and stimulating approach reveals the imperialistic nature of so-called ethnic or cultural nationalism.
This is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the far right political party phenomenon in the Balkans. The author focuses on parties generally described as lying on the far right in ...academic literature and examines their development from 2000 until 2010. The book provides a detailed analysis of the historical legacy essential in understanding the overall context of nationalism in the region as well as an overview of the far right political parties in each country. It discusses parties individually, detailing their ideological features, strategy, internal organisation and leadership, and compares their political, social, economic, ethno-cultural and international characteristics. It reveals the main factors that were influential in the successes and failures of the far right, and offers a comparison between the typical far right voter living in the Balkans and his counterpart in Western Europe.
Southeast European politics cannot be understood without taking ethnic minorities into account. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the politics of ethnic minorities, examining both ...their political parties and issues of social distance, migration, and ethnic boundaries, as well as issues related to citizenship and integration. Coverage includes detailed analyses of Hungarian minority parties in Romania, Albanian minority parties in Macedonia, Serb minority parties in Croatia, Bosniak minority parties in Serbia, and various minority parties in Montenegro, as well as the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a largely Turkish party, in Bulgaria.
Since the collapse of Eastern European communism, the Balkans have been more prominent in world affairs than at any time since before the First World War. Crises in the area have led NATO to fire its ...first ever shots in anger, whilst international forces have been deployed on a scale and in a manner unprecedented in Europe since World War Two.An understanding of why this happened is impossible without some knowledge of the history of the area before the fall of communism, of how the communists came to power and how they used their authority thereafter. Covering the communist states of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia, and including Greece, Richard Crampton provides a highly readable introduction to that history, one that will be read by journalists, diplomats and anyone interested in the region and its impact on world politics today.
An ethnographic and historical study of the main Albania-Greece highway, exploring the post-Cold War political and cultural transformation of Europe through the examination of cross-border ...infrastructure.
Twentieth-century Southeastern Europe endured three, separate decades of international and civil war, and was marred in forced migration and wrenching systematic changes. This book is the result of a ...year-long project by the Open Society Institute to examine and reappraise this tumultuous century.A cohort of young scholars with backgrounds in history, anthropology, political science, and comparative literature were brought together for this undertaking. The studies invite attention to fascism, socialism, and liberalism as well as nationalism and Communism. While most chapters deal with war and confrontation, they focus rather on the remembrance of such conflicts in shaping today's ideology and national identity.
With the need to handle persisting problems and conflicts from the past while coping with new economic and political structures, Southeast Europe proves to be a challenging yet fruitful testing ...ground for establishing a long-term process of social and economic integration. This volume provides a theoretical and comparative overview which examines the prospects for spatial cohesion in this region.
The world wars, genocides and extremist ideologies of the 20th century are remembered very differently across Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, resulting sometimes in fierce memory disputes. ...This book investigates the complexity and contention of the layers of memory of the troubled 20th century in the region. Written by an international group of scholars from a diversity of disciplines, the chapters approach memory disputes in methodologically innovative ways, studying representations and negotiations of disputed pasts in different media, including monuments, museum exhibitions, individual and political discourse and electronic social media. Analyzing memory disputes in various local, national and transnational contexts, the chapters demonstrate the political power and social impact of painful and disputed memories. The book brings new insights into current memory disputes in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. It contributes to the understanding of processes of memory transmission and negotiation across borders and cultures in Europe, emphasizing the interconnectedness of memory with emotions, mediation and politics.
