Ceres journal online version

Eurasiatique A European, Russian and Eurasian Studies Student Journal Volume II

Eurasiatique A European, Russian and Eurasian Studies Student Journal Volume II

Retaining Borders, Reimagining Boundaries

Alessandro Gemmiti Christopher Kelly Spencer Nordwick Jennifer Taylor

Copyright Š2014 Eurasiatique All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Eurasiatique Editorial Board. Permission for reproducing excerpts from this volume can be found at www.ceresgraduatejournal.com. Inquires can also be directed to: The Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, ON M5S 3K7, or by contacting ceresjournal@gmail.com.

ISBN 978-1-63315-950-1 Printed in Canada 02

Eurasiatique Volume II

Editorial Board Alessandro Gemmiti Christopher Kelly Spencer Nordwick Jennifer Taylor Senior Editor Rewa Oubari

Staff

Assistant Editors Gregory Kerr Denis Kierans Hafeeza Murji Petar Prazic Whitney Wiebe Art Director Helena Papagiannis Advisors Edith Klein Program Advisor Centre for European, Russian, and European Studies Layout and Design Caleigh Alleyne

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FOREWARD

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n the months leading up to the publication of Eurasiatique, political and social unrest in Ukraine was followed by the invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation, thereby redrawing international borders. However, its status remains contested by various international actors, highlighting the transient and subjective nature of borders. These events serve to remind us of the significance of borders in an era when the relevance of their physicality is increasingly called into question.

This multidisciplinary collection of articles approaches various forms of borders and boundaries in Europe, Russia and Eurasia.

Eurasiatique is broadly grouped into two thematic sections – ‘Retaining Borders’ and ‘Reimagining Boundaries.’ The first section addresses the impact of administrative borders on identity, population movement, and foreign policy. In the opening article, Sophia Alifirova examines the interplay between history, administrative borders, and national identity through the case of the Sudeten Germans during the interwar period. Conversely, some borders are not as easily defined. Karolina Dejnicka contends that in the case of Turkey, the boundaries between East and West are not a strict dichotomy, as evidenced by its foreign policy approach. In the following article, Isabel Villeneuve analyzes the implications of the shifting borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

She discusses how redrawing administrative borders reconstructs power relations and redistributes economic opportunities among antagonistic ethnic communities. Material borders are also discussed in Anna Danilova’s piece, which demonstrates how the conscious organization of space through physical borders constructs ideational boundaries. She does this by conducting a series of interviews with residents of a Russian Secret City, Lesnoy. Finally, the opinion piece by Anna Prokofyeva explores the tensions between supranational and intergovernmental conceptions of borders.

The second thematic section, ‘Reimagining Boundaries,’ explores divisions that do not necessarily manifest themselves physically, but nonetheless inform our understanding of borders. This is showcased in Vincent J. Merrone’s use of cultural objects, which simultaneously shape and reflect Western perceptions of Russia and Central Eastern Europe. These cultural mediums facilitate the creation of an imagined boundary between the West and the Other. In a similar vein, Justin Khorana-Medeiros presents a familiar cultural object, fair-trade chocolate, and uses it as a category of analysis to demonstrate how citizens of the European Union are able to transcend borders through conscious consumer practices. Louis Wierenga’s article returns to state-centric notions of borders, and discusses how radical-right parties mobilize diasporas to reify ethnic and political divisions in Hungary and Slovakia. Pawel Koscielny and Treena Watson’s article, written prior to the annexation of Crimea, unpacks the nature of the East-West divide in Ukraine. The paper challenges perceptions that there are longstanding social divisions within the country, and explores the implications this hypothesis may have on the events of Euromaidan. Finally, Ekaterina Sumina also examines boundaries in the post-Soviet space by deconstructing Russian military politics through the triad of nationalism, ethnicity, and gender. She uses these variables to demonstrate the intersectionality of imagined and internalized boundaries.

In an increasingly globalized world, borders continue to be an ever-present reality within Europe, Russia, and Eurasia. Though commonly discussed as a geographic concept, borders also have social, cultural, and political implications. In this volume, Eurasiatique explores the significance and roll of borders in various disciplinary contexts. This journal overcomes institutional boundaries by bringing scholars from the University of Toronto into dialogue with graduate students from international postsecondary institutions. In keeping with the Munk School of Global Affairs’ mission, this journal has provided a platform for a global conversation.

The Eurasiatique Editorial Board Alessandro Gemmiti, Christopher Kelly, Spencer Nordwick, and Jennifer Taylor

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Eurasiatique Volume II

Retaining Borders 9 From Heartland to Borderland: Sudeten Germans in Interwar Czechoslovakia Sophia Alifirova 13 The West’s to Lose? Continuity in Turkish Foreign Policy between the Middle East and the West Karolina Dejnicka 17 The Politics of Refugee Return in Post-Dayton BosniaHerzegovina Isabel Villeneuve

Table of Contents

21 Secret Cities: Material and Ideational Borders of Social Space Anna Danilova

25 Visualizing Borders and Boundaries Helena Papagiannis

Reimagining Boundaries 33 The Cultural Production of Knowledge: Central-Eastern Europe and Russia and Their Borders Imagined as an Other

Vincent J. Merrone

37 Conscious Consumerism: Democratic Renewal or Neoliberal Diversion?

Justin Khorana-Medeiros 41 Borderline Right: The Influence of the Right-Wing on Centre-Right Governments and the Hungarian Minority Issue in Slovakia Louis Wierenga 45 Ukraine’s Internal Boundary: Deconstructing Ukraine’s East-West Divide Pawel Koscielny & Treena Watson

Op-Ed 51 Nationalized Masculinities: Anxieties Toward Dagestanis in the Russian Army Ekaterina Sumina 55 Challenges to the Area of Freedom Security and Justice of the European Union Yana Prokofyeva Eurasiatique Volume II

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Kevin Rowley, Hadrian’s Wall. 2007. Image courtesy of the artist.

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Retaining Borders

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Blu. Blu in Morocco. 2012. Image courtesy of the artist. http://blublu.org

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From Heartland to Borderland

of their shared history and culture because they failed to develop a common political conception and understanding of the region.

Sudeten Germans in Interwar Czechoslovakia

The spirit of German national defensiveness sprouted from German unification, which occurred at a much later date than its European counterparts. Furthermore, Germany’s geographic and linguistic boundaries did not coincide with the newly formed German state, as was the case in France and England.10 Despite the existence of a united German nation-state, large numbers of ethnic Germans remained scattered beyond its borders. Simultaneously, a salient ethnic identity (re)emerged amongst Slavic minorities in the Sudeten borderlands that exacerbated tensions between Czechs and Germans. For decades, the Volk and Völkisch movement was viewed by nonGermans as anti-democratic, anti-liberal, and often anti-Slavic. This ideology emphasized the importance of loyalty to the Volk, which was loosely defined as a primordial German identity that superseded any loyalty to the particular state in which a given Volk lived.11 This movement further served as an important manifestation of Sudeten German identity and influenced this group’s relations with its neighbours.12 Therefore, the ownership of the Historic Provinces became a major point of contention in German-Czech relations, exacerbated with the passage of time.

By Sophia Alifirova University of Toronto

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or centuries, the European continent witnessed significant border alterations and population shifts, many of which left its topography unrecognizable. The ethno-political dispute between the ‘Bohemian Germans,’ or ‘Sudeten Germans,’ as they are better known, and the Slavic population in Sudetenland is representative of how shifting borders can drastically change societal composition within a given region. As Karl Bahm suggests, the Sudeten German case provides an example of the dual nature of nationalism when it is expressed in both cultural and political terms.1 This primary view represents one of the leading threads of literature addressing the German-Czech relationship within the Czechoslovak borderlands. Alternatively, some scholars account for a more complex interaction between the Czech and German population, and analyze the various historical and geographic patterns present in the region that have strongly influenced the relationship between Germans and Czechs.

This paper takes a slightly different approach to the analysis of the ‘Sudeten Problem’. I argue that the success of the Nazi movement in Czechoslovakia after 1936, specifically of Konrad Henlein’s Sudetendeutsche Partei (S.d.P.), cannot be explained simply as a case of the fifth column. Rather, geographic and historical struggles, cases of political mismanagement by the interwar Czechoslovak government, and the severe economic crises of the 1920s and 1930s, all played a significant role in exacerbating mistrust in German-Czech relations.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE SUDETENLAND When considering the German-Czech relationship within the Czechoslovak borderlands, it is important to examine the geographic and historical significance of the

‘Sudetenland,’2 a region that included the western provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Scholars and writers have often referred to the three regions as the ‘heart of Europe’ particularly Bohemia.3 Turnwald notes that “in the history of Central Europe over the last thousand years Bohemia has been one of the most important areas of contact between East and West.”4 Thus, whoever ruled Bohemia controlled the boundary between East and West, as well as North and South.5 Elizabeth Wiskemann describes the provinces – enriched with fertile lands, water resources, and mineral wealth – as “the very heart of Europe,” highlighting the centrality of the Historic Provinces of the Bohemian Crown.6 As a consequence of the region’s natural resources, the Sudetenland was a point of contention between increasingly aggressive Sudeten German nationalist forces and Slavic populations during the interwar period. The intensity of the conflict can be explained by the geographic duality of the region. As Wiskemann notes, “Bohemia has strong geographical unity of its own, which draws its unwilling inhabitants into some kind of inevitable unity too.”7 Despite this geographical unity, the landlocked region was strongly dependent on its neighbours, primarily because its rivers cross the territories of other states before reaching the sea.8 These competing claims for the territory are also reflected in Czech and German selfperceptions. The Czechs, the Slavic majority occupying the Sudetenland, have historically viewed themselves as heirs to the Slavonic heritage of the medieval kingdom of the Přemyslids. At the same time, the Germans have always associated Bohemia with ancient German lands, considering it an integral part of the wider German territories of Austria, Bavaria, and Saxony.9 Thus, the two sides developed antagonistic views

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The history of the interaction of the two groups played a particularly significant role in the Sudetenland, perpetuating a divide between the German and Czech populations living the region. First, the geographic boundaries of early twentieth century Sudetenland did not correspond to the distribution of ethnic groups within the region. Over previous centuries, the Germans formed ethnic islands, each with their own historical trajectory. It was also very difficult to draw an ethnogeographic boundary between Germans and Czechs. This was especially true in Bohemia, where many Germans lived within Czech communities.13 However, the Germans’ privileged position within the economic and political life of the Habsburg Empire was easily discernible, and the Empire’s industrial development could largely be attributed to German capital.14

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The relative wealth of Bohemian Germans was also evident centuries before industrialization began in the Habsburg Empire.

During the early Habsburg era, the Czech nobility looked down upon the Germans that arrived in Bohemia from abroad. This was because the Germans brought significant wealth with them, but were not of aristocratic lineage.15 Many Czechs were also displeased when Germans occupied higher posts in the civil service. Hence, a strong sense of mutual resentment developed between Germans and Czechs in the Sudetenland during the Habsburg era, and these tensions subsequently informed relations between Czechs and Germans. This animosity was exacerbated by historical border shifts, which played a schismatic role in the Czech-German borderlands.16 The collapse of the Habsburg Empire and the establishment of an independent

THE NEW CZECHOSLOVAK STATE After the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, the Czechs and Slovaks began building an independent Czechoslovak state. The newly elected president, T. G. Masaryk, had to determine whether “10 million Czechs and Slovaks, a whole nation, should live in a German state or [whether]…3 million Germans should live in a non-German state.”20 Although Czechoslovakia had the right to secure its national borders and to ensure that its majority population was appropriately represented in government, the newly instated authorities made several significant miscalculations in their dealings with what they called the ‘Sudeten Problem.’ The Czechoslovak government did not adequately invest in industrializing the region, and thus, the only industrialized portion of Czechoslovakia was located in

that there was now population equilibrium in Bohemia.21 The new economic conditions also showcased changes in the overall social composition of Bohemia, such as an increase in the proportion of Czechs working in the trade and industrial sectors.

Although Czechoslovakia only accounted for 26.4% of the Habsburg population, it inherited seventy percent of the total production of the Habsburg Empire. In turn, the former domestic consumer market of 54 million people was reduced to 13.5 million.22 In terms of the size of the industrial sector, the new state emerged as a firstclass economic power. Thus, the Historical Provinces became powerful industrial and agricultural centers prior to the economic crises of the 1920s and 1930s.23 However the Czechoslovak economy was heavily dependent upon German-run industrial regions, and as a result, it was adversely affected by the economic crisis. The German minority viewed the consequences as a form of mismanagement and hostility by the Czechoslovak government.

ECONOMIC CRISES OF THE 1920s AND EARLY 1930s

Courtesy of the Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Czechoslovak state in 1918 catalyzed changes in German-Czech relations across the three provinces. Many Germans did not expect the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, and its demise therefore destabilized an environment that had previously facilitated the formation of German cultural identity for German-speaking Bohemians.17 This particular regional identity was paradoxical because it was dually founded on a sense of attachment to the larger German nation and it was inextricably tied to Bohemia itself.18 Thus, the Sudeten Germans identified themselves with both the German nation and the historic regional Bohemia.19 The Sudeten Germans were threatened by the emerging Slavic population in the Sudetenland who also claimed ‘Bohemianness’ as their own.

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Bohemia, which was largely populated by Germans. Thus, the local German population interpreted the Czechoslovak government’s lack of investment in industrialization as an attack on the German population rather than a reflection of poor economic policy. When combined with the severe economic hardships of the 1920s and 1930s, these errors in judgment served to antagonize the Sudeten German population. It was these actions that drove many vulnerable Germans to support the nationalist ideology of the Reich.

After the establishment of the Republic in 1918, the new Czechoslovak government promoted Slavic migration into the cities and key industrial centers. As a result, major Bohemian cities that had German majorities saw a relative decrease in the German population. Many Germans interpreted this as a sign of Czech aggression and nationalist policies, despite the fact

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The economic decline, which began in the 1920s, only worsened in the early 1930s.

These crises had a profound effect on the industrial sector of the Czechoslovak economy. Perhaps inadvertently, the negative effects of the economy were unequally felt by the population, and the Sudeten Germans bore the brunt of economic hardship in comparison to the Czechs and Slovaks. This further fueled resentment from Sudeten Germans, swaying them towards nationalist claims of self-determination.

As Wiskemann states, “to the Sudeten Germans […] the whole financial reorganization of the post-War years seemed to be malevolently directed against them.”23 The deflation of 1922 ruined numerous manufacturers and left thousands of people unemployed. Sudeten German exporters were hit hardest by the decline, particularly because they mainly exported to German and former Austro-Hungarian territories.

For the common Sudeten, the hardship was most evident in those areas of the country that happened to be German. Most Germans failed to understand that the economic disparity was not between German and Czech districts, but rather between industrial and agricultural districts. Nevertheless, there was a common perception amongst Sudeten Germans that the Republic had aban-

doned them in a determined effort to avenge the various wrongdoings from previous centuries.25 While it would be historically inaccurate to blame the economic crisis solely on the Czechoslovak government, it is important to recognize that the Sudeten German population perceived the new order to be at fault.

The perception of poor governance and economic disparity at their expense played a salient role in swaying Sudeten German opinion in favour of the Reich. Discontent made the German population more open toward nationalist, and later Nazi, propaganda.26 Czech newspapers contended that differences between Germans and Czechs had in fact become more pronounced. Germans had not benefited from the armament industry and had not received any commissions for public projects.27 According to Cornwall, “what mattered in the inter-war period was the Sudeten German perception of what was occurring: namely, that they were regularly told […] that their national assets were steadily diminishing to the benefit of the new Czech masters.”28 One of the most crucial events that would repeatedly materialize in Sudeten nationalist rhetoric took place on December 22, 1918, when Masaryk delivered his first presidential address to the new nation of Czechoslovakia. In his speech, Masaryk reaffirmed that the frontier districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia would remain intact within the new Republic.29 The President also reminded Sudeten Germans that they were now the minority population within a larger Slavic state, and that this status was appropriate for people who had originally entered the country as colonists and immigrants.30 This statement enhanced the outlook that the Republic was seeking retribution for hundreds of years of alleged mistreatment under the Germans. In response, the Sudeten Germans were able to justify their campaign against the Czechoslovak state.31 THE ISSUE OF LAND REFORM The most controversial measure taken by the new government was the land reform of the early 1920s. As Wiskemann observes, “nothing illustrates more exactly the conflict between Germans and Czechs, […] nothing has been more fruitful of propaganda based upon half-truths.”32 Indeed, apart from Romania, Czechoslovakia saw

the most radical land reform of the interwar period in Eastern Europe.33 The reform can be separated into three stages that largely took place in the 1920s. The first stage occurred between 1919 and 1920, when the Czech Revolutionary Assembly passed its basic land laws, and the new Land Office targeted a few selected German estates amounting to 9,400 hectares of land.34 During the second stage, which lasted from 1921 until 1927, the Land Office distributed more than 750,000 hectares of agricultural land that had been ‘expropriated’ in the Czech provinces.35 The Land Office viewed the years in which German political parties were excluded from government as the period in which there was the greatest outcry from these groups.36 During the final stage of land reform, which lasted from 1927 until the fall of the Republic, the Land Office systematically distributed non-arable plots of land to the Czechs. However, much of this land was nationalized by the state.37

as a case of the fifth column. In reality, the popularity of the movement can be attributed to a complex set of factors. Indeed, geographic and historical struggles, political miscalculations by the new Czechoslovak government, and the severe economic crises of the 1920s and 1930s, all played a significant role in exacerbating problems in Sudeten German-Czech relations. The centuries-long struggle between the two groups is far more complicated and nuanced than many historians have perceived it to be. For the Sudetenland, a simple shift in borders meant an incalculable shift in identity. From heartland to borderland, the landscape of Central Europe was forever altered.

The Land Office’s activities caused virulent resistance from the Sudeten German population. In the view of a prominent champion of Sudeten land interests, Wilhelm von Medinger, the Office was “a dictatorship over which there was no governmental control, it had issued no accounts, and it still lacked any German representatives in its network of offices.”38 Nationalist propaganda was quickly gaining ground in the Sudetenland, even without the land reform question. German nationalist disregarded the argument that more Czechs than Germans were engaged in agriculture, and thus, they were entitled to more land.39 The pertinent fact was that, according to the official figures of 1931, only twelve percent of the new proprietors in the Czech lands were German, and yet they had still received only five percent of the distributed land.40 For radical Sudeten leaders, the statistics demonstrated an increased Czech invasion into German lands. By the 1930s Sudeten Germans were increasingly paranoid about losing their people’s national assets.41 Thus, the land reform of the 1920s was one of the most decisive moments in the history of German-Czech relations.

CONCLUSION The success of the Nazi movement in Czechoslovakia after 1936, and specifically Konrad Henlein’s Sudetendeutsche Partei (S.d.P.), cannot be explained simply

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NOTES 01 Karl F. Bahm, “The Inconveniences of Nationality: German Bohemians, the Disintegration of the Habsburg Monarchy, and the Attempt to Create a ‘Sudeten German’ Identity,” Nationalities Papers 27, no. 3 (1999): 375.

02 It is interesting to note that until the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, the three million Germans living in the region had little in common until they become members of the same minority group within the new state; Elizabeth Wiskemann, Czechs and Germans: A Study of the Struggle in the Historic Provinces of Bohemia and Moravia (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), 97.

03 Wilhelm Karl Turnwald, Renascence or Decline of Central Europe: The Sudeten German – Czech Problem (Munich: Munich University Press, 1954), 7.

04 Ibid., 7.

05 Radomír Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans: A Study of Czech-German Relations, 1933-1962 (New York: New York University Press, 1962), 1.

06 Wiskemann, Czechs and Germans, 1.

07 Ibid., 2.

08 Ibid., 2.

09 Ibid., 2.

10 Ronald M. Smelser, The Sudeten Problem 1933-1938: Volkstumspolitik and the Formulation of Nazi Foreign Policy (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1975), 5.

11 Ibid., 5.

12 Ibid., 5.

13 Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 3.

14 Ibid., 4.

15 Wiskemann, Czechs and Germans, 7.

16 Smelser, The Sudeten Problem 1933-1938, 5.

17 Wiskemann, Czechs and Germans, 7.

18 Bahm, “The Inconveniences of Nationality,” 376.

19 Ibid., 379.

20 Wiskemann, Czechs and Germans, 79.

21 Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 5.

22 Ibid., 7.

23 Ibid., 7.

24 Wiskemann, Czechs and Germans, 145.

25 Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 14.

26 Ibid., 16.

27 Ibid., 16.

28 Mark Cornwall, “‘National Reparation?’: The Czech Land Reform and the Sudeten Germans 1918-38,” SEER 75, no. 2 (1997): 261.

29 Herman Kopeceka, “Zusammenarbeit and Spoluprace: Sudeten German-Czech Cooperation in Interwar Czechoslovakia,” Nationalities Papers 24, no. 1 (1996): 63.

30 Ibid., 63.

31 Ibid., 63.

32 Wiskemann, Czechs and Germans, 147.

33 Cornwall, “National Reparation,” 261.

34 Ibid., 262.

35 Ibid., 262.

36 Ibid., 262.

37 Ibid., 262.

38 Ibid., 259.

39 Ibid., 264.

40 Ibid., 264.

41 Ibid., 264.

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The West’s to Lose?

Continuity in Turkish Foreign Policy between the Middle East and the West

By Karolina Dejnicka University of Toronto

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n June 2013, during the wake of the Turkish government’s harsh crackdown on mass demonstrations in Istanbul, Germany blocked Turkey’s negotiations for European Union membership. This decision from Germany was the latest in a long series of Turkish setbacks, which began with the 1963 Ankara Agreement, when Turkey applied for candidacy to the European Economic Community (EEC). Following the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) 2002 electoral victory, Turkey became very active within the Middle East and appeared to favor its Eastern partnerships over its more ‘traditional’ Western allies. After this shift, Western media began to question whether the West was ‘losing’ Turkey. As a 2006 Economist article suggested, this answer is often affirmative.1 Academics and journalists have noted that negotiations for European Union (EU) accession have stagnated, while Syria and Iraq absorb much of Turkey’s attention. Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s EU minister even went so far as to state: “…the EU needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the EU.”2 The country’s political rhetoric cites the lengthiness of its accession process as the product of a European ‘double standard,’ perhaps in attempt to justify this shift. Indeed, after years of negotiations, the country has yet to become an EU member.

Often, Turkey’s foreign policy has been framed as being dedicated solely to EU accession. However, upon closer examination it is apparent that this view of Turkey’s East-West positionality is flawed. In contrast to popular perceptions, the country’s relations actually oscillate between the East and West. Turkey has frequently engaged in foreign politics that are not supported by the EU. In addition, the country’s gaze to the East is a reoccurring theme in the history of its regional relations.

Turkey’s apparent shift towards the development of relations with the East at the expense of relations with the West is often called ‘Neo-Ottomanism.’ This implies that the Early Republican period interrupted, rather than reoriented, Turkey’s tradition of Eastern engagement. This analysis is inaccurate. To characterize recent Turkish foreign policy as a shift away from the West would be a false dichotomy; Turkey’s relationship with its Eastern neighbours has not come at the expense of its Western alliances, nor has Turkey’s foreign policy been

East was minimal. Following the demise of the Ottoman Empire, its Arab neighbours regarded the new Turkish Republic with distrust and hostility.3 In addition, Atatürk was preoccupied with Turkey’s project of Westernization, and prioritized domestic reforms over foreign relations.4 However, once the threat of Italian fascism emerged in 1933, Turkey reconsidered its foreign policy options.

Atatürk’s successor, İsmet İnönü (President from 1938 to 1950) heeded the former president’s warning about staying out of the impending World War. He consequently adopted a position of neutrality, and played the European powers off against one another for Turkey’s benefit. During the war, pressure to side with Germany, Turkey’s traditional ally, was mitigated by a pact made with Britain in 1939.5 Despite the Turkish policy of neutrality, the European powers respectively attempted to make the country an ally. Turkey used this to its advantage, securing several loans from both the Germans and the British. The İnönü

“Turkey’s relationship with its Eastern neighbours has not come at the expense of its Western alliances, nor has Turkey’s foreign policy been exclusively Westernoriented” exclusively Western-oriented. On the one hand, Turkey took a relatively active role in the Middle East during the Cold War, adhering to its strategic interests, even if it did not align with its Western allies. On the other hand, the country’s regional foreign policy continues to be strongly influenced by its relationship with the West. This essay explores the history of Turkey’s East-West relations, shedding light on the continuities in modern Turkish foreign policy. Perhaps the question that needs asking is not, ‘is the West in fact losing Turkey’ but instead, ‘was Turkey ever the West’s to lose?’

THE EARLY REPUBLIC AND THE BEGINNING OF THE COLD WAR Under Kemal Atatürk, (President from 1923 to 1938) the country’s activity in the Middle

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government remained neutral for almost the entire war, but sided with the Allies in February 1945 out of fear of invasion by Soviet troops.

The Russian Empire was traditionally perceived as a Turkish adversary, a view that continued to influence future Turkish relations with the Soviet Union. The MolotovRibbentrop Pact of 1939 contributed to Turkey’s sense of unease toward the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the British had previously assisted the Ottoman Empire in resisting Russia.6 Thus, when the Cold War began, Turkey sided with the West, offering to take on a leadership role in the Middle East if admitted to NATO.7 However, once the USSR revealed its wishes to control the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, Turkey’s ability to maintain neutrality during the Cold War was somewhat thwarted.

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During the early years of the Cold War, Turkey could do little in the Middle East without provoking the Soviet Union.9 Turkey was a signatory of the 1955 Baghdad Pact (along with Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Britain) which was meant to prevent Soviet expansion to the Middle East, but lacked sufficient support from states such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The agreement was renamed the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and it existed until the Iranian Revolution in 1979. However, it never became the “Middle Eastern NATO” it aimed to be.10 CENTO was meant to appear as a Turkish initiative, but it became clear that the United States was the real force behind the project.

Hence, delving into the region’s Cold War past reveals that Turkey did not ignore its Eastern neighbours. The country tried then, just as it does now, to be a leader in the Middle East. Energy security has been a major factor shaping this relationship because Turkey is an oil consumer rather than a producer, and this has historically left it dependent on its Eastern allies.11

ally in favour of Middle East partnerships.15 Following the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a Cold War détente ensued that granted Turkey greater independence to pursue closer relations with its Middle Eastern neighbours.16 Prior to this period, Turkey had granted the United States permission to use its Incirlik airfield, but it revoked this right during the Israeli-Arab conflicts: the SixDay War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. While Turkey’s membership in NATO and its support for Israel had made it a regional outlier in the Middle East, the airfield refusals strengthened its ties to neighbouring Muslim states.17 This relative shift away from the West manifested itself in other ways as well. For example, after 1980, Western foreign aid from Europe decreased. By 1981, Turkey’s trade with the Middle East surpassed its trade with Europe due to its reliance on Middle Eastern Oil.18 Furthermore, Turkey remained neutral in the Iran-Iraq War (1980 to 1988) and benefited from sustained economical ties with both states. This shift away from the West ended when Iraq invaded Kuwait in

“the country tried then, just as it does now, to be a leader in the Middle East.”

DÉTENTE AND INCREASED REGIONAL OPPORTUNITIES In the early 1960s, the West wanted Turkey to maintain a low profile in the Middle East, restraining Prime Minister Adnan Menderes from adopting an aggressive policy toward Soviet-supported Syria and non-aligned Iraq after 1958.12 However, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the events in Cyprus changed the dynamic of Turkish foreign relations. Both of these events made it difficult for Turkey to promote regional economic and political integration.13 Turkey intended to undertake a military intervention in Cyprus in the 1960s, but American President Lyndon Johnson opposed the idea. The US warned that it would not help Turkey if the country invaded Cyprus, fearing that Turkey’s actions as a NATO member would provoke the Soviet Union.14 When Turkey eventually intervened in 1974, observers predicted that the country would distance itself from its American

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1990. Turkey chose to support the American intervention, while maintaining its ties to the Middle East.

AFTER THE COLD WAR Once the USSR dissolved, new Central Asian and Caucasian states emerged with high populations of ethnic Turks. Turkey viewed this as an opportunity to present itself as a regional representative for all Turkic populations.20 However, by 1992, it was clear that this strategy would not be as successful as Turkey had hoped.21 Nevertheless, the country continued its attempt to exercise influence in the former Soviet states.

Since the formation of the Turkish Republic, Turkey’s large Kurdish minority has presented an ongoing challenge to its domestic and foreign policy. Split between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, the stateless Kurdish population has been the most influential factor that drives Turkey’s rela-

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tions relations with these countries.22 To complicate matters, the Kurdish opposition has been supported by foreign actors in order to undermine the Turkish government.23 Case in point, Turkey had strained relations with Syria on account of the Kurdish minority. Syria had been suspected of giving aid to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the main face of Kurdish resistance in Turkey and an internationally recognized terrorist organization.24 The Syrian government supported the PKK and harboured its leader, Abdullah Öcalan until 1999, when Syria expelled Öcalan due to Turkish pressure.25 Since 2002, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been pursuing ‘strategic depth’26 with the Middle East.

This strategy (coined by Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu) aims to make the country a central player in international relations using its geopolitical position between East and West. At the same time, Turkey’s ties to Europe and the United States continue to influence its foreign policy. As a result, the Turkish government has attempted to balance its relations with both sides. For example, Turkey’s NATO membership and EU candidacy causes tension with its Eastern neighbours, but when the country broke ties with Israel in 2008, relations with the Middle East were somewhat improved.27 Similarly, while the Turkish government opposed the 2003 American invasion of Iraq, this did not constitute a break from the West because many European countries also opposed the invasion.

EVER THE OUTSIDER: TURKEY AND THE EU Turkey has been much better at playing rival European powers against one another than it has been at convincing the EU that it belongs in the same club. This is showcased by the country’s lengthy EU accession process, which is taking the longest of any candidate country. European politicians underline Turkey’s cultural and geographical differences as the two attributes behind Europe’s opposition to the country’s accession. Jürgen Gerhards, a sociologist at the Free University of Berlin, has even conducted research on whether Turkey’s values are compatible with the EU project.29 While the EU has been hesitant about the country’s accession, Turkey is also somewhat responsible for the delay. The Turkish

government’s inability to follow a consistent policy towards the EEC gave the impression that it was ‘ambivalent, underprepared, and reluctant.’30 The country’s citizens did not fully support the EEC, nor did its politicians. In fact, Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit was actively opposed to membership during the 1970s, contending that Turkey could never compete and would only serve as a market for European goods.31 A 1974 report predicted that the West was going to lose its Turkish ally, and asserted that the EEC seemed ‘enfeebled’ and ‘hardly worth joining.’32 Moreover, Turkey’s numerous military coups strained relations with Europe, especially when the EEC took a strong stance against political instability after the 1982 Spanish coup attempt.33 The Turkish accusation that the EU employs a double standard has been popular since the 1999 Helsinki summit, when twelve new countries other than

Turkey were being considered for membership.34 Consequently, the EU granted Turkey candidate status, which has become the longest candidacy in EU history.

CONCLUSION In 1984, the Institute for European Defense & Strategic Studies released a report called, Turkey in Transition: The West’s Neglected Ally. The report listed several factors that were responsible for the Turkish coolness towards the West, such as increased trade with Iran. It further predicted ‘years of estrangement’ between Turkey and its Western allies. Although this may seem to be a reoccurring theme, this prediction has yet to be fulfilled. Indeed, the argument is not one sided; the West may assert that Turkey’s AKP is breaching ties, however it was this party that initiated EU accession negotiations.

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The westward orientation of the Turkish Republic has a long and troubled history.

For instance, under Atatürk’s government, European occupiers were expelled during the Turkish War for Independence. Yet, Turkey’s foreign policy continued to gaze westward. During World War II and the Cold War, Turkey benefited from its ‘neutral’ position. Later on, Turkey’s balancing act with both the East and the West has been a hindrance to expediting its EU accession. The Turkish state has pursued active Middle Eastern relations when it was politically permitted, but the West continues to influence its foreign policy. At times, it appears that the country’s foreign policy is westward facing, while at other times it gazes eastward. This paper has demonstrated Turkey’s consistent outreach to its Eastern neighbours, begging the question of whether Turkey was ever the West’s to lose.

15

NOTES 01 “Is the West Losing Turkey?” The Economist, October 19, 2006, accessed December 5, 2013, http://www.economist.com/node/8057630.

02 Daniel Dombey, “Germany blocks Turkey’s bid to join EU,” Financial Times, June 20, 2013, accessed December 7, 2013, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2432cc2cd9c0-11e2-bab1-00144feab7de.html#axzz2nC1IFF9z.

03 William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy 1774-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 125.

04 Ibid., 71.

05 Herbert R. Reginbogin, Faces of Neutrality: A Comparative Analysis of the Neutrality of Switzerland and other Neutral Nations during WWII (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2009), 156.

06 Feroz Ahmad, “The Historical Background of Turkey’s Foreign Policy,” in The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy, ed. Lenore G. Martin and Dimitris Keridis (Cambridge: MIT Press), 9.

07 William Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy 1774-2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 125.

08 Ibid., 109; Mustafa Kibaroğlu and Ayşegül Kibaroğlu, Global Security Watch Turkey: A Reference Handbook (Westport: Praeger Security International, 2009), 47.

09 Kibaroğlu, “Global Security,” 52.

10 Ibid., 17.

11 Philip Robins, “Turkey in the Middle East: Oil, Islam, and Politics,” Journal of Islamic Studies 14, no.1 (2003): 111.

12 Hale, 129 13 Feroz Ahmad, “Politics and Political Parties in Republican Turkey,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. IV: Turkey in the Modern World, ed. Reşat Kasaba (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 244.

14 Ahmad, “Politics,” 245.

15 Kenneth Mackenzie, “Turkey: After the Storm,” Conflict Studies 43 (1974): 14.

16 Gülnur Aybet, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy and its Implications for the West: a Turkish Perspective,” RUSI Whitehall Paper Series (London: The Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1994), 15.

17 Sarah Akram, “Turkey and the Middle East,” Strategic Studies 30, no. 1/2 (2010).

18 Aybet, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy,” 7. ; Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 173.

19 Ibid., 19.

20 Ibid., 22.

21 Ibid., 28.

22 Hamit Bozarslan “Kurds and the Turkish State,” in Turkey in the Modern World, ed. Reşat Kasaba, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 333.

23 A. Manafy, The Kurdish Political Struggles in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey: a critical analysis (Lanham: University Press of America, 2005), 36.

24 Romano, Kurdish Nationalist, 53.

Sevilay Kahraman, “Turkey and the European Union in the Middle East: Reconciling or Competing with Each Other?” Turkish Studies 12, no. 4 (2011): 701.

25 Philip H. Gordon and Omer Taspinar, Winning Turkey: How America, Europe, and Turkey Can Revive a Fading Partnership (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 50.

26 Amikam Nachmani, Turkey: Facing a New Millenium: Coping with Intertwined Conflicts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), 238.

27 Kahraman, “Turkey and the European Union,” 704.

28 Jürgen Gerhards, Cultural Overstretch? Differences between old and new member states of the EU and Turkey (New York: Routledge, 2007), 142.

29 Ibid., 19.

30 Ibid., 52.

31 Mackenzie, “Turkey: After the Storm,” 3.

32 Douglas Reynolds, Turkey, Greece, and the “Borders” of Europe: Images of Nations in the West German Press 1950-1975 (Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2013), 267. ; Çakir, 50 Years, 18.

33 Ibid., 32.

34 Kenneth Mackenzie, “Turkey in Transition: The West’s Neglected Ally,” European Security Studies No. 1 (Institute for European Defense & Strategic Studies, 1984), 16, 20.

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Eurasiatique Volume II

The Politics of Refugee Return in Post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina

By Isabel Villeneuve University of Toronto

T

he 1992-95 Bosnian War radically changed the ethnic makeup of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The brutalities of war, including large-scale ethnic cleansing, caused approximately 1.2 million Bosnian refugees to flee abroad, and caused 1.1 million to become internally displaced persons (IDPs).1 The Dayton Peace Accords (DPA) divided the country into the ‘Republika Srpska” (RS), receiving forty-nine percent of the country’s territory, and the Bosniak-Croat Federation, receiving the other fifty-one percent. Annex 7 of the DPA sought to prevent ethnic cleansing by establishing the right to return under safe conditions, ensuring the restoration of property, and providing compensation for destroyed property.2 This provision aimed to encourage minority returns (that is, for displaced persons to return to areas where their ethnicity is the minority), a process the international community hoped would help calm ethnic tensions and compensate for their failed efforts to prevent ethnic cleansing during the war.3 However, this provision instead institutionalized what many international policy makers feared - ethnic segregation.

A large influx of majority returns began in 1996 but it was not until 2002 that minority returns peaked at 102,111.4 This discrepancy leads one to question what policies influenced these results, and whether or not minority returns have proven to be a sustainable process. This paper will argue that a policy shift in the late 1990s, which emphasized the rule of law and provided for an increased presence of international actors on the ground, caused minority returns to peak in 2002. These changes inadvertently hindered the sustainability of the refugee return process.

For the purposes of this article, it is necessary to outline the actors that make up the ‘international community’. The Office of the High Representative (OHR) has been

charged with implementing the terms of the DPA, while NATO retains control of military operations. The OHR reports to a Peace Implementation Council (PIC) consisting of representatives from various states who direct policies and resources. The following discussion will outline the policies in the mid-1990s, followed by the policy shift later in the decade, and finally, the sustainability of the return process.

The policies put forth during the two years following the end of the Bosnian War did not appropriately address minority returns.

Instead, these policies served to reinforce ethnic homogenization in most parts of the country, meaning that most communities remained dominated by one ethnic group.

During these early years, the state-building aims of Dayton led the international community to work under the assumption that their role, “was merely to help the local authorities implement DPA.”5 However, many local officials had no interest in supporting minority returns, seeing as it would undo the segregation of ethnic groups that many had fought for and achieved through Dayton. 6 A Western official went so far as to describe the attitude of Serb officials, by stating, “[i]t was like persuading Hitler to take back the Jews.”7 Some local authorities in the Federation also held similar attitudes.8 During this period, tensions remained high in many areas and international troops, including a NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) later succeeded by a Stabilization Force (SFOR), did not recognize assistance for returnees as part of their mandate. As a result, minority returnees faced a volatile security environment. Furthermore, local police forces often included members who had fought during the war, many of whom retained their hard-line nationalist views.

These conditions, caused in part by a passive policy framework that accorded a considerable amount of power to local

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officials resulted in an increased number of IDPs, and ultimately increased ethnic homogenization.

The Open Cities Program, introduced in March 1997, was one of the first policy initiatives aimed specifically at increasing minority returns. The program used positive conditionality by providing financial incentives, funded by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the United States, the European Union, and the World Bank. These funds arrived in the form of reconstruction assistance and economic aid to communities who encouraged the return of minorities. Under this program, massive amounts of funding were allocated to such efforts, with meager results. For instance, Konjic, which is considered one of the program’s ‘most successful’ cases, had fewer than 300 minority returnees by spring 1998 despite having received $14 million in funding.9 The existence of parallel funding programs, such as one led by USAID, were also problematic because they led some local authorities to ‘donor shop’ in order to avoid actually accepting minority returns.10 More importantly, the positive conditionality of the Open Cities Program increased tensions among the general population since the local majority groups felt discriminated against. 11 Once again, a program designed to function under the assumption that local authorities would play by the rules proved to be unsuccessful. Roberto Belloni notes that, “local politicians became increasingly inclined to speak the language of multi-ethnicity and reconciliation […] while preserving their practical uncompromising stance.”12 By 1998, the remaining 1.5 million Bosnian refugees and IDPs who had not returned to their pre-war homes were redefined as minority returnees (in the event that they chose to return). Policies based on positive conditionality were therefore ineffective at encouraging minority returns.13 In late 1997, in response to the failures described above, a shift in policy occurred which included an increased presence of international officials on the ground as well as an overall focus on the rule of law. As a result of the Bonn Conference in December 1997, the PIC accorded the High Representative the power to use the ‘final authority clause,’ also known as the ‘Bonn Powers.’

This mechanism strengthened the role of the Reconstruction and Return Task Force

17

(RRTF). These changes gave the RRTF the power to remove obstructionist mayors proving that minority returns were, “a requisite rather than an optional form of compliance with the Dayton Agreement.”14 In addition, the Bonn Powers enabled the RRTF to change any legislation that countered minority returns.15 This new ‘no tolerance’ approach also led SFOR troops to become more involved in implementing “the civilian aspects” of Dayton.16 SFOR’s presence did not create a volatile situation, as some policymakers feared. Rather, the troops’ removal of suspected war criminals created a “ripple effect” that significantly improved the security conditions for minority returns.17 These conditions encouraged a new movement of ‘spontaneous returns’, a process that must also be understood as a product of strong determination from the returnees themselves.18 What is certain is that the new heavy-handed approach of the international community, including the RRTF’s presence on the ground, improved the overall coordination and security of minority returns. As a result of this shift in policy, minority returns began to increase in 1998 and 1999, followed by a surge in the early 2000s.19 In addition to the RRTF’s role in improving security at the local level, the rule of law also became a successful tool for property restitution. The revision and enforcement of housing laws was an important step in ensuring that returnees had a residence to return to. Post-war property redistribution was complicated by the fact that many of the people who took over vacated housing were themselves displaced persons who had fled their original homes.20 Unwilling to aggravate their majority electorate, local officials employed ‘soft obstructionism,’ which often meant that minority returnees were only able to settle in uncontested areas and/or areas destroyed and abandoned during the war.21 However, in February 1999, the OHR removed the mayor of Bugojno for obstructing returns by, among other things, confiscating and selling property that had belonged to displaced Croats.22 Once again, a harder line was necessary to protect against corruption at the local level, by both removing obstructionist officials and rewriting property laws.

The Commission on Real Property Claims of Refugees and Displaced Persons (CRPC) was created by Annex 7 to help certify property rights and property restitution.

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Much of the enforcement of this process was left up to local authorities, many of which held ties to ethno-nationalist parties, and had redistributed abandoned property to members of their own ethnic groups.

Rhodri Williams notes that this arrangement “reflects a sober early assessment of the Annex 7 CRPC’s capacity to fulfill its envisioned mandate.”23 To improve coordination and implementation of property restitution, the Property Law Implementation Plan (PLIP) was created in 2000. International officials oversaw the implementation of the plan while working with local authorities, and the International Police Task Force (IPTF) helped supervise local police forces that were mandated to carry out evictions in a safe and orderly manner.

These actions helped overcome a major psychological barrier for many refugees and IDPs who, “could no longer assume either that their former homes were lost to them, or that they could themselves occupy somebody else’s property indefinitely.”24 In addition, the PLIP coordinated all the agencies involved in property restitution under ‘Focal Points,’ which served groupings of municipalities.

Headed by field officers already in the area, these Focal Points established a better tracking system, including monthly data collection. These improved efficiency by fostering a “competitive dynamic, accelerating implementation, and [offering] the psychological sense of a tangible end to the process.”25 Furthermore, the Focal Points helped with evictions, providing alternative accommodation and appeal procedures. Gerard Toal and Carl Dahlman note that these officers “usually possessed a nuanced understanding of the particular obstacles found in their areas of responsibility.”26 Decision-making power was given to these officers on the ground, instead of the head offices of the organizations they represented, to ensure efficiency and ensure issues were addressed at the local level.27 The PLIP also emphasized chronology under its ‘Non-negotiable Principles,’ ensuring claims were processed in the order in which they were filed, and that each one received an answer within thirty days.

Not only did this help to reduce the claims backlog, but it also provided an ordered, “no tolerance” approach to the more difficult cases and helped eliminate some forms of obstruction by nationalist officials.28 Consequently, PLIP’s new coordinated and chronological approach, which was sup-

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ported by the ground presence of the international community, encouraged returns.

In addition, a framework, whereby the same legal procedures were applied throughout the country, de-politicized the issue of property restitution and ultimately contributed to the peak of minority returns in 2002.29 Though the policy change enabled a significant number of minority returnees to repossess their pre-war homes, this policy shift did not ensure that the return process would be permanent, nor that it would be sustainable. From the outside, the agencies involved in implementing Annex 7 saw the policy changes of the 1990s as a breakthrough. By December 2003, ninety-two percent of the 215, 000 claims that the PLIP received were processed and enforced in favour of the claimant. This process would otherwise have taken forty years if conducted at the rate that processing occurred before the PLIP was introduced.30 This success must be qualified in that an assessment of Annex 7 should not equate property repossession with the success of minority returns. In this regard, scholars have noted that statistics of minority returns and their property claims are often inflated. For example, the PLIP statistics do not account for the many returnees who revisit simply to sell, exchange, or lease their homes before returning to the community to which they were displaced or sought asylum abroad.31 Furthermore, most of those who have chosen to return are elderly and many are reliant on remittances from abroad, a system that is not always reliable when the relatives abroad are not financially stable.32 By emphasizing property laws, international agencies have turned the focus away from achieving sustainable minority returns and have instead focused solely on securing pre-war property rights.33 It is also necessary to avoid the assumption in the assessment of returnees that individuals who choose to stay in their repossessed homes are re-integrated into the social and economic milieu of their communities. The fragile Bosnian economy affects the entire population; however, minority returnees face additional barriers including institutionalized discrimination that further limits their employment opportunities. Nationalist parties control many firms and public institutions and discourage the hiring of minorities, thereby favouring their own ethnic groups. This reflects the wider issue of corruption in Bosnia that “is not a private-

sector matter but a public-private partnership.”24 Furthermore, priority for employment in both the RS and the Federation has often been given to demobilized soldiers, war veterans with disabilities, and the families of fallen soldiers—criteria that no doubt exclude minority returnees who come from the ‘other side.’35 In some communities, this has led to the construction of parallel institutions by minorities. Yet, these institutions offer limited opportunities for employment. Alternatively, some returnees retain their residence but work (and use

returnees have encouraged a process of reruralization, whereby they returned to their original homes in remote areas, which offered extremely limited economic opportunities.39 Beginning in the late 1990s, an increase in the involvement of the international community and a new policy framework based on the rule of law de-politicized the process of property restitution of minority returnees. The RRTF, IPTF, and Focal Points created a local level presence that held mu-

been transferred from international agencies to domestic authorities, who face a challenging economic climate, suggests that sustainable conditions for minority returns remains a lofty goal, unlikely to be achieved in the immediate future.

“minority returnees face additional barriers including institutionalized discrimination ” services) in a different community, usually where they are part of the majority group.

In other cases, returnees have opted to retain ownership of their repossessed property while leading a transnational lifestyle.

These individuals find employment outside of Bosnia but retain connections to their home communities, sometimes with the hope of returning permanently at a future date. Marita Eastmond has argued that policymakers should account for transnational options. Eastmond claims that return “may be better conceptualized as an open-ended process, one which often takes place over a longer period of time and may involve periods of dual residence and considerable movement back and forth.”36 This transnational activity poses a problem for the sustainability of the communities where returnees do not necessarily contribute to the economy. Though many refugees would prefer to return permanently, they are inhibited by financial restraints. Daniela Heimerl criticizes the international community’s focus on “recreating multi-ethnicity and righting the wrong of ethnic cleansing,” arguing that economic development and growth should have been prioritized by encouraging returnees to resettle where economic opportunities existed instead of repossessing their original homes.37 Megan Bradley has added that the restitution process should have included the repossession of businesses and agricultural lands instead of only domestic residences.38 Refugee return has arguably worsened Bosnia’s economic landscape. After an accelerated process of urbanization following the war,

nicipal officials accountable. Furthermore, the PLIP provided additional support by introducing an improved framework for the implementation of property laws that could be applied uniformly across the country.

However, Annex 7 cannot be considered an overall success because property restitution has not always led to the permanent return of refugees. In addition, the conditions for those who have chosen to remain as a minority returnee are in many ways unsustainable. These conditions have involved a variety of measures including isolation in ethnic enclaves, the creation of parallel institutions, and travelling to use services and find work outside of the communities of residence. Many minority returnees search for employment and other means by which to support their families. Scholars claim that these unsustainable conditions are proof of a disconnect that exists between the aims of Annex 7 and the wider statebuilding aims of the DPA.40 Belloni argues that ensuring the creation of economic opportunities for returnees, as part of Annex 7, “would have required a level of social and economic engineering that fits uncomfortably with the neo-liberal template focused on economic liberalization.”41 Florian Bieber observes that, “The process of returning refugees was often […] not seen as part of a larger political process, but as a goal per se.”42 One can only hope that in the years to come, minority returnees will be provided with more opportunities to reintegrate into the economic and social fabric of their communities. The fact that most issues associated with returnees have now

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NOTES 01 Walpurga Englbrecht, “Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo: Voluntary Return in Safety and Dignity?,” Refugee Survey Quarterly 23, no. 3 (2004): 102.

02 Lejla Hadzic, “As Dayton Undergoes Proposals for Reform, the Status of Freedom of Movement, Refugee Returns, and War Crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Human Rights Review 9 (2008): 138.

03 Joanna Harvey, “Return Dynamics in Bosnia and Croatia: A Comparative Analysis,” International Migration 44, no. 3 (2006): 104–106.

04 Englbrecht, “Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 103.

05 Daniela Heimerl, “The Return of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: From Coercion to Sustainability?,” International Peacekeeping 12, no. 3 (2005): 379.

06 Roberto Belloni, State Building and International Intervention in Bosnia (New York: Routledge, 2007), 127.

07 Ibid., 127.

08 The Continuing Challenge of Refugee Return in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Balkans Report, Sarajevo/Brussels: International Crisis Group, December 13, 2002, 10.

09 Gerard Toal and Carl Dahlman, Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and Its Reversal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 214.

10 Ibid., 213.

11 Belloni, State Building, 135.

12 Ibid., 136.

13 Heimerl, “The Return of Refugees,” 381.

14 Toal and Dahlman, Bosnia Remade, 221.

15 Megan Bradley, Refugee Repatriation: Justice, Responsibility and Redress (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 128.

16 Belloni, State Building, 137.

17 Ibid., 138.

18 Ibid., 138.

19 Englbrecht, “Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 103.

20 Toal and Dahlman, Bosnia Remade, 234.

21 Ibid., 234.

22 Ibid., 237.

23 Rhodri Williams, “The Significance of Property Restitution to Sustainable Return in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” International Migration 44, no. 3 (2006): 45.

24 Heimerl, “The Return of Refugees,” 383.

25 Williams, “Significance of Property,” 46.

26 Toal and Dahlman, Bosnia Remade, 239.

27 Ibid., 239.

28 Charles Philpott, “The Dog Is Dead, the Pig Must Be Killed: Finishing with Property Restitution to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s IDPs and Refugees,” Journal of Refugee Studies 18, no. 1 (2005): 12.

29 Ibid., 9.

30 Bradley, Refugee Repatriation, 132.

31 The Continuing Challenge of Refugee Return in Bosnia & Herzegovina, 2.

32 Laura Huttunen, “Sedentary Policies and Transnational Relations: A ‘Non-sustainable’ Case of Return to Bosnia,” Journal of Refugee Studies 23, no. 1 (2010): 53.

33 Philpott, “The Dog Is Dead,” 10.

34 Toal and Dahlman, Bosnia Remade, 310.

35 The Continuing Challenge of Refugee Return in Bosnia & Herzegovina, 14.

36 Marita Eastmond, “Transnational Returns and Reconstruction in Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina,” International Migration 44, no. 3 (2006): 144.

37 Heimerl, “The Return of Refugees,” 385.

38 Bradley, Refugee Repatriation, 135.

39 Heimerl, “The Return of Refugees,” 387.

40 Bradley, Refugee Repatriation, 144.

41 Belloni, State Building, 148.

42 Florian Bieber, Post-War Bosnia: Ethnicity, Inequality and Public Sector Governance (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 113–114.

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Eurasiatique Volume II

Secret Cities Material and Ideational Borders of Social Space

By Anna Danilova Ural Federal University, Russia

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he social processes that dictate the creation and dissolution of borders are often contradictory. For example, the twentieth century witnessed the dissolution of borders between states, as seen through the signing of the Schengen Agreement. On the other hand, new borders have formed and old borders have been reinforced, as evidenced in Russia and Ukraine. Some of these borders are physical constructions, as is reflected by the barbwire fences that divide the United States and Mexico.

However, blurred borders are becoming increasingly prominent, and it is now more and more difficult to understand what constitutes a ‘border.’ This paper explores how societies impact borders through the lens of a Russian ‘secret city.’ Closed cities are unique due to the palpable nature of their borders, and the fact that these borders linger after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

HISTORICAL AND LEGAL CONTEXT Closed or secret cities, are officially known as ‘closed administrative-territorial formations.’ They are urban districts with industrial enterprises, which are engaged in the development, storage, and utilization of weapons of mass destruction, as well as the recycling of radioactive materials, military equipment, and other ‘sensitive’ items.

These cities originated as a component of the Soviet Union’s nuclear program following World War II, and continued to be developed throughout the 1950s. The legislative bodies of the Soviet Union, known as the Supreme Soviet, granted these cities ‘closed’ status by way of secret decrees.

However, these cities were not only statesecured bastions of military-industrial secrets, they were also a home to its citizens who cherished and wished to protect their unique way of life.1

The cities quickly developed into scientific and technical centers, staffed by highly qualified specialists who were trained by leading universities. Due to their strategic importance, these cities were generously financed by the state, creating privileged conditions for their inhabitants. However, this prerogative proved unsustainable in a post-perestroika world. The transition to a market economy decreased the value of these Soviet-era cities, and they are no longer considered to be a ‘strategic priority.’ Still, despite the social and political changes that have taken place, the physical borders of these secret cities remain firmly entrenched.2

multiple stages. During the first stage, I carried out stringently scripted, semi-formal interviews with ten residents in March 2011. Each interview lasted for approximately one hour. The five male and five female participants were recruited through snowball sampling. In order to qualify for the study, participants had to be born and raised within the city in question. Participants were permitted to leave the city for the purposes of higher education, as long as they returned upon graduation, and chose to live in the closed city permanently. Consequently, many participants were young specialists who had received an education in an open city, and then chose to return to their closed city. Sample criteria were designed to attract participants who actively chose to reside in the closed city. Participants were asked to explain the advantages and disadvantages of living in the closed city in order to unpack the potential motivations that propelled their return.

In the second stage, I conducted moderately scripted, semi-formal interviews with eight former residents of the secret city in November 2011. I spoke with people who had moved from the closed city to Yekaterinburg, the region’s urban center. Participants were also recruited through snowball sampling in this stage. They were selected according to the target principle, and the number of informants was in line with the theoretical saturation principle. There were five female and three male informants between twenty-one and fifty-five years old.

Their experiences living in open cities prior to their return ranged from two to twelve years. Each interview lasted for approximately one hour, during which time I asked them to compare life in closed and open cities. I also asked them to explain their reasons for initially moving to an open city.

Many of these cities continue to police their borders and physical security systems channel access through officially sanctioned checkpoints. One of the mechanisms used for border maintenance is a system of zonal passes. These passes once divided city residents from guests in the name of security, but their main contemporary purpose is to foster an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ partition. Zonal passes have therefore become a symbol of belonging for residents of secret cities.

Consequently, friends of past residents often inquire as to whether or not they chose to keep their passes. To return one’s zonal pass means to forgo one’s connection to the closed city, and thus, these passes help to I did not directly ask interviewees to reflect define spatial identity and exclusive belong- on life in a closed city because the primary ing. goal of the study was to understand the meaning of borders in respondents’ lives.

POLLING METHODOLOGY AND After speaking with the subjects, I obEMPIRICAL BASE OF RESEARCH served a deep internalization of the borders between the closed and open cities. In order to supplement these outcomes, I turned to According to a recent Russian governmen- secondary data analyses and publicly availtal decree, there are forty-two closed cities able statistical data. within the country. For the purposes of this study, research was carried out in a closed city located in the Sverdlovsk region. The fieldwork for this study was conducted in

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THE MAIN THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS I rely on Bruno Latour’s understanding of physical borders, whereby borders function as the dominant infrastructure that forms a material base for the social world. Therefore, physical borders—such as a fence around a city—influence the way that the city’s residents understand the world. Although the borders between many contemporary cities are becoming increasingly fluid, secret cities stand as an exception; these cities unrelentingly protect their specialized, exclusive space.

FINDINGS AND RESULTS A closed city cannot be explored—neither physically nor conceptually—without first navigating the borders that surround it. The borders of a closed city act as a frame. They define a variety of constraints for the city’s residents. I have extrapolated four material and ideational constraints from the interviews that I conducted in the secret city in 2011; population control, lack of public space, limits to the flow of information, and isolation.

Demographics serve as the first apparent constraint in closed cities. As a rule, closed cities have populations under one hundred thousand people. For instance, Lesnoy’s population has remained consistent for the last fifteen years (despite some recent evidence that it may be decreasing) at fortynine to fifty-five thousand people.5 While nearly every city undergoes shifts in population over time—be it growth or decay— Lesnoy’s physical borders maintain its static population. This demographic stasis is a critical factor in determining the lived experiences of its inhabitants.

Public space, the second limit that I encountered in the secret city, directly impacts the social lives of its inhabitants. Borders define and colour the public space. The very nature of communal ‘public space’ within closed cities is problematic because closed cities are inaccessible to the ‘public.’ Various scholars6 assert that open, public space is an important aspect of city life, which corresponds with anonymity. However, closed cities differ from these ‘classical’ urban spaces that dominate the literature.

22

Thus, is it even possible to stake out ‘public space’ in a ‘closed city?’

The idea that closed cities do not have public space is perhaps facilitated by population control. Closed cities feature particular demographic constraints, such as the relatively static population and the near absence of visitors and temporary residents.

In other words, closed cities are populated by familiar inhabitants. Therefore, respondents communicated that they felt a distinct lack of anonymity in their everyday lives.

Informant 1.8, a twenty-five year old male resident, explained this peculiar feature of living in a closed city: “Lesnoy is a big village. Its special feature is that everybody knows each other.” Therefore, citizens of Lesnoy unconsciously regard anonymity as a feature of life particular to open cities.

As reflected by respondent 1.8, open cities represent ‘the big city,’ whereas closed cities are conceived of as ‘the village.’ Yet, just as village life offers certain benefits to its inhabitants, the closed city protects its citizens from some typical anxieties of city life. Functioning as a village, the closed city confers a higher level of social interaction and control that may be absent in a typical urban space. In response to the question of why people live well in a closed city, respondent 1.8 answered that “[…] it is not so dangerous [to live] in our city. It is safer than in others cities.”8 The borders that surround the closed city not only serve to protect the populace from the outside world, but also from each other, the internal unknown, strangers, and ‘atypical’ people.

The lack of anonymity and social control motivates individuals to migrate between closed and open cities. Informant 2.2, a forty-one year old woman and former resident of the closed city, described why she decided to move away: “It was difficult for me to live in a small town because of who I am. I am a person who stands out from others.” In addition, familiar and controlled social networks have made ‘the big city’9 a difficult and disheartening space to navigate for those who may have moved away from a closed city. Informant 2.4, a twentytwo year old woman and former resident of the closed city, noted, “[…] Nobody cares for you. If you do something in Lesnoy … you know, somebody will say something about you. But here it is not so. Here you know that nobody cares.”

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Limits to the flow of information constitute the third constraint observed in secret cities and play an important role for inhabitants.

The borders of a closed city make it difficult for information to penetrate society via mediums such as printed publications, word-of-mouth stories, cultural exhibitions, new equipment and technology, and investments. Informant 1.9, a twenty-five year old woman and resident of the closed city, stated, “You are in information isolation here. It means that the only source of information are books and the Internet, which distorts the information sometimes.”

Additionally, the closed city engenders traditional and homogeneous social mores, further problematizing the import of objects and ideas that are perceived as ‘new’ or ‘modern.’ A twenty-one year old man and former resident of the closed city (Informant 2.3) noted, “Have you ever read our newspapers? It is awful! There was section headlined ‘Hi-Tech news.’ But there was only last year’s news.”

Isolation is the fourth and final constraint observed. The closed city’s borders impede the mobility of citizens and become a powerful barrier to unobstructed interaction.

An overall lack of public transportation further facilitates isolation. For example, there are no railway stations or airports in Lesnoy, and it is difficult for nonresidents to gain access to the city. Isolation is not only spatial; mental isolation is also prominent in the closed city. This is evidenced by participants’ responses to the question “[d]o you think that people in other cities of the Sverdlovsk region live better, worse, or at the same level as you do?” Approximately twenty-eight percent of the respondents found it challenging to reply, and often said that they could not answer this question because they had not been to other cities. In this sense, closed cities are insular environments on a multitude of levels.

CONCLUSION The border of a closed city is simultaneously a social, emotional and physical barrier.

In reality, not all people can bear the impact of these borders on their lives. Those who do not accept the rules of life in these cities are ‘pushed’ to relocate to open cities.

Informant 1.10, a fifty-four year old man and resident of the closed city, explained, “My friend has moved from here recently.

He said that he was fed up with not being

able to invite people in.”

Those who choose to remain ‘inside’ the city accept the limits imposed by this rigid structure. Many residents of closed cities do not want to see their borders opened, and thus the spirit of nostalgia runs strong in formerly ‘closed cities.’ This is even true for closed cities that became ‘open’ after the fall of the Soviet Union. For example, eighty-nine percent of the citizens of Norilsk wish to return to the status of a closed city.11 The stability of the closed cities’ social systems and social order allows people to choose a traditional way of life, and offers familiar models of behaviour. These expectations explain why many young specialists return to their

closed cities after graduation. Informant 1.1, a twenty-eight year old man and current resident stated, “Lesnoy is paradise …

It is a small cozy city; everything is much easier here…” Additionally, many young specialists choose to return to the closed city due to the predictability of life.

The physical borders of secret cities become mental constructions, redirecting social activity into the strict limitations posed by the closed city. In contrast to the public spaces and economic innovation that characterizes open cities, the closed city tends to consciously reproduce social roles and boundaries through four forms of constraint: population control, lack of public space, limits to the flow of information,

and isolation. Closed cities are therefore an atypical social space. They are autonomous and self-sufficient spaces marked by the bureaucratic borders that limit the way in which inhabitants function socially.

Though they were originally expected to disappear after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these cities have lingered on due to their conscious self-reproduction. For residents of closed cities, the material and ideational borders form, conserve, and protect identity. However, the benefits that citizens derive from these borders also disguise the negative implications of this way of life – a homogeneous, stagnated, and limited social space.

Map of Lesnoy Municipality – Sverdlovsk Region, Russia. Image courtesy of mapru.com.

Checkpoint for Transport – Lesnoy City, Russia, September 20, 2009.

Image courtesy of myworld@mail.ru

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NOTES 01 “Law of the Russian Federation of 14.07.1992 N 3297-1 (as amended on 22.11.2011): ‘On closed administrative-territorial’,” Consultant: Nationwide Network Dissemination of Legal Information, November 22, 2011, accessed January 23, 2012, http://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_122011/.

02 Despite the presence of a fence around the city, citizens are able to leave the territory at their leisure.

03 “The governmental order of the Russian Federation from July, 5th, 2001 N 508 “About the statement of the list of the closed administrative-territorial formations and the settlements located in their territories” (with changes from April, 16th, 2007, on July, 16th, 2009),” Garant, July 5, 2001, accessed January 23, 2012, http://base. garant.ru/183489/.

04 Bruno Latour, “On Interobjectivity,” in Sociology of Things, ed. Victor Vahshtayn, 169-199 (Moscow: Territory of the Future, 2006).

05 “Lesnoy city,” National encyclopedia Russian cities and regions: ‘My City,’ accessed January 20, 2014, http://www.mojgorod.ru/sverdlov_obl/lesnoj/.

06 Jane Jacobs, The Life and Dead of Great American Cities (Atlanta: Vintage Books, 1992); Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); William Whyte, City: Rediscovering the Center (New York: Doubleday, 1988).

07 Natalia V. Veselkova, “Experience of City: Mental Maps and Identity of Place,” paper presented at the All-Russian Research and Practice Conference: ‘Visible Cities: Visual Practices of Modern Megalopolis,’ Russia, Yekaterinburg (November 1-30, 2011).

08 Data was obtained through open-ended questions which were later quantitatively analyzed. Residents taken from the Svedlovsk region (including Lesnoy City) needed to be seventeen years and older. The sample from Lesnoy City was sixty people. Part of this research was carried out via telephone inquiry during the summer of 2011. This project, entitled “Dynamics and Strategies of the Life Support Practices of the Population of the Cities With One Main e+Enterprise,” was supported

by RFFR-Ural (Russian Fund of Fundamental Researchers), grant number 10-06-96021.

09 Stanley Milgram, Experiment in Social Psychology (St. Petersburg: Piter, 2000).

10 John Urry, Mobilities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007).

11 Georgiy Lappo and Polyan Pavel, “Zakryityie goroda, ” Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya 2 (1998): 43-48.

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Visualizing Borders and Boundaries Hungarian artist Timea Oravecz’s 2007 series, Time Lost, presents administrative documents from the nine-year period the artist spent moving throughout Europe, both prior to and following Hungary’s accession to the European Union. The assemblage of documents, which Oravecz has personally embroidered, serves as evidence of the artist’s personal struggle with bureaucratic obstacles.

Timea Oravecz, Time Lost, 2007.

Images courtesy of the artist. http://www.timeaoravecz.com

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NSK State – Passport. Image courtesy of IRWIN. http://theinfluencers.org/en/irwin

Slovenian art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) established a fictional ‘utopian’ NSK State in 1992. The imagined state includes passports, postage stamps, and a national anthem. Passports are required for ‘citizenship’ and are issued at the various NSK ‘consulates’ in Europe and in the United States.

As a construct, the NSK State transcends physical borders and rejects traditional criteria of statehood such as ethnicity, religion, or physical geography.

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After being barred by Soviet officials from attending an art exhibit of their own works in New York, Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, the Russian-born conceptual artist collective known as “Peppers,� created Trans-State.

The installation piece showcased the creation of a fictional state, complete with passports, currency, a constitution, and a membership application to the United Nations. The Trans-State signage and accompanying documentation were displayed at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York in 1977.

Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, Trans-State, 1977.

Images courtesy of the artist. http://www.komarandmelamid.org

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Kyrgyz Photographer Elyor Nematov’s series I AM A FOREIGNER represents the more than ten million Central Asians who migrate to Russia each year. The artist was inspired by his own father and brother, both of whom travelled to Russia for work. The project is ongoing.

Elyor Nematov, Central Asian migrant workers at Friday prayer, Russia. Images courtesy of the artist. http://www.nematov.com

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Photographer Alessandro Penso’s ongoing series, Refugees in Bulgaria, addresses the refugee crisis in the country due to economic and political instability.

Alessandro Penso, Refugee Camp – Sofia, Bulgaria, 2013. Image courtesy of the artist. http://www.alessandropenso.com

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Tanja Ostoljic, o.T./ Untitled, 2004 Image courtesy of the artist. http://www.van.at/see/tanja/

Tanja Ostojić is a Serbian performance artist who incorporates the use of her own body in her works. Her 2004 photographic work, colloquially known as EU Panties, explicitly links sexuality to issues of citizenship and national identity. A satire of Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde (1866), the work displays the artist’s genitalia covered with blue underwear emblazoned with the EU insignia.

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Reimagining Boundaries

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Superman: Red Son, Dracade102, Image courtesy of the artist.

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In this alternate reality, Superman possesses the same persona from the original comic series; he still strives to right wrongs and perform super-human tasks to save the lives of ordinary citizens. The only noticeable differences are that the Soviet Central-Eastern Europe and Russia and Their Superman speaks with a Russian accent Borders Imagined as an Other (the animated comic is entirely in English) and wears on his chest a red hammer and

By Vincent Merrone sickle rather than the iconic ‘S.’ What does change dramatically between the two realiNEW YORK UNIVERSITY ties is the course of world history when Superman succeeds Stalin as the leader of the ovies, books, photography, television packed romp through Moscow in A Good Communist Party. programs, and other mediums of entertain- Day to Die Hard.5 On the other hand, some ment have the ability to shape how cultural film portrayals are implicit, such as the With the Communist Party headed by Suconsumers perceive their world. Cultural highly popular The Avengers6 which em- perman, the Soviet Union becomes a utomediums do so by producing numerous ployed the Russian villain trope in a scene pia, in which Superman virtually eliminates types of knowledge (epistemologies) about where Natasha Romanova (the Black Wid- hunger, disease, poverty, and all forms of the aspects of the world they depict. These ow) is subject to interrogation by Russian inequality. Soon thereafter Superman’s reepistemologies in turn provide cultural gangsters.7 gime becomes a global phenomenon. Evconsumers with information and knowlery country on the planet embraces Superedge which allows them to form a plural- The sections that follow present three ex- man’s utopian society—except for the US. ity of social realities (social ontologies) amples of cultural mediums that foster The economic, cultural, and military world knowledge production in which CEE and power of the US is soon challenged, and regarding their own world.1 Russia are understood as an Other. The first the country degenerates into a crisis zone Following the notion that knowledge ac- is the motion comic8 Superman: Red Son, in dominated by revolution, riots, and proquired from cultural mediums shapes the which Superman is re-imagined as if he had tests. The narrative continues as Lex Lusocial realities of consumers, I argue that been raised in the Soviet Union.9 The sec- ther endeavours to undermine the utopia Western cultural depictions of Central- ond is The Shrine, a film about unsuspecting of Superman. Their interactions and the Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia produce tourists who are ritually murdered by the in- ensuing plot are irrelevant for the present a knowledge about these regions which habitants of a small Polish village.10 The last discussion. What is pertinent are the setting positions their identity as a historical, so- example is China Miéville’s The City and and background of the motion comic. cial, and geographical Other. This knowl- the City, a fantasy detective novel which edge, in turn, allows cultural consumers takes place in two overlapping cities.11 The cultural memory of the Western audito develop an understanding (independent ence still includes an image of the Soviet from movies, books, music, etc.) of CEE These specific cultural mediums were cho- Union, the Eastern Bloc, and socialism as and Russia with properties of Otherness. sen because they span different platforms a strange set of entities that existed as an Consequently, this perception develops an of cultural production and various audienc- Other behind the imaged socio-political imagined border that arises and encircles es. Comic book culture has become quite and economic border of the Iron Curtain.

CEE and Russia. For cultural consumers, popular in the West, while the horror film This comic becomes interesting because it this imagined border designates that within genre (which relies on explicit violence) meshes the cultural memory of the socialthe geographical space of CEE and Russia has achieved widespread appeal. Finally, ist Other with a representation of American there exists a land of the Other, a land that the novel chosen represents a non-visual cultural and political values. This blending possesses different qualities from one’s form of media that captures a much wider reproduces the image of the Soviet Union audience than comic book and horror film and the Eastern Bloc as a historical Othown Western world. genres.12 er—one that existed in the past but does CULTURALLY PRODUCED not exist at present—behind an imagined THE MAN OF HAMMER, SICKLE, KNOWLEDGE OF THE OTHER border. In other words, this animated comic AND STEEL preserves and reproduces, within Western A plenitude of cultural depictions present cultural memory, the socialist Other and its CEE and Russia as an Other. Some of these What if Superman landed on Earth not on imagined borders. portrayals are explicit, including, for ex- a farm in Kansas but on a farm in Soviet ample, Eli Roth’s horror films Hostel2 and Ukraine? What if this Western symbol was Emphasizing the socialist Other and its Hostel: Part II3 which present Slovakia as transmuted into one that belonged to the imagined border has the effect of stigmaa place where the possibility of torture ex- USA’s Cold War Other? The DC comic tizing present-day CEE and Russia. These ists.4 Other examples include Bond films company13 has manufactured this scenario regions become that which “was different” that draw on the trope of the Russian vil- in a motion comic entitled Superman: Red and what “was in opposition to the West.”

Son. lain, and John McClane’s latest action-

The Cultural Production of Knowledge

M

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A new Other with a new imagined border emerges. This new Other and its imagined border form around the notion that CEE and Russia were once an antagonist to the West and thus possess the possibility of being different from, and in tension with, the contemporary West.

THE SHRINE AND THE OTHER In Jon Knautz’s The Shrine, tourists visiting a rural Polish village are murdered by a group of antagonistic locals. The killings are performed as part of a fictitious JudeoChristian ritual, where hooded figures tie their victims to an altar and affix metal masks to the sacrifice’s face. At the climax of the ritual a massive sledge-hammer-like object smashes the metallic mask into the tourist’s face. The Shrine is undoubtedly a film of the horror genre.

The Shrine develops the character of Poland as a menacing entity that exists disconnected from modernity—a nexus of time and space where kidnappings and killings can and do occur. Gruesome performances by the Polish characters, as described above, are not the sole devices utilized by the film to produce the effect of Othering. The film exploits the audience’s lack of knowledge of the Polish language to create a divide between the film’s protagonists, the Polish antagonists, and the audience.

The protagonists are two American journalists and the American boyfriend of one of the former. As they travel to Poland to report on the missing tourists, the film takes note that the protagonists have no understanding of the Polish language. Upon entering the village where the murders have occurred the three Americans have a difficult time interacting with the natives— no person, except a child, speaks English.

Though the film’s perceived target audience is native English speakers, or at least non-Polish speakers, much of the film’s dialogue takes place in Polish. However, the director intentionally fails to provide subtitles for the Polish dialogue. This language barrier forces the audience to share in the protagonists’ confusion. Without any subtitles to provide a translation the audience cannot derive any meaning from the Polish dialogue. The viewer is only able to discern the motives of the antagonists through behaviour and body language which signal malevolent intentions.

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The film engages the audience to cultivate a ‘self versus Other’ dichotomy. The Western audience naturally aligns itself with the English-speaking protagonists, therefore positioning the Polish villagers as the ‘Others.’ The Polish-speaking villagers are not only Othered by their status as villains, but also by their location in a distant and faraway land. The potency of Otherness is therefore intensified by setting the film in a secluded village on the outskirts of modernity. In this perceived faraway land the inhabitants take on a barbaric form—they perform brutal sacrificial rituals in a language which is not understood by the audience. The lack of subtitles for the Polish dialogue produces a boundary between the audience and the antagonists, for the audience cannot even relate to the Polish speakers via common language and meanings. In short, Poland, its citizens, and its language become ossified as the Other for the audience.

WHERE ARE THE CITIES? China Miéville’s The City and the City14 is a fantasy detective novel in which the protagonist, Inspector Borlú, must solve the murder of a girl whose corpse was thrown out of a stolen van. As the plot unfolds, Inspector Borlú travels through two cities where social norms keep the inhabitants segregated in an unconventional manner.

The two cities, their geographical location, and the social norms adhered to by the cities’ respective citizens designate Miéville’s work as significant for the discussion of imagined borders.

The City and the City takes place in Besźel and Ul Qoma—two fictional cities which overlap in geographical space. For example, if one was walking in Besźel one would come to a street which has jurisdiction in Ul Qoma. If one is a Besźel citizen one cannot cross into Ul Qoma territory and vice versa. However, there exist common zones where both citizens can enter without facing penalty. Another example is a tale told within the story. There were two lovers, both from the respective cities. As the lovers walk on parallel sidewalks they are unable, because of the laws of the cities, to cross the boundary which designates one sidewalk in Besźel from the other in Ul Qoma. If the lovers made contact visually or physically, they would have to perform mental tasks which would force them to

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literally forget that one has seen the other.

If one were to cross over the boundaries dividing the entangled city, or fail to forget that one has viewed the contrary city and its citizens, one would be committing the crime of “breach.” In committing a breach one would not be held accountable by the local law enforcement, but rather subject to the covert group—also referred to as Breach—which will manifest instantaneously to detain the culprit. The citizens of both cities therefore perceive Breach to be a supernatural omnipresent police officer.

Where exactly do these two bizarre cities reside on the map? Rather than explicitly stating where the cities are located, Miéville writes of where they are not. Miéville alludes to the each city’s location through passages such as, “‘I’ve been to Romania.

I’ve been to Bulgaria,”15 “…since refugees from the Balkans had come hunting sanctuary, quickly expanding the city’s [Besźel] Muslim population…’’16, and “[w]e’ll come through Hungary and, or, we’ll come up via Turkey or Armenia.”17 The City and the City is riddled with allusions to the location of Besźel and Ul Qoma which point to somewhere in CEE. However, it does not appear that Miéville intended to have Besźel and Ul Qoma act as a specific representation of any set of particular cities in CEE. Miéville’s intentional ambiguity allows the reader to interpret the location of the two cities geographically. This artistic choice provides the reader with a range of options in terms of creating and positioning the Other, since the reader can attach the fantastical nature of Besźel and Ul Qoma to any set of cities in CEE. Since Miéville’s novel is a work of fiction and no cities in CEE exist with the overlapping nature of Besźel and Ul Qoma, one could imagine both relatively close and distant cities of CEE acting as representations of the two locales. Miéville’s Besźel and Ul Qoma could be Prague and Brno, Warsaw and Krakow, Vilnius and Kaunas, or any other pairs of relatively close cities within CEE. Besźel and Ul Qoma could also be Sarajevo and Riga, Budapest and Tallinn, Bratislava and Belgrade, or any other distant cities in the region. Due to the fantastical nature of Miéville’s work and the fact that he does not specify which cities Besźel and Ul Qoma are modelled after, readers are permitted to form any permuta-

-tion of CEE cities to act as representations of Miéville’s cities. This in turn allows the reader to attach the strange qualities of Besźel and Ul Qoma to, and therefore create an Other from, any pair of CEE cities.

Readers of The City and the City can also conceive of the entire region of CEE as an Other, since the precise location of Besźel and Ul Qoma is unknown and these two cities could exist potentially anywhere and everywhere in CEE. The ubiquitous quality of Besźel and Ul Qoma allows them to take the form of an abstract representation of CEE in the eyes of readers. The reader is then able to superimpose the fantastical, strange, and weird qualities of Miéville’s cities onto not only discrete areas or cities of CEE, but also the whole of CEE. The identity of the region becomes that of an Other as readers identify CEE with Besźel and Ul Qoma. The borders of CEE come to be imagined as housing, or at least having the potential to house, the oddness and difference one sees in The City and the City.

FROM KNOWLEDGE TO IMAGINING: CEE AND RUSSIA These cultural mediums engage in a form of knowledge production about CEE and Russia through such depictions as socialist Superman, the torture of tourists, and fantastical cities. This knowledge constructs and frames CEE and Russia as places which are, or at least possess, the possibility to be different, horrific, strange, offbeat, or against the values and norms of the West, therefore positioning these regions as an Other. The production of this image of CEE and Russia as an Other informs cultural consumers about the nature of them, which, in turn, influences how these two regions are perceived and understood by Western audiences. The result is that cultural consumers develop an “Othered” understanding of CEE and Russia as they are framed by artistic mediums.

Since the properties of Otherness are being attached to a specific geographical space, the borders of this space become imagined as the borders of the Other. The borders of CEE and Russia come to be imagined as housing that which is different from the cultural consumer, their own way of life, their values, their nation’s values, etc. A new sort of imagined Iron Curtain, perhaps

a Cultural Curtain, arises in the minds of consumers which relegates those existing on the Eastern side of this imagined border as different, as Other, in relation to the West.18 As cultural mediums continue to produce knowledge that allow cultural consumers to (re)imagine CEE, Russia, and their borders as Others, various questions arise. First, drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation19 , can the cultural depictions of CEE and Russia be understood as producing simulacra, or at least simulations, of Otherness? Indeed, after watching the The Shrine or Hostel

what is of concern is the spinoff image of Russia that is produced by the knowledge stemming from Western media—knowledge that reifies not only Putin’s policies but also the entirety (from high politics to daily life) of Russia, as being in tension with Western norms and values. In this instance Russia and its borders are reproduced as an imagined Other reminiscent of Wolff and Neumann’s works on the East.

Though representations of CEE and Russia, such as those found in comic books and horror films, may appear trivial, they

“Though representations of CEE and Russia, such as those found in comic books and horror films, may appear trivial, they nonetheless inform how one frames and understands the world.” the audience does not believe that torture and murder are normative in Poland and Slovakia. Rather, these films produce and reproduce an image of Poland and Slovakia as contrastive to the West. Do these images of Otherness, which have taken shape in the minds of cultural consumers, come to replace the actual reality (what is ontologically true) of CEE, Russia, and their borders?

A second question goes beyond cultural mediums such as films, books, comics, etc., and may apply more directly to Russia than CEE. How, and to what extent, do informational forms of media (such as news programing and newspapers) produce knowledge that skews viewers’ understanding of CEE and Russia toward something that is imagined, rather than actual? Media coverage of some of President Vladimir Putin’s actions, such as his attack on gay rights, rigging of the presidential election, the Sochi Olympics, military interference in Ukraine, and the arrest (and release) of Pussy Riot, is a case in point. What is of concern is not whether Putin’s actions are “wrong” or how they fall outside of the spectrum of Western socio-political morality. Rather

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nonetheless inform how one frames and understands the world. All sorts of images—from comics about socialist Superman to Europe’s Eurovision song contest20 —are producing a knowledge about something out there in the world. The question becomes whether these images are producing a knowledge which allows cultural consumers to imagine something akin to reality or mere false constructs that do not—or only marginally—represent reality.

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NOTES

01 For example, photographs are a cultural medium that may be perceived as less participatory than movies, books, or music. Susan Sontag discusses the power of photographs (and the act of photography) in shaping how viewers of these images interpret, perceive, and understand their world; Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Other (New York: Picador, 2003); On Photography (New York: Picador, 1977).

02 Hostel, dir. Eli Roth (Lions Gate Film, 2006), DVD. 03 Hostel: Part II, dir. Eli Roth (Lions Gate Film, 2007), DVD. 04 Eli Roth did not direct the third instalment of the Hostel series. The new director, Scott Spiegel, changed the film’s setting from Slovakia to Las Vegas, Nevada. This third film was not as popular as the first two instalments, and was sent straight to DVD. This leads one to wonder if the change in setting had any effect on the publication and reception of the third film; Hostel: Part III, dir. Scott Spiegel (Raw Nerve, 2011), DVD. 05 A Good Day to Die Hard, dir. John Moore (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2013), DVD. 06 The Avengers, dir. Joss Whendon (Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures, 2012), DVD. 07 The Black Widow’s Soviet intelligence training has equipped her with a deadly skillset in hand-to-hand combat and weaponry. However, the film never explicitly highlights her Russian past or previous Soviet ties—possibly because she is a heroine, and therefore on the “good” side. Delving into the Black Widow’s Soviet past may cause ambiguity for audiences.

08 Motion comics (or animated comics) are adaptations of comic books that have been enhanced with sound effects, voice acting and limited digitally-enhanced animation.

09 Superman: Red Son, written by Mark Millar Warner (Warner Premier, 2009), iTunes.

10 The Shrine, dir. Jon Knautz (Bookstreet Pictures, 2012), DVD. 11 China Miéville, The City and The City (London: Macmillan Books, 2009).

12 These representations and constructions of CEE and Russia as an Other are not mere contemporary phenomena nor are they understood as lacking a history or genealogy. Larry Wolff’s Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, and Iver B. Neumann’s Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Formation, demonstrate that historically CEE and Russia have been constructed as an Other; Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (California: Stanford University Press, 1998); B. Iver Neumann, Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Formation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

13 The original comics came out in three parts entitled: Red Son Rising, Red Son Ascending, Red Son Setting. All three were written by Mark Millar and published by DC comics (a subsidiary ofTime Warner) in 2003.

14 The City and the City won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the BSFA Award. It tied with Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl for the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Novel, and also received a Nebula Award nomination and John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel; Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl (San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2009).

15 Miéville, The City and The City, 87-8.

16 Ibid., 25.

17 Ibid., 117-8.

18 It must be stated that even though many CEE countries have entered the EU, and thus may be considered a part of the West, these countries may exist as the EU’s periphery or EU’s internal Other. See John Agnew, “How Many Europes? The European Union, Eastward Enlargement and Uneven Development,” European Urban and Regional Studies 8, no.1 (2001): 29-38.; C. Andrew C. Janos, “From Eastern Empire to Western Hegemony: East Central Europe under Two International Regimes,” East European Politics and Societies 15, no. 2 (2001): 221-249.; Karl Kaser, “Economic reforms and the illusion of transition,” in Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989, ed. Ramet P. Kelly, 91-110 (Cambridge University Press, 2010).; Merje Kuus, “Europe’s eastern expansion and the reinscription of otherness in East-Central Europe,” Progress in Human Geography 28 (2004): 472-489.

19 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1995).

20 Catherine Baker examines representations of Eurovision contestations as cites of simulation. This overlaps with the first question posed in this section which asks whether the knowledge produced from cultural mediums leans toward the creation of simulacra, or at least simulations. [Catherine Baker, “Wild dances and dying wolves: simulation, essentialization, and national identity at the Eurovision Song Contest,” Popular Communication 6, no. 3 (2008): 173-189.

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Conscious Consumerism Democratic Renewal OR Neoliberal Diversion?

By Justin Khorana-Medeiros University of Toronto

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an a guilty conscience embitter a sweet flavour? What seems like a question for a psychologist is actually quite pertinent to the contemporary social scientist. Fair trade chocolate is quickly becoming a central pillar of the fair trade movement, perhaps second only to coffee.1 In addition, there has been a proliferation of media and governmental attention to the subject within recent years.2 I argue that the fair trade chocolate movement is a prime example of a new form of political engagement in Europe that is known as ‘political consumerism.’ This can be defined as a growing movement through which transnational citizens attempt to vote with their wallets in addition to their ballots.3 As such, I argue that while the fair trade chocolate movement may reinforce consumerist attitudes, it is a necessary corrective in a globalized world in which traditional political borders are being radically redefined and national politicians are becoming increasingly powerless. The movement is thus a positive development in terms of the health of European democracy. This is because it strikes at Western corporations and immoral producer-capitalists of the developing world in the one place that matters: the bottom line.

FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE AND POLITICAL CONSUMERISM – THEORY AND PRAXIS The fair trade chocolate movement opposes the use of child slavery in the harvesting of cocoa as well as the general exploitation of cheap labour in the developing world.

Multinational companies employ these practices in order to keep production costs low and profits high.4 This labor exploitation is common throughout cocoa-growing West Africa, particularly in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. After the sordid reality of the production process was unearthed in 2001,5 numerous civil society groups acted to put

an end to such practices through boycotts, as well as through implementing a system of fair-trade certification and labelling. Due to the limited scope of this paper, I will focus predominantly on the child-slavery aspect of fair trade rather than the economic criticisms of it.6 Thus, the key question becomes: can European citizens achieve through consumer activism what they could not through the traditional political process?

I thus regard primary childhood education as a universally-assumed normative good.

At the same time, education is a crucially non-tradeable good; it cannot be compared to income and levels of employment. Beyond education, there is also normative value in improving the working conditions of child-slaves in the cocoa fields, who are often unpaid and forced to work with dangerous tools (machetes and sacks of cocoa heavier than their bodies) for ten to twelve hours per day.7 Thus, the fair trade movement fits perfectly with Forno and Ceccarini’s definition of political consumerism, which is defined as, “…shopping-bag power in an attempt to influence institutional or market practices.”8 Essentially, this is a political action group in which citizens abstain from purchasing certain brands of chocolate in an attempt to end or alter the production method. Concurrently, citizens can encourage alternative production methods by purchasing the particular brands of chocolate that meet their normative standards. This is often marked by a ‘social label’ on the product. Many times these processes begin at the local level, but given the complexity and scale of the targets, they usually need to grow into transnational movements in order to be truly effective. Disrespecting traditional borders and national parliaments to accomplish a policy goal that generally imposes certain regulations or standards on an industry is a uniquely contemporary phenomenon.

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Another aspect that makes this new form of political participation so novel is its normative underpinnings, which confound traditional, self-interested, rational-actor models of political science and economics.

As Micheletti notes, the choices of political consumers …are based on attitudes and values regarding issues of justice, fairness, or non-economic issues that concern personal and family well-being…

Their market choices reflect an understanding of material products as embedded in a complex social and normative contest.9 The attitudinal and value-laden character of fair trade consumerism pairs well with the literature on post-materialism.10 It is a consumer’s rational, economic self-interest to buy child-slave-produced chocolate because it costs less. Some consumers, however, refuse to purchase such products on normative grounds, despite having no personal relation to the affected individuals.

This makes boycotting a quintessentially post-materialist political behaviour in most instances. It also renders it a global phenomenon, confounding prior communitarian conceptions of the nation-state, national boundaries, and national citizenship.

Micheletti’s definition is also useful because it emphasizes the individualist aspect of this post-materialist behaviour, and the way in which it blurs the line between public and private spheres. One can now be said to be committing a political act by standing alone in the supermarket, far away from traditional (and nationally-bound) forms of participation and institutions such as the voting booth, the political party, the legislature, etc. We have arrived at an almost comical distance from the traditional, community-based ‘mass parties’ of old.11 Have we come to the point of sheer social atomization, feared by modernity’s many critics,12 through this process of the individualization of politics? Indeed, whether this is a positive or negative development for European politics depends partly on whether one thinks this new form of participation is crowding out the old ones, or whether it is supplementary.

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PROBLEMATIZING FAIR TRADE AND CRITICAL CONSUMERISM There are several variants of the ‘crowding out’ criticism in the critical consumerism literature, from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Michael Maniates’s powerful critique of consumerist tactics within the environmental movement is particularly applicable to the present discussion.

Is our ‘labour politics imagination’13 being narrowed by an over-emphasis on consumer choice that individualizes solutions to large-scale (indeed, global-scale) problems that can only realistically be tackled by concerted, society-wide action? Are we engaging unwittingly in ‘slacktivism’ by thinking that simply avoiding unfair trade chocolate in the vending machines at work is going to realistically end immoral labour practices? Is it diminishing our attention and efforts towards larger scale institutional change through traditional community organizing and political action? Have we become ‘consumers first, and citizens second’?

Guthman argues even more extremely that social labels “…not only concede the market as the locus of regulation, but in keeping with neoliberalism’s fetish of market mechanisms, they also employ tools designed to create markets where none previously existed.”14 If ethical consumerism in fact promotes and encourages anti-regulatory attitudes and policies in general, how can child slavery in West African cocoa fields possibly be combatted through it?

CRITICAL CONSUMERISM NECESSITY AS THE MOTHER OF INVENTION To begin our rejoinder, we may point to a recent study on new forms of political behaviour in Europe. Van Deth’s data is unequivocal on the matter of ‘crowding out’: newer modes of participation do not necessarily exclude others, meaning there is no ‘crowding out’ effect. In fact, individualized consumer participation can be an extension of the political repertoire.15 Therefore, one can (and often does) join or vote for a leftwing party that is tougher on international labour rights and refuse to buy unfair trade chocolate. One can supplement an existing political affiliation with a global network of like-minded individuals over the Internet. ‘Voting with your wallet’ should be considered no more

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negatively individualistic than ‘voting with your ballot’; both are individual actions that are nearly always (though not necessarily) done in concert with others. Though one can refuse to buy certain corporate chocolate without necessarily pressuring anyone else to do the same, such action is empirically most often done out of solidarity with other like-minded citizens. Usually, one joins a boycott rather than starts one.

Given that fair trade chocolate consumerism need not be seen as diminishing traditional forms of political participation or important social ties, what can be said positively in its favour? Ideally, government regulation would target chocolate companies that source unethically. Such regulation was attempted in the American context, but predictably massive lobbying by the big chocolate companies prevented effective legislation on the issue from being passed, watering it down to an unfulfilled promise of ‘self-monitoring’ on the part of the companies themselves. Given the similar influence of corporate lobbyists in Brussels,16 and the regulatory centre of the European Common Market, one can comment similarly on the European context.

Thus, where can European publics turn to achieve their goal of eliminating child slavery, if not to political consumerism?

One answer is to target producer-country governments, an option that is favoured by some critics of social labelling.17 However, West African governments have notoriously weak state capacities and more pressing priorities than training and managing labour inspectors. Targeted sanctions would likely punish impoverished West African farmers, while having no effect on the purchasing practices of Multi-National Corporations (MNCs), who would choose to relocate to a state with weaker regulations.

As a result, this would limit employment opportunities for workers in West Africa, increasing their hardship. At any rate, it is unlikely that West African governments would take effective action against MNCs from an industry that literally holds up their economies and employs nearly half of their workforces.18 Thus, producer-country governments face a perverse set of incentives that keep them in a bind, something which would not be solved by diplomatic pressures from Western governments. In sum, it is the MNCs themselves that must be made to change because governments in both the global North and South have proven to be

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ineffective at producing results. Ethical consumerism is an alternative form of sanction that is intuitively attractive.

Beyond high-power lobbying and weak state capacity, there are even deeper issues with traditional political solutions to the unethical chocolate problem. Hay and Stoker have convincingly argued that traditional domestic political participation is declining due to 1) the offloading of responsibilities by politicians onto technocrats as well as supranational institutions and 2) globalization.19 Thus, if power is increasingly out of the hands of politicians, one can cast a global ballot with political consumerism, and influence a state of affairs that politicians either cannot or will not.

This could become increasingly necessary as neoliberalism continues unabated20 and more and more free-trade deals are signed, tying regulators’ and politicians’ hands.

MNCs themselves, depending on where they are headquartered, may not be subject to domestic regulation were it still possible; if MNCs no longer respect traditional political borders, citizens need to start playing the global game as well.

TRANSNATIONAL CONSUMER BOYCOTTS – AN INCIPIENT AND EVOLVING ACTIVISM What of fair trade’s practical difficulties?21 It is clear that monitoring NGOs need to be fiercely independent of corporate influence. This may be accomplished through grants from governmental aid agencies and private donations. Ultimately, the relationship between producers, MNCs, and independent monitors, needs to be combative, not collaborative; if unfettered access is not received, no label is given, period. Within this framework, the only relevant ‘stakeholders’ are the child-slaves themselves.

Some of the best fair trade chocolate companies are vertically integrated with suppliers. In other words, they have permanent staff on location at the cocoa bean co-ops that ensure ethical farming practices.

Of course, vertical integration comes at a cost, the brunt of which is placed on consumers who are forced to pay higher prices for their chocolate. Needless to say, largescale, international educational and marketing campaigns to inform consumers of ongoing human rights abuses are required.

There are countless examples of such cam-

paigns already, the best known likely being those of the vegetarian and animal rights movements. These campaigns and the organizations which run them

from neoliberals, to restore its conscious and humanistic possibilities. Consumption in its basic sense existed long before neoliberalism’s emergence.

Thus, an enterprise that connects the ethical preferences of consumers and the wellbeing of producers, as fair trade attempts to do, might be the best possible option.

…provide scientific facts, statistics, information in the form of events, links, and videos…[they] formulate emotionally charged visual and verbal sensitizing messages as “political wake-up calls” to convince consumers to reconsider their personal food choices... The goal is to create “pangs of guilt” that lead to the modification of values and attitudes…and put their values and attitudes into motion.22

In fact, the problem is not with too little success, but rather with too much. Until West African governments can diversify their economies so that they are not so utterly dependent on commodity crops like cocoa beans, a mass boycott could potentially be counterproductive. Optimistically, it might spur the relevant corporate and governmental bodies into decisive action on the issue in the face of shrinking revenues. However, in the short term it could prove disastrous if the principle source of income for millions of impoverished West African farmers collapses in the face of shrinking demand. This result would be counter-productive from the perspective of European citizens who hope to ameliorate conditions in cocoa-exporting countries.

CONCLUSION

The EU also stands as an excellent example of conveying singular principles in a variety of cultural and linguistic contexts. On the part of consumers, they must not only be willing to pay higher prices or abstain from a luxury good, but they must also stay vigilant and well informed about the social labels on their product, not trusting just any alleged monitoring system.23 This combats the problem of ‘greenwashing’.24 To say that this is too much to ask of individual consumers is to engage in preemptive defeatism.25 Further, the burden can be alleviated by targetting institutions (church groups, universities, etc.) rather than individual consumers; a trusted institution can disseminate vetted information and organize responsive action. Second, longdistance altruism is facilitated by the downward spiralling costs of communication technology. The Internet and social media can rapidly transmit the news of a labour infraction to global consumers.

Recent studies suggest that European consumers are willing to pay more for goods that are made under decent conditions and that bear a ‘fair labour’ label.26 Although some argue that this new form of political participation is actually class-restricted,27 this argument in effect points to the need to pursue income inequality reduction policies in concert with consciousness-raising efforts. Glickman also argues that this new wave of consumer activism, “…may contribute to an emergent liberalism, one which uses the nexus of the market and the Internet to remind people that consumption is a vital component of citizenship in a global society.28 Far from reinforcing neo-liberal ideology, the point is rather to redefine and recapture the notion of consumption

It is not unreasonable, however, to expect that a critical juncture would be reached with shrinking corporate profits (spurring chocolate companies to implement real,

Using the case study of fair trade chocolate, I have attempted to argue two points: first, that political consumerism is a significant emerging form of participation that is changing the face of European politics.

Second, that this is (and can increasingly be) a positive development for the health of European democracy. Its transnational character is intrinsic to both of these points: in solving a transnational problem caused by transnational actors, conscious consumerism attempts to fight fire with fire.

The common criticisms of critical consumption often stem from the idea that it is intended as a totalizing solution, which it is not. Nor can it be regretted as a case of ‘misplaced energy,’ because we are dealing with products that consumers are going to buy anyway. I have argued that political consumerism is not linked to the decline in traditional political participation (voting, party membership etc.) which is itself more

“solving a transnational problem caused by transnational actors, conscious consumerism attempts to fight fire with fire.” effective anti-child labour programs) long before cocoa farmers run out of buyers. The point is simply to cause a reversal in the cost-benefit calculation, whereby it is more costly to ignore the child-slavery problem than to address it. Furthermore, the history of labour movements in the West and elsewhere is replete with examples of painful short-term sacrifices for long-term gain.29 The eight-hour workday, health and safety standards, and of course child labour laws themselves were won in this fashion. The problem is, as is so often pointed out, globalization. Collective action problems that were inherent to the labour organizing of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are today infinitely more complex because socio-economically connected working classes (or workers and consumers more generally) are spatially, culturally, and linguistically thousands of miles apart.

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likely caused by responsibility-offloading by politicians, the cynicism fostered by a scandal-obsessed media,30 and lack of choice due to party cartelization,31 to name a few reasons.

Of course, even as one of several solutions to the child-slavery problem in West Africa,32 fair trade is far from perfect. Nonetheless the criticisms of this admittedly incipient collection of organizations ultimately read as instructions on how to make them more efficient and effective, rather than pointing to any inherent or conceptual flaw in their logic. In sum, the correct question may not be whether or not political consumerism is a positive development for European politics, but rather must it be so.

While Europeans are losing faith in traditional forms of participation and institutions, and those institutions themselves are

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losing efficacy, it is imperative to find new solutions and new forms of action. If Europeans cannot solve a problem like child slavery in the production of their chocolate through the ballot box (which is not to say

they should not and do not continue to try), then applying pressure through alternate channels can hardly been seen in a negative light. By refusing to buy anything without a valid label, citizens can demonstrate a new

form of popular control and regulatory pressure over powerful business interests, thus strengthening European democracy.

NOTES 01 Vicky Pauschert, Lucy Russell, and Kyle Freund, eds., Unlocking the Power: Annual Report 2012-2013, report (Germany: Fairtrade International, 2012-2013); Daniel Mendelsohn, “But Enough about Me,” The New Yorker, January 25, 2010, 68.

02 “Cocoa Farm Slavery ‘exaggerated’” BBC News, September 29, 2000, accessed April 26, 2013, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/948876.stm; Caroline Tiger, “Bittersweet Chocolate,” Salon, February 14, 2003, accessed April 19, 2012, http://www.salon.com/2003/02/14/chocolate/; Carol Off, Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World’s Most Seductive Sweet (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2006); International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC): Combating Child Labor in Cocoa Growing, publication (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2005).

03 Roberta Sassatelli, “Virtue, Responsibility and Consumer Choice: Framing Critical Consumerism’,” in Consuming Cultures, Global Perspectives: Historical Trajectories Transnational Exchanges (Oxford: Berg Publishing, 2006), 221.

04 David Wolfe and Shazzie, Naked Chocolate: The Astonishing Truth about the World’s Greatest Food (San Diego: Maul Brothers, 2005).

05 S. Raghavan and S. Chatterjee, “A Taste of Slavery,” Knight Ridder Newspapers, June 24, 2001, http://vision.ucsd.edu/~kbranson/stopchocolateslavery/atasteofslavery.html.

06 Peter Griffiths, “Ethical Objections to Fairtrade,” Journal of Business Ethics, July 2011.

07 BBC Panorama Documentary Series: Chocolate The Bitter Truth, dir. Howard Bradburn (BBC One, 2010); OECD, Regional Initiative: Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labour on West African Cocoa Farms, publication (SWAC Secretariat and the International Cocoa Initiative, 2009), www.oecd.org/swac/cocoa.

08 Francesca Forno and Luigi Ceccarini, “From the Streets to the Shops: The Rise of New Forms of Political Action in Italy,” South European Society and Politics 11 (June 20, 2006): 197.

09 Forno and Ceccarini, “From the Streets to the Shops.”

10 Ronald Inglehart, “Changing Values among Western Publics from 1970 to 2006,” West European Politics 31, no. 1-2 (2008).

11 Mark Blyth and Richard Katz, “From Catch All Parties to Cartelisation: The Political Economy of the Cadre Party,” West European Politics 28, no. 1 (2005).

12 Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

13 In the original: ‘environmental imagination’; Michael Maniates, “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?,” Global Environmental Politics 1, no. 3 (2001).

14 Julie Guthman, “The Polanyian Way? Voluntary Food Labels as Neoliberal Governance,” Antipode 39, no. 3 (2007): 456.

15 Jan Van Deth, “New modes of articulation and norms of citizenship,” in New Participatory Dimensions in Civil Society: Professionalization and Individualized Collective Action, ed. Jan Van Deth and William A. Maloney, (New York: Routledge, 2012).

16 E. B. Van Apeldoorn, “Transnational Class Agency and European Governance: The Case of the European Round Table of Industrialists,” New Political Economy 5, no. 2 (2000).

17 Gay Seidman, Beyond the Boycott: Labor Rights, Human Rights, and Transnational Activism (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007).

18 It is, for instance, Ghana’s largest export worth $1.2 billion in 2008. Ivory Coast’s chocolate exports support almost half the population; Orla Ryan, Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa (New York: ZED Books, 2011), 3.

19 Stephanie Lee Mudge, “What is neoliberalism?,” Socioeconomic Review 6 (2008): 703-731.

20 Chantal Mouffe, “The Radical Center: A Politics Without Adversary,” Soundings 9 (1998): 11-23.

21 Seidman, Beyond the Boycott.

22 Michele Micheletti and Dietlind Stolle, “Vegetarianism – A Lifestyle Politics ?,” in Creative Participation: Responsibility-Taking in the Political World, ed. Michele Micheletti and Andrew S. McFarland (Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2010), 133.

23 This is not as difficult as Sneidman imagines (or perhaps because the West African context is different than her Indian textiles case study). If dozens of underfunded journalists can frequently unearth instances of child slavery and link them directly to large chocolate companies’ cocoa supply, NGOs should be able to as well.

24 That is, outright lying or misrepresenting the fair-trade practices behind products; for example see Hersheys, Cadbury, and Nestle; BBC Panorama Documentary Series: Chocolate The Bitter Truth, dir. Howard Bradburn (BBC One, 2010).

25 Monica Prasad et al., “Consumers of the World Unite: A Market-based Response to Sweatshops,” Labor Studies Journal 29, no. 3 (2004).

26 I.e. to those who can more easily absorb the costs through their greater purchasing power (member’s of the so-called ‘new class’; young, affluent, often working in the public sector); Forno and Ceccarini “From the Streets to the Shops.”

27 Lawrence B. Glickman, Buying power: A History of Consumer Activism in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 302.

28 Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).

29 Hansard Society, Audit of Political Engagement Part 2: ‘The Media and Politics’ report, 2012, section goes here, www.hansardsociety.org.uk/files/folders/3395/ download.aspx.

30 Blyth and Katz, “From Catch All Parties to Cartelisation.”

31 I have focused on West Africa because 70% of the world’s cocoa supply comes from this region.

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Borderline Right The Influence of the Right-Wing on Centre-Right Governments and the Hungarian Minority Issue in Slovakia

By Louis Wierenga University of Toronto

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n Hungary and Slovakia nationalist agitation by political parties and incumbent leaders has inflamed mutual hostility, a pattern that deviates from the European norm.

The emergence of populist, radical-right parties (RRPs) is evident throughout Europe. Notwithstanding the scholarly debate as to what exactly constitutes an RRP, Matthew Goodwin provides two useful distinguishing features: support for a policy that advocates for the expulsion of immigrants and minority groups, and adherence to a populist strategy critical of mainstream political parties and liberal representative democracy.1 While Slovakia and Hungary both have RRPs, what sets these two cases apart is that their primary adversaries are not limited to the usual scapegoats— immigrants and visual minorities. Rather, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) capitalize on Slovak-Hungarian enmity. There is a sizeable Hungarian minority population in southern Slovakia, numbered at roughly 500,000, or approximately ten percent of the total population.2 Cas Mudde has identified three conditions that substantially increase the likelihood of minorities being singled out for xenophobic political attacks: first, if they are well organized and claim minority rights or protection; second, if the group in question is linked to the majority ethnicity of a neighbouring state; and finally, if the minority is part of a group that has been historically dominant.3 The Hungarian minority in Slovakia fits all three of these criteria, and political groups on both sides of the border have capitalized on these circumstances for political gain.4 Using Mudde’s criteria, this essay argues that the Slovak Language Law and the Hungarian Status and Citizenship Law have heightened the historical differences and prevailing nationalist sentiment that dominate the political sphere in Hung-

ary and Slovakia. Additionally, the combination of historical identity, ethnicity, and borders has created conditions under which the Hungarian minority in Slovakia has become the political target of the right in both Slovakia and Hungary.

of official documents in a language other than Slovak.8 The law stipulates that Slovak is to be the exclusive working language in all public institutions.9 This law is directed specifically at the Hungarian minority with the aim of restricting the use of Hungarian in southern Slovakia, even though many towns in this region are almost entirely populated by Hungarian speakers.10 The Hungarian Status Law, adopted in 2001, gave ethnic Hungarians residing outside of Hungary’s borders the right to obtain a Hungarian identity card.11 The Status Law granted certain cultural and economic benefits to those who obtained the identity card, but did not provide full citizenship.

In 2010, after a failed referendum on the subject and following years of debate, the

“the combination of historical identity, ethnicity, and borders has created conditions under which the Hungarian minority in Slovakia has become the political target of the right” HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Relations between Hungary and Slovakia have been largely characterized by fear, mistrust, envy, and trauma. The European integration process has, unfortunately, not resolved this. As a result of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, Hungarians were incorporated into several different countries in Central and Eastern Europe, with the largest group of Magyars residing in the south of present day Slovakia.5 This redrawing of borders meant that the Magyars in this area went from being the majority population in the Hungarian part of the Dual Monarchy to a minority in Czechoslovakia.6 The Hungarian minority in Slovakia and the issue of territory altered by the international treaty would come to serve as a political tool for nationalist politicians in both countries.

The Slovak Language Law was initially implemented in 1995 and was subsequently amended in 2009.7 The amendment to the language law has been very controversial. In addition to creating an anti-minority sentiment, the language law imposed fines of 100 to 5,000 Euros for the composition

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government of Viktor Orban passed an amendment to the 1993 Act on Hungarian Nationality, bringing into existence what is commonly referred to as the Hungarian Citizenship Law.12 The law, which came into effect in January 2011, did away with the citizenship requirement of permanent residence in Hungary for people who could prove their Hungarian nationality.13

The long-term impact of the Hungarian Citizenship Law has yet to be determined. According to Paul Lendvai, the law not only marks a turning point for Central European countries and the Hungarian minorities within them, it also affects the position of Hungary within Central Europe.14 The fact that the law sustains the hostile relationship between the Hungarian and Slovak governments presents a problem for the unifying goal of the European Union (EU) and for the stability of Central East Europe. The rise of RRPs and the unlikelihood of their disappearance from the political stage have led to the adoption of right-wing rhetoric by the Direction-Social Democracy Party (SMER) and the Hungarian Civic Alliance Party, FIDESZ, as well as the implementati

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tion of policies with severe nationalist undertones. It can be argued that the discussion and/or implementation of policies regarding the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and the pre-Trianon borders elicits a knee-jerk nationalist response from the Slovak and Hungarian governments.

With each law that is passed, the animosity between these two countries mounts.

Aside from minor admonitions, it seems as though there is little that the EU can do to ease the tensions surrounding the issue.

Dagmar Kusa has observed that since the collapse of the Communist regimes in Slovakia and Hungary, relations between the two countries have been strained and especially contentious for the Slovaks.15 Hungary has made a concerted effort through soft irredentism to recreate the image of the Hungarian Kingdom in Hungarian populations abroad, exercising a form of historical revisionism.16 Since the Treaty of Trianon weighs heavily on the national psyche of Hungarians,17 it is an ideal issue for right-wing nationalist parties to exploit. It is also one that elicits nationalist sentiments among Slovaks. Both the mainstream Slovakian political party SMER and the radical right party, the Slovak National Party (SNS), have adopted positions that are critical of the Hungarian minority and the Hungarian government. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, when defending amendments to the Slovak Language Law, said that changes were made to protect Slovakia from Hungarian irredentism. 18 The SNS heavily politicized the Hungarian issue during the 2009 debate surrounding the Language Law, using anti-Hungarian rhetoric to strengthen Slovak national identity.19 One of the key issues in Hungarian politics has, for quite some time, been the legal status of the kin-minority connection of ethnic Hungarians outside of Hungary.20 While this is a central issue for parties across the political spectrum, right-wing parties have been the primary beneficiaries of the crossborder ties of ethnic Hungarians.21 Jobbik is perhaps the most radical RRP in Europe.

It became a mainstream political party in 2006, and in 2009 it obtained approximately fifteen percent of the vote in the EU Parliamentary elections. The following year, it received approximately twelve percent of Hungarian votes in the domestic Parliamentary elections. In addition to the standard trappings of RRPs such as

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Euroscepticism and a strong stance against an ethnic Other—in this case Hungary’s Jewish and Roma population—Jobbik has taken a hard-line position on the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. It calls for a revision of the borders set by the Treaty of Trianon, which is considered an extreme demand.23 Nevertheless, Jobbik holds enough electoral support to force Viktor Orban to adopt many extreme right positions.24 Although Orban has not made explicit demands for the re-institution of pre-Trianon borders, he has nevertheless made a significant contribution to the nationalist discourse involving ‘Greater Hungary.’

A similar process of political give-andtake is currently underway in Slovakia, as the SMER and SNS compete to promote Slovak patriotism and national identity.25 Ben Stanley points out that while the Fico Government may have initially aimed for reconciliation with Hungary, it did not distance itself from the SNS in order to maintain its nationalist position and keep its coalition stable.26 Clearly, the strength of SNS in the Slovak government has significantly contributed to the acceptance of nationalist positions by mainstream parties, much the same as in Hungary.

CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPEAN REACTIONS TO THE HUNGARIAN CITIZENSHIP LAW Romania (home to the largest number of Hungarians outside of Hungary and Slovakia) and Serbia (which also has a sizeable Hungarian minority) have accepted the terms of the Hungarian Citizenship Law. This is most likely a result of their policies toward their own kin-minorities living outside of their borders. As of 2013, the Hungarian government’s meddling in kinminority affairs in Transylvania has raised concern in Romania.28 Ukraine, although not tolerant of dual citizenship, has raised no opposition to Hungarians in the Ukrainian province of Zakarpattia applying for Hungarian passports.29 The Slovak government responded to the Hungarian Citizenship Law by stating that it would strip individuals of their Slovak citizenship in the event that they become citizens of another country.30 It stressed that the Hungarian Citizenship Law was not in line with the Slovak-Hungarian Treaty on Good Neighborhood and Friendly Cooperation. The Slovak Government also pointed out that

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Hungary’s adoption of this law ignores the High Commissioner of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s recommendations on national minorities, as well as the position of the European Commission for Democracy Through Law. GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBOURS: SOVEREIGNTY AND BORDERS The new Hungarian constitution of 2011 contains explicit references to pre-Trianon Hungary. The preamble defines the subjects of the constitution as members of the ‘Hungarian Nation’ as opposed to the totality of people living under Hungarian laws.

In a similar vein, the Hungarian nation is explicitly referred to as “...our nation torn apart in the storms of the last century.”33 Passages from the constitution include statements referring to the task of “…promoting and safeguarding our heritage, our unique language, Hungarian culture, the languages and cultures of nationalities living in Hungary, along with all man-made and natural assets of the Carpathian Basin.”34 This is problematic when viewed within the context of current border disputes. As Gabor Halmai points out, by using the term, ‘single Hungarian nation’ to address the subjects of the constitution, the text implies that the constitution extends to individuals living well beyond Hungary’s current borders. This is nationalist rhetoric par excellence, and such wording justifies Slovak fears that Hungarian nationalism is far from an empty threat. The reference to a ‘single Hungarian nation’ can be viewed as a psychological attack on the sovereignty of other nations. This is especially true in Slovakia’s case, given the acrimonious disputes over borders that have characterized relations between the two countries since the collapse of communism.

CONCLUSION Given the lengthy history of disputes in this region pertaining to national and cultural identity, the geographic location of the Hungarian-Slovak borders only serves to complicate an already problematic identity issue. Politicians in Slovakia and Hungary have capitalized upon historical disagreements and nationalist sentiments in order to further their own political agendas. The

passing of mutually antagonistic legislation on both sides of the border has become a means of continuing historical animosity, which provides politicians with a stage to disseminate nationalist rhetoric. Despite the fact that both countries are EU members, there is little that EU authorities can do to alleviate tensions between these two states. This problem has been a source of

contention since the fall of communism and it appears unlikely that it will be resolved in the near future. It is highly probable that hostilities will persist due to the success of RRPs and the adoption of their rhetoric by mainstream political actors. Perhaps with time, future generations of Hungarians and Slovaks will manage to resolve an issue that lies at the very core of their national

identity. However, given the ongoing dispute over the Hungarian-Slovak border, the political tension resulting from the fear of Hungarian irredentism in Slovakia, and the Hungarian government’s aggressive rhetoric supporting its minority population abroad, a simple solution seems unlikely.

Esther Lee, Heroes’ Square – Hungary, 2011. Image courtesy of the artist via Flickr.

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NOTES 01 Matthew Goodwin, Right Responses: Understanding and Countering Populist Extremism in Europe (London: Chatham House, 2011), 1.

02 Bartek Pytlas, “Radical-Right Narratives in Slovakia and Hungary: Historical Legacies, Mythic Overlaying and Contemporary Politics,” Patterns of Prejudice 47, no.

2 (2013): 163; Mateusz Gniazdowski and Jakub Groszkowski, “Slovak-Hungarian Dispute over Double Citizenship,” Osrodek Studiow Wschodnich (OSW), May 19, 2010, accessed December 1, 2013, http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2010-05-19/slovak-hungarian-dispute-over-double-citizenship.

03 Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 71-72.

04 Ibid., 71-72.

05 Jan Puhl, “Language Wars: Frustrations Grow Among Slovakia’s Hungarian Minority,” trans. Jan Liebelt, Spiegel Online International, September 18, 2009, accessed December 1, 2013, http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/language-wars-frustrations-grow-among-slovakia-s-hungarian-minority-a-649443.html; Silvia Mihalikova, “The Hungarian Minority in Slovakia: Conflict over Autonomy,” in Managing Diversity in Plural Societies: Minorities, Migration and Nation Building in Post-Communist Europe, ed. Magda Opalski (Nepean: Forum Eastern Europe, 1998), 153.

06 Mihalikova, “Hungarian Minority,” 153.

07 Pytlas, “Radical-Right Narratives in Slovakia and Hungary,” 172.

08 Paul Lendvai, Hungary: Between Democracy and Authoritarianism, trans. Keith Chester (London: Hurst and Company, 2012), 125.

09 Ibid., 125.

10 Lubos Palata, “Slap in the Face,” Transitions Online, July 13, 2009, accessed December 5, 2013, http://www.tol.org/client/article/20690-slap-in-the-face.html?print.

11 Pytlas, “Radical-Right,” 177.

12 Ibid., 179.

13 Ibid., 179.

14 Lendvai, Hungary, 128.

15 Dagmar Kusa, “The Slovak Question and the Slovak Answer: Citizenship During the Quest for National Self-Determination and After,” in Citizenship Policies in the New Europe, ed. Rainer Baubock, Bernhard Perchinig and Wiebke Sievers (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 289.

16 Kusa, “Slovak Question,” 290-291.

17 Margit Besseney Williams, “European Integration and Minority Rights: The Case of Hungary and It’s Neighbors,” in Norms and Nannies: The Impact of International Organizations on the Central and East European States ed. Ronald H. Linden (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2002), 229.

18 Pytlas, “Radical-Right Narratives in Slovakia and Hungary,” 174.

19 Pytlas, “Radical-Right Narratives in Slovakia and Hungary,” 172; Ben Stanley, “Populism, Nationalism, or National Populism?: An Analysis of Slovak Voting Behaviour at the 2010 Parliamentary Election,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 44 (2011): 259.

20 Pytlas, “Radical-Right Narratives in Slovakia and Hungary,” 176.

21 Myra Waterbury, Between State and Nation: Diaspora Politics and Kin-State Nationalism in Hungary (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 14.

22 Andras Kovacs, “The Post-Communist Extreme Right: The Jobbik Party in Hungary,” in Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse, ed. Ruth Wodak, Majid Khosravinik and Brigitte Mral (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 224.

23 Ibid., 231.

24 Anton Pelinka, “Hungary’s Election and Viktor Orban’s Choice,” Open Democracy, April 15, 2010, accessed December 15, 2013, http://www.opendemocracy.net/ anton-pelinka/hungarys-election-and-viktor-orbans-choice 25 Palata, “Slap in the Face.”; Ben Stanley, “Populism, Nationalism, or National Populism?: An Analysis of Slovak Voting Behaviour at the 2010 Parliamentary Election,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 44 (2011): 259.

26 Stanley, “Populism, Nationalism, or National Populism?,” 259.

27 Sadecki, “Hungary: Half a Million New Citizens,” Osrodek Studiow Wschodnich (OSW), December 11, 2013, accessed December 19, 2013, http://www.osw.waw.pl/ en/publikacje/analyses/2013-12-11/hungary-half-a-million-new-citizens.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Gniazdowski and Groszkowski, “Slovak-Hungarian Dispute over Double Citizenship.”

32 Ibid.; Lucie Szymanowska, “The Implementation of the Hungarian Citizenship Law,” Osrodek Studiow Wschodnich (OSW), February 2, 2011, accessed December 18, 2013, http://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2011-02-02/implementation-hungarian-citizenship-law.

33 Gabor Halmai, “Towards an Illiberal Democracy: Hungary’s New Constitution,” Eurozine, January 25, 2012, accessed December 7, 2013, http://www.eurozine.com/ articles/2012-01-25-halmai-en.html.

34 Pytlas, “Radical-Right Narratives in Slovakia and Hungary,” 176.

35 Ibid., 176

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Eurasiatique Volume II

Ukraine’s Internal Boundary Deconstructing Ukraine’s East-West Divide

By Pawel Koscielny and Treena Watson University of Toronto

I

n late 2013 and early 2014, Kyiv held the Western world’s attention in a vice-grip as the events broadly understood under the umbrella of ‘Euromaidan’ called into question the future of Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation. In their discussions of the crisis, commentators and media sources routinely referred to Ukraine’s ‘East-West Divide.’ The manifold misconceptions about this notion have been cynically used to motivate and legitimize escalating Russian aggression toward a crisis-ridden Ukrainian state. This paper is an attempt to clear some of these misconceptions in favour of an alternative, more sound explanation of this imagined border. The East/ West divide is an internal boundary across which Ukrainians view one another in categories of alterity defined partly by ethnic/ language identity but mainly by their competing imaginations of where Ukraine as a whole belongs geopolitically, and their historically ingrained views of political culture. But the image of Ukraine divided, essentially between a West favouring a future with Europe and an East on Putin’s leash, while intuitively relevant, is outdated. In this paper we set out, first, to reflect on the historicity of this usually overessentialized boundary in a broad sweep, and second, to present evidence that it is becoming fragile and porous in the present.

We place the beginning of the narrative of the Ukrainian East-West divide in the midseventeenth century. Its initial form was the division between what was known as Leftand Right-bank Ukraine. Between 1654 and 1667, the Zaporozhian Cossack polity (the proto-national predecessor of the ‘Ukrainian’ collective) and their Hetmanate state underwent a fundamental split between those leaders who envisioned a future with Moscow and those who favoured a return to suzerainty under the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The treaty of Pereiaslav,

between the original Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Tsar Alexis I, brought the Cossacks into the orbit of Muscovy (the state which would eventually transform into Russia) for the first time. Khmelnytsky successor Ivan Vyhovski attempted to reestablish the Cossacks’ loyalty to Poland-Lithuania in the unrealized Treaty of Hadziacz of 1658. Many of his colonels rejected the gravitation back to what they viewed as reified submission to the Polish aristocracy’s economic control of the Ukrainian land and the Roman Catholic clergy’s monopoly over the Ukrainian people’s spiritual identity. The Hadziacz agreement precipitated a protracted war in the steppes between Muscovy (supported by Yurii Khmelnytsky’s Cossacks) and the Commonwealth (supported by Vyhovsky Cossacks). Hostilities were concluded by the fateful 1667 truce of Andrusovo which partitioned the Hetmanate between the regional powers along the line of the river Dniepr, with Kyiv remaining under Muscovite control.1 This tectonic split set the two halves on opposing vectors of politico-cultural development in the centuries to come. Right-bank Ukraine remained within the realm of what Kaminski has described as the Commonwealth’s ‘citizen culture,’2 while the Leftbank was set to experience the introduction of what Ilnyckyj terms Tsarist ‘imperial culture.’3 Citizen culture is the descriptor used by Polish historian Andrzej Sulima Kaminski to describe the value system binding the various successor-nations within the Commonwealth in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He maintains that the Commonwealth cultivated a society of citizens as opposed to subjects. The defining features of its political culture were ‘the love of freedom, feelings of personal dignity, attachment to institutions of autonomous governance, and pride in control over state power.’4 This distinguished it from the

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absolutist trajectories of the Great Powers of Western Europe and especially Muscovy. Natalia Iakovenko’s important work on Ukrainian history5 treads carefully around Kaminski’s near-utopian idealization of the Ukrainians’ experience under PolandLithuania, but proposes that the ruling elites shared common traits, including the civic approach to life under the monarchy, as well as the knightly warrior ethos.6 The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Right-bank Ukraine witnessed almost continual warfare between the waxing and waning regional powers of Central Europe.

The Polish and Ruthenian (proto-Ukrainian) gentries desperately defended an increasingly impoverished common homeland against successive waves of Crimean, Ottoman, Swedish, and Muscovite invasions until the era of the Commonwealth’s drastic constitutional reforms precipitated its final collapse.7 On the Left-bank, the Tsarist modernization project violently eroded the semi-autonomy of the Cossack Hetmanate. Catherine the Great initiated the final destruction of Cossack independence when she ordered their capital, the Sicz, razed to the ground and the office of Hetman replaced by the Little Russian Collegium. ‘Little Russia’ was the identity constructed for the Tsar’s Ukrainian subjects. It was rooted in the Imperial Russian historiography conceived by Nikolai Karamzin and Mikhail Pogodin, who developed a linear path-dependent narrative of all-Russian history which imagined the elites of ancient Kyivan Rus’ migrating north to Moscow after the Mongol invasions, and viewed the Tsarist annexation of Left-bank Ukraine in the seventeenth century as the ultimate and final return of the land’s original masters to their sacred patrimony.

The emergence of Russian ‘imperial culture’ in the Ukrainian lands brings us to the subject of differentiated experiences of Europeanization between East and West Ukrainians. The year 1795 witnessed the annexation of a large portion of Right-bank territory by the Russian empire in the Second and Third Partitions of Poland. At this point the Left-bank/Right-bank division became a thing of the past, and the new political boundary between the two Ukraines became the border between the Russian and Habsburg empires. Habsburg Galicia experienced the arrival of ‘Europe’ initially

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through the Polish version of the Counterreformation,8 German and Jewish settlement in their cities, and later through direct exposure to Enlightenment philosophy, German Romanticism, and Habsburg political culture. By contrast, the Tsarist ‘opening’ to Europe initiated by Peter the Great and continued by his successors made it necessary for their Ukrainian subjects to absorb the Enlightenment via St. Petersburg. Higher education and government institutions in the Imperial capital advanced a version of Europeanization which precluded the institution of free press, independent judiciary, and representative government.9 Tsar Nicholas I’s declaration that Orthodoxy, autocracy, and narodnost’ (nationality) formed the basis of Russian statehood crystallized the nature of imperial culture.10 Vienna, confronted with the entropic and unpredictable spectre of German nationalism, did not sponsor a national narrative or restrict the growth of an open society in its own project of cultivating its imperial citizen, the homo austriacus.10 The Galician Ruthenian intelligentsia were therefore able to develop a plurality of nationbuilding projects, which included Austrian, Polish, Ukrainophile, and even Russian orientations. The nationalist constellation was less varied in the East, where the imperial Russian orientation (personified in the literature of Gogol) competed with a new independent Ukrainian conception of history and nationhood advanced by poet Shevchenko and historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky.12 The World Wars and the interbellum showed the first signs of East and West Ukrainians trying to dissolve the boundary in the framework of nation- and statebuilding. Waves of extreme violence ushered in the stillbirth of multiple Ukrainian states and the appearance of radical right nationalism in the West. These states were brought to tragic conclusion by the unification of Ukraine into a Soviet Socialist Republic. At this point, Ukraine’s progress into modernity became detached completely from the European experience, hijacked by dehumanizing industrial collectivization and Stalinism.

Ukraine had finally become a united political entity with a guaranteed lifespan, but Sovietization had the effect of (often literally) cementing the division of Ukraine into a Europe-oriented West and a Sovietophile East. The hammer of Stalinist repression

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fell more heavily on the Western oblasts, where routine aspects of daily life (Ukrainian culinary tradition and life within Habsburg architecture) nevertheless kept collective historical memory alive and the underground Greek Catholic Church played the role of alternative moral authority. No such institutions, traditions, or elements of material culture existed in the East, where society was uniformly rehoused, pauperized, and spiritually sterilized. The divide became less clear geographically, but it took on a glaring social dimension, with the Western identity (as represented by the metropole of Lviv) resembling the surviving burgerliche gesellschaft which the Bolsheviks and Stalinists failed to destroy, and the East (as represented by the metropole Donetsk) embodying an exemplary proletariat.

Thus, the internal East-West border was naturalized during the historical development of Ukraine before its independence from the Soviet Union. In contemporary Ukraine, however, the border has become less clear and more porous. To support this argument, we examine voting patterns since independence, identity trends, and the role of Euromaidan and civil activism in the convergence of civic national identity.

cally divided ‘East’ and ‘West’ groups claim different identities and languages, their interpretations of history also seem frequently to be at odds.13 This was picked up as a political priority as early as Kravchuk’s presidency, when a decree for the publication of a Book of Ukrainian Memory to resolve such historical issues, such as those surrounding Ukrainian freedom fighters, was issued.14 Voting patterns of the presidential elections since 1994 shows that there has been an increasing shift Eastward of traditionally Western Ukrainian voting tendencies, perhaps indicating that a more cohesive national identity has been gradually forming.

Starting with Kravchuk and Kuchma’s election, it is possible to clearly discern the East-West divide. The West supported Kravchuk—the former Secretary of the Communist Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine turned pro-Western nationalist who was backed by Rukh, a nationalist democrat party which emerged as a popular movement in 1989.15 The East voted for Kuchma—former “Red Director” running on a platform of further integration with Russia. The divergence is very visible as Map 1 shows. Thus, in the transformative period of the 1990s, fresh out of Communism, the East-West internal border

MAP 1 Second Round Presidential Election, 1994 Source: Vasylchchenko, Serhij.

Kyiv: Europe XXI Foundation, 1994. Web. 27 January 2014.

George Bush Sr.’s Chicken Kyiv Speech in 1991, which cautioned against “suicidal nationalism” and urged Ukraine to remain a part of the Soviet Union, is evidence of the doubt surrounding the viability of Ukraine as a nation state in the absence of a united Ukrainian civic identity. Speaking broadly, integration of the population and the promotion of a unified nation has been a priority for all presidents since independence up until Yanukovych, whose 2012 law making Russian the official language in parts of Ukraine was particularly contentious. Not only do the two historically and geographi-

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remained prominent. A decade later, in the midst of the 2004 Orange Revolution, there is a noteworthy shift. Map 2 shows the third and final round of Yushchenko and Yanukovych’s presidential election.

Supporters of some of the regions historically pegged as ‘East,’ have shifted the majority of their votes to the pro-Western candidate Yushchenko. These turncoat regions were Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, and Kirovohrad. The only foundations where support remains above seventy percent for the Russian-backed candidate Yanukovych is the far East in Donetsk, Luhansk,

Zaporizhzhya, and southern Crimea.

It is possible to speculate on a possible connection to the Orange Revolution, and the immediate concerns over political freedoms and free elections which would have sparked increased civic unity, according to Russian sociologist Mikhail Chernysh’s framework.16 In the 2010 elections, however, this pattern is almost duplicated, indicating it was not a temporary shift in ideology for those central-Eastern regions.

A possible reason why this trend of spreading support of pro-Western candidates Eastward did not significantly progress in 2010 is the chronic fractures in Tymoshenko and Yushchenko’s opposition coalition, as well as alleged polling irregularities in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.17 This evidence is not definitive enough to say that the East-West divide is not relevant in the contemporary scheme of things. It is clear, however, that this border is blurring. In addition to voting patterns, identity trends are another indicator which can lend insight on the state of the historical national divide.

This framework fits into Ukraine’s traditional dual ethnic internal border scenario as already discussed. However, there is evidence that the two-identity dichotomy, Eastern ‘pro-Russian’ and Western ‘Ukrainian, pro-European,’ is lessening. As mentioned previously, there are earlier academic works which speculate on the effect that concerns over civil rights and political freedoms could have on self-identification in terms of increased cohesion between ethnic and civic identities.21 This theory is arguably given strength by Ukraine’s political crisis in 2013-2014, specifically regarding the Euromaidan revolution and the support shown in both East and West locales for its political goals.

This convergence in national identity and political ideology could also have a relationship to youth identity trends. Although a 2011 Ukrainian study concluded that local regional identity had more salience in the East and has been on the rise since 2004,22 when demographic cohorts are examined it shows evidence that this may not

MAP 2 Third Round Presidential Elections, 2004 Source: Vasylchchenko, Serhij. Kyiv: Europe XXI Foundation, 2004. Web. 28 January 2014.

In the post-Soviet sphere, identity literature highlights the role of civic versus ethnic nationalities.18 During the Soviet regime, there was an active institutionalization of the existence of multiple nationalities as social categories discernibly distinct from the overarching categories of citizenship and statehood. Therefore, post-Soviet frameworks of nationalism are said to be in principle different from liberal “Western” inclusive nationalist traditions because citizenship and membership in these newlyformed countries did not function in the same way or in tandem with ethnic identity.19 According to scholar Liah Greenfeld,20 a civic identity was prevented from effectively forming in post-communist Eastern Europe because of prevailing ethnic ‘group’ identities based on local traditions rooted in solidarity and feelings of kinship.

be a universal trend. Comparative analysis of two geographical-polar regions, Lviv and Donetsk, supports the theory that younger generations’ civic identities in each respective oblast have been gradually merging since 1994. Remarkably, one study shows an unprecedented growth in the numbers of younger respondents from Donetsk who name their top identity ‘indicator’ as being “Ukrainian”—an increase from twenty percent in 1994 to sixty-three percent in 2004.23 As a result of these changes, the objective and subjective selfidentities of ethnic Ukrainian Donetsk and Lviv respondents are shown to be almost equal. Therefore, it appears as though the younger cohort is acting as a catalyst to unify a pan-Ukrainian civic identity. This is also supported by the overwhelming participation and instrumental activism of

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students and youth in Euromaidan, especially in Kyiv. Not only were students the first active presence on Maidan Nezalezhnosti after Yanukovych’s rejection of the Association Agreement, they also organized university marches, strikes, and petitions, on top of having a constant protest presence.

This growing support might be duplicated in other demographic cohorts, but until upto-date public opinion polls are published against which to compare earlier findings, this remains speculative. Just months prior to the rejection of the Association Agreement and the beginning of Euromaidan, public opinion polls still showed a distinct polarization in political ideology, with the West supporting closer EU ties, and the East and South regions supporting membership in the Eurasian Customs Union.25 A greater percentage of polling respondents in the West, North, and capital took pro-European positions citing they would like a closer relationship with the EU, while those in the East and South support more pro-Russian positions such as joining the customs Union. 25 Still, overall there is greater support for European integration over Russian in 2013, which is a significant shift from the 2012 survey when thirty-seven percent chose Russia and twenty-three percent chose Europe.26 This pro-European trend might be evidence of a unifying overarching civic identity notwithstanding the remaining fissures in ethnic identity.

As the national paradigm shifts from Soviet/Russian to European, the role of a supranational ‘European’ identity will make for an interesting case study in Ukraine. This is not a strictly Westward phenomenon as evidenced by public opinion polls, and the growth of support for Euromaidan even in the middle of the Eastern industrial heartland.27 Civic activism is another possible variable which can support the hypothesis that the East-West border is more porous than it once was. We have hypothesized that a major contributor to Ukraine’s current overarching national unity, although the effect has yet to be quantified, is the pan-Ukrainian Euromaidan movement. Reports that Western regions, such as Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv, were holding parallel protests in support of Euromaidan in Kyiv made headlines. There has also been an unprecedented amount of support for this pro-European, anti-corruption, anti-police brutality movement in several Eastern

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and south-Eastern regions.

Protesters in traditionally pro-Russian regions such as Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhya have not only held large demonstrations but began to besiege local government buildings in early 2014.28 To conclude, there are several factors which support the hypothesis that this East-West axis is more tenuous than it once was. Voting tendencies show that

since Ukraine’s independence, the geopolitical border has become less prominent, and that pro-European, democratic ‘Western’ sentiment is having an impact on the traditionally ‘Russian’-influenced East. Identity trends from both regions indicate an increase of support for a more unified civic identity, especially among younger cohorts, which has more to do with being citizens of Ukraine than with specific political identities. This paper has hypothesized that Euromaidan, although its effects have yet

to be qualified as it is on-going, will be another unifying factor for the population, which could establish deeper foundations for a common identity. Further research and analysis into this revolutionary movement will add much needed insight into the respective reactions and opinions of the polar regions to establish whether or not the East versus West divide has been reinvigorated by the event, or the trend toward the blurring of borders is continuing.

NOTES

01 Roman Szporluk, Ukraine: A Brief History (Detroit: Ukrainian Festival Committee, 1982).

02 Andrzej Sulima Kamiński, Historia Rzeczypospolitej Wielu Narodow (Lublin: Apim, 2000).

03 Oleh S. Ilnytskyi, “‘Imperial Culture’ and Russian-Ukrainian Unity Myths” in Ukraine, the EU and Russia: History, Culture and International Relations, ed. Stephen Velychenko (Basingstroke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 38.

04 Kaminski, Historia Rzeczypospolitej Wielu Narodow.

05 Ibid., 12.

06 Szporluk, “The Making of Modern Ukraine: The Western Dimension,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 25, no. 1/2 (Spring 2001): 63.

07 Kaminski, Historia Rzeczypospolitej Wielu Narodow, 11.

08 Ibid., 20.

09 Ilnytskyi, “‘Imperial Culture’ and Russian-Ukrainian Unity Myths.”

10 Ibid.

11 Szporluk, “The Making of Modern Ukraine: The Western Dimension” 66.

12 Ibid., 66.

13 Jaroslav Gritsak, Andriy Portnov, and Victor Susak, “Lviv-Donetsk: socially constructed identity in contemporary Ukraine,” Modern Ukraine 12, no. 2 (2007): 190.

14 Leonid Kravchuk, Decree 292/92 of the President of Ukraine: About Book of Ukrainian Memory, report (Kyiv: Government of Ukraine, 1992), accessed 27 January 2014.

15 Anders Aslund, How Ukraine Became a Market Economy and Democracy, (Washington: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2009): 41-42.

16 Mikhail Chernysh, “National Identity: Features of Evolution,” Sociological Journal 2, no. 2 (1995): 110-114.

17 Olexiy Haran and Dmytro Prokopchuk, “Opportunities lost: does a potential for stabilization remain,” PONARS Eurasia 89 (2010): 4.

18 Rogers Brubaker, Ethnicity without Groups, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004).

19 Malcolm Anderson, Frontiers: Territory and State Formation in the Modern World, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996).

20 Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

21 Chernysh, “National Identity,” 112.

22 Gritsak et al.,“Lviv-Donetsk,” 104.

23 Ibid., 111.

24 International Foundation for Electoral Systems [IFES], “IFES Public Opinion in Ukraine Key Findings 2013,” (Washington/Kyiv: USAID, 2013), accessed 30 January 2014.

25 Ibid., 3.

26 Ibid., 3.

27 Richard Martyn-Hemphill, “Euromaidan finds support in Dnipropetrovsk,” Kyiv Post, 15 December 2013, accessed 15 January 2014.

28 Oleg Boldyrev, “Ukraine protests ‘spread’ into Russia-influenced East,” BBC NEWS Europe, 26 January 2014, accessed 28 January 2014.

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op-ed

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Bjorn Steinz, Roma Settlement- Slovakia, 2013. Image courtesy of the artists via the Open Society Foundations. http://www.opensocietyfoundation.org/

Alessandro Penso, Young migrants wait to board a ship. OnOff Picture, 2012. – Patras, Greece, 2013.

Image courtesy of the artist. http:/www.alessandropenso.com

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Nationalized masculinities ANXIETIES TOWARD DAGESTANIS IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY

By Ekaterina Sumina Central European University

Five years ago, I understood that I wanted to go to the army. I wanted to work in the military, because they are paid very well, and it is an easy job. But I didn’t have a chance. They didn’t let me. Of course, I tried to bribe them, but there are a lot of people like me, who want to go. And some of them can pay more money.

I

heard this story from a young man from South Dagestan two years ago. As a young journalist from Moscow, this account sounded odd. The young men that I knew did not want to join the Russian army. In fact, they often paid bribes to evade the draft. As far as I knew, army officials complained that due to the prevalence of young men dodging the draft, there was a shortage of soldiers. It was common knowledge that the Russian army was an unpleasant institution for soldiers. Yet here was a young man claiming that everyone in his region offered bribes to enlist. More surprisingly, they were often rejected even after they offered bribes.

Except for those who have serious health issues or belong to other rare categories, every young man in Russia is obliged to serve in the army for one year. Until recently, Dagestanis, like other Russian male citizens, were drafted in large numbers. In recent years, however, conscription flows from Dagestan have tapered off—allegedly because of behavioural problems. I address why conscription of Dagestanis into the Russian army has virtually stopped. Further, I focus on the grassroots debate around conscription from Dagestan, its relationship to the ‘hierarchy of masculinities,’ and the implications of constructed masculinities for Russian and Dagestani populations.

I argue that army tensions have become racialized by way of a clear border between Russian and Dagestani soldiers.1 Thus, Dagestanis are not seen as a part of the Russian nation’s imagined community.

Russian-Dagestani opposition is represented not only as a conflict between ethnic groups, but also as a conflict between competing masculinities. Furthermore, this tension suggests that the problematic racialization of the army is grounded in Russian anxieties over national masculinity. To address these questions, I engage with the meager stock of media that covers this issue as well as dialogue from online reader commentary.

This paper builds on Allen’s analysis; the notion of national masculinity and masculinity of the Other is rooted in exclusionary practices. Kanaaneh’s study on Palestinians in the Israeli security force suggests that discussions of masculinity are bound to nationalism and citizenship discourse. I seek to develop this claim and demonstrate how the triad of masculinity, nationalism, and citzenship is linked to militarism.

OVERVIEW OF THE CONFLICT Dagestani soldiers have become scapegoats for the high level of violence suffered within the Russian army. This racialization of violence is connected to the notion of over-aggressive, undisciplined Caucasian masculinity, and is conceptually juxtaposed to a weak and feminized Russian masculinity. Therefore, masculinity of the Other is understood as a source of danger, and simultaneously functions as an object of desire.

In order to understand the racialization of violence, it is necessary to give a short overview of the political and economic sit

“army tensions have become racialized by way of a clear border between Russian and Dagestani soldiers” This paper is situated within two broad theoretical perspectives. The first is the relationship between nationalism, masculinity, and militarism. The second is the notion of masculinity of the Other.2 It is broadly accepted that masculinity and nationalism co-constitute each other, as is the idea that the military functions as a fraternity, which often represents a nationally imagined community.3 Holly Allen demonstrates that the representational function of the army leads to the exclusion of women and sexual minorities from military service. The potential to serve in the army is a privilege obtainable only by those with full citizenship rights. Furthermore, this ‘privilege’ is framed by a strictly gendered and heterosexist, imagined national community.

However, it is still necessary to understand why some ethnic groups are excluded from military service in multiethnic countries.

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uation in Dagestan and the Russian army.

Dagestan is one of the poorest regions in the country; the average wage in the region is about 400 USD, which is fifty percent of the average income in Russia and only twenty-five percent of the average income in Moscow.5 Furthermore, Dagestanis report high unemployment, specifically among young men. Novyi Region estimates that in 2010, Dagestan’s unemployment rate grew to approximately fifty percent.6 Jobs are generally limited, and the military and security sectors are often the most preferable for young men. However, only 121 out of 3320 military recruits were from Dagestan in the fall of 2011.7 Almost all of the new conscripts were “people of Slavic ethnic background.”8 Harsh conditions within the army resulted in more than 235,000 draft-evaders in Rus-

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sia. Between 2,000 and 2,500 soldiers die every year during peacetime,9 and thirty percent of these deaths are suicides or the result of hazing rituals. Although senior soldiers are known to torture and even kill new recruits, these cases appear to be rarely reported or investigated. In fact, the Ministry of Defense has misreported the death of soldiers.10 Russian authorities do not officially comment on the informal prohibition of conscription among Dagestani men. Unofficially, they blame Dagestanis for provoking the violence and tension that has plagued the army, as well as for misconduct, aggressiveness, and hostile nationalism towards Russians. Some Russians express the opinion that Caucasians are disloyal toward the state and may join terrorist organizations after they finish military service. Thus, institutional and preexisting problems within the Russian army have become both racialized and exorcised in the form of the Caucasian scapegoat.

DAGESTANI: OTHER, ENEMY, PRETENDER In user comment sections online, Russians often emphasize the notion of an intrinsic difference between themselves and Caucasians.11 For instance, user ‘Fatal1ty’ writes: In North Caucasian republics people live under the medieval law, they are ethnically, culturally, [and] religiously strangers for Russians.12 Not only does Fatal1ty construct Caucasians as an Other, but this Other is placed outside of Russian modernity. In other words, Fatal1y frames people from the North Caucasus as medieval and backward.

The Others that are conscripted into the Russian army create exclusionary spaces as a result of their ethnic origin. Media reports and online comments give the impression that large groups of Dagestanis haze Russian soldiers. Internet commentators highlight the high level of solidarity among Dagestanis, who are resented by the Russian troops: Does [the] army need them [Dagestanis]? This is the question. They must submit to discipline and must not play act, must not create compa-

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triotic communities and haze other soldiers because of their ethnicity.13 This conflict can be conceptualized as a border confrontation. Normatively, the army as a fraternity is considered homogeneous and represents national community.14 However, boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ within the army become visible visà-vis the Dagestani Other. Moreover, these borders divide aggressive and distrustful national groups. One journalistic text, “Russian Army Hardly Protects Itself From Caucasian Bandits,” reports a conflict between Russians and Dagestanis in the Leningrad region. This discourse reflects a repositioning of the Other. Thus, the dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is not framed in terms of Russia and its foreign enemies.

Rather, division is harbored internally within the army. In other words, conflict is presented as a manifestation of inherent opposition between ethnic Russians and Dagestanis, who are characterized as ‘bandits’ within the Russian media.15 This conceptualization constructs the image of the Russian army as a powerless entity that is unable to protect the Russian nation from its enemies. Dagestanis are not perceived to be a part of the Russian Federation.

Rather, they are perceived to be enemies and aggressors.

The theme of loyalty that is frequently discussed in commentary threads supports the perception that Dagestanis are not only seen as inherently different, but are also viewed as enemy soldiers within their own national army: The army is not for them. Not for Chechens, nor for Ingushes, nor for Dagestanis of all stripes. And they must not be accepted in any military school. Isn’t Dudaev’s example16 a lesson for you?17 The comment appeals to memories of the recent war in the Caucasus, and demonstrates that Dagestanis are considered to be disloyal toward the state. As potential enemies, their military education is perceived as a security risk. They are denied national membership rights on the basis of this alleged, imagined disloyalty. Dagestani men are viewed as subversive enemies within the army of their own state, continuously suspected of disloyalty. The artificial boundaries between ‘Russianness’ and ‘Dagestaniness’ rob Dagestanis of their

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citizenship rights. The distribution of opportunities is strikingly unequal within the Russian Federation, and Dagestanis constitute an oppressed group, as evidenced by conscription practices. However, because Dagestanis are perceived to be socially and economically powerful, their masculinity is constructed to reflect these perceived strengths. This masculinity of the Other is therefore constructed at the grassroots level – the image of which undermines power relations between ethnic groups. As such, this discourse reentrenches internal ethnic borders.

“RUSSIAN MEN ARE A FAR CRY FROM CAUCASIAN ONES” Hostility toward Dagestanis in the army is partially caused by Russian anxiety about its own masculinity. The discursive realm where Dagestanis are formed as enemies of the nation leads to a constructed hierarchy of nations and masculinities. Surprisingly, Russian contemporary masculinity is seen as inferior to Dagestani masculinity.

Moreover, this construct is also considered to be inferior to the masculinity of previous generations – that of present soldiers’ fathers and grandfathers.18 Subsequently, this weakened masculinity has led to a national inferiority complex and a perceived weakness of the nation as a whole.19 Thus, Russian envy of the Other’s masculinity is visible. The ‘us’-‘them’ dichotomy typically portrays the Othered men as feminine, weak, and cowardly. However, the Dagestani case is especially interesting because these Othered men are simultaneously perceived as hyper-masculine.20 Online commentary threads do not heavily focus on the boundaries of citizenship, as Allen’s analysis would suggest. Rather, they reinforce comparative masculinities of Russians and Dagestanis:21 I’m telling you – Russian men are a far cry from Caucasian ones, even though it’s a shame to admit it!22 What can I say, in the Caucasus they respect power, and not only [a] physical one.23 Our men don’t have enough of this power.

Russian men are blamed for their inability to control Dagestani men, as well as for their relative cowardice, physical weak-

ness, and lack of solidarity. Simultaneously, the opposite characteristics are attributed to Dagestanis. They are conceived of as brave, strong, powerful, and supportive of each other. Ironically, even though Dagestan is the poorest region in the country, Dagestanis are described as having significant economic resources. At the same time, this admiration of Dagestani masculinity goes hand-in-hand with the devaluation of their ethnic group. By characterizing their way of life as ‘medieval’ or even ‘tribal,’ a wild, primitive masculinity is created.24 This masculinity is both desired and despised. In fact, it is this Russian projection that intensifies anxiety about their own masculinity and nationalism.

The motive of loss is an important trope in this gendered discourse. The army of the past is remembered to have had the power to control the behavior of the soldiers, exacting discipline and homogeneity: In the Soviet time EVERYONE served [in the army]. Everyone mopped floors, they [Muslim people from the Caucasus] ate pork after a month or two. So the problem is not in them, but in the ARMY.25 As one commentator notes, contemporary Russians are blamed for the ‘loss of their spirit.’26 In light of the naturalized masculinity of their military past, the current state of affairs is seen as perverse. Karlin’s study

of competing masculinities during Japan’s Meiji era helps explain the nature of these processes. 27 Karlin demonstrates that normative masculinity in Japan was caught up with the notion of modernity. Those who supported the shift toward Western ideals of modernity performed a new, fluid form of masculinity. There was also a simultaneously competing, essentialized model of masculinity that was represented by those who opposed Japan’s Westernization. Karlin’s findings run parallel to the discourse surrounding ‘incorrect’ performances of masculinity that appear to be so salient in Russia today. This may be due to the crisis of the transitional period; for some segments of the Russian population, the Soviet period is an idealized past. Soviet nostalgia is embedded in modern day discourses of masculinity. This suggests that the crumbling geopolitical power of the state has generated anxiety about national masculinity and fuelled a frustrated nationalism.

and a foreigner. This imagined and constructed border between Russianness and Dagestaniness has perhaps become undeniable in the context of the Russian army.

Moreover, participants of grassroots discussions about Dagestani conscription gravitate to comparisons between Russian and Dagestani masculinity. Russian men are blamed for a ‘loss of spirit,’ for their own powerlessness, and for their failure to protect the nation. On the other hand, Dagestani masculinity is viewed as primal, yet enviable. This reveals the high level of anxiety surrounding Russian national masculinity, which, as I suggest, is connected to Russia’s post-USSR transitional period and the perceived legacy of national collapse and geopolitical failure.

CONCLUSION By discussing Dagestani conscription and its relation to national masculinity, I have suggested that problematic military violence has formed along racial borders.

Dagestanis are discriminated against and suffer from a lack of citizenship rights.

Furthermore, Dagestanis are not imagined as a part of the national community, but are widely represented as the Other, an enemy,

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NOTES

01 The relationship between the North Caucasus and central Russia has been contentious since the Caucasian wars in the 19th century. Russia’s victory over Caucasian ethnic groups resulted in the incorporation of the North Caucasus into the Russian empire. Furthermore, in 1990 the state experienced two Chechen wars and a wave of terrorism. The majority of terrorist attacks were conducted by groups linked to the North Caucasus which has resulted in the perception that native Caucasians are dangerous and disloyal people.

02 Holly Allen, “Gender, Sexuality and the Military Model of U.S. National Community,” in Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation, ed. Tamar Mayer, 309–327 (New York: Routledge, 2000); Tamar Mayer, “Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Setting the Stage,” in Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation, ed.

Tamar Mayer, 1–22 (New York: Routledge, 2000); Anne, McClintock, “Family Feuds: Gender, Nationalism and the Family,” Feminist Review 44 (1993): 61–80; Joane Nagel, “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations,” Ethnic & Racial Studies 21, no. 2 (1998): 242–269; Jason G. Karlin, “The Gender of Nationalism: Competing Masculinities in Meiji Japan,” Journal of Japanese Studies 28, no. 1 (2002): 41–77; Rhoda Kanaaneh, “Boys or Men? Duped or Made?: Palestinian Soldiers in the Israeli Military,” American Ethnologist 32, no. 2 (2005): 260–275.

03 See Allen, “Gender, Sexuality and the Military Model of U.S. National Community.”; Mayer, “Gender Ironies of Nationalism.”; Nagel, “Masculinity and Nationalism.”

04 Kanaaneh, “Boys or Men? Dupedor Made?,” 261.

05 “Informatsiya dlya vedeniya monitoringa socialno-ekonomicheskogo polozheniya sub’ektov Rossijskoj Federatsii [Information for conductiong monitoring of socialeconomic situation of Russian Federation’s members],” Federal Service of the State Statistics, December 3, 2013, http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/ rosstat/ru/statistics/publications/catalog/doc_1246601078438.

06 “V Rossii bezrabotnyj kazhdyj 12-j [Every 12th person in unemployed in Russia],” Novyj region, February 2, 2010, http://www.nr2.ru/moskow/267998.html/ “Dagestanskij desant [Dagestani landing force],” Lenta.ru, November 29, 2012, http://lenta.ru/articles/2012/11/29/dagestanci/.

07 Ibid.

08 “V armii ezhegodno umiraet 2-2,5 tysyachi chelovek [2-2,5 thousand people die in the army every year],” Real army.org, 2012, http://www.realarmy.org/veronikamarchenko-v-armii-ezhegodno-umiraet-2-25-tysyachi-chelovek 09 “Смертность в Российской армии превышает официальные данные Министерства обороны,” Радио Свобода, September 18, 2007, http://www.svoboda.org/ content/transcript/412421.html 10 The notion of mutual Othering also appears in the narratives of the Dagestanis I talked to. Dagestani people feel that they have more in common with Caucasians in neighboring countries, such as Georgia, than Russia. Moreover, Georgia is considered to be more developed than Russia, which makes this symbolic ethnical connection beneficial for Dagestanis. This issue, however, goes beyond the scope of this paper.

11 Newsland.com.

12 Fatal1ty, Newsland.com.

13 Allen, “Gender, Sexuality and the Military Model of U.S. National Community.”; Mayer, “Gender Ironies of Nationalism.”; Nagel, “Masculinity and Nationalism.”

14 Dzhokhar Dudayev was the leader of Chechen separatists, president of the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and the only Chechen to become a Soviet Air Force General. Dudayev was killed in 1996 during the first Chechen war.

15 Oficer zapasa, mk.ru.

16 For more on this topic see Mayer, “Gender Ironies of Nationalism.”

17 In reality political and economic failure often lead to perceptions or fears of weakened masculinity.

18 George Mosse, “Introduction: Nationalism and Respectability” in Nationalism and Sexuality: Middle Class Morality and Sexual Norms in Modern Europe, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 1-22; Ann Stoler, “Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender and Morality in the Making of Race, ” in Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley: UC Press, 2002), 41-78; Rudi Bleys, “The Pre-Enlightenment Legacy” in The Geography of Perversion: Male-to-Male Sexual Behavior Outside the West and the Ethnographic Imagination, 1750-1918 (New York: New York University Press, 1995): 17-44.

19 Allen, “Gender, Sexuality and the Military Model of U.S. National Community.”

20 Sofiya-Bonn 12, Newsland.com.

21 stargazer 777, Newsland.com.

22 This idea runs parallel to Maria Todorova’s theory of masculinity in ‘Balkanism.’; Maria Nikolaeva Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

23 zhetkerbajb, Newsland.com 24 baltinfo.ru 25 Karlin, “The Gender of Nationalism.”

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Eurasiatique Volume II

Challenges TO the Area of Freedom Security and Justice of the European Union

By Prokofyeva Yana Science PO (Paris)

E

xamining the current status of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) of the European Union (EU) is both important and timely. Cooperation in this sphere is one of the best examples of political integration, commanding a large and complex network of successfully functioning intergovernmental bodies. The supranationalization of the AFSJ is an indication that, given the appropriate conditions, it is possible to create a ‘political Europe,’ even though the domains of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) have traditionally been considered the exclusive competency of sovereign states. However, the Area lacks the necessary political impetus to develop further. In this way, the AFSJ is another example of the structural crisis facing the EU as a whole.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS OF THE AFSJ To better comprehend the challenges that the AFSJ is currently facing, a brief historical overview of its progress to date is necessary. Prior to 2004, the JHA had a period of relative cooperative success. During the 1970s, limited attempts were made to cooperate at the executive level. Over time, Member States gradually agreed to the formal institutionalization of the JHA. As such, several competencies were slowly transferred to the supranational level. From 1999 onward, issues of Justice and Internal Affairs were transferred to the Council of Ministers. New challenges to security, such as terrorism, required the EU’s special attention, leading to the intensification of cooperation in JHA.1 Changes in the decision-making and institutional structure of the AFSJ occurred after the abolishment of the pillar structure. As a result, the AFSJ resembled other areas of integration, such as the Common Market. Cooperation was dynamic in the early stage es of the JHA,

however, the development of this area lost impetus over time. Currently, reaching a legislative compromise has impeded the prospect of implementation. This is reflected by the diminished levels of enthusiasm of Member States toward the JHA. For example, while the creation of the EU Common Asylum Policy was considered a milestone at the Tampere European Council in 1999, future progress appears unlikely.

CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES OF THE AFSJ

-tion if a Member State chooses to use it to prevent the passage of legislation.4 An additional concern is that frequent adoption of the enhanced cooperation clause can result in the creation of various ‘affinity groups’ inside the EU, reflective of Europe à la carte.6 The “emergency break together with enhanced cooperation increase fragmentation and differentiation in the enlarged Union, even if only in the particular sphere of police and judicial cooperation on criminal matters.”6 Finally, Jorg Monar has underscored how the emergency break weakens the decisionmaking process of the European Commission, Council, and Parliament. He argues against states impeding legislative procedures via the European Council. Monar states: “Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman will probably turn over in their graves when this happens. It completely contradicts their vision of how the EU must function. It negates the principles that European Communities have followed all these years.”7

2. SCHENGEN CRISIS There are several problematic areas within the AFSJ. In this section, they will be enuThe Schengen Area is one of the brightest merated and discussed. examples of a successful European Union integration policy and embodies the objec1. “EMERGENCY BREAK” AND tives of the AFSJ. Nevertheless, the uni“ENHANCED COOPERATION” lateral restoration of control over internal MECHANISMS. borders has become more frequent. Recognized as the Schengen ‘crisis,’ the sysOne of the problematic areas of the AFSJ tem requires imminent reform. As former concerns judicial cooperation on criminal French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, matters. States that believe that a legislative “We want Schengen to live but for it to do proposal infringes on the basic principles of so, it has to be reformed.”9 Some European their national criminal legal system are alpoliticians tend to depict the challenges of lowed to “hit” the emergency break. In such Schengen as a crisis due to concerns over instances, legislative proposals are transnational sovereignty. Yet, they are reluctant mitted to the European Council in an effort to submit to the authority of the EU to reto reach a consensus. In situations where solve the matter, presumably for political consensus is unattainable, an enhanced cogain.10 operation mechanism is implemented. A minimum of one-third of Member States A recent altercation between France and can draft a proposal and other Member Italy exemplifies the Schengen crisis. On States are unable to veto this action.2 If the April 17, 2011, France restored its internal Commission accepts the proposal, then it is border checks with Italy, blocking trains subject to voting by all Member States.3 from Ventimiglia. The border posts were reinstated because of concerns over the risDo these mechanisms have negative impliing number of North African migrants durcations on integration? Practices such as ing the Arab Spring. Once in Italy, these inenhanced cooperation, while adopted by dividuals were issued temporary residence a small number of Member States, in fact, permits under the program of humanitarserve to foster and deepen integration. Conian protection.11 During this period, other versely, the emergency break mechanism EU Member States (i.e. Germany, Austria, can hamper the general direction of integraNetherlands and Belgium) also expressed

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concerns about the migrant situation. However, only France chose to reinforce its border controls.12 This incident demonstrated the increasing tendency of Member States to restrict the free movement of citizens under the auspices of anti-immigrant sentiments and xenophobia, aggravated further by the financial and economic crisis.13

ation19 and a common immigration policy is nonexistent.20 The inefficiency of Schengen lies in the fact that Frontex is more concerned with making the illegal passage into Europe more difficult for migrants.

Proposals to modernize the Schengen Area are currently hindered by two crucial questions: under what circumstances can Member States restore control over internal borders? Who is responsible for making this decision? “The problem of Schengen modernisation occupies a central place in the political agenda of the European Union.”15 The European Commission advocates supranational regulation to address these questions. For instance, Member States would have the right to immediately restore borders for a period of five days, after which point, the decision about its prolongation has to be taken to the supranational level. However, at the state level, France, Germany and Spain believe this is a security concern where national jurisdiction takes precedence.

EU Member States are entitled to participate in the policies of their choosing. As such, Member States can opt for different levels of integration. For example, the UK, Ireland, and Denmark maintain their right to opt-out of a number of Schengen Area policies, which has resulted in certain geographical asymmetries. Additionally, the Schengen Area includes non-Member States such as Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. These European countries have the privilege of partaking in a visa-free regime and have also benefited from Schengen’s policies (i.e. exchange of information, tools to combat illegal immigration, etc.), despite not being members of the EU.23 Consequently, the integrality of the AFSJ is often considered to be unbal-

3. PROBLEMS WITH GEOGRAPHICAL INTEGRALITY OF THE AFSJ

“The problem of Schengen modernisation occupies a central place in the political agenda of the European Union.”

The tragic events in Lampedusa have drawn attention to a number of concerns surrounding the Schengen Area.16 Member States such as Italy and Greece are prone to a greater influx of illegal migrants due to their maritime borders. Given the difficulty that these states have faced in managing these migrants, they have turned to the EU for assistance. The EU’s response has been twofold: first, it proposes a common immigration policy, and subsequently, it recommends the development of a common asylum system. The establishment of Frontex (the European agency in charge of border management)17 and Eurosur (the European border surveillance system)18 are two agencies designed to assure cooperation when combatting challenges of illegal immigration and influxes of asylum-seekers. Nevertheless, progress has been slow; there are no real changes in addressing illegal migr-

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anced. Complexity arises when “it is not always evident whether a proposal is subject to an opt-out or not.”24 Even if the countries have the ability to opt-out, delegations usually remain at the table during negotiations without voting rights. “This pragmatic ‘participatory’ solution facilitates decision-making in practice, though it does not reduce the legal complexity arising from the various national opt-outs.”25 As for non-Member States, discussions concerning Schengen occur in especially formulated working groups.

CONCLUSION Some would consider the creation of the AFSJ as “one of the most significant developments in the European integration process,”25 as Member States were willing

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to relinquish some of their sovereignty in order to benefit politically from cooperation. In spite of this, the AFSJ is currently experiencing a systemic crisis that stems from its structural flaws and which was exacerbated by the economic crisis of the EU. Nearly every European institution within the JHA makes provision for optouts. While concessions are understandable and aimed at intensifying cooperation, the inability to promote the integrality of the AFSJ as a whole remains a significant concern.

The Schengen crisis illustrates a weakening in the spirit of solidarity within the EU concerning levels of integration and a desire by certain Member States to revert to pre-existing agreements. The crisis also illustrates that where national and supranational interests are in competition, the former takes precedence over the latter. In these cases, cooperation in the AFSJ is often overturned. The restoration of internal border checks are rare and unsystematic and the challenges unravelling in the AFSJ are disconcerting. As integration between Member States continues in the sphere of justice and internal affairs, disagreements are inevitable. Relying on concessions in order to avoid controversy will simply jeopardize the integrality of the AFSJ as a whole. How the EU chooses to tackle this problem will convey its aptitude for handling future internal crises.

NOTES 01 “What will become of external and internal EU policies after the entry of force of the Lisbon Treat,” materials of an international conference, MGIMO Department of European Law, February 22, 2008 (Moscow: Aksiom, 2009), 62.

02 Ibid., 67.

03 “Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: Title IV Enhanced cooperation,” Official Journal of the European Union, March 30, 2010, http://eurlex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:SOM:en:HTML. 04 Olga Potemkina, “Area of Freedom, Security and Justice of the European Union,” MGIMO Department of European Law (Moscow: Grif and K, 2011), 26.

05 “Synthèses de la législation,” Europa, http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/europe_a_la_carte_fr.htm 06 Potemkina, “Area of Freedom,” 26.

07 “What will become of external and internal EU policies,” 66.

08 Virginie Guiraudon, “Schengen : une crise en trompe l’œil,” Politique étrangère 4 (2011): 778.

09 As stated at the 29th Franco-Italian summit: “Nous voulons que Schengen vive mais pour que Schengen vive, Schengen doit être reformé”; “Évènements : Sarkozy Berlusconi, Conférence de presse commune,” La Chaine Parlementaire (LCP), April 26, 2011, http://www.lcp.fr/emissions/evenements/vod/14819-sarkozy-berlusconi-conference-de-presse-commune.

10 Ibid., 779 11 Sergio Carrera, Elspeth Guild, Massimo Merlino and Joanna Parkin, “A Race Against Solidarity: The Schengen Regime and the Franco-Italian Affair,” Justice and Home Affairs, (2011), 1.

12 Ibid., 2.

13 Olga Potemkina, “European Union in the 21st century: time of challenges,” (Moscow: Ves mir, 2012), 295.

14 Guiraudon, “Schengen,” 783-4.

16 Potemkina, “European Union in the 21st century,” 293.

“Le Conseil européen réagit à la tragédie de Lampedusa,” Commission Européenne, October 25, 2013, http://ec.europa.eu/news/eu_explained/131025_fr.htm.

17 “Missions and Tasks,” Frontex, http://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/mission-and-tasks.

18 “Determining the technical and operational framework of the European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR) and the actions to be taken for its establishment,” European Commission, January 28, 2011, http://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/policies/borders/docs/20110128EUROSURCSWPSEC2011145%20final.pdf 19 Potemkina, “European Union in the 21st century,” 295.

20 Especially taking into consideration that this objective was already set in the non-ratified Constitution of 2004; “Traité établissant une Constitution pour l’Europe,” Journal Officiel de l’Union Européenne (2004): III-267.1.

21 Guiraudon, “Schengen,” 783-784.

22 D. Kornobis-Romanowska, “Developments in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice brought about by the Constitutional Treaty,” German Law Journal 6, no. 1 (2005), 1639.

23 Европейская интеграция (European Integration), ed. Olga Butorina (Moscow: Delovaya Literatura, 2011), 263-4.

24 The institutional dimension of the European Union’s area of freedom, security and justice, ed. J. Monar. (Brussels: New York: P.I.E.P. Lang, 2010), 74.

25 Developing European Internal Security Policy After the Stockholm Summit and the Lisbon Treaty, ed. Christian Kaunert and Sarah Léonard (London: Routledge, 2012), 181.

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Acknowledgements Eurasiatique would not have been possible without the generous support of our donors at the University of Toronto: the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies Program, the Hungarian Studies Program, and the Graduate Students’ Union. We would like to thank Dr. Edith Klein for her time, commitment, and guidance in realizing this project. We are also grateful to our contributors, editorial staff, design team, and international partner institutions that helped to make this endeavour possible.

For more information, please visit www.ceresjournal.com. For inquiries, kindly send a note to ceresjournal@gmail.com.

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Eurasiatique Volume II

Eurasiatique is an initiative that is entirely led by graduate students at the University of Toronto’s Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.

Interdisciplinary in nature, the journal brings together graduate work that addresses Europe, Russia, and Eurasia. This year’s edition examines themes of borders and boundaries, and attempts to expand the discourse on how various divisions impact politics and societies, while perhaps challenging readers’ previous understandings of these issues. This volume includes contributors from the University of Toronto and its international partner institutions, thus fostering an enriching transnational dialogue.

More information can at www.ceresgraduatejournal.com. Inquiries may be sent to ceresjournal@gmail.com.