A Modern Interpretation of Marxist-Leninist National Policy (On the Example of the National Minorities Issue in Uzbekistan)

Author(s): Kamola Saipova,Usmonzhon Butaev / Language(s): English / Issue: Special 2/2019

The aim of the article is to present a modern interpretation of the national policy of the Soviet government on the example of the issue of national minorities in Turkestan in 1917. The authors analyze a large amount of scientific material, including the documentation of congresses and resolutions of the government of Turkestan. Based on the research results, the authors conclude that the policies on national minorities under the administrative command system was contradictory and inconsistent. In general, the dynamics of the impact of the system on the sphere of national life turned out to be negative. Due to false ideological attitudes, the domination of administration, the poor scientific basis of policy, the national policy of the administrative-command system was, essentially and objectively, a denationalizing policy. The authors present a modern interpretation of this issue.

A multietnikus nemzetállam

Author(s): Ildikó Bajcsi / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1/2017

Szarka­ László:­ A multietnikus­ nemzetállam. Kísérletek,­ kudarcok­ és­ kompromisszumok Csehszlovákia­ nemzetiségi­ politikájában1918–1992.­ Pozsony,­ Kalligram,­ 2016,­ 376­ p.

A Passage to Europe: Serbia and the Refugee Crisis

Author(s): Aleksandar Pavlović / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

In this text, I approach Serbian experience of the refugee crisis by referring to three statements taken both as a reference and point of departure: first, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić’s claim that Serbia was “more European that some European states”; second, the former Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović’s claim that Serbia ought to “spread it [the refugees] around a bit”; and, third, Angela Merkel’s statement that the closure of EU borders could cause another war in the Balkans. These three statements, it is argued, provide convenient access to the official’s claims regarding the refugee crisis in Serbia and its echo in the region and abroad. In addition, in order to identify the views held by common people in Serbia, in the last section I will also briefly discuss popular reactions in Serbia to the issue of refugees in the last several years.

A Peculiar Case of Monitoring. Minority Rights in Romania as Seen Through the Lens of the ACFC and the COMEX

Author(s): András Bethlendi,Tibor Toró / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2018

Romania submitted its state report to the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML ) roughly at the same time, however, the evaluation reports of the two bodies took rather different turns. The paper analyzes these two documents comparatively, and contrasts them to the earlier evaluation reports as well. The comparison highlights several textual differences and sheds light on the attitude of the two evaluation committees. The argument of the paper can be summarized in three points: 1) the two reports interpret differently many aspects of minority rights in Romania, and seemingly only in the case of the FCNM did the input of minority NGOs make a difference; 2) the usability of the two reports depends on the context in which one wants to use them: the FCNM report has more of an agenda setting effect, while the ECRML focuses on legally more accurate recommendations; 3) the technical and standardized approach of the Committee of Experts of the ECRML is not always suitable to describe the holistic situation of minority languages in a country.

A román ünnepek székelyföldi megnyilvánulásai

Author(s): Biborka Ádám / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3/2018

This paper provides a comprehensive overview on the perception of four Romanian commemorative ceremonies: the 24th of January (Union of Moldova with Muntenia), the 9th and 10th of May (end of WWII and King’s Day), the 23th of August (“antifascist resurrection”) and the1st of December (Union of Transylvania with Romania), in the region of Háromszék. By means of a detailed content analysis of the local Hungarian press articles and by conducting a series of structured interviews with the organisers and participants, this study intended to systematically document the comprehensive changes that had occurred in the significance, meaning and structure of the above four feasts between 1918 and 2015. Furthermore, our paper intends to analyse the current political and identity-building trends of the most important national feast, the 1st of December.

A Survey of the Roots and History of Kurdish Alevism: What are the Divergences and Convergences between Kurdish Alevi Groups in Turkey?

Author(s): Suavi Aydin / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2020

This article focuses on the generic form of Alevism, commonly referred to as “Anatolian Alevism”, asking how ethnic and tribal divergences occurred, their interrelationships and the basis of the differences and similarities. It assumes that the beliefs and practices known collectively as “Anatolian Alevism” constitute a “wholistic structure” that refers to the joint possession of a common set of ritualistic and mythic attributes and characteristics. In this context, “Anatolian Alevism” presents a distinctive attribute compared to other beliefs thought to be similar or connected to which Alevism is related in some ways although it is also the product of a different history and belief pattern. The central concern is to provide an understanding of the historical establishment and interrelationship of Kırmanjki and Kurmanji speaking Alevi tribes and their similarities and differences compared to Turkish/Turkmen Alevism despite their strong structural associations.

A szlovákiai magyar politikai mozgástér változásai

Author(s): Géza Tokár / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 4/2017

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the latitude of ethnic political representation of the Hungarian community in Slovakia from 1989 up to recent political developments. The latitude is measured by three factors: the amount of political power held by representatives of the Hungarian communities, the coalition potential of the parties focusing on ethnic policies, and the political compatibility of the parties representing the Hungarian minority. The Hungarian ethnic parties were involved in Slovak politics from the times of the Velvet Revolution; however, their ability to affect politics and policies was limited by party-specific ethnic agendas and incompatibility with numerous Slovak ethnic parties. In light of recent political events, however, the ideological differences have been reduced and the pragmatic nature of fragmented Slovak party politics opens up new channels for cooperation. Despite the changing political environment, the latitude has been weakening due to the fragmentation of the Hungarian ethnic political elite.

A TANDEM 2016 kutatás általános bemutatása és mintavételi eljárása

Author(s): Viktória Ferenc,József Molnár / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2017

The target group of the TANDEM 2016 Survey was the Ukrainian and Hungarian population of the multi-ethnic west Ukrainian region, Transcarpathia. The paper-based survey was carried out from May to August 2016. The survey was bilingual: in 44 settlements respondents answered our questions in Hungarian, in 55 in Ukrainian and in 24 settlements in both languages. The expression “TANDEM” implies that in this survey we put emphasis on the peculiarities of Hungarian-Ukrainian coexistence and the differences of perspectives on the same topics. All together we gathered 1212 questionnaires: 398 adult respondents answered our questions in Hungarian and 814 in Ukrainian according to a representative sample (the sample however was not proportionately stratified regarding the ethnic ratio of settlements).

A Territory, but not a State - The Territorialists’ Visions for a Jewish Future after the Shoah (1943–1960)

Author(s): Laura Almagor / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The Jewish Territorialists, represented as of 1934 by the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonisation, searched for places of settlement for Jews outside Palestine/Israel. I here argue that Territorialist ideology demonstrated both continuity and change in the post-1945 years, and continued to focus on an investment in Diaspora life, Yiddishism, anti-statism, colonial and postcolonial attitudes, and Socialist Revolutionary idealism. This article thus challenges the notion that the Shoah spelled the end of non-Zionist Jewish political activities, by demonstrating the ways in which the Freelanders, headed by the enigmatic Isaac N. Steinberg (1888–1957), imagined an alternative Jewish cultural and political future after the Shoah. By mapping the Territorialist movement’s continued endeavours after 1945, this study also adds to our broader understanding of the rich spectrum of post-Shoah Jewish political ideologies.

ABORDAREA PROBLEMEI TRANSNISTRENE DE CĂTRE ORGANIZAȚIILE DE CERCETARE IDIS „VIITORUL” ȘI PROMO-LEX. O ANALIZĂ COMPARATIVĂ

Author(s): Eugen Străuţiu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2020

The two organizations, together, dominate the analysis scene in the Transnistrian problem from Chisinau. Unfortunately for the academic environment, if we were to add the output of universities and research institutes, the statement remains valid.With the same "red lines", the same funders, generally the same research methodologies implemented and good communication with the political and academic environments, the two organizations apprears as a block making the rules and main features of the involvement of the Moldovan civil society in the Transnistrian topic.The differences in style are not significant, they do not conflict, but rather show us that Idis "Viitorul" and Promo-Lex complement and collaborate under the aegis of the same goals and objectives.

Achievements of Non-State Actors at Diplomacy: A Lesson from ECOWAS

Author(s): Nurettin Can,Umar Babani Mashio / Language(s): English / Issue: 16/2019

Diplomacy has existed since the time when States, empires or other centres of power dealt with each other on an official basis. There are various types of diplomacy but in this context of multilateral diplomacy in the setting of international organisations started to gain importance after the First World War and especially following the Second World War. The global call for regionalism especially in under developed regions and the example and model of the European Union, which started as European Coal community and transformed into what it is today and has made regional organizations like Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) become an important non-state actor in the sub-region and the continent at large. The performance of these importance roles and coupled with substantial level of successes it has achieved, has made more prominent diplomatically in the region. ECOWAS has achieved substantially in the area of ensuring peace and stability in the region especially by preventing and resolving conflicts, free economic and diplomatic movement in the region.

Activist Localities in the Queer South

Author(s): Helis Sikk / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

Cultural anthropologist Arjun Appadurai’s theories about place link together various surrounding contexts: technology, media, economics, and ideology. He sees locality as a“complex phenomenological quality” (1996, p. 178) that we should not look at as context, but instead focus on how contexts define the boundaries of localities. Appadurai’s theories help to link global and local by taking into account the various surrounding contexts: technology,media, economics, and ideology. This paper uses Appadurai’s theory as a basis to explore how localities emerge in grassroots queer activist practices that combine offline and online tactics in their organizing. I use participant observation, in-depth interviews, and content analysis to gain an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of networked locality created by LGBTQ activists physically located in Southern United States.

Adalékok a romániai magyar felsőoktatási stratégiához: demográfiai, oktatáspolitikai, nemzetpolitikai kihívások

Author(s): Márton Tonk / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2019

The purpose of this study is to analyse the current problems and challenges of Hungarian language education policy in Romania. A part of the challenges connected to Transylvanian Hungarian higher education are identical to those characteristics that the Romanian, or more generally the entire European system of university education reflects. Therefore, we briefly present some of the consequences and challenges of the so-called “Bologna Process” regarding higher education. Simultaneously, the special features of Transylvanian Hungarian higher education receives the attention of the larger part of our study. It focuses on the Hungarian language university education system, connected to kin-state policy, demographics and minority rights. What does the Transylvanian Hungarian minority and the higher education institutional system offer? The analyses can obviously not ignore the “topos” of the independent, Hungarian language state university and its dilemmas and challenges are also briefly presented in the study.

ADMINISTRATIVNE GRANICE U JUGOSLAVIJI POSLE DRUGOG SVETSKOG RATA

Author(s): Bogdan Lekić / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 1+2/1992

The author shows that, based on the analysis of state, party and other archival material accomplished to this day, it can safely be said that no competent state authority legally examined or issued any act (regulation, resolution, decree etc.) regulating the administrative-territorial borders between the federal units (republics) in Yugoslavia. Mr. Lekić studied the archives of those institutions which published the first post-war geographic maps bearing the earliest administrative-territorial division between the republics. These archives hold no written trace, either, of the identity of those who made such an important decision in domestic politics, nor of the time or manner in which it was made. It was supposed that some documentary material would be found in institutions for cartography since it is logical to presume that the first map of Yugoslavia was made on the basis of someone's order containing ail the information necessary for defining the borders. There is still no definite knowledge about the fate of these documents, whether they were destroyed or are still under embargo. All that can be said with assurance is that the matter of inter-republic borders was decided within the narrowest circle of Yugoslav state and party officials and with the definite participation and deciding influence of Josip Broz Tito, who then held all the highest-ranking and most responsible positions in the party, army and state of Yugoslavia. According to Mr. Lekić, there is no doubt that the administrative-territorial 'borders of the republics were never verified by competent authorities, nor were ever considered to be state borders, as Josip Broz himself often pointed out in his public speeches, saying that in a federal state administrative borders had no state or national significance. As far as the question of the demarcation of administrative-territorial borders between federal republics is concerned, the archival material has mostly been preserved. These sources clearly show that border disputes between republics began as early as the first half of 1945 and only ended in 1956. In general, these disputes were of marginal importance in relation to inter-republic borders. The most significant among them was the dispute between the People's Republic of Serbia (Vojvodina) and the People's Republic of Croatia, regarding the territoray of Bačka, Baranja and Srem. Nearly all Croatian disputes with not only Serbia but all the other republics as well, were settled in Croatia’s favor. The committees formed to work on resolving border disputes between republics emphasize in their reports that their suggestions are only a temporary solution and that the entire issue of border disputes between republics ought to be settled by a law issued on the part of competent authorities. The archival material of state institutions competent in this matter reveals no sign that his issue was ever brought up or settled in the way recommended by the committees.

Africa de Sud, pol major de putere al continentului african

Author(s): Maria Cătălina Moisescu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: I/2010

The study explores, with a lot of details, the power status of South Africa, in the new context after apartheid was completely abandoned and the country reintegrated itself within the regional / continental and global community. The author clearly states that she is going to extensively use the concepts of Realism in International Relations. She states that the new foreign policy of South Africa is based on massive changes within the framework of domestic political life. The most important part of the study is an interesting and detailed presentation of the elements of national power of South Africa, using the notorious list issued, several decades ago, by Hans J. Morgenthau, the founding father of modern Realism in International Relations. The study integrates many elements belonging to an extensive interview with the Ambassador of South Africa in Romania, who expressed his opinions on the 14th of June, 2010.

After the Hamburg Cell: the Integration Debate and Turkish-German Representation in Post-9/11 Media and Politics

Author(s): Emily Joy Rothchild / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 0

On 11 September 2001, hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. The attacks horrified people worldwide, but German reactions were especially complicated; politicians and citizens needed to process the failed macro-political integration of the Hamburg cell, four 9/11 conspirators who met and organized at Al-Quds Moschee (mosque). Just one year prior in 2000, citizenship law reform changed the idea of who could be German, one that now included the country’s Turkish-German population. Though none of the Hamburg cell members were Turkish, 9/11’s temporal closeness to citizenship law reform and the resultant collusion of “Turk” and “Muslim” in media and political discourse resulted in continuing negative media representation of Turkish-Germans.

Akcja Afirmatywna, doktryna różnorodności a plemienna koncepcja społeczeństwa liberalnego

Author(s): Andrzej Bryk / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2004

AKP, Milliyetçilik Ve Diş Politika: Bir Milliyetçilik Doktrini Olarak Stratejik Derinlik

Author(s): Cenk Saraçoğlu / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 1/2013

Over the past ten year the academic researches and publications pertaining to the AKP (Justice and Development Party) power in Turkey has culminated into an immensely rich literature, but the main tenets of the nationalist character of this party have not drawn an adequate academic and intellectual attention for various reasons. In an attempt to contribute to this relatively unexhausted discussion, this article will seek to unravel and evaluate the ideational foundations and symbolic components of the AKP’s nationalist position through a close analysis of Stratejik Derinlik (Strategic Depth), a supposedly theory-oriented book written in 2001 by the current Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. This article argues that at the very crux of the foreign policy outlook sketched out in Stratejik Derinlik is a systematic nationalist doctrine that has been rather haphazardly represented and propagated by the AKP officials. In this respect, Stratejik Derinlik can be treated as a fertile point of departure for investigating the ideological roots of AKP’s nationalism and the role this nationalism plays in the ongoing struggles for political hegemony in Turkey. The fact that the thesis and discourses deployed in the Stratejik Derinlik have functioned in the last ten years as a prominent point of reference for the official foreign policy approach in Turkey also testifies to a dramatic transformation of the Turkish state’s official ideology along the lines of the AKP’s Islamic conservative nationalism.

Albania and Kosovo. In quest of a Common Future

Author(s): Dritan Sulçebe / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 2014

This Policy Paper was prepared in the context of the joint Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) project: “Albania and Kosovo - In quest of a Common Future”. Its first chapter deals with the historical dimension of the relations between Albania and Kosovo. During their history Kosovo and Albania have been isolated for more than four decades and this has caused deep divisions in economic, political and societal terms, which still persist today. During WWII, both countries experienced a short term unification (1941-1944), which resulted very successful in strengthening their economic ties. However, during the communist regimes in Albania and Yugoslavia, cooperation was limited only to sporadic academic and cultural interaction. After the fall of the Iron curtain, deep isolation continued to mark the relations between the two countries. The situation changed only after the outbreak of the Kosovo War and the establishment of the UNMIK administration in 1999, with the signing of a series of economic and free trade agreements. After the independence of Kosovo in 2008, one can speak for the first time in history of relations between two separate and sovereign Albanian dominated states. As such, these relations are experiencing a new evolving economic and political dimension.

Albanian Contribution to International Peacekeeping: Identity, Interests and Peacekeeping

Author(s): Elvin Gjevori,Gëzim Visoka / Language(s): English / Issue: 17/2018

This article examines Albanian contribution to international peacekeeping and explores the politics behind peacekeeping engagements. The article argues that the overarching rationale for Albanian contribution to peacekeeping derives from the desire to advance its national interest of Euro-Atlantic integration and regional security, and reconstruct state identity from a post-communist weak state to an exporter of security, vibrant democracy, and responsible state. In this realm of self-centred motivations, the discourse on international responsibility, solidarity, global peace, and security is rather more rhetorical than primary intentions of Albania for contributing to peacekeeping. Through this analysis, the article contributes to understanding ‘unintended peacekeepers’ as well as the politics of new and emerging troop-contributing countries and their practice of self-interested solidarity in international affairs. In disentangling the mixed motives for contributing to peacekeeping, the article hold that pluralist accounts are more reliable than individual strands of theories on peacekeeping.