Borders and Orders in Europe: Limits of Nation- and State-Building in Estonia, Macedonia and Moldova
The breakdown of communist rule provided new opportunities for the restoration of statehood and for national self-determination. Estonia, Moldova and Macedonia have in common a 'minority' large enough potentially to claim a share in nation- and state-building rather than being granted minority rights. Numerous cases of ethnic strife within post-communist states and beyond their borders have demonstrated that domestic ethnicity can easily internationalize ethnic relations. In the 1990s, however, the EU has entered Rogers Brubaker's classic triangle (state-nation, minority and homeland) as a fourth variable rather than a constant. Evidently, a country's contractual relation with the EU and its location in a newly divided Europe are relevant for the effectiveness of the EU's expanding toolbox for conflict prevention. Moreover, a mode of EU enlargement strictly based on conditionality implies a separation of regions of 'insiders' and 'outsiders' where different norms and strategies apply to minority issues.
Moldova Between Europe and Russia: Inoculating Against the Colored Contagion?
In the elections of March 6, 2005, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) won re-election in an OSCE-approved parliamentary vote lacking large-scale electoral fraud and widespread popular mobilization. Grounding their analysis in the political science literature on "colored" revolutions, interviews, and news reports, two political scientists examine this outcome, asking why a colored revolution did not occur in Moldova. Moldova's "orange evolution" is analyzed in terms of structural preconditions and catalytic factors for colored revolutions as well as broader questions about possible paths out of the patronal and patrimonial forms of government dominating the CIS.
Geopolitics: Past, Present and Future
Terms in their times - political geography and geopolitics grand lines on the docile paper - the origins of geopolitics war and the fall of "geopolotik" peace and the rise of "geopolitique" a spatial typology of states micro, meso and macro - scales of geopolitical analysis mighty opposites - the bipolar world great spheres - the multipolar world confusing the blind geographers? - the centre-periphery world in accordance with reality? - geopolitics as process pure and applied - the future of geopolitics.