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, TRANSNISTRIA AND THE PCRM's TuRN TO THE WEST
Introduction In 2001 the Communist Party of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) became the first orthodox communist party to be elected back into power since the fall of the former Soviet Union. The Moldovan communists assumed control over a country that had been impoverished in the course of a failed economic transition and ravaged by a decade of nearly continuous political infighting, unchecked corruption, and maladministration. In addition to these domestic challenges, a decade after independence Moldova continued to be plagued by its unresolved territorial dispute with the unrecognized separatist regime in neighboring Transnistria. PCRM leader Vladimir Voronin began his first term committed to reversing many of the reforms introduced by his predecessors; recollectivizing key elements of the economy, strengthening relations with the Russian Federation, and reintegrating Transnistria into Moldova with Russian support. However, as Andrew Janos noted early in the post-communist period, the Central European states act under severe international constraints. (l) In the course of the next four years nearly every element of the communists' political design was abandoned or sharply curtailed. Despite the PCRM's ideological predispositions, reversing the reform process wholesale was infeasible. The new leadership's pro-Kremlin credentials notwithstanding, the Transnistrian dispute proved as intractable for President Voronin as it had for previous administrations, and relations with Moscow all too quickly degenerated to open hostility. Beginning a second term in 2005, the PCRM committed itself to a program of cooperation with its domestic opponents focused on "Europeanization." It promised domestic liberalization, and introduced a new strategy for resolving the Transnistrian dispute based on increased reliance on Western actors in the negotiation process. How did this transformation come about? Does it indicate a deep-seated change in the character of the regime, or rather a superficial policy shift assumed to gain tactical advantage. This paper first reviews the conditions that gave rise to the Moldovan Communists' return to power, then focuses on their performance in office. It examines both the domestic and foreign policy trends that emerged since 2001. It argues that whatever the PCRM's initial ideological proclivities may have been, the Voronin government has responded pragmatically, as a realist model would predict, reshaping its policies to conform to the external and domestic constraints facing it. Moldova and the Failed Politics of the 1990s Moldova began its transition from communism suffering from poor economic development, serious ethnic divisions, and a very wide gap separating the population as a whole and the entrenched Soviet era political elite. Furthermore, unlike the Central European states emerging from Soviet dominion, Moldova had no history of independent national government to fall back on. (2) Its inter-war experience of rule from Bucharest provided little useful guidance in developing sovereign institutions. At the end of the Soviet period, Moldova was ethnically very diverse. The Romanian speaking majority comprised 64.5% of the Republic of Moldova's inhabitants. The main minority groups, Ukrainian (13.8%), Russian (13%), Gagauz (5.2%) and Bulgarian (2%), were largely Russophone or bilingual in Russian and their native language. Identity politics in the region were complex, with some of the majority speaking population identifying as members Romanian, but many others opting for "Moldovan" nationality. (3) Like many republics of the former USSR, Moldova's initial experience with democratic politics came in the form of a semi-democratic transition government formed during the Soviet period. Serious opposition to Soviet rule emerged quite late. in the form of the Popular Front of Moldova, which championed the interests of the Romanian-speaking majority. …
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1