Nationalism,Loss-Gain Framing and the Confederate States of America

Abstract. In recent years, numerous states have become racked with internal secessionist strife. Why have calls for independence by regional subgroupings been heeded even after long periods of inter-ethnic peace or in regions without any previous history of secessionist activity? I contend that this question can be answered by examining the phenomenon of loss-gain framing, in which people are motivated to adopt risky stratagems, like secession, due to fears of unacceptable losses. This article examines the enigma of why most white American Southerners in 1861 willingly fought for the establishment of the Confederacy, a nation based upon slavery, despite the fact that most Southerners did not own slaves and had continuously rejected secessionist appeals for years. Confederate President Jefferson Davis overcame this reluctance by emphasising what all Southerners – slaveholder and non-slaveholder alike – would lose by remaining in the United States rather than accentuating what would be gained by secession.     

Are secessionists making the right arguments for independence?

There are roughly 70 secessionist movements around the world, and all of them advance arguments for why they deserve independence. These include restorative rights, remedial rights, primary rights, a history of conflict and functionality-based arguments. However, no one has conducted a comprehensive analysis to see how these arguments (or grievances) match reality. That is, are secessionists making the right arguments given their context? To answer this question, we utilise a data set of potential secessionist grievances to determine what normative arguments each secessionist movement ought to make given their setting. We conduct a content analysis of the normative appeals/grievances that have actually been made by specific secessionist movements since 2000. We then compare the predicted grievances against the actual grievances and summarise the patterns. The results matched our predictions where restorative rights, remedial rights and functionality-based arguments are concerned. Our analysis returned a positive and statistically significant relationship. However, we found no evidence that those making conflict-related arguments were more likely to exist in conflict settings. Interestingly, the findings for primary rights were the opposite of our expectations; it is the secessionists with the most political voice, not the least, that are the keenest to stress primary rights.     

Violence and conflict in the Russian North Caucasus

Since 2006 there has been a significant reduction in the level of fighting in the Russian republic of Chechnya between federal troops and Chechen rebels, indicating a substantial weakening of the insurgency. However, violence in the region has not entirely subsided; indeed, it has been spreading to neighbouring regions in the North Caucasus. Today, a loose network of formally autonomous violent groups, or Islamic jamaats, has developed throughout the North Caucasus, primarily in the Muslim republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachaevo‐Cherkessia and Kabardino‐Balkaria. Islamic ideals seem to guide and inspire much of the terrorist violence, although they are intermingled with deep nationalist sentiments, especially among rebel groups in Chechnya. However, the intricacies of the violence in the North Caucasus are much more complex, and are only partially related to the spread of radical Islam and separatist aspirations. Other underlying factors, such as the perpetuation of discredited and corrupt ruling elites, the persistence of severe economic hardship, youth unemployment and social alienation, and the absence of proper and effective channels of political expression are also driving the violence. Although hardly ever reported by the western media, events in the North Caucasus have significant implications for Europe and the wider world. The enlargement of the European Union and the inclusion of Ukraine and the three South Caucasian states into the EU neighbourhood policy have brought these countries and the adjacent areas of the North Caucasus closer to the EU. As a result, events in the North Caucasus are no longer the sole remit of countries in the region. There is a risk that instability and violence in the North Caucasus may spread into areas that are of growing significance not only to Europe, but also to the United States and the Atlantic alliance.     

The Kosovo—and Montenegro—effect

The post‐communist space continues to generate new internationally recognized states while incubating unrecognized but de facto states. Recent movement in the Balkans—the independence of Montenegro and the arduous deliberations over Kosovo's future —have variously encouraged other secessionist people and would‐be states, particularly in the former Soviet Union. This article analyses the impact of developments in Montenegro and Kosovo on several levels, including: their usage by de facto states; the reactions to them by central governments; Russian policy; and western and intergovernmental responses to these challenges. The article further argues that the Russian position on Kosovo and on the so‐called ‘frozen’ or unsettled conflicts neighbouring Russia could ultimately backfire on it. Western policy towards both Kosovo and on the post‐Soviet frozen conflicts will be best served by signalling to Russia, irrespective of the exact form of Kosovo's independence, that neither its own interests nor broader western‐Russian relations are served by using or reacting to any Kosovo ‘precedent’.     

Ethnicity,Secessionist Conflict and the International Society: Towards Normative Paradigm Shift

Abstract. This article addresses the challenge of ethnicity and particularly of secessionist conflict by trying to outline an international normative framework more conducive to conflict settlement. The working hypothesis is that accommodation through dialogue, in spite of its risks, offers the only way forward in situations of politicised ethnicity. The existing international nonnative regime (with its ban on secession and no opening for autonomy) is insufficient for managing and resolving such conflicts, while its revolutionary antipode, ‘national’ self-determination, is a frightening prospect. Three alternatives are explored: partial recasting with emphasis on devolution; a secessionist option for some federations; and secessionist self- determination for tormented minorities within well-defined criteria. The advantages as well as the drawbacks of unilateral (secessionist) self-detennination are explored in detail.     

The secessionist spectre: the influence of authoritarianism,nativism and populism on support for Quebec independence

In recent years, Quebec has been undergoing a re‐evaluation of immigration and integration policies. The secessionist Parti Québécois had become the leader of this debate, which also coincided with a rise of right‐wing nativist, populist and sometimes authoritarian movements in other Western societies. This paper aims to evaluate the similarity or dissimilarity of Quebec's nationalism to these other nationalisms. We use the 2015 Canadian Election Study data to explore the influence of authoritarianism, nativism and populism directly on support for secession and also, indirectly, on voting intentions. We find that authoritarianism has a negative influence on support for Quebec independence and independentist parties, while the pattern is the opposite, and the effects somewhat weaker, for nativism and populism. Hence, we argue that Quebec nationalism does not seem to correlate with the right‐wing populist movement extending throughout many Western societies. Thus, Quebec nationalism was shown to be a distinct form of nationalism.     

美国国会“涉藏立法”的历史考察

近二十年来,美国国会通过立法活动提出并通过了一系列干涉中国西藏事务的"涉藏议案"。其主要内容包括:要求美国政府将对华政策与"西藏问题"挂钩;以"西藏人权"为借口干涉西藏事务;为"藏独"势力提供援助,等等。作为美国对华人权外交的组成部分,这些"涉藏议案"对中美关系产生了不容忽视的负面影响,不仅使美国对中国所谓侵犯"西藏人权"问题的干涉长期存在,而且也在很大程度上助长了西藏分裂势力在国外的分裂活动。     

From Islamism to nationalism in Aceh,Indonesia

ABSTRACT. This article analyses a dramatic political transformation in Indonesia's Aceh province. In the 1950s, an Islamic rebellion (Darul Islam) aimed not to separate Aceh from Indonesia, but rather to make Indonesia an Islamic state. A successor movement from the 1970s was GAM, the Free Aceh Movement. GAM, however, was essentially secular‐nationalist in orientation, sought Aceh's complete independence and did not espouse formal Islamic goals. The transformation is explained by various factors, but the key argument concerns the relationship between Islam and nationalism. The defeat of Darul Islam had caused Aceh's Islamic leaders to focus on what they could achieve in Aceh alone, ultimately giving rise to Acehnese nationalism and the secessionist goal. However, Islam remained a point of commonality with, rather than difference from, majority‐Muslim Indonesia. The logic of nationalist identity construction and differentiation thus caused Aceh's separatist leaders, despite being personally devout, to increasingly downplay Islamic symbols and ideology.     

The Rise and Fall of Non-Aligned Mediation, 1961–6

From its inception, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) considered itself to be a moderating force in the cold war and in the post-colonial world. In September 1961, in the wake of the Belgrade Conference and at the height of the Berlin crisis, it dispatched emergency missions to Washington and Moscow, with Sukarno and Keita journeying to Washington and Nehru and Nkrumah flying to Moscow. Yet, by the decade's end, the movement had moved away from that mission. Paying particular attention to key turning points of the mid-1960s such as the 1964 Congo crisis and the Americanisation of the Vietnam War, this paper interprets the abandonment of cold war mediation as a product of the Vietnam War, rising anti-colonial sentiment, and organised non-alignment's corresponding shift toward a more militant stance on the world stage. This shift helped to foster a newly antagonistic relationship between the United States and the NAM.     

My poor cousin,my feared enemy: the image of Arabs in personal narratives of former Soviets in Israel

The goal of this essay is to analyse some cultural antecedents of stereotyping of Arabs by immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union. The material used in the essay is part of larger project devoted to personal narratives of the immigrants of the 1990s. It is based on 115 in‐depth interviews. Unlike Oriental Jews who had lived side‐by‐side with Arabs before emigrating to Israel, Soviet Jews had had no contacts with them in the “Old Country.” While Arabs have always populated the folklore of oriental Jews, Soviet Jews have formed their attitude on the basis of the mass media (both Soviet and Israeli) and on limited personal contact after immigration. Immigrants who have had no personal contacts with Arabs perceive them as hostile Others, and transfer to them the negative stereotypes formed in the USSR. A more contradictory image evolves on the basis of personal experience; some narrators make parallels between Israeli–Arab and Russian–Chechen conflicts, while others perceive the situation of the Arabs in Israel as similar to the discrimination Jews had suffered in the USSR.     

Russia: A Part of Europe or Apart from Europe?

The controversial framework of interaction between Russia and Europe is defined by some enduring parameters—geographic realities, historical experiences, religious beliefs, normative values, psychological characteristics, behavioural patterns, cultural orientations. The incongruity between cultural/civilizational and geopolitical identities further complicates Russia's perceptions of, and attitudes to, Europe. Russia's initial pro-Western enthusiasm in the early post-Cold War period was soon overshadowed by serious difficulties in its adaptation to a reduced position in Europe, as well as by numerous grievances with respect to the West. As a result, Russia's attempts to develop a 'pan-European architecture', as well as its policy with regard to multilateral structures operating in continental Europe, have been marked by deeply contradictory patterns of promoting openness towards Europe on the one hand and keeping a certain distance from it on the other. The enlargement of NATO and especially recent NATO military operations in the Balkans have been perceived in Russia not only as confrontational but also as relegating it to the sidelines of European developments. Although Russia's long-awaited transition to the post-Yeltsin era and its new European perspective have been undermined by the war in Chechnya, President Putin's unexpected pro-Westernism (its pragmatism notwithstanding) is a promising sign of rapprochement with Europe.     

Too many Scotlands? Place,the SNP,and the future of nationalist mobilization

Scottish nationalism has always had a ‘geographical problem’ in the sense that support for its central goal, the independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom, has had much more backing in some regions and localities than it has had in others. In the 1970s and 1980s the geographical pattern to this support, at least as expressed in votes for the Scottish National Party (SNP), seemed very clear. Suddenly the picture changed between 2011 and 2016, to the extent that the whole of Scotland, notwithstanding the overall ‘No’ vote on Scottish independence in the 2014 referendum, seemed to be lining up to some degree or another in the ‘nationalist column.’ As quickly, this proved ephemeral. As of 2017, the future of the central goal of Scottish nationalism is once more in doubt because of a new geography of support and disaffection that seems to reflect a number of recent trends in attitudes towards voting for the SNP. The article maps the course of the older and newer geographies of Scottish nationalism in terms of the overall political economy of the country, given its proponents’ heavy emphasis on economic themes, and the ways this is refracted through place-to-place social and economic differences across the country.     

Russia’s energy relations with China: passing the strategic threshold?

This article examines Russian energy policies toward China over the past decade as reluctant engagement changed into a priority energy partnership. From 2008 to 2016 Russian and Chinese companies signed several major oil and gas agreements, a period in which Moscow reassessed China as a future energy consumer and lifted bilateral cooperation to a new level. The article utilizes the strategic partnership concept as an analytical framework and finds traditional realist concepts and hedging inadequate for this particular case. The study illuminates Russian geopolitical considerations and acceptance of vulnerability, which combined make long-term Russian energy policies more China dependent. Officially, Russia seeks diversification among Asian energy buyers, but its focus has increasingly been on China. Western sanctions imposed in 2014 for Russia’s role in Ukraine accelerated this trend. Moscow’s energy policies toward Beijing with its pipelines and long-term agreements are permanent arrangements that resemble strategic partnership policies. China is eager to increase energy relations with Russian companies, but Beijing also ensures that it does not become too dependent on one supplier. Russian concern over its increased dependence on China in the East is deemed secondary to expanding Russia’s customer base beyond the still-dominant European market.     

Music geography in Russia: non-auratic places and institutionalization “in becoming”

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the Tsoi Wall in Moscow, an iconic place on Russia's music map that appeared in Moscow in 1990 in memory of the cult Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi, to develop a framework for studying non-auratic music place – that is, places that are not connected with the biographies of musicians or musical events, but emerge directly from the experiences of visitors and fans. These places are constantly negotiated and only lightly formalized, but are nevertheless enduring. To analyze this type of place, we propose a concept of institutionalization “in becoming”. The case of the Tsoi Wall reveals that light formalization (vague and changing positions and rules, and openness to different interpretations of a place and ways of using it) leads to the recognition of the place as a significant one and to its popularity. We put institutionalization “in becoming” in a wider context and juxtapose it with well-studied musical places in Europe and the US.     

More than a storm in a teacup: the defence and security implications of Scottish independence

In September 2014 the people of Scotland will vote on whether to become an independent nation, with the defence and security of Scotland proving to be one of the more vociferous areas of debate. This article argues that defence and security implications of this referendum are far more fundamental than either the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ campaigns have admitted. It makes four points. First, it suggests that the Scottish government's plans for defence and security in NATO and the EU are at odds with its proposed armed forces and that Scotland may well find itself having to make far greater commitments to defence to assure its allies. Second, it argues that a vote for independence will represent a game‐changing event for the remainder of the United Kingdom's defence and security, which will have significant consequences for the United Kingdom's partners and allies in NATO, the European Union and elsewhere. Third, the article contends that even a vote against independence will have a long‐term impact, in that the ‘West Lothian question’ and Scottish support for nuclear disarmament influence the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review. Finally, the article highlights how this issue has revealed weaknesses in the think‐tank and academic communities, particularly in Scotland. The independence vote does, therefore, represent ‘more than a storm in a tea cup’ and thus there needs to be far greater engagement with these issues within the United Kingdom and elsewhere.     

From Pristina to Tskhinvali: the legacy of Operation Allied Force in Russia's relations with the West

This article reviews the main developments in the Kosovo crisis in the context of relations between Russia and NATO/the West. For Moscow, Operation Allied Force constituted a flagrant breach of international law, a threat to post-Cold War European security governance and a challenge to Russia's status in the international order. Official Russian interpretations, heavily influenced by domestic politics, reflect a perception among Russia's political elite that, rather than upholding liberal democratic values, NATO's intervention constituted a selective defence of the interests of the leading western powers.
Such views have influenced Moscow's position on the thorny question of Kosovo's independence and Russia's more assertive foreign and security policy in the recent period, not least in the conflict over South Ossetia in August 2008. Ultimately, Operation Allied Force resulted in the Russian governing elite reassessing its views on statehood, the international order and the norms underpinning international society.     

Putin's Russia: slowing the pendulum without stopping the clock

Vladimir Putin has been president of Russia for eighteen months, sufficienttime for some judgement about his style of leadership and achievements to have been made. He set out to restore order to a Russia that was fragmenting in Yeltsin's latter years and to revive Russians' pride in their country. Nonetheless, he remains committed to a liberal market economy integrated with the world economy. He encouraged force to bring order to Chechnya, but has not really tackled the problem of reconstruction. He has brought the regions under greater control by the centre, but has been prepared to compromise to avoid confrontation. His most tangible achievement to date has been in championing legislation, most of it long overdue, to establish the legal basis of a market economy. He has been able to exploit a working majority in the parliament, which Yeltsin never enjoyed. The success of this enterprise will depend to some degree on its political context. Persistent efforts by Putin and his team to exert control over the political process and the media will be counterproductive if they concentrate power with the president but leave him without broadly based, independent political support. Putin is likely to remain in power until 2008, however, so he has time on his side.     

Who supports secession? The determinants of secessionist attitudes among Turkey's Kurds

Who supports secession in a multiethnic country? What factors lead to secessionist or separatist attitudes? Despite the substantial interest in secessionist movements, the micro‐level factors and dynamics behind mass support for secession have been understudied. Using original and comprehensive data derived from two public opinion surveys, conducted in 2011 and 2013 with nationwide, representative samples, this study investigates the determinants of separatist attitudes among Turkey's Kurds. The empirical results show that perceptions of discrimination, ideological factors (i.e. a left‐right division and partisanship), region and religious sect do affect support for secession. Our findings provide strong support for the grievance theory and, further, show that ideology is an important factor. However, the results call into question arguments drawing attention to the role of modernisation (i.e. socio‐economic status) and of religiosity. The study also discusses some practical implications of the empirical findings.     

Essential Constructions? The ‘Cultural Bases’ of Nationalist Movements

Abstract. This article has three fundamental objectives. The first is to explore ways in which ideas about culture are relevant to nationalism. The second is to identify common ‘cultural bases’ which are called on to support secessionist and irredentist movements. The third, and perhaps most challenging objective, is to explore the character of these ‘cultural bases’ as well as the sources of their empowerment. To fulfil these goals the article is divided into five main sections. The first section introduces the argument that while the cultural bases of secessionist and irredentist movements are extremely influential motivators and legitimators of human actions, they are not, in themselves, ‘natural’ or immutable. This position is elucidated in the second section, where it is argued that the particular intellectual culture of eighteenth-century Western Europe gave rise to the concept of nation which, in turn, incorporated specific cultures into its definition of the fundamental units of humanity. This discussion is used as a basis for advancing the argument that the powerful capacity for ideas about culture to stimulate and reinforce secessionist and irredentist movements stems from two main sources, one of which is essential to human beings (i.e. the process of group formation) and one of which is constructed as essential (i.e. the concept of nation). In the fourth section the effectiveness of this combination is briefly illustrated by exploring shifts in the cultural bases which have been used over time to legitimise nationalist movements in Friesland, Quebec and Scotland. The concluding section uses the understanding of how ‘cultural bases’ are constituted and deployed to evaluate their impact and their ‘desirability’. It also suggests ways in which an awareness of the factors and processes associated with the construction and empowerment of culture can open the door to deploying them differently to achieve alternative ends.     

Diverse unity: creole contributions to interethnic integration in Guinea‐Bissau

The paper explores how creole categories of people who have constituted a small but influential minority in Guinea‐Bissau for centuries contributed to a countrywide, integrated national culture since the eve of independence in 1974. Since independence, several cultural representations previously exclusive to creole communities have been – driven by the nationalist independence movement and the early postcolonial state – transformed into representations of a new national culture, crossing ethnic and religious boundaries. The fact that creole identity and culture had been transethnic – i.e. creole identity brings together individuals of heterogeneous cultural, ethnic and geographic descent – during the colonial period, has fostered in postcolonial times the countrywide spread of previously exclusively creole cultural features. I argue that this ‘transethnicisation’ of creole cultural representations has unified Bissau‐Guineans across ethnic lines, causing a strong commitment with their nation ‘from below’.