Home-rule versus non-territorial autonomy? Western European national movements and their views on the minority question, 1919–1939

The leading elites of the ethnonationalist movements that developed in the aftermath of World War I in Western Europe usually refused to see their nations and territories as ‘national minorities’. In their view, they were stateless nations or nationalities. However, in the aftermath of World War I, the prior international discussion on the nationality principle was increasingly replaced with the notion of ‘minority rights’, enhanced by the implementation of the Minorities Treaties by the League of Nations. Thus, the term ‘national minority’ emerged as a label that permitted ethnonationalist activist to present their claims on the international stage. This became evident in the participation of some Western European national movements in the activities of some transnational non-governmental organisations, such as the Congress of European Nationalities (1925–1939). However, the general programme advocated by the most influential leaders of East-Central ethnic minorities, based on the extension of the personal principle and the implementation of non-territorial autonomy all over Europe, was hard to accept for ethnonationalist elites from Western Europe, which were interested in territorial home-rule and believed that their homelands did not fit in the category of ‘minority’. This article explores the modalities and limits of that cultural and political dialogue.     

(RE)MAPPING INDIGENOUS ‘RACE’/PLACE IN POSTCOLONIAL PENINSULAR MALAYSIA1

ABSTRACT. This paper focuses on how indigeneity has been constructed, deployed and ruptured in postcolonial Malay(si)a. Prior to the independence of Malaya in 1957, British colonial administrators designated certain groups of inhabitants as being ‘indigenous’ to the land through European imaginings of ‘race’. The majority, politically dominant Malays were deemed the definitive peoples of this geographical territory, and the terrain was naturalized as ‘the Malay Peninsula’. Under the postcolonial government, British conceptions of the peninsula were retained; the Malays were given political power and recognition of their ‘special (indigenous) position’ in ways that Orang Asli minorities—also considered indigenous ‐ were not. This uneven recognition is evident in current postcolonial political, economic, administrative and legal arrangements for Malays and Orang Asli. In recent years, Orang Asli advocates have been articulating their struggles over land rights by drawing upon transnational discourses concerning indigenous peoples. Recent judicial decisions concerning native title for the Orang Asli potentially disrupt ethno‐nationalist assertions of the peninsula as belonging to the ‘native’ Malays. These contemporary contests in postcolonial identity formations unsettle hegemonic geopolitical ‘race’/place narratives of Peninsular Malaysia.     

Tolerant majorities,loyal minorities and ‘ethnic reversals’: constructing minority rights at Versailles 1919*

ABSTRACT. The 1919 Versailles Peace Conference created new states in East Central Europe (ECE), but the imperfect implementation of the ‘one nation, one state’ formula resulted in more than twenty‐five million ‘unassimilable’ minorities. With the introduction of majoritarian democracy, this gave rise to what we term ‘ethnic reversals’: ‘formally dominant majorities’ suffered status decline, while previously ‘minoritised majorities’ found new political powers. Accordingly, the 1919 Minorities Treaties sought to manage these ‘ethnic reversals’ by instituting a liberal minority rights regime that tried to create both ‘tolerant majorities’ and ‘loyal minorities’. While the Treaties reflected the influences of Anglo‐American and Anglo‐American Jewish elites – the most notable voices of liberalism in an age of ethnic homogenisation – we suggest that in contexts of historical diversity with little institutionalised liberalism, ‘ethnic reversals’ raise issues that cannot be resolved within liberal conceptions of minority rights that rely solely or primarily on cultural protections.     

The ummah as nation: a reappraisal in the wake of the ‘Cartoons Affair’†

ABSTRACT. In the wake of the 2006 ‘Cartoons Affair’ which saw international protests by Muslims against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, it is clear that identity based on membership in the Islamic ummah goes far beyond simple religious affiliation. This essay presents a novel argument for treating the ummah (the transnational community of Muslim believers) as a nation. I begin with a theoretical treatment of the ummah as nation which employs historic and current interpretations of what constitutes nationhood. I then turn to the current state of the ummah; my findings present a potent nexus of information and communications technology (ICT), emergent elites, and Muslim migration to the West that has facilitated a hitherto impossible reification of the ummah. I also discuss how globalisation, Western media practices, and the nature of European society allow ‘ummahist’ elites to marginalise other voices in the transnational Muslim community. Based on the global events surrounding the Danish cartoons controversy of 2005–06, I conclude that there is need to recognise ummah‐based identity as more than just a profession of faith – it represents a new form of postnational, political identity which is as profound as any extant nationalism.     

Introduction: writing the contemporary history of European solidarity

Abstract

This introduction outlines the possibilities and perspectives of a history of ‘European solidarity’. While – given the high frequency with which the term is used in contemporary political debate – this is most certainly a hot-button issue, the topic has long been neglected by researchers on the history of European integration and European ideas. The reasons for this lack of empirical studies lie in the vagueness and the normativity of the term. This introduction thus conceptualizes ‘European solidarity’ as an analytical tool for research and discusses three major approaches to its historicization: first, deconstructing ideas and discursive notions of ‘European solidarity’, a term that has been omnipresent in primary sources in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; second, investigating concrete practices of ‘European solidarity’, for example in welfare-state policies or in the work of civil-society actors; third, looking at historical limits of ‘European solidarity’ which help to bring contesting perceptions and motives into view. Finally, the introduction addresses the question of the analytical benefits of a history of ‘European solidarity’: it points among other things to new periodizations that help to avoid a teleological orientation in European historiography, as well as to the detachment of the European integration process from the institutionalization of the European Communities.     

Ethnic minorities and the eugenic promise: the Transylvanian Saxon experiment with national renewal in inter-war Romania

The history of inter-war European eugenic movements overwhelmingly focuses on projects proposed by nation-states, and in doing so frequently overlooks the possibility of ethnic minorities pursuing independent, or even competing, nation (re-)building agendas. This article explores how the German Transylvanian Saxon minority perceived, appropriated, and ultimately pursued the eugenic promise of a healthier, purer, nation in inter-war Romania. It explores the life and work of two of the discourse's leading figures, namely Heinrich Siegmund and Alfred Csallner, before turning to eugenic policy of awarding substantial ‘honorary gifts’ for supposedly eugenically valuable children pursued by Fritz Fabritius' Fascist Self-Help movement after 1933.

The analysis of Saxon eugenics offered here wants to be understood as both a case study and a stepping stone, an opportunity to compare and contrast it with those potentially advanced by other ethnic minorities, and to thereby rethink the relationship between eugenics and ethnic minorities more widely. Therefore, to augment historiography's perception of eugenics as a state-wielded tool of victimisation and assimilation with another perspective, namely that of how and why a biological understanding of identity was ideally suited to an ethnic minority striving towards empowerment and re-homogenisation – towards a ‘eugenic fortress’.     

Europe at the crossroads of three worlds: alternative histories and connections of European solidarity with the Third World, 1950s–80s

Abstract

Over the past few years, there has been growing interdisciplinary interest in the history of European solidarity movements that mobilized on behalf of the ‘Third World’ in the wake of the post-war decolonization process. Focusing on European campaigns against the Vietnam War and Pinochet’s Chile, this article aims at positioning these international solidarity movements in the broader history of North–South and East–West exchanges and connections in Europe during the Cold War. It explores some key ideas, actors and alternative networks that have remained little studied in mainstream accounts and public memories, but which are key to understanding the development of transnational activism in Europe and its relevance to broader fields of research, such as the history of Communism, decolonization, human rights, the Cold War and European identity. It delves into the impact of East–West networks and the Communist ‘First World’ in the discovery of the Third World in Western Europe, analyses the role of Third World diplomacy in this process, and argues how East–West and North–South networks invested international solidarity campaigns on ‘global’ issues with ideas about Europe’s past and present. Together, these networks turned resistance against the Vietnam War, human-rights violations in Pinochet’s Chile, and other causes in the Third World into themes for détente and pan-European cooperation across the borders of the Iron Curtain, and made them a symbol to build a common identity between the decolonized world and Europe. What emerges from this analysis is both a critique of West-centred narratives, which are focused on anti-totalitarianism, as well as an invitation to take North–South and East–West contacts, as well as the role of European identities, more seriously in the international history of human rights and international solidarity.     

Western leveraged pedagogy of Central and Eastern Europe: discourses of homophobia,tolerance, and nationhood

This article focuses on the relations between the two geo-temporal categories – Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and West/Europe – in discussions about sexual politics, homophobia, tolerance, and nationhood. It contributes to the existing literature about homonationalism and sexual nationalisms by introducing CEE to the debate's geographical loci, so far mostly invested in West/Europe and its relations to Islam. It argues that it is important to consider CEE in sexual nationalism debates because of its framing as the European (homophobic) Other in the emerging discourses of ‘homoinclusive Europe’. This article introduces the concept of leveragedpedagogy, which captures the specificity of the West/Europe – CEE discourses of sexual liberation, advancement, and backwardness. Leveraged pedagogy is a hegemonic didactical relation where the CEE figures as an object of the West/European ‘pedagogy’, and is framed as permanently ‘post-communist’, ‘in transition’ (i.e. not liberal, not yet, not enough), and homophobic. Such ‘taking care of’ CEE, it is argued, is a form of cultural hegemony of the Western EUropean liberal model of rights as the universal.     

Connections between populism and nationalism: Evidence from Jair Bolsonaro's speeches

Recent studies have warned about the close relationship between populism and nationalism. This article offers an empirical contribution to the examination of this relationship by analysing the presence of populist and nationalist elements in the official speeches of the outgoing Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. We make two contributions to this expanding literature. First, we show that the supposed ambiguity between populism and nationalism can be resolved by an approach that clearly separates the two concepts. Second, we find that Bolsonaro is more populist than nationalist. His populism has elements in common with other European populist leaders (attacking political parties and the political class), but he distances himself from them by presenting authoritarian traits. Nativism is completely absent (unlike in Europe), but ‘sovereignism’ (‘us’ vs. ‘other nations or institutions’) and ‘civilisationism’ (‘us’ vs. ‘minorities’) sometimes overlap with populism. We conclude that a tension exists between populism and nationalism that can endanger the ‘good’ relationship between the populist leader and their supporters. This is something that future research on populism should consider.     

Europe's odyssey?: political myth and the European Union

The article argues that the European Union, despite being a different kind of polity, has political myths that are similar to those that have characterised nation‐states. It examines two types of political myth – foundation and exceptionalism – and demonstrates that they have been used in an attempt to make the European Union understandable and acceptable as a form of governing. The article also argues that political myths about the EU have had limited success not only because they are based on the same content as national myths but also because they do not always conform to recognisable narrative forms. The EU, with its ambiguous aim of creating ‘an ever closer union’, does not provide the basis for sacred narratives that become normative and cognitive maps that make the new polity ‘normal’ and provide the EU with ontological security.     

The new minority rights regime in Poland: the experience of the German,Belarussian and Jewish minorities since 1989

In the post–communist period national minorities have returned to the international agenda. For Poland, as for other applicants to the European Union, the treatment of national minorities is proving to be a litmus test for accession. In this article I argue that national minorities have benefited from the new minority rights regime, but I show that each minority’s ability to voice its concerns and develop its community is predicated upon the accumulation of political and financial capital. Drawing upon the experience of the German, Belarussian and Jewish minorities in post–communist Poland, I argue that political capital has been accrued through the ballot box and through scalar strategies of empowerment. Those minorities that have been unable to raise their stock of capital (namely the Belarussians) have seen themselves marginalised socially, culturally and economically despite the guarantees of the new minority rights regime to promote and protect them.     

Tolerant exclusion: expanding constricted narratives of wartime ethnic and civic nationalism1

ABSTRACT. During war, the demarcation ‘enemy alien’– whether on ethnic or civic grounds – can lead to loss of political, social or economic rights. Yet not all minorities are excluded even though they pose problems for civic and ethnic national categories of belonging. This article explores the experiences of an ethno‐religious minority who posed an intriguing dilemma for ethnic and civic categorisation in North America during World War II. The Mennonite experience enables a close examination of the relationship between a minority ethnic (and religious) group and majority concepts of wartime civic and ethnic nationalism. The article supports arguments that both ethnic and civic nationalism produce markers for the exclusion of minority groups during wartime. It reveals that minority groups can unintentionally become part of majority ‘nationalisms’ as the content of what defines the national ideal shifts over time. The experiences also suggest that a minority group can help mobilise symbolic resources that participate in transforming what defines the national ideal.     

The new Cambridge modern history. volume xiii: companion volume

This article explores the link between religion and politics, religious liberty and the rights of religious minorities, by focusing on the constitutions which Italian states adopted and discarded from 1796 to 1849. It concerns questions about the ‘national character’ and the rights and duties of the citizen, and argues that – far from being ‘an outlet’ for material discontent – questions of religious identity and pluralism were integral to the Risorgimento definition of liberty. In this context, the author explores also the Mazzinian vision of a democratic republic inspired by an acephalous and non-hierarchical civil religion, similar to the Unitarian Transcendentalism practiced by some of his New York admirers – a far cry from the ‘religions of politics’ inspired by Saint Simon and Auguste Comte.     

What is new and what is nationalist about Europe's new nationalism? Explaining the rise of the far right in Europe

Far‐right parties are on the rise across Europe. Their shared populist rhetoric, emphasis on sovereignty and policies that promote a ‘national preference’ has facilitated the term ‘the new nationalism’. According to an emerging consensus, this new nationalism is primarily a demand‐side phenomenon triggered by cultural grievances, i.e. a cultural backlash, driven by those on the wrong end of a new transnational cleavage. This explanation we argue tends to overlook important variations across countries and across time. As such, in this article, we contest the view that the ‘new nationalism’ is a linear and coherent phenomenon best understood as a cultural backlash. Specifically, our argument is threefold: (1) it is important to conceptually distinguish between populism, nationalism and the far right in order to draw meaningful conclusions about the extent to which this phenomenon is linear, coherent and comparable across cases; (2) voters' economic concerns remain pivotal within the context of the transnational cleavage, entailing that voting behaviour is structured by two dimensions of contestation; (3) the explanatory power of nationalism is in the supply, i.e. the ways in which parties use nationalism strategically in an attempt to broaden their appeal.     

The art of integration: probing the role of cultural policy in the making of Europe

Mirroring Jacques Delors’ much quoted ‘No one falls in love with a common market,’ there has been an increased emphasis on ‘culture’ as a vital tool in the European Union (EU) integration process. Yet, how these programs for ‘cultural exchange and dialogue’ affect artistic production, and reception, is rarely discussed. Drawing on interviews with actors in Berlin and Istanbul who engage with cultural policy in the European arena (2005–2008), this paper aims to illuminate the tensions that this nascent European cultural policy has engendered, not least with regard to the EU stipulations on national cultural sovereignty. I argue that while EU cultural initiatives indeed produce a kind of ‘Europeanization,’ they do so mainly through thematic and institutional incorporation. However, this type of integration tends to recast power differentials within the EU and beyond, despite proclaimed goals to the contrary, as cultural exchange programs tend to reinforce distinctions between ‘art proper’ and ‘ethnic cultural production.’     

Open borders as an act of solidarity among peoples,between states or with migrants: changing applications of solidarity within the Schengen process

Abstract

The article analyses the historical understanding of the term ‘solidarity’ in the context of the Schengen process, which started in the 1980s and remains relevant until today. During this time, the Schengen Area grew from encompassing five Western European countries to 26 member-states across the whole continent. In this context, the term ‘solidarity’ was referred to frequently in official documents, in speeches or in the media – despite the fact that the term was not at all central at the time of foundation. It is important to note, however, that during the process of enlargement, the meaning of the term ‘solidarity’ changed repeatedly. First meant to denote solidarity between all the European peoples, in the Western European Union it also referred to the reconciliation of European peoples after the Second World War. In the 1990s, the official understanding of solidarity concerning Schengen shifted to describe an effective inter-state cooperation among the EU member-states. In the last years, the term solidarity was most evoked in the call for an even burden-sharing within the European Union. All these different understandings have one aspect in common: they focus on the internal dimension of European solidarity. However, during the entire Schengen process, the term ‘solidarity’ was also applied in another, an external, global dimension, to call for humanitarian support towards refugees reaching the Schengen Area from anywhere in the world. The article argues that the term ‘solidarity’ must hence be looked at as a political concept and not a neutral, analytic term. Critical regard for the current political interests as well as the concrete historical framework are crucial for any academic discussion of European solidarity. The categories of inclusion and exclusion especially must be core aspects when analysing the term ‘solidarity’ historically.     

La Méditerranée solide: un espace double en construction

There exists a space of the ‘solid Mediterranean’. This concept was first proposed by the Annales’s co-founder Lucien Febvre in 1944–45, during a course on Europe in the longue durée. The flexible borders of this double space, both conceptual and contextual, remain in construction within the on-going and global reality of the solid Mediterranean’s space. The comparative history of European societies promoted during the interwar period by Marc Bloch, the other Annales founder, contributes to the construction of said space. Examining this space allows us to concretely articulate scales of analysis from the local to the global. The article is based on a comparative analysis of two Italian and Spanish cases that appear to be particular and paradigmatic (‘exceptional normal’, Edoardo Grendi) of – respectively – Italy’s so-called ‘southern question’ (questione meridionale) and the Spanish ‘agrarian question’ (cuestión agraria). Thus the article helps to conceptualize the space of the Méditerranée solide, marked by the complex and long-term Southern European question. The article compares Il Ministro della mala vita (The Minister of the Corruption, 1910) by historian Gaetano Salvemini and Del caciquismo trágico (On Tragical Caciquism, 1913) by republican journalist Pedro Torres. Through these ‘exceptionally normal’ case studies, taken together and explained reciprocally, it is possible to better understand the space of the solid Mediterranean. The social realities of the Spanish cuestión agraria and the Italian questione meridionale, as well as the conditions of local historiographical production on such realities are, indeed, a consubstantial part of the European transnational, global space of the ‘solid Mediterranean’.     

Caught between nationalism and internationalism: replicating histories of Antarctica in Hobart

In December 2013, a replica of ‘Mawson’s Hut’ (a historic structure in Antarctica) joined a growing list of polar tourist attractions in the Australian city of Hobart, Tasmania. Initially promoted as the city’s ‘latest tourist hotspot,’ the ‘replica museum’ quickly took its place in Hobart’s newly redeveloped waterfront, reinforcing the city’s identity as an ‘Antarctic Gateway’. The hut forms part of a heritage cluster, an urban assemblage that weaves together the local and national, the past and present, the familiar and remote. In this article, we examine the replica hut in relation to the complex temporal and spatial relations that give it meaning, and to which it gives meaning. Our focus is the hut as a point of convergence between memory, material culture and the histories – and possible futures – of nationalism and internationalism. We argue that the replica hut, as a key site of Hobart’s Antarctic heritage tourism industry, reproduces and prioritises domestic readings of exploration and colonisation over a reading of Antarctic engagement as a transnational endeavour. However, like other ‘gateway city’ heritage sites, it has the potential for aligning with a larger trend in international heritage conservation and heritage diplomacy, that of prioritising narratives of the past that weave together transnational connections and associations.     

‘Why not make films for New York?’: the interaction between cultural,political and commercial perspectives in Swedish film policy 1963–2013

During the last two decades, film support, film policy and the public financing of audiovisual production in Scandinavia and particularly Sweden have undergone extensive change. These transformations may be seen as responses to globalisation, to increased sub-national regional independence as well as to the emergence of ideas related to the nurturing of the ‘creative industries’. They may also be seen to be a consequence of the increasing permeability of the borders of European nation-states. This article traces a history of film policy in a geographically marginal part of Europe that has been characterised by a range of tensions as a result of competing definitions of film as art and commerce. These tensions are traced back to the 1960s when film support were first introduced and the first seeds of conflict – still discernible in the present situation – were planted.     

The image of the city in modern literature

This article considers the meanings attached to refugeehood, repatriation and liberal citizenship in the twentieth century. Refugees are those who have been unjustly expelled from their political community. Their physical displacement is above all symbolic of a deeper political separation from the state and the citizenry. ‘Solving’ refugees’ exile is therefore not a question of halting refugees’ flight and reversing their movement, but requires political action restoring citizenship.

All three ‘durable solutions’ developed by the international community in the twentieth century – repatriation, resettlement and local integration – are intended to restore a refugee's access to citizenship, and through citizenship the protection and expression of their fundamental human rights. Yet repatriation poses particular challenges for liberal political thought. The logic of repatriation reinforces the organization of political space into bounded nation–state territories. However, it is the exclusionary consequences of national controls over political membership – and through this of access to citizenship rights – that prompt mass refugee flows. Can a framework for repatriation be developed which balances national state order and liberal citizenship rights?

This article argues that using the social contract model to consider the different obligations and pacts between citizens, societies and states can provide a theoretical framework through which the liberal idea of citizenship and national controls on membership can be reconciled.

Historical evidence suggests that the connections in practice between ideas of citizenship and repatriation have been far more complex. In particular, debate between Western liberal and Soviet authoritarian/collectivist understandings of the relationship between citizen and state played a key role in shaping the refugee protection regime that emerged after World War II and remains in place today. Repatriation – or more accurately liberal resistance to non-voluntary refugee repatriation – became an important tool of Cold War politics and retains an important value for states interested in projecting and reaffirming the primacy of liberal citizenship values. Yet the contradictions in post-Cold War operational use of repatriation to ‘solve’ displacement, and a growing reliance on ‘state-building’ exercises to validate refugees’ returns demonstrates that tension remains between national state interests and the universal distribution of liberal rights, as is particularly evident when considering Western donor states’ contemporary policies on refugees and asylum. For both intellectual and humanitarian reasons there is therefore an urgent need for the political theory underpinning refugee protection to be closely examined, in order that citizenship can be placed at the centre of refugees’ ‘solutions’.