University of St Andrews
St Andrews, Scotland, UK
May 29, 2015, Friday
Conference
Between Federalism, Autonomy and Centralism: Central and Eastern Europe in the 20 th and 21st
Centuries
Centre for Russian, Soviet, Central and Eastern European Studies
and
Institute for Transnational and Spatial History
Commentators
Neal Ascherson is a world-renowned Scottish writer and journalist. His
main books include, Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland (2002), Black
Sea: The Birthplace of Civilisation and Barbarism (1995), The Struggles for
Poland (1988), Games With Shadows (1988), The Polish August: The Selflimiting Revolution (1981), and The King Incorporated: Leopold the Second
and the Congo (1963). He also wrote for the following television series and
documentaries, Cold War (1998), The Struggles for Poland (1987), The
Spanish Civil War (1983), The World at War (1973-1974).
Professor Colin Kidd, Head, School of History, specializes in the history of
unionism in Britain and Scotland, and recently in the intellectual history of
the English Enlightenment and its nineteenth-century aftermath. His
publications include Union and Unionisms: Political Thought in Scotland
1500-2000 (Cambridge 2008), The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in
the Atlantic World 1600-2000 (Cambridge 2006), British Identities before
Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the British Atlantic World, 16001800 (Cambridge 1999), Subverting Scotland’s Past: Scottish Whig
Historians and the Creation of an Anglo-British Identity, 1689-c.1830
(Cambridge 1993).
Abstracts and Biographies of the Participants
Professor Olaf Mörke holds the Chair for Early Modern History at the
University of Kiel in Germany. He lectured and did research at various
universities in Germany, the Netherlands and Britain focusing on
governance in early modern Europe, especially in the Netherlands and
around the Baltic littoral. His publications include, Wilhelm von Oranien.
(1533–1584). Fürst und „Vater“ der Republik (2007), „Stadtholder“ oder
„Staetholder“? Die Funktion des Hauses Oranien und seines Hofes in der
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politischen Kultur der Republik der Vereinigten Niederlande im 17.
Jahrhundert (1987) and Rat und Bürger in der Reformation. Soziale
Gruppen und kirchlicher Wandel in den welfischen Hansestädten Lüneburg,
Braunschweig und Göttingen (1983). At present he is working on the
history of the Baltic region.
From Insurrection to Confederation – Swiss Concepts of
(Con-)Federalism from a Comparative Perspective
Switzerland has been characterised as a ‘Nation of Will’ (Willensnation).
This common will has the specific aim here to promote a maximum of
political freedom. The Swiss Constitutions of 1848 and of 1999 emphasise
the fundamentally federal character of the polity. Sovereignty rests with the
cantons, not to the entire country. Subsidiarity is the main principle of state
organisation in Switzerland. Frequent plebiscites are characteristic of the
highly developed bottom-up-process of political decision-making.
Multilingualism and polyconfessionality have been typical of Switzerland.
However, the self-stereotype of the Willensnation recently resulted in a
political climate strengthening a certain Swiss attitude of moral superiority
over ‘the rest of the world’. In my contribution I will show that the principle
of the Willensnation, the acceptance of a highly federalised political system,
and the cultural diversity combined with the attitude of moral superiority
constitute the ‘DNA’ of Switzerland. This has been the case since the
confederation(s) started as an insurrection against the hostile environment,
namely the political and social values different from those of the
Confederates during the 13th and 14th centuries. The upheaval produced
political and social techniques to negotiate the bonum commune, which
might appear both archaic and (post-)modern.
Wilfried Swenden is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of
Edinburgh, specialized in comparative territorial politics, federalism and
Indian Politics. He has published widely in this area, including in scholarly
journals such as the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of
Common Market Studies, Party Politics, Publius: the Journal of Federalism,
Regional & Federal Studies, Regional Studies, Territory, Politics and
Governance and West European Politics. Since 2008 he has been co-editor
of Regional and Federal Studies. He is currently (2014-2017) heading a
Leverhulme International network on Continuity and Change in Indian
Federalism involving three UK and three India-based universities. Since
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2012 he has been Vice-Chair of IPSA RC28, the Research Committee on
Comparative Federalism and Multi-Level Governance of the International
Political Science Association.
Built to Last? Why Belgium is Not the Next Czechoslovakia (or
Scotland)
In the period between 2007 and 2014, Belgium went through a profound
political crisis, the most visible sign of which was the – then – world-record
setting federal government formation after the 2010 federal elections,
lasting 541 days. Yet, in 2012, the newly formed federal government
settled on further territorial reform and two years later, the main
protagonist of such reform, the New Flemish Alliance even entered the
federal government. In what remains a very unsettled continental political
climate, Belgian politics therefore appears to have regained some calm. My
intervention will try to explain what caused the onset of the crisis but also
its subsequent decline. I will argue that for all parties, the short-term costs
of disintegration outflank the long-term benefits. In the short term the
political and economic costs of full scale independence are simply too large,
while a long-standing culture of elitist politics ruled out a referendum on
independence as possible mechanism for settling the constitutional future of
the Belgian state. In this regard, Belgium is neither a new Czechoslovakia,
nor an alternative Scotland.
Dr. Alexander Osipov is a Senior Research Associate of the European
Centre for Minority Issues (Flensburg, Germany) since September 2010. He
is heading ECMI’s Justice & Governance Cluster. His research interests
include ethnic and racial discrimination, non-territorial autonomy, and
models of diversity policies; he is also doing research on post-communist
transformation in Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. His publications include: K
Cordell, T Agarin, A Osipov (eds), Institutional Legacies of Communism –
Change and Continuities in Minority Protection (Routledge 2013); and E
Nimni, A Osipov, D J Smith (eds), The Challenge of Non-Territorial
Autonomy: Theory and Practice (Peter Lang 2013).
Territorial autonomy as a tool of minority accommodation in the
post-Soviet space: the cases of Ukraine and Moldova
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Seven former Soviet countries include or recently included territorial
autonomies while most of the latter are widely referred to as entities
established on ethnic grounds. The paper focuses on two countries with
democratic rule (namely Ukraine and Moldova) whose autonomous
arrangements and related public deliberations combine, on the one hand,
the features of Soviet institutional settings and, on the other, knowledge
and values transferred from ‘old’ democracies. The author seeks to explain
why some ideas pertaining to the accommodation of ethnic diversity in the
framework of territorial autonomies are translated into practices while some
demonstrate no direct impact on power relations and state-building
processes. The author argues that the autonomous arrangements in
Ukraine and Moldova to a large extend embody Soviet institutional legacies
and techniques of government, such as silent symbolic recognition and also
non-articulation of the autonomies’ ethnic underpinning; ‘fuzzy legality’; the
prevalence of informal institutions and their symbiosis with the formal ones;
systemic discrepancies between symbolic and instrumental policies; neopatrimonial co-optation of minority spokespersons into the system of
governance; mobilization and channeling of public activities on ethnic
grounds into the cultural domain; or framing of social equality as
predominantly the suppression of encroachments on the political stability.
Dr Pavel Tereshkovich is an expert of the Independent Belarusian
Bologna Committee. His research interests include ethnicity, the theory and
history of nationalism, and the study of minorities. He has published on
these topics widely and edits the first Belarusian journal on minority issues
Forum. For over a decade he supervised the Carnegie-supported
international study of social transformation in Belarus, Ukraine and
Moldova. In the past he established the Chair of Ethnography at the
Belarusian State University in Minsk and headed the Department of History
at the European Humanities University (‘Belarusian University in Exile’) in
Vilnius, Lithuania.
Modern Belarusian State: A Case of Postmodern Soviet-style
authoritarian centralism
Belarus is a particular postsocialist state which to a large extent has
preserved the Soviet ideological rhetoric and mode of governance. It is a
highly centralized unitary state where the concentration of power is
enhanced by modern tools of telecommunication. The core element of the
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governance is the s- called “vertical of power”, meaning strict centralized
control over not only all the state institutions, but also over all forms of
economic and public activities. Belarus is ethnically a homogenous polity. At
the same time there are some peculiarities observed between its western
and eastern halves, mainly in the confessional composition of population,
cultural legacy and geopolitical orientations. These peculiarities are not
reflected in the state administration, as they are typically levelled out by
the constant rotation of civil servants across the country. Despite this
modern aspect, the system of governance nevertheless preserves some
premodern features, for instance, giving privileged access to power for
candidates from certain regions.
Ana S. Trbovich is Dean and Associate Professor at the Faculty of
Economics, Finance and Administration-FEFA in Belgrade, Serbia. She
teaches and writes on European integration, economic development,
strategic and public administration. She consults for international
organizations including the EU, OECD, World Bank and USAID. From 2002
to 2006, Dr Trbovich served as Assistant Minister of International Economic
Relations, coordinating Serbia’s EU accession process, and in 2013/14 as
Special Advisor to Minister of Economy in charge of entrepreneurship and
competitiveness policy. Her publications include: A Legal Geography of
Yugoslavia’s Disintegration (OUP 2008) and Public Administration and
European Integration of Serbia (2010).
Federalism or Centralism? The Global Impact of Failed Regulation of
Self-Determination in Former Yugoslavia
Self-determination can be expressed through a spectrum of legal forms
ranging from human rights to minority rights, autonomy and the most
extreme but also most frequently demanded - secession (usually termed
"independence"). Whether federalism is a centrifugal or centripetal force
influencing expression of "a minority's claim to self-determination" will be
the subject of this discussion paper, focusing on the example of Yugoslavia
and the tension between federalism and centralism that yielded to a vicious
conflict. The author will also attempt to reference this discussion to present,
active, or rather reignited, conflicts. The research question would
additionally be juxtaposed to the role of the level of economic development
and economic turmoil such as the global financial crisis, and how economics
impacts regulation of self-determination in different countries. Finally the
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role of precedents would be evaluated - contributing to the vivid debate as
to how different or similar are cases of Kosovo, Crimea, Quebec, Scotland
and Catalonia, and how reaction of national governments and international
community to those cases shape policy-making and attitudes toward
federalism as a mode to regulate self-determination.
Soeren Keil, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at
Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom. His research
focuses on the political systems of the post-Yugoslav states, as well as
territorial autonomy as a mode of conflict- resolution and the foreign policy
of new states (particularly in the Balkans). His book Multinational
Federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina was published with Ashgate in
December 2013. He is also the editor of State-Building in the Western
Balkans (Routledge, 2013) and the co-editor of The EU and Member State
Building – European Foreign Policy in the Western Balkans (Routledge
2014).
Federalism as a Tool of Conflict Resolution: The Case of Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina became a federal country in 1995, as a result of
the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the 3.5 year-long conflict. Its
constitutional framework was part of an international peace treaty and
divided the country into two entities, according to the cease-fire agreement
of Summer 1995. Since then, the Bosnian state has become more
centralised, albeit more as a result of international pressure than elite
consensus and constitutional reform. The key features of Bosnia’s political
system after 1995 have been the strong focus on power-sharing between
Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats and the use of highly decentralised decisionmaking, which is characterised by a weak centre and ethnically defined
territorial units which have a lot of autonomy.
The presentation will demonstrate how federalism can serve to pacify a
violent conflict and hold a country together, despite substantial centrifugal
tendencies. However, it will also emphasise the importance of a voluntary
agreement on federal features and underlining federal values, which has
been absent in Bosnia. It will explain how federalism was successful as a
tool of conflict resolution but ultimately unsuccessful in building a modern
state based on three constituent peoples. By doing so, it will also be
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discussed which lessons can be learnt from Bosnia, especially for other
deeply divided societies.
Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov, Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences, have worked in the field of Romani studies for more than 3
decades and published widely on Roma (Gypsies) in Bulgaria, Balkans and
Central and Eastern Europe. They major publications include the first-ever
monographs on Roma history and ethnography of the Roma in Bulgaria
(1997) and on the Roma in the Ottoman Empire (2000); alongside a book
Roma in the Black Sea region (2008). Elena is President of the Gypsy Lore
Society, which is the world’s oldest organization of Roma studies. Both,
Elena and Vesselin are members of the editorial boards of Romani Studies
and of Grazer Romani Studien. From January 2015 Elena Marushiakova is a
Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of St. Andrews.
Roma (Gypsies) in Central and Eastern Europe Between Different
Models of Statehood
We discuss whether the model of statehood (federalism, autonomy, or
centralism) affects the situation of Roma in the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe that were formerly part of the so-called socialist camp.
Firstly, we scrutinize the situation of Roma across the region in selected
federal and centralist states, alongside autonomous regions during
socialism. Secondly, we outline the change in the situation of the Roma
after the fall of the Iron Curtain in countries that keep the former model of
statehood and in countries that decided to change it. For the sake of
comparison we also sketch the situation of Roma in the two non-socialist
countries of Austria and (West) Germany. In conclusion we reflect on
whether the model of statehood is of import for the situation of Roma, or
maybe other factors exert a more decisive influence in this respect.
Dr Michael Talbot received his doctorate in Ottoman history from the
School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 2013 for a thesis
examining Ottoman-British relations in the eighteenth century. Following a
year's lectureship at St Andrews, he is currently an ERC Post-doctoral
researcher working at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne as part of the
'Mediterranean Reconfigurations' project, examining commercial litigation
and intercultural trade in Ottoman Algeria. His research has covered
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seventeenth and eighteenth century Ottoman diplomatic and commercial
history, but he is increasingly interested in ideas of space and the body in
the late Ottoman context.
The Idea of 'Millet' in the Late Ottoman Empire and Republic of
Turkey
This paper will address the question of identity for Muslims in the late
Ottoman Empire and Republic of Turkey, considering how the merger of a
confessional category with a new national label in the Republic of Turkey
deprived Muslim minorities of political and cultural autonomy. The millet
system – the division of Ottoman society by religious confession – is often
employed to conjure up rose-tinted images of a tolerant, multi-confessional
society, as a contrast to the inter-communal hatred and slaughter that
followed. Yet it can well be argued that the millet system persists in the
contemporary Republic of Turkey, defining normative identity in terms of
nationality and religion. In the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the
word 'millet' transformed from describing a confessional identity to a
national one. Yet within this term, the idea of a state-defined, monolithic
community persists. In the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim millet referred to
all (Sunni) Muslims, be they Turks, Kurds, or Arabs. This idea continued
during the wars of the 1920s, but the project of creating a homogenous
Turkish republic posed a number of issues regarding identity. After having
been considered as separate-but-equal citizens under the homogenising
late Ottoman notion of 'Ottomanism', Greeks, Armenians, and Jews
returned to being communal minorities following the 1923 Treaty of
Lausanne. Consequently, the Muslim majority was redefined as a national
millet under the label of 'Turk', leaving Muslim minorities, particularly
Kurds, Laz, Zaza, and Arabs, with few outlets for political and cultural
expression beyond the bounds of 'Turkishness'. There is therefore
significant continuity between the Ottoman and Turkish polities in terms of
defining and attempting to regulate a normative identity for the Muslim
majority, to the detriment of Muslim minorities.
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