Dig Peat!

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-203
Author(s):  
Klaus Richter
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
International Image ◽  
Merchant Class ◽  
The Creation

The chapter examines national policies to economically empower the titular nations and thus establish a national merchant class. It argues that these policies bore rather different results: the marginalization of minorities and the creation of states that were major economic agents. It explores how attempts of foreign powers to exploit the new Polish and Baltic states economically interacted with the emerging governments’ efforts to take control of the region’s raw materials from the disintegrating commercial monopolies of the German occupation. Using the example of timber and flax trade, the chapter retraces how territorial fragmentation spurred distinct policies that shaped states within East Central Europe, but also an international image of the region: the collapse of sovereignty spurred the commercial engagement of outside powers, which in turn contributed to domestic efforts to secure sovereignty, seal off the territory, and organize commerce within the titular nations.

scholarly journals DECLINING SYSTEMIC TRUST IN THE POLITICAL ELITE IN THE EU’S NEW MEMBER STATES: THE DIVERGENCE BETWEEN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE BALTIC STATES

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Ágh
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
Member States ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
New Member States ◽  
Systemic Trust ◽  
The Baltic

In the last decade there has been a process of rolling-back Europeanization efforts in the EU’s new member states (NMS), a process intensified by the global crisis. This de-Europeanization and de-democratization process in the NMS has become a significant part of a more general polycrisis in the EU. The backslide of democracy in the NMS as a topical issue has usually been analysed in terms of macro-politics, formal-legal state institutions, party systems, and macroeconomics. The most significant decline of democratization, however, is evident in the public’s decreasing participation in politics and in the eroding trust. This decline in systemic trust in political elites in the NMS has been largely neglected by analysts. Therefore, this paper concentrates on this relatively overlooked dimension of declining trust and social capital in the NMS. This analysis employs the concepts of governance, trust, and social capital to balance the usual formalistic top-down approach with a bottom-up approach that better illustrates the divergence between East-Central Europe and the Baltic states’ sub-regional development.

scholarly journals Joint Military Forces of East-Central Europe in the Light of Selected Political Concepts of the Polish Émigré Milieu

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 299-312
Author(s):  
Robert Zapart
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Defence Policy ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Fundamental Values ◽  
Stable Development ◽  
Common Security

This article attempts to analyse the creation of common armed forces in East-Central Europe on the basis of selected integration concepts of the Polish émigré circles. They considered the notion of consolidating the potentials of countries sharing similar historical experiences as well as a sense of being threatened and protecting similar fundamental values to be part of a larger process of providing the Old Continent with guarantees of security and stable development. From the perspective of international relations at that time, however, none of the concepts of a common security and defence policy could have achieved success, although it could have been considered as one of the alternatives for the development of the process of continental integration, especially if it had been linked to the replenishment of the deficient assets in the potentials of other actors of international relations close to East-Central Europe in terms of development and culture.

scholarly journals European Regional Integration in the Drafting of the Eastern Pact in 1934–1935: Interests of the Baltic Entente and the Little Entente

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Dalia Bukelevičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Baltic States ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
European Regional

This article follows the interests and actions of the countries of Baltic and Little ententes with regard to the projected Eastern Pact, which raised marked interest in East-Central Europe in 1934-1935. It seeks to give an answer to the question whether the negotiations over the Eastern Pact brought the interests of the Baltic states closer to those of the Little Entente. It highlights that the progress of negotiations made it clear that each country was more concerned with its security than the common security of the entire bloc, even though both the Little Entente and the Baltic Entente were established for the sake of safeguarding security of their member states and harmonising their foreign policy in this respect. Both regional security bodies declared their agreement to the Eastern Pact but the key difference was that the Baltic Entente was expected to participate in the Eastern Pact directly, whereas only Czechoslovakia was singled out from among the members of the Little Entente. The analysis concludes that Lithuania and Czechoslovakia were the two countries which were most actively concerned with the conclusion of the Eastern Pact.

Yet Another Wire Entanglement

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-156
Author(s):  
Klaus Richter
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Small States ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Local Agency ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
International Image ◽  
International Discourse ◽  
The Impact

This chapter looks at the effect of territorial fragmentation, starting from the level of the local economy. Subsequently, it traces its repercussions to international politics, which led to the formation of a new international image of East Central Europe as inherently fragmented and particularistic. The chapter assumes a multi-dimensional approach to the creation of new borders between Silesia and Estonia through military developments, through bilateral, multi-lateral, or international dynamics, and puts a strong focus on local agency, e.g. in the case of merchants, who were among the most important agents to mitigate the impact of borders and re-establish severed networks. Moreover, the chapter explores how the proliferation of borders and scepticism concerning territorial size shaped a highly normative and pessimistic international discourse about the survivability of the new ‘small states’, which many regarded to be merely provisional states sooner or later to be reintegrated into recovering Germany and Russia

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