Migration, International Relations and the New Europe: Theoretical Perspectives from Institutional Political Sociology

1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 596-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin O. Heisler
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
International System ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
And Migration

The transformations of the international system and the regimes of the Soviet Union's successor-states and former allies removed barriers to exit from those countries. Western Europe now confronts possible population movements from the East, at a time when its own societies and institutions are undergoing change: the advent of a single unified market in the European Community; the organization of new, joint security and foreign policy capabilities; and coping with growing manifestations of political and social stress blamed on the presence of immigrants. Existing theories in international relations and migration studies offer little guidance in confronting problems that are at once societal and international. Conceptual and theoretical links across the domestic and international levels of analysis and with migration are needed. An institutional political sociology orientation comprised of elements in the recent literature of several social sciences and neoliberal international relations may provide the necessary intellectual grasp and practical policy guidance. An illustrative application suggests that massive east-to-west migration is unlikely; and it offers grounds for guarded optimism about prospects for stability in and fruitful integration into the Western European ethos by the new regimes in East-Central Europe and the Baltics. However, it points to a more gloomy future for many of the other states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Secession and Recognition in Foreign Policy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Ker-Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
International System ◽  
International Community ◽  
New States ◽  
The Subject ◽  
De Facto States ◽  
International Interaction

There are few questions more interesting and more important for the international community than the issue of how new states are created and accepted into the wider global system through the process of recognition. While there are thousands of ethnic groups around the world, there are just 193 member states of the United Nations. And yet, for many years, the foreign policy aspects of secession and the recognition of seceding territories have received relatively little attention by scholars in the field of politics and international relations. This was largely because the subject was seen to be a marginal interest. Few territories managed to stage a credible attempt at secession. Almost none managed to gain widespread acceptance. However, over the past decade, there has been a significant growth in the attention given to secession and recognition in international relations. This has been particularly apparent since Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, in 2008, and because of heightened secessionist tensions in the former Soviet Union. To date, the question of de facto states—territories that are unrecognized or partially recognized—has been at the heart of studies into secession and recognition in the field of politics and international relations. Attention in this area has tended to focus on the nature, structure, and international interaction of unrecognized territories. However, the scope of research is now widening. As well as interest in the historical development of attitudes towards secession and recognition practices, scholars are now looking at the way in which parent states—as the territories they have broken away from are generally known—attempt to prevent de facto states from being recognized or otherwise legitimized by the international community. Meanwhile, increasing attention is also being given to the role of external parties, such as great powers, as well as to the efforts of secessionist territories themselves to find ways to encourage recognition, or at least to participate more widely in the international system. Therefore, while the community of scholars working in the field of secession and recognition is still relatively small, the subject itself is undergoing rapid growth.

The Regional Path to Peaceful Change: What the Asian and European Experiences Tell Us

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-545
Author(s):  
Mark Beeson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
International System ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
Comparative Historical Analysis ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Eu

AbstractOne of the more striking, surprising, and optimism-inducing features of the contemporary international system has been the decline of interstate war. The key question for students of international relations and comparative politics is how this happy state of affairs came about. In short, was this a universal phenomenon or did some regions play a more important and pioneering role in bringing about peaceful change? As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay suggests that Western Europe generally and the European Union in particular played pivotal roles in transforming the international system and the behavior of policymakers. This helped to create the material and ideational conditions in which other parts of the world could replicate this experience, making war less likely and peaceful change more feasible. This argument is developed by comparing the experiences of the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their respective institutional offshoots. The essay uses this comparative historical analysis to assess both regions’ capacity to cope with new security challenges, particularly the declining confidence in institutionalized cooperation.

scholarly journals The Crisis of Democracy: An East-Central European Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-365
Author(s):  
Jerzy J. Wiatr
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Central European ◽  
Economic Underdevelopment ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
East Central European ◽  
Better Than

AbstractPost-communist states of East Central Europe face the authoritarian challenge to their young democracies, the sources of which are both historical and contemporary. Economic underdevelopment, the retarded process of nation-building and several decades of communist rul made countries of the region less well prepared for democratic transformation than their Western neighbors, but better than former Soviet Union. Combination of economic and social tensions, nationalism and religious fundamentalism creates conditions conducive tom the crises of democracy, but such crises can be overcome if liberal and socialist forces join hands.

scholarly journals To the 100th anniversary of Vadim Evgen’evich Garutt (October 12, 1917 – March 28, 2002)

2018 ◽  
Vol 322 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-214
Author(s):  
V.S. Baygusheva ◽  
I.V. Foronova ◽  
S.V. Semenova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
100Th Anniversary ◽  
Northern Eurasia ◽  
Mammuthus Primigenius ◽  
Origin And Evolution ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Woolly Mammoth

The article contains a biography of the famous Russian paleontologist V.E. Garutt (1917–2002), the oldest research worker of the Zoological institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, who studied the Pleistocene elephants of Northern Eurasia. He published more than 70 scientific papers on the origin and evolution of elephants of mammoth line, the morphology, changeability and features of the development of ancient proboscides. V.E. Garutt suggested two subfamilies Primelephantinae and Loxodontinae. He is the author of several taxa of fossil elephants of the generic, specific and subspecific levels. On his initiative, the skeleton of the Taimyr mammoth was adopted as the neotype of the woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius. He actively defended the independence of the genus Archidiskodon. A number of famous and important for the science paleontological specimens (skulls and skeletons of southern elephants, trogontherine and woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses and elasmotherium) were restored and mounted by V.E. Garutt. They adorn a number of museums and institutes in Russia (St. Petersburg, Stavropol, Pyatigorsk, Azov, Rostov-on-Don) and abroad (Tbilisi, Vilnius, Edersleben, Sangerhausen). In addition, V.E. Garutt was an active popularizer of paleontological science. He collected a scientific archive on the remains of elephants from many regions of the former Soviet Union and some countries of Western Europe, which is now stored in the Azov museum-reserve (Azov). Several grateful pupils began their way in paleontology under the leader ship of V.E. Garutt. And they continue active work nowadays.

Populism in the Post-Soviet States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke March
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Social Mobilization ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Breeding Ground ◽  
Minimal Level ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
Vladimir Putin

In the former Soviet Union (FSU), sustained instances of populism are rare. The demand side does not represent an equally propitious “breeding ground” for populist backlash as in East Central Europe. However, the supply side is still more problematic, given the consolidation of authoritarian tendencies across the region. Without a minimal level of pluralism, it is extremely difficult to develop genuine and stable populist forces, except in (usually temporary) cases of regime breakdown or elite infighting. Anti-populist leaders (such as Vladimir Putin) have become the rule. Such leaders may employ populist rhetoric, but their fundamental impulse is elitist. They co-opt, mimic, or simply oppress social mobilization, making stability their watchword and regarding genuine populism as a dangerous threat to their rule.

Ethno-Separatism and its Prospects

2011 ◽  
pp. 32-42
Author(s):  
O. Bolotnikova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Territorial Integrity

The author explores the phenomenon of today's ethnic conflicts which are less frequently turning into the wars between states. The author uses the cases of the countries of former Soviet Union, Western Europe, Africa in order to examine important aspects of the ethnic conflicts settlement. It is concluded that the heart of the problems is the correlation between two fundamental principles of the international law (usually regarded as antagonists in terms of the settlement of such conflicts). Namely, these are the principle of states’ territorial integrity and the principle of peoples’ right to self-determination.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
pp. 217-246
Author(s):  
Conor O'Dwyer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Organizational Development ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Applied Lessons ◽  
Lgbt Activism ◽  
The Face

This chapter begins with a review of the book’s argument and principal findings. It then discusses theoretical and applied lessons for the study of sexual citizenship and the practice of LGBT activism in the new EU member-states of postcommunist Europe. The chapter’s remaining sections reflect on the argument’s implications for other social issues and regional contexts. These include the women’s movement in contemporary Poland, Roma activism in Hungary, and LGBT activism outside the sphere of potential EU applicant-states (especially the former Soviet Union and Latin America). Animating this discussion is the question of how to account for instances when social movements fail to thrive, or even wither, in the face of backlash. A second animating question is what counts as social movement “success,” policy gains or organizational development? The chapter concludes with some speculation about LGBT activism in the US and Western Europe in light of the contemporary turn to populist-nationalist politics in both places.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document