This article analyzes the relationship between the relative position of an ethnic group, as measured by its majority/minority status at a subnational level, and attitudes of its members toward immigrants of different origins. Based on the Russian case, it addresses the question whether the effects of in-group majority status within a region on attitudes toward the general category of immigrants hold regardless of out-group origin and, if not, what may drive this variation. Using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of the Higher School of Economics and Bayesian hierarchical structural equation modeling, the study demonstrates that the relative position of an ethnic in-group is of varying importance as a predictor of attitudes toward migrant groups of European versus non-European origin in Russia. A group’s majority status within a region proved to play a role in predicting attitudes toward migrants originating from the “south” (encompassing North and South Caucasus; Central Asia; and China, Vietnam, and Korea) but not toward migrants coming from the “west” (Ukraine and Moldova). We draw on arguments related to the source and the level of threat induced by the out-groups, ethnic hierarchies, and group cues to explain this pattern of results.

As an implication of the ethnically and nationally diverse nature of Mediterranean polities, identification-driven boundary-making strategies bear considerable relevance for their political processes, both in the contemporary context and in the historical past. By utilizing a Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), this study provides an interpretative exploration of Greek-Cypriot elite discursive framing strategies regarding Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot ethno-national identity during the Cypriot Civil War (1963–1967). The available historical interpretations of this period lead us to expect an exclusionary strategy of boundary contraction to be more prevalent than the inclusionary one of boundary expansion in the discourse of Greek-Cypriot elites. Through an examination of a sample of primary textual sources, the analysis disconfirms such an expectation, as elite figures primarily constructed broader, inclusive frames of ethno-national identity during the civil war. The relative absence of boundary contraction and the prevalence of boundary expansion indicate the applicability of Wimmer’s (2008) universalist approach to ethnic boundary-making, in contrast to the expectations that are built by the Cyprus-specific historical evidence. This study thus lays the groundwork for future research to delineate the discursive framing strategies of elite figures in Cyprus and beyond the ethno-nationally divided island.

The article focuses on two sets of autonomist demands that the far-right Sudeten German Party (SdP) in Czechoslovakia put forward during 1937–38. Its central thesis being that both sets were marked by a profoundly close interplay between territorial and non-territorial approaches at accommodating national diversity, it sets to explore this relationship, highlighting the underlying dynamic. Although the 1937 Volksschutzgesetze posed as an ostensibly “pure” case of non-territorial autonomy, whereas the 1938 Skizze über Neuordnung der innerstaatlichen Verhältnisse entailed major territorial provisions, in both cases the practical end-goal implied territorial autonomy. A closer look into their inner logic and intellectual origins however, also reveals a shared, essentially non-territorial underpinning. While the SdP agenda was firmly centered on national territory, its specific völkisch and organicist understanding of nationality manifested a clear preponderance of non-territoriality. Both sets of autonomist demands may thus be treated as a potentially maximalist combination of territorial and non-territorial arrangements resting on a fundamentally non-territorial notion of Volkspersönlichkeit. Encompassing all the members of the national group, the latter was simultaneously conceived as the basic carrier of political will. Volksschutzgesetze and Skizze thus represented clear examples of illiberal (re-)conceptualization of national autonomy, informed by contemporary völkisch sociological, legal, and political thought.

This study examines the practice of ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina flying a state, entity, religious, or foreign flag at wedding ceremonies in public spaces. The wedding custom is analyzed through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s discussion of the way nationalism in the modern era links family and state. After a tragic war, flag power in this context appears to exacerbate nationalism and ethnic tensions in a polyethnic society trapped in a dysfunctional state structure created by the Dayton Accords. The empirical study finds that flag power does not, in fact, privilege ethnic solidarity over national solidarity to the degree that social and political theory would have us imagine. The national identity of being Bosnian is more likely to be exemplified. A clustered, stratified, random sample of 2,500 subjects over the age of eighteen was drawn from the country’s population, including the two entities, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska and Brčko District. Survey questions involving face-to-face structured questions asked participants whether flags were flown at their weddings, which flags were flown, and attitudes toward the wedding custom. Variations by age, religiosity, education, ethnicity, type of flag flown, and political party affiliation are reported and interpreted.

The article offers a detailed analysis of the debates at the All-Russian Democratic Conference and in the Provisional Council of the Russian Republic (the Pre-Parliament), which followed the proclamation of the republic on September 1, 1917, and predated the Bolshevik-led insurgency on October 25. The two assemblies were supposed to help resolve the multilayered political, economic, and military crises of the First World War and the Revolution by consolidating a Russian postimperial political community and establishing a solid government. The debates demonstrated that grievances and antagonism, which were articulated in terms of class and nationality, made the idea of a broad nationalist coalition unpopular, since it would halt agrarian and other reforms and continue the negligence of non-Russian groups. Furthermore, those who still called for all-Russian national or civic unity split on the issue of community-building. The top-down, homogenizing and bottom-up, composite approaches proved irreconcilable and precluded a compromise between non-socialist and moderate socialist groups. The two assemblies hence failed to ensure a peaceful continuation of the postimperial transformation and did not lead to a broad coalition against right and left radicalism. The divisions, which were articulated in the two assemblies, translated into the main rifts of the Russian Civil War.

Jelena Subotić’s book is an important contribution to memory studies scholarship because it shows how the mechanism of memory appropriation connects state-led remembrance practices with the processes of national identity formation. Through the comparative analysis of Serbia, Croatia, and Lithuania, Subotić argues that Holocaust remembrance in these states is less about remembering the Holocaust – or acknowledging the states’ own responsibilities for the forced displacement and mass killing of the Jewish population on their territories – and more about the political use of the memory of the Holocaust in the context of the postcommunist transition and national identity insecurities. Yellow Star, Red Star, and particularly its chapters on Serbia and Croatia, nicely complement the existing literature – such as the work of Keith Brown, Siniša Malešević, Vjekoslav Perica, Dejan Jović, Emil Kerenji, Vjeran Pavlaković, Jelena Đureinović, Tamara Banjeglav, and Ana Ljubojević, among others – analyzing linkages between nationalism and state-sponsored memorialization practices in the post-Yugoslav states.

This article argues that post-Soviet mayors are foreign policy actors that deserve more attention from area studies and foreign policy analysis scholars. Mayors have their own diplomatic preferences and goals – rooted in geopolitical and ethnonationalist views – that they can enact using city hall institutions and networks. They can work either in harmony or in opposition with central authorities by bolstering or compromising the executive’s diplomatic goals and actions. These claims are explored in a case study of the foreign policy of Chișinău mayor Dorin Chirtoacă (2007–2017), whose diplomatic endeavors consolidated the Moldovan capital’s ties with Romania and the European Union and minimized interactions with countries in the former Soviet Union, including Russia. At times, the mayor’s actions abroad ran afoul of central authorities as he created an alternative foreign policy that undermined central foreign policy. The findings suggest that a more extensive investigation of how mayors interact with foreign actors would refine our understanding of foreign policy-making in the former Soviet Union and in Central and Eastern Europe more broadly.

This article is based on an ethnographic study carried out during the Nezuk-Potočari Peace March in the framework of Srebrenica genocide commemoration. A more than 100-kilometer procession, attracting each year around 5,000 participants, represents the reverse route of the so-called Death March, the local population’s way of escape from the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. Following theoretical insights from both memory studies and cultural geography, this article’s aim is to analyze mnemonic practices commemorating the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, it explores the social processes through which such memory is produced, performed, and maintained. While applying participant observant methodology, I have engaged in conversation with residents and main actors taking part in the Peace March. Finally, the notion of collective memory is approached from the perspective of spatial mobility engagement of people visiting commemorative events and monuments dedicated to the 1990s war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The territorial composition of governments (that is, the geographical origin of its members) has received little attention from political scientists. However, prime ministers, ministers, and junior ministers clearly have a territorial characterization and preferential attachments to specific places that can potentially affect the way decisions are made and resources are allocated. In this article, we focus on these aspects, showing the evolution of the territorial representativeness of Italian governmental elites over the last four decades and proposing some interpretations of its changes. In particular, we describe the transition from a balanced regional representation (the “parity norm”) to a multitude of different patterns of territorial representation that we observe across parties nowadays. We propose three explanations for such changes: the first is based on the transformation of the party system in the nineties, with the emergence of parties such as the Northern League, with a specific regional focus; the second is based on the regionalization of the Italian state and its consequences on political career paths; the third is based on the increasing recruitment of technocrats in ministerial offices.

This article revisits the French region of Brittany on the basis of sustained empirical research over a 25-year period. It identifies the twin use of influence and identity as forming a key part of an accepted and largely diffused territorial repertoire, based on affirming distinctiveness for reasons of vertical linkage, as well as horizontal capacity building. This article explores the different facets of this model of territorial influence. The two twin dimensions concern: first, a well-versed mechanism of lobbying central institutions and actors to defend the Breton interest; second, the use of territorial identity markers to forward the regional cause, relying on social movements and a broad capacity for regional mobilization. Within this overarching context, the Breton case demonstrates an intelligent instrumental use of identity and identity markers, but mainstream Breton forces recognize that this only makes sense in the light of the national level of regulation and structure of opportunities. The logic of this position is to integrate the Brittany region into a national model of territorial integration, while playing up identity markers to secure the maximum benefit for the region.

How does a newly formed state and its newly created nation present itself at world’s fairs? This article focuses on the interwar period and the impact of the political restructuring of Central Europe in order to examine the strategies and motivations of Czechoslovakia for participation in exhibitions around the globe. It takes Czechoslovakia as an example of a country, created in 1918, that constructed and displayed its image in a comprehensible and uncomplicated way to international audiences. World’s fairs that were primarily organized to promote trade relationships thus gave the opportunity to countries like Czechoslovakia to validate its existence, internal composition, and domestic politics through carefully crafted narratives that were showcased. The article primarily addresses the question of who creates these narratives and why, while scrutinizing the transfer of domestic politics into international displays.

Grounded Nationalisms, as its name suggests, provides a rich historical and sociological account concerning the paradoxical persistence of nationalism. What motivates Malešević to write this book is precisely such a paradox, presenting nationalism as an ideologically bereft, anomalous, and exceptional political and social force, and evidence that suggests the contrary. As Malešević argues, “rather than being a historical abnormality and a temporary irritation,” nationalism has continued as “the dominant form of modern subjectivity” because it is a cross-cutting “social practice embedded in the everyday life of modern societies” (2019, 3–4). In other words, Malešević’s rich historical and sociological perspective provides the evidentiary and analytical flesh to see nationalism as “a super-thick ideology, a meta-ideological doctrine, which penetrates daily interactions of human beings and as such also shapes how modern individuals see and act in their social world” (4).

In August 1920, the political fate of the Kurdish nation, along with its territory, Kurdistan, were on the line, after the Allies asserted their interest in national rights to self-determination following World War I. Under the Treaty of Sèvres, Kurds were acknowledged as an ethno-political entity in the Wilsonian perspective, yet the ideal of self-determination failed to crystallize as a full legal right to independent nationhood. Thus, Kurdish statehood was annulled. In contrast, the drawing of states’ boundaries in Europe took place mostly along national lines. The result has been an untenable diversity across regions affected by the War in the varieties of self-determination, arguing that some peoples’ nationhood was credited with less legitimacy than others. The departure of imperial powers and subsequently the League of Nations from self-determination for achieving territorial independence came as a result of imperialist world policies to reorder political influence. With the adoption of self-determination as one of the purposes of the UN in 1945, and with the crystallization of self-determination as a legal right in 1966 and the subsequent campaign of decolonization, it could be argued the Kurds’ status was not repositioned and in some way is invisible to the law of self-determination, as applied.

The Abkhaz State University (ASU) is internationally isolated, despite its cooperation with universities in Russia. Georgia combines its refusal to recognize Abkhaz statehood with a policy of nonrecognition of its university, which sets the direction for other countries. But the Abkhaz policies of nonrecognition are also to be taken into account. Abkhazia opposes any form of internationalization of the ASU generating closer ties with Georgia. The article examines how the Georgian and Abkhaz policies of nonrecognition hamper the internationalization of the ASU within the European educational space. It explores a conflict on recognition and nonrecognition of status and identity, where status does not refer exclusively to statehood. In the field of higher education, European integration involves a large number of state and nonstate actors in 49 countries and a wide variety of forms of recognition and nonrecognition, ranging from the certification of individual qualifications and the publication of lists of unrecognized universities, to the setting up of joint educational programs. This integration process is largely state driven but based on the principle of the institutional autonomy of universities. Using the ASU as a case study, the way that policies on nonrecognition affect status in the field of higher education is examined.

On August 9, 2020, presidential elections were held in Belarus. Despite blatant electoral fraud and procedural violations, the official results declared Aleksandr Lukashenka reelected for a sixth term. While in the past, even the most obviously fraudulent election results have been followed by an atmosphere of resigned acceptance, this time countless Belarusians took to the streets to contest the results. What made this election different? This analysis of current affairs looks at the 2020 events through the lens of authoritarian consolidation theory, suggesting the unprecedented political mobilization was enabled by erosion in the three pillars of authoritarian stability: repression, cooptation, and legitimation. A majority of the population had been accepting the political status quo out of fear, for social and monetary security provided in exchange for loyalty, or a general understanding that there were no alternatives. Lukashenka did not realize this had largely changed. Nine months later, the foundation of the authoritarian regime is in an even worse shape. The regime’s reliance on repression further counteracts the legitimacy of the system. As a result, it seems it will be difficult for the authorities to re-consolidate authoritarianism, at least in the near future, no matter how the ‘revolution’ unfolds.

Homelands are an integral component of nationalism. This recognition notwithstanding, the lines nationalism draws on the globe have received much less systematic attention than the lines drawn between in-groups and out-groups. This article argues that homelands, precisely because they are so central to nationalism, should be more consistently integrated into scholarship on international conflict, among other outcomes. We begin by detailing what homelands are, why they matter, and some suggested mechanisms for how they impact outcomes of interest. The next section considers the choices scholars make about identifying homelands, including the particular measurement strategy and the level of analysis used. Here, we highlight recent advances that enable the measurement and analysis of homelands in ways consistent with both constructivist insights about the possibility of variation in the homeland’s extent (both over time and within populations) and with positivist analysis. We conclude by sketching out future directions for research on homelands and nationalism.

The short-lived Ukrainian armed volunteer movement and its interaction with electoral politics, in some regards did, and in other regards, did not fit patterns observed in research into irregular armed groups (IAGs). The brief life span of most Ukrainian IAGs as more or less independent actors, and their swift integration into Ukraine’s regular forces during the years 2014–2015, were both unusual. They were also one of the reasons for the relatively low political impact of the IAGs as such - a repercussion that is in contrast to the partly impressive individual political careers of some IAG commanders in 2014–2019. There were various forms of interpenetration of parties with IAGs in post-Euromaidan Ukraine. Certain parties, political activists, and MPs took part in the creation and development of IAGs in 2014. Some – to that point, mostly minor - politicians became soldiers or commanders of IAGs. Subsequently, a number of IAG members transited into the party-political realm, either joining older parties or creating new political organizations.

Situated at the interplay between ethnic politics, migration, border, and security studies, this contribution analyzes processes of securitization of borders in South Tyrol, an Italian province bordering Austria and Switzerland with a German- and Ladin-speaking population and a past of ethnic tensions. South Tyrol is considered a model for fostering peaceful interethnic relations thanks to a complex power-sharing system. However, the arrival of migrants from foreign countries and the more recent influx of asylum seekers have revitalized debates around the borders between South Tyrol/Italy and Austria and among South Tyrolean linguistic groups. The current COVID-19 pandemic has brought further complexity to the issue. I use the concept of securitization—the process through which an issue is considered as an existential threat requiring exceptional measures—in order to understand why and how borders become exclusionary and restrictive, shaping dynamics of othering. With this framework, the article explores how South Tyrolean borders have been subjected to (de)securitizing and resecuritizing moves in discourses and practices. In this way, I shed new light on debates on the articulation of borders and interethnic relations that are occurring due to recent international migration, consolidation of nationalist agendas, and the current pandemic.

This article explores collective identity frames and discursive strategies employed by social movement actors mobilizing in ethnically divided societies, a context where ethnicity constitutes the primary collective category of identification. By using Bosnia and Herzegovina as a case study, it analyzes movement framing in three waves of social protests that occurred in the country in the last decade. Specifically, it investigates the diverse ways in which movement leaders tackled ethnicity in their discourses. The article shows that movement leaders’ narratives rested, respectively, on the primacy of human and citizenship rights, a common feeling of deprivation, and victimhood. Their approach toward ethnicity, however, differed in each wave. Ethnicity was openly rejected in 2013, avoided and not openly contested in 2014, and accepted and approached as an opportunity to bring further support to the movement in 2018. The article highlights that ethnicity can be tackled differently by social movement actors mobilizing on nonethnic grounds in divided societies, and that it might constitute a vantage point for social mobilization rather than a drawback, contributing to raising transversal solidarity.

This article investigates the determinants of individual support for independence in Montenegro. We outline five theoretically distinct groups of factors covered by the literature and evaluate their impact on individual preference for independence. Using observational data obtained from a nationally representative survey conducted in Montenegro in 2003–2004, we find support for several hypotheses, showing that identity, income, and partisanship significantly impact individual opinion about independence. We also investigate and discuss the relative effect size of different factors associated with preference for independence. Additionally, we test variables with hitherto unexplored implications for opinions on independence, including the impact of support for EU membership, as well as support for democratic principles. Our logistic regression analyses reveal that attitudes towards EU integration and minority rights are strongly associated with support for independence. By systematically analyzing existing and new hypotheses with data from an understudied case, our findings contribute to the nascent literature on individual preferences for independence.