Hunger and Fury

Hunger and Fury
Author: Jasmin Mujanovic
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2018-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190911220

Less than two decades after the Yugoslav Wars ended, the edifice of parliamentary government in the Western Balkans is crumbling. This collapse sets into sharp relief the unreformed authoritarian tendencies of the region's entrenched elites, many of whom have held power since the early 1990s, and the hollowness of the West's "democratization" agenda. There is a widely held assumption that institutional collapse will precipitate a new bout of ethnic conflict, but Mujanovic argues instead that the Balkans are on the cusp of a historic socio-political transformation. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, with a unique focus on local activist accounts, he argues that a period of genuine democratic transition is finally dawning, led by grassroots social movements, from Zagreb to Skopje. Rather than pursuing ethnic strife, these new Balkan revolutionaries are confronting the "ethnic entrepreneurs" cemented in power by the West in its efforts to stabilise the region since the mid-1990s. This compellingly argued book harnesses the explanatory power of the striking graffiti scrawled on the walls of the ransacked Bosnian presidency during violent anti-government protests in 2014: 'if you sow hunger, you will reap fury'.

Problems of Democratic Transitions in Multi-Ethnic States

Problems of Democratic Transitions in Multi-Ethnic States
Author: Sandy Minsat
Publisher: ibidem-Verlag / ibidem Press
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3838260147

Saw Myat Sandy’s study deals with theoretical and empirical analysis of the political transitions in former Yugoslavia and Burma, the present day Myanmar. It covers the transition period of both states from the late 1980s until present. The author examines the democratic transition in both states, where the process has been ‘unsuccessfully accomplished’, i.e. after a very promising beginning sooner or later undermined by the challenges of the transition, which threatened to reverse, what was gained by democratisation. In this dissertation, Saw Myat Sandy argues that the democratic transition in both states became an extended process of transition’ because of its multi-ethnic societies. The democratisation in former Yugoslavia led to disintegration, and in Myanmar it is proving to be an intractable one and has become almost un-resolvable to anyone’s satisfaction. Myanmar today suffers from on-going political instabilities that cause political and social fragmentations but does not demonstrate that it will fall into conventional Balkan scenarios. This dissertation analyses if Myanmar’s political transition will follow the former Yugoslavian fate by using the transition theoretical framework and highlighting the empirical facts on the problems of ethnicity and other political factors that relate to these democratisation processes. The theoretical approaches are based on the ‘democratic transition and consolidation theories’ argued by Juan J. Linz, Alfred Stepan and Samuel Huntington. As opposed to many quantitative studies, relevant dimensions will gradually appear in this qualitative case study. The theoretical perspectives that apply are equally significant and supplement each other and relate to its national experience. The study contributes to the conventional theoretical debate and aims to offer the understanding for the need to expand the link between ethnicity and political transitions in transition theories. It proposes a heuristic method to integrate the dynamic of ethnicity in political transition theories.

Ethnic Diversity, Plural Democracy and Human Dignity

Ethnic Diversity, Plural Democracy and Human Dignity
Author: Mario Krešić
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2022-04-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030979172

“Given their ethnic diversity, to what extent, and at what cost and benefit to human dignity, can European countries adopt and adapt plural democracy?” The contributors to this volume offer answers to this question from a variety of multidisciplinary perspectives within the framework of the integral theory of law and the state. Their shared aim is to explain legal phenomena in the context of other relevant issues and to identify, analyse and critique conceptualizations, problems and situations. This volume is rooted in the historical and contemporary European experience with special cases from Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Latvia, Slovenia, Spain and Canada which are relevant for understanding the European problem. Solutions to the problem are sought through innovative interpretations of the rule of law, democracy and human dignity, which are followed by argumentation about how these concepts, when recognized as European legal principles, can be implemented in order to avoid ethnic conflicts. Following an introduction that defines the problem at the centre of the book and explains how legal theory can be used to address it, the book consists of eleven contributions divided into three thematic sections. The first covers topics concerning the European principles which can help avoid ethnic conflicts: the principle of compulsory adjudication in interstate relations, the principle of democracy, and principles regarding the recognition of individual and collective identities. These European principles are then investigated by drawing on legal and political theories. The second section presents three ways of conceptualizing ethnical needs in multi-ethnic states: asymmetric federalism, dêmoicratic account and cooperative federalism. The third and final section elaborates on issues concerning the protection of minority rights: the role of judicial ideology in protecting minority rights, citizenship, the EU mechanism for the protection of minority rights, and the importance of remembering tragic events affecting minorities.

World on Fire

World on Fire
Author: Amy Chua
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2004-01-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400076374

The reigning consensus holds that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this revelatory investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These “market-dominant minorities” – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world’s most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend of globalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects.

Experimenting With Democracy

Experimenting With Democracy
Author: Tom Gallagher
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2012-10-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134662165

The chronic instability in the Balkan States of South East Europe has prevented the end of the Cold War becoming an era of genuine peace in Europe. Against a background of competing nationalisms, economic decline, the resilience of authoritarianism, it is easy to forget that there have been experiments with democracy have taken place since 1990 with relative success. Now, for the first time, the region is genuinely engaging with open politics; its outcome will determine whether the Balkans can cease being a byword for instability, and an area whose shock-waves have disturbed the peace of Europe on many occasions. Democratisation in the Balkans explores the obstacles impeding the consolidation of democracy, and even preventing a state like Serbia from going very far down the democratic road. Social scientists with expert knowledge of each of the Balkan states, and their political and economic systems, examine why progress in building free institutions has been slow compared to that of Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula and Latin America.

Democratisation and the Prevention of Violent Conflict

Democratisation and the Prevention of Violent Conflict
Author: Jenny Engström
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351945319

Challenging the often held belief that democratization necessarily leads to aggressive ethnic nationalism and even violent conflict, this book offers an alternative account of democratization and inter-ethnic relations. It suggests that democratization can in fact help to prevent violent conflict in divided societies, as demonstrated by two case studies: Bulgaria and Macedonia. At a time when democracy promotion is increasingly becoming part of international relations and foreign policy, this study offers some poignant lessons for democratization and conflict resolution in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine to name but a few.