Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region

Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region
Author: Malina Voicu
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1666918261

Social Values and Identities in the Black Sea Region focuses on the nexus between geopolitical challenges and cultural framework in the Black Sea region. The volume shows how the common inheritance interferes with different religious and political institutional backgrounds, fostering the formation of a particular cultural area. The interdisciplinary approach combines contributions from the domains of sociology, political science, international relations, and security studies and employs qualitative and quantitative analyses.

Russia Abroad

Russia Abroad
Author: Anna Ohanyan
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2018-10-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1626166218

While we know a great deal about the benefits of regional integration, there is a knowledge gap when it comes to areas with weak, dysfunctional, or nonexistent regional fabric in political and economic life. Further, deliberate “un-regioning,” applied by actors external as well as internal to a region, has also gone unnoticed despite its increasingly sophisticated modern application by Russia in its peripheries. This volume helps us understand what Anna Ohanyan calls “fractured regions” and their consequences for contemporary global security. Ohanyan introduces a theory of regional fracture to explain how and why regions come apart, consolidate dysfunctional ties within the region, and foster weak states. Russia Abroad specifically examines how Russia employs regional fracture as a strategy to keep states on its periphery in Eurasia and the Middle East weak and in Russia's orbit. It argues that the level of regional maturity in Russia’s vast vicinities is an important determinant of Russian foreign policy in the emergent multipolar world order. Many of these fractured regions become global security threats because weak states are more likely to be hubs of transnational crime, havens for militants, or sites of protracted conflict. The regional fracture theory is offered as a fresh perspective about the post-American world and a way to broaden international relations scholarship on comparative regionalism.

The Security Context in the Black Sea Region

The Security Context in the Black Sea Region
Author: Dimitrios Triantaphyllou
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2013-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317966201

This book on the security context in the Black Sea region is a timely endeavour and substantive contribution to understanding the state of play in the region and its linkages to the rest of the world. With contributions from analysts from Europe, the United States, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, the book provides a holistic perspective. Post-Cold War developments have increased interest in the Black Sea region and the role of the regional and extra-regional actors in its security issues: this volume examines the position of the United States; NATO’s involvement; the EU’s engagement; Russia and Turkey’s aspirations alongside the policies of the other states in the region as they seek a role for themselves. It illustrates and investigates key concerns such as security, energy and energy security, regionalism and good governance; and questions why a cooperative security framework (or other regional schemes which could accommodate the needs of all stakeholders) has to date never become a reality. This book adds to the growing body of research on the region, presenting the facts of the current situation and asking what can be done in the Black Sea region for it to survive given its precarious security environment. This book was published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Cultural Interactions and Social Strategies on the Pontic Shores

Cultural Interactions and Social Strategies on the Pontic Shores
Author: Jane Hjarl Petersen
Publisher: Aarhus Universitetsforlag
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2010-07-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 8779342582

In Antiquity, the Black Sea region was a meeting point for several different population groups with diverse cultural backgrounds. The present monograph takes its point of departure in burial data from four coastal localities in the northern region of the Black Sea. The mortuary practices are decoded and interpreted within a framework mainly based on concepts of cultural interaction rather than cultural polarisation. Thus, the dogma of 'The Greeks and the Others' is challenged, and alternative perceptions of interactions between the people in the Black Sea region form the basis of the study. The burials are primarily analysed with emphasis on social strategies and cultural diversity. Furthermore, the Black Sea region is set into a comparative perspective through an outlook on burial customs and mortuary practices in the colonial milieus of contemporary Southern Italy.

The Place of the Mediterranean in Modern Israeli Identity

The Place of the Mediterranean in Modern Israeli Identity
Author: Alexandra Nocke
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2009-03-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9047426711

While early Zionists envisioned the Jewish state as an outpost of Europe in the Middle East, modern Israel is—geographically speaking—located in Asia and incorporates elements from both “Orient and Occident.” This book sheds light on how the Mediterranean region, its history, traditions, climate, and attitudes have shaped Israeli lived experience and consciousness. It offers new perspectives on the evolving phenomenon of Yam Tikhoniut (hebr. Mediterraneanism), which centers around the longing to find a "natural" place in order that Israel be accommodated in the region, both culturally and politically. This book explores Mediterraneanism as reflected in popular music, literature, architecture, and daily life and analyzes the ways in which the notion comprises cultural identity, societal concepts, and political realities.

Identities and Representations in Georgia from the 19th Century to the Present

Identities and Representations in Georgia from the 19th Century to the Present
Author: Hubertus Jahn
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2020-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110663600

This interdisciplinary volume explores various identities and their expressions in Georgia from the early 19th century to the present. It focuses on memory culture, the politics of history, and the relations between imperial and national traditions. It also addresses political, social, cultural, personal, religious, and gender identities. Individual contributions address the imperial scenarios of Russia’s tsars visiting the Caucasus, Georgian political romanticism, specific aspects of the feminist movement and of pedagogical reform projects before 1917. Others discuss the personality cult of Stalin, the role of the museum built for the Soviet dictator in his hometown Gori, and Georgian nationalism in the uprising of 1956. Essays about the Abkhaz independence movement, the political role of national saints, post-Soviet identity crises, atheist sub-cultures, and current perceptions of citizenship take the volume into the contemporary period.

Establishing Security and Stability in the Wider Black Sea Area

Establishing Security and Stability in the Wider Black Sea Area
Author: Peter M. E. Volten
Publisher: IOS Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2007
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 158603765X

In this publication possible ways to promote security cooperation in the Wider Black Sea Area are being addressed. The area holds major importance for Euro-Atlantic security. Strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, the region, after the dual NATO-EU enlargement in 2004-2007, became part of the periphery of the common Euro-Atlantic security system, with critical value for European energy security and the war on terrorism. The region faces a variety of security challenges, including regional conflicts, ethnic strife, terrorism, and powerful organized crime, while many of the countries have weak institutions, turbulent political systems, unstable economies and lack of democracy. In addition, the traffic of drugs to the West, the steady stream of militancy from the Middle East, and the energy lines from the oil and gas-rich regions of the East to an energy-hungry Europe gradually define the Wider Black Sea Area as a region urgently requiring political attention and investment in its security. This publication is intended to provide fresh ideas on the possible areas of security cooperation, even as the authors agreed that comprehensive, far-reaching policies are hard to attain in the near future.

The Politics of the Black Sea Region

The Politics of the Black Sea Region
Author: Carol Weaver
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2016-02-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1317019938

The Black Sea region is a dynamic and complex area in which many national and international actors have key interests, including Russia and the US. The European Union stretches to the sea’s western coast where it meets former Soviet territory as well as EU candidate Turkey. Regional tensions include those over NATO enlargement, a US anti-ballistic missile system, access to the Black Sea, democratization, spheres of interest and the conflict zones of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. In addition, the region’s close proximity to the Caspian basin offers the prospect of alternative energy resources and routes to western states. The Politics of the Black Sea Region: EU Neighbourhood, Conflict Zone or Future Security Community? explores and examines the many diverse political, security and economic interests that affect the region and the possible outcomes for it. By reviewing the wider history and examining the political systems and policies of the Black Sea nations and organizations as well as analyzing current tensions and future trends, it provides an invaluable, comprehensive and unique political guide to this fascinating area.