Suchergebnisse

During the last two centuries, the political map of Europe has changed considerably. More recently, there are remarkably contrasting tendencies concerning the functions and densities of borders. The borders inside the European Union lost their importance, whereas Central and Eastern Europe saw the birth of a multitude of new state borders. The long-term study of border regions, therefore, is a fascinating subject for geographers, historians, social scientists, and political scientists. The main thesis of this book is that the rise of the modern nation-state reinforced the separating function of state borders by nationalising the people on both sides of it. This process gained strength in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was challenged in the second half of this century by processes of supra-national integration, globalisation and the revolution in communication and transport, as the case studies from different parts of Europe of this book will show. Audience: This book will be of interest to academics, researchers and practitioners in geography, history, political sciences, European studies and East-European studies

David Laitin has explained the occurrence of Basque and Georgian nationalist violence as the outcome of language revival in a bilingual setting and a specific locale. Based on game theory, he has suggested that violence, as a rational nationalist strategy, will increasingly be used if specific thresholds levels in language choice for education are met. A critical reappraisal of his approach is made in which the conceptual and methodological limits to the empirical testing are highlighted. Subsequently, an extensive dataset of Basque municipalities in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country is used to statistically verify Laitin's model by multivariate analysis. In some areas of the Basque Country Laitin's model seems to fit while in others not. With the help of both quantitative and qualitative data, alternative explanations for Basque ethnic violence are explored. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2008 Institute of Race Relations.]