Suchergebnisse

Today few people deny the existence of regional substate diplomacy (Criekemans 2010). But there is still no common agreement on a region's right to do so and, above all, on their scope of action. This question goes against what used to be the dominant approach in international relations, the state-centric approach that leads to the logic of speaking with one voice. Increasingly, a multilevel-governance approach has contested this state-centric view and proposes an alternative logic of multiple actors speaking with their voice, nuancing strongly the seminal distinction between "sovereignty-bound" and "sovereignty-free" actors (Rosenau 1990). From the 1970s, the world has seen the growing presence of sovereignty-free actors in international relations. Among these actors, non-central or, better, substate, governments of federal states have developed intensive foreign relations. These governments are using a range of techniques: from shaping the federal government's foreign policy to establishing themselves directly in the international arena (Blatter et al. 2008). For minority nation governments this is particularly a challenge, as they have to act internally – where they have developed full-fledged legislative powers within a multinational federation – and externally – where international and national laws are often still reluctant to recognise their right of action (Lejeune 2003). Yet some minority nations have thrived in developing their own international relations. Bavaria, Catalonia, Flanders, Quebec, Scotland and Wallonia are often seen as successful international players even if they are not fully sovereignty bound (Michelmann 2009; Criekemans 2010). The international actions of these minority nations have been characterised under the umbrella of "identity paradiplomacy" (Paquin 2003); that is, a willingness to use international relations to foster a nation-building process within a multinational state. This observation was particularly prevalent for minority nations strongly in competition with a federal government about their nationbuilding process, albeit for different reasons, namely Flanders, Quebec and Scotland (Paquin 2004). The case of Wallonia seems to fits less well into the identity paradiplomacy framework, which therefore raises the question of alternative roads to international relations. This is the core question of this chapter: is identity paradiplomacy the only way to go for minority nations? Quebec and Wallonia are both well known for their active foreign relations.

For thousands of years India's Dalits were abhorred as "untouchables," denied education and treated as bonded labour. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and fought for the emancipation of his people. He drafted India's Constitution, led his followers to discard Hinduism for Buddhism. His legend still spreads through poetry and song. In 1997 a statue of Dr. Ambedkar in a Dalit colony in Mumbai was desecrated with footwear. As angry residents gathered, police opened fire killing 10. Vilas Ghogre, a leftist poet, hung himself in protest. Jai Bhim Comrade shot over 14 years, follows the poetry and music of people like Vilas and marks a subaltern tradition of reason that, from the days of the Buddha, has fought superstition and religious bigotry

Political parties are often conceptualized as unitary actors that have consistent preferences. This 'hidden assumption' often turns out to overlook heterogeneity within parties and, therefore, intra-party dynamics in explaining attitudes. Concerning devolution and federalisation, parties or MP's belonging to the same region are also often implicitly considered as having homogeneous viewpoints and attitudes. Relying on an original MPs survey carried out during the Belgian political gridlock of 2010-2011, this article uncovers some of the key dimensions of the intra-party dynamics through the analysis of MPs' preferences towards institutional reform in Belgium. Far from being explained by party or community lines, our results demonstrate how MPs' political and sociological background, national/regional identity, political career and inter-community relations strongly shape their preferences.

The Red Devils, chocolate or beer and the King, such is the typical answers given to the oft-asked question of what is still holding Belgium together. To these three symbols, two extra elements are often added: the debt and Brussels, the capital of the country and of the Flemish Region/Community, the French Community (politically but not constitutionally the Wallonia-Brussels Federation), the European Union (to be more specific, one of the three capitals, along with Strasbourg and Luxemburg), while being as well the seat of the Brussels Capital Region. Generally, the list of factors of unity in Belgium ends with this short list. Is it already too long, or on the contrary, is it really too short? This is the main question of this chapter. Paradoxically, although this question often arises, there are very few scientific writings analyzing it. To do so, this chapter will discuss six sets of factors: historical, identity, socio-economic, political, international and symbolic. Nonetheless, it is important to take into account that such enterprise seeks to be informative and not prescriptive. This chapter does not assume that Belgium should be united. There are several points of view about what Belgium should be, and this contribution merely wishes to nurture the political debate by conveying an original approach on six types of factors.

In October-November 2010, more than 5000 Belgian students from both side of the linguistic border have been asked to "draw Belgium" – no other guidelines were given. In addition to this rather unusual question, the students were surveyed on their political interest, political knowledge, identities, political perceptions and preferences as well as their attitudes towards Belgium and her future. The drawings show that half of the students drew Belgium with the language border and half did not. What explains this difference is not the language one speaks (so there was no difference between Dutch-speakers and French-speakers) but the level of political knowledge and the identity of the respondents (students who feel Belgian only draw Belgium without the language border and students who feel Flemish only are more likely to draw the language border). One further dimension needs to be explored (when applicable): the size of Flanders and of Wallonia. Does the size tell us anything about the political attitudes of the students towards Belgium? Does it relate anyhow to their identities? Or is rather a matter of political knowledge? Or is it even simply due to the shape of Belgium where Wallonia – the largest in size – region is more easily cut down when quickly drawn? Above all, with this research we can indirectly explore the processes – of socialization – behind the formation of political preferences and more specifically how socio-demographics, political knowledge, political interest, voting behaviour interact with the students' representations and attitudes vis-à-vis their country and its future.

Preface / Ruth Wodak -- Introduction: Migration and crisis identity / Andreas Musolff and Lorella Viola -- 1. A comparative analysis of the keyword multicultural(ism) in French, British, German and Italian migration discourse / Melani Schröter, Marie Veniard, Charlotte Taylor and Andreas Blätte -- 2. Polentone vs terrone: A discourse-historical analysis of media representation of Italian internal migration / Lorella Viola -- 3. Featuring immigrants and citizens: A comparison between Spanish and English primary legislation and administration information texts (2007-2011) / Purificación Sánchez, Pilar Aguado and Pascual Pérez-Paredes -- 4. A humanitarian disaster or invasion of Europe? 2015 migrant crisis in the British press / Zeynep Cihan Koca-Helvaci -- 5. Aspects of threat construction in the Polish anti-immigration discourse / Piotr Cap -- 6. Gender, metaphor and migration in media representations: Discursive manipulations of the Other / Liudmila Arcimaviciene -- 7. Practical reasoning and metaphor in TV discussions on immigration in Greece: Exchanges and changes / Eleni Butulussi -- 8. The Great Wall of Europe: Verbal and multimodal potrayals of Europe's migrant crisis in Serbian media discourse / Nadežda Silaški and Tatjana Đurović -- 9. Representations of the 2015/2016 'migrant crisis' on the online portals of Croatian and Serbian public broadcasters / Ljiljana Šarić and Tatjana R. Felberg -- 10. Representation of unaccompanied migrant children from Central America in the United States: Media vs. migrant perspectives / Theresa Catalano and Jessica Mitchell-McCollough -- 11. Displaced Ukrainians: Russo-Ukrainian discussions of victims from the conflict zone in Eastern Ukraine / Ludmilla A'Beckett -- 12. Preaching from a distant pulpit: The European migrant crisis seen through a New York Times editorial and reader comments / Michael S. Boyd -- 13. Discourses of immigration and integration in German newspaper comments / Janet M. Fuller -- 14. 'They have lived in our street for six years now and still don't speak a work [!] of English': Scenarios of alleged linguistic underperformance as part of anti-immigrant discourses / Andreas Musolff -- Notes on contributors -- Indexk