Comparative Politics

B19 - European Politics

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 01:30pm to 03:00pm | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Salta Zhumatova (University of British Columbia)

Liberalism and Communitarianism in Serbia: National Minorities Between Segregated Integration and Hegemonic Control: Dejan Guzina (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Abstract: Post-communist development in a post-Milosevic’s Serbia has remained distinctively anti-liberal and anti-democratic in its denial the equal status to the members of non-Serbian groups in the country. Surprisingly, however, the peculiarity of Serbia’s transformation policies is that they have taken a form that resembles policies based on the principles and institutions of constitutional, liberal democracies (a multi-party system, regular elections, emphasis on constitutional principles of parliamentary democracy, etc.). Given this peculiarity of the Serbian political system, the purpose of the essay is to unmask the principles of ethnic nationalism hidden behind the Serbian regime’s presumed constitutional support for liberalism and democracy. Through the evaluation of Serbia’s varied practices of national minority protection, I identify three central trends that contradict each other in terms of dealing with the issues of citizenship rights and cultural and political minority representation in Serbia: assimilation, segregated multiculturalism, and hegemonic control. I argue that Serbian cultural and political space is dominated by the majoritarian “state-centric” and nation-building project that territorially concentrated minorities try to emanate while smaller, territorially dispersed minorities are caught between various pressures for assimilation and cultural segregation.

The Sleeping Giant: The EU and Regional Security Nesting in Northern Ireland and Cyprus: Samantha Twietmeyer (Queen's University)
Abstract: Recently, concerns have arisen that the UK's 'Brexit' from the EU threatens the peace in Northern Ireland, awakening divisions which have but simmered under the relative stability of the Belfast Agreement. Indeed, the EU has been shown to have provided a stable geopolitical environment within which key communal divisions could be overcome (Meehan 2000, 2009; Hayward 2004). Yet across the continent, the EU, and the geopolitical environment it produced, has been cited as a key source of failure in achieving a peace agreement in the divided island of Cyprus (Ker-Lindsay 2005; Moran 2010). This paper will present recent comparative research on these contrasting cases. Utilizing the lens of Nested Security, as theorized by Erin Jenne (2015), the paper examines the use of regional organizations to provide internal stability in divided societies, problematizing the long-term implications of continued domestic division under regional stability. Indeed, in leaving internal communal stability at the mercy of a regional body, these case show the EU to be the Giant whose slumber brings tranquility but whose waking actions bring instability and threaten communal divides.

The Obstacles to Brexit: Judiciary, Politics, and the European Union: Oleg Kodolov (University of Toronto)
Abstract: After a new British Prime-Minister, Boris Johnson assumed office in July, 2019, a push for a Brexit without formal agreement with the European Union, a so called “No Deal” Brexit, has become a major government policy, replacing attempts to pass the agreement negotiated with the EU by former PM Theresa May following the Yes vote in a 2016 independence referendum. Yet, in spite of increasing support for the No Deal option among Members of Parliament, Brexit opponents continue to utilize a variety of instruments to postpone and eventually cancel the EU withdrawal process. The paper discusses current developments in the Brexit process and the key areas where Brexit opponents continue to dominate the agenda, evaluating their significance in imposing limits on the power of the British Cabinet, or the ‘core executive’, a traditional decision maker in British Politics. The House of Commons, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, and the EU institutions’ role in Brexit are discussed in the context of persistent polarization on the EU issues. It claims that in contemporary British Politics, core executive alone is no longer powerful enough to overcome opposition without alliances with at least some of the institutions it has limited influence over, with the renewed 2019 Brexit pursuit being a clear illustration.

Destruction, Construction, Reconstitution? A Comparative Typology of New Higher Education Institutions in the Former Soviet Space: Emma Sabzalieva (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Across the former Soviet space, governments have been forced to grapple with fundamental political questions around building or re-forming sovereign nations, dealing with the legacies of the preceding regime, and navigating intense globalization processes that were further stimulated with the collapse of the communist bloc. One response to change has been the massive expansion of higher education systems and the creation of new higher education institutions (HEIs). Many of these new HEIs were privately operated, their existence made possible by new government policies, but the number of new state funded universities is also notable. The creation of quite different forms of new HEI leads to the research questions this paper explores, which are: To what extent do these newly formed HEIs represent a break from the Soviet past? And: How do patterns in the emergence of new HEIs compare across the former Soviet space, using the cases of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan? Drawing from the author’s PhD research, the paper proposes an original typology of four distinct models – ‘external’, ‘hybrid’, ‘bi-national’ and ‘neo-Soviet’ – of the new HEIs that emerged. Analysing the features of each of the four institutional types, the paper also identifies the political and other factors that explain cross-national similarities and differences. A new comparative analysis of state education policies, the paper also demonstrates how policy choices shape states’ vision of the future. This has ramifications for how each state has continued to develop its education system as the distance from the path-altering events of 1991 increases.