MINELRES: New book: Radical Ethnic Movements in Europe

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: William Mckinney <mckinney@ecmi.de>


Daftary, Farimah, and Stefan Troebst (eds.): Radical Ethnic Movements in
Contemporary Europe. New York, NY, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003.
(=Studies in Ethnopolitics), XVI + 208 pages, index. ISBN 1-57181-622-4,
hardback US-$ 49.95.

Nation states and minorities resort more and more to violence when
safeguarding their political interests. Although the violence in the
Middle East has been dominating world politics for some time now,
European governments have had their share of ethnic violence to contend
with as this volume demonstrates.
 
This applies to Western Europe as much as to Eastern Europe as the case
studies demonstrate, ranging as they do from the Basque Country to
Chechnya, from Northern Ireland to Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, in
contrast to other parts of the world, instances where political
struggles for power and social inclusion between minorities and
majorities lead to full-fledged inter-ethnic warfare are still the
exception; in the majority of cases conflicts are successfully
de-escalated and even resolved. In a comprehensive conclusion, the
volume offers a theoretical framework for the development of strategies
to deal with violent ethnic conflict.
       
Radical Ethnic Movements in Contemporary Europe locates the topic within
the current literature and offers a sophisticated analysis of the causes
of ethnopolitical violence based on case studies drawn from both Western
and Eastern Europe. While the overall message of the book is that there
is no single and simple formula that determines the factors that turn a
national or ethnic struggle into a violent ethnopolitical conflict, it
nevertheless brings us nearer to an understanding of this question in
its many facets and also offers an initial assessment of the remedies
that can be brought to bear on ethnopolitical violence.

Thus, this volume is likely to become indispensable not only within the
academic arena for students and lecturers of ethnic conflict, but also
to policy-makers and practitioners in the area of conflict resolution.

CONTENTS: Introduction, Stefan Troebst and Farimah Daftary, p. 1.

PART ONE: COMPARISONS.
1. Regionalism in Western Europe, Peter Alter, p. 21; 2. 
Conflicts Between East European States and Minorities in an Age of
Democracy, Tom Gallagher, p. 31.

PART TWO: CASE STUDIES.
3. Ethnoradicalism as a Mirror Image
of State Centralisation: the Basque Paradigm in Franco's Spain, Daniele
Conversi, p. 57; 4. Chechnya and the Caucasus, Helen Krag, p. 71; 5.
International Dimensions of the Northern Ireland Conflict and
Settlement, Adrian Guelke, p. 84; 6. Explaining Ethnic Violence in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Marie-Janine Calic, p. 105.

PART THREE: LESSONS.
7. The Use of Force in Minority Majority Relations: An International Law
Perspective, Rainer Hofmann,
p. 133; 8. Third Party Mediation in Violent Ethnic Conflicts, Norbert
Ropers, p. 150.

PART FOUR: CONCLUSION.
9. In Quest of Peaceful Coexistence Strategies in Regulating Ethnic
Conflicts, Ulrich Schneckener and Dieter Senghaas, p. 165; index, p.
201.

Farimah Daftary is a former Senior Research Associate of the European
Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), Flensburg, Germany.

Stefan Troebst is Professor of East European Cultural Studies at the 
University of Leipzig, Germany, and Deputy Director of the Leipzig
Centre for East Central Europe (GWZO). He was the founding director of
the European Centre for 
Minority Issues (ECMI), Flensburg, Germany.

This book is part of the series "Studies in Ethnopolitics", edited by
Timothy D. Sisk, University of Denver, and Stefan Wolff, University of
Bath. Focussing on the ethnopolitical dimension of the security and
stability of states and regions, this series addresses theoretical and
practical issues relating to the management, settlement and prevention
of ethnic conflicts.

Review copies may be requested by Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford,
UK fax
+44 (1865) 25 00 56, UK fax +1 (212) 222-5209.