David J. Galbreath

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

This book examines the development and evolution of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (formerly the CSCE) during and after the Cold War. During the Cold War, the two global superpowers were able to come together to resolve many issues of transparency and common challenges, leading to a change in European and global security. The OSCE covered the area formerly occupied by NATO and the Warsaw Pact, championing the Helsinki Final Act, which became a key international instrument to encourage peace and security. Following the end of the Cold War, the OSCE became a key institution positioned between the European Union and NATO, focusing on furthering democracy, protecting human and minority rights, and encouraging military reform in a drastically dynamic region. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe sheds light on an institution that changed the face of global security during the Cold War and championed the rise of democratization in Central andEastern Europe as well as the former Soviet republics following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It will appeal to students, scholars and others interested in global governance, security studies, European politics, and international relations.

The titularization of Latvian secondary schools: the historical legacy of Soviet policy implementation

Abstract Few would deny that the Soviet occupation has had an effect on post-restoration policy making and implementation in Latvia. Indeed, many commentators of post-Soviet politics insist that we must come to terms with the Soviet to understand the post-Soviet. In our view, the effects of the Soviet legacy on the policy process are clearly apparent in post-restoration Latvia, specifically in the area of language education policy. This article argues that both Soviet and post-Soviet policy making and implementation can be characterized in three ways: duplicity, a Soviet ethos, and “professionalization”. In what follows, we first engage with the Soviet policy process in general and the 1958–59 education reforms specifically. Based on interviews with education professionals, teachers and parents, we then analyze Latvian education laws and their implementation in 2004, highlighting the legacy of Soviet governance.

The Baltic States As ‘Small States’: Negotiating The ‘East’ By Engaging The ‘West’

Whether by population, territory or economic impact, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are small states. In 1940 and 1944, smallness meant forced incorporation into the Soviet Union. From 1991, the Baltic states sat between two geopolitical spaces: one Russian and one European. After years of occupation, the Baltic states were keen to overcome their size and the dangers that are inherent in being small. Thus, in 2004 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania returned to Europe and the ‘West’, a position they had held prior to the Second World War. Membership in the EU and NATO provides both opportunities and constraints, yet organizational membership also allows the Baltic states to pursue geopolitical gamesmanship in the post-Soviet area vis-à-vis the Russian Federation. Relying on Baldur Thorhallsons concepts of action capacity and vulnerability, we illustrate how the Baltic states have gone beyond what has been expected of small states in international politics by engaging the ‘West’ to negotiate with the ‘East’.

Putting the Colour into Revolutions? The OSCE and Civil Society in the Post-Soviet Region

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been a vocal critic of stalled and failing transitions to democracy in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Since the Paris Summit in 1990, the organization has been working towards developing a system of norms and institutions to help encourage democratization and civil society ‘east of Vienna’, such as the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Arguably, some of the most important events for the OSCE were the ‘coloured revolutions’ in Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004, and Kyrgyzstan in 2005. The OSCE has performed an important role in fostering the conditions for these events, condemning the elections, and consolidating reform in the following period. Equally important, the ramifications of the ‘coloured revolutions’ pose the greatest threat to the viability and overall relevance of the organization.

European organizations and minority rights in Europe: On transforming the securitization dynamic:

Minority rights conditionality has been seen by scholars as a key part of the EU enlargement process. While the focus on minority rights has largely been discussed in terms of democracy and even human rights, this article argues that conditionality was a result of the securitization of minorities rather than part of an agenda to protect or empower. In this article, we look at the methods of desecuritization as factors of ‘narratives, norms and nannies’. In response to Paul Roe’s conclusions about the impossibility of desecuritizing societal security, we examine whether the EU, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe have the ability to change the societal dynamics among ethnic groups in such a way as to make the desecuritization of societal security more likely. Overall, we illustrate how a focus on ‘deconstructivist’ and ‘constructivist’ approaches to societal security has failed to make European organizations important transformative actors in interethnic relations.

How Epistemic Communities Drive International Regimes: The Case of Minority Rights in Europe

Abstract Enjoying control over knowledge production, epistemic communities are central to international politics in guiding decision-maker learning. Yet, we do not understand fully the extent of epistemic community influence on diverse issue areas and the ways in which they drive international regimes. To illustrate an epistemic communitys impact, we investigate the role of experts in the EU, the OSCE and the Council of Europe within the European minority rights regime. Conceptually, we argue that a hierarchy among experts matters for the epistemic communitys influence via policy innovation, diffusion and persistence. Empirically, we track the operation of these mechanisms in the context of EU enlargement as experts on minority rights influence standard-setting, monitoring and standard expansion.

Crimea: Competing Self-Determination Movements and the Politics at the Centre

While the breakup of Yugoslavia produced divided loyalties and competing claims, leading to the establishment of seven separate states ending with the de facto independence of Kosovo, Crimea was a source of geopolitical instability that threatened to engulf the region in ethnic and geopolitical conflict. As a result of the negotiations during the 1990s and a de facto settlement between Slavs and the Ukrainian state, between Slavs and returning Crimean Tatars, and between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, Crimea has remained a peaceful and even increasingly wealthy area of Ukraine. Reflecting on the case of Kosovo, this paper looks at the prospect for a similar conflict in and over Crimea. Our primary question concerns the degree to which the Kosovo case sheds light on a somewhat similar case of co-ethnics, religious differences and a weakened state. We argue that the greatest source of instability lies not with ethnic claims or geopolitics, but with Ukrainian political and commercial interests that threaten the de facto settlement between the region and the centre.

European Integration and the Geopolitics of National Minorities

The issue of national minorities in post-Cold War Europe has warranted considerable scholarly attention with regard to security, democratization and regional integration. The literature has focused on how European integration compelled host states to comply with obligations to protect a national minority within their borders. Missing from this debate, however, is a more comprehensive analysis of whether European integration has had an effect on the wider geopolitical relationship between the host state and the kin state over national minorities. Has European integration served to dampen or to intensify the salience of nationalist politics between host and kin states? To address this gap the range of host state–kin state relations in Central and Eastern Europe is explored corresponding to whether both states are EU members (at least one may be a candidate country) compared with when one state remains external to the EU for the foreseeable future. It is argued that, despite much of the Europeanization literature, European integration can have an amplifying effect on nationalism regardless of whether kin states are existing members, acceding states or outside the process altogether.

Western European Armed Forces and the Modernisation Agenda:Following or Falling Behind?

This article looks at the changing nature of European militaries specifically within the context of the United States’s transformation agenda. The article looks at the key drivers of transformation in European militaries and asks the question to what degree has the American agenda impacted on the way Europe does defence. The article looks at three aspects of transformation across three case studies. The aspects are network enabledness, expeditionary forces and effects based operations. The analysis is applied to the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The findings suggest that local political and bureaucratic conditions have the potential to trump a larger process of force transformation led by the United States.

Introduction: From Phosphate Springs to ‘Nordstream’: Contemporary Environmentalism in the Baltic States

Once the catalyst for independence movements in the late Soviet period, environmentalism in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania has become greatly influenced by the processes of social, political, and economic transition. With the rise of the schizophrenic response of toleration and repression to liberal reform in an authoritarian Soviet Union, activists in the three Baltic states set out to use the environment as a specific representation for what the Soviet occupation had done to the Baltic republics in general. Each of the Baltic republics had their own environmental issues with which to deal. In Estonia, environmentalists focused on the ecological damage from phosphate and oil-shale mining in the north of the country. In Latvia, the aim was to prevent another hydroelectric dam on the Daugava, a central river splitting the country in two. Finally, in Lithuania, environmentalists set out to campaign for the closure of an ageing nuclear power plant and prevent the construction of another plant. Each one of these movements to protect the environment was a move against ecological degradation, while at the same time a challenge against the central planning of the Soviet economy and overall Baltic inclusion in the Soviet Union. In the Baltic republics, the environmental movements and the independence movements were inextricably linked, to the extent that Jane Dawson refers to a single movement she calls ‘eco-nationalism’ (1996). Yet, following independence, the Baltic states were faced with overwhelming processes of social, political and economic change that challenged the Baltic societies