Nicole Lindstrom

Balkan Is Beautiful: Balkanism in the Political Discourse of Tudman's Croatia

This article examines the role of Balkanist discourse in Tudman’s Croatia. Todorova’s concept of Balkanism provides a useful theoretical framework through which to explore the deployment of Balkanist stereotypes against Croatia by Western leaders. Balkanism also illuminates the ways in which Croatians used many of these same Balkan stereotypes to differentiate themselves from their neighbors to the south and east. Through an examination of Croatian newspaper columns, government documents and speeches, and political cartoons from the 1990s, this article analyzes how Balkanist interpretations and representations played an integral role in the construction of Croatian national identity and the mobilization of Croatians around a variety of political agendas. The objective of this article is not, however, simply to document the deployment of Balkanist stereotypes against or within Croatia. The second component of the article suggests ways in which Croatia’s liminal position between “Europe” and the “Balkans” might serve as an ideal standpoint from which one might challenge the binary oppositions of Balkanism and begin to reimagine the Balkans, redirecting these categories as a site of political engagement and critique.

The Politics of Privatization and Europeanization in Europe's Periphery: Slovenian Banks and Breweries for Sale?

Many theoretical approaches to Europeanization of EU applicant states portray the process as top-down: governing elites in applicant states conform to EU conditions, constituents provide a permissive consensus and all applicant states converge toward a single EU model. Such approaches direct less attention to how Europeanization is a dynamic, contradictory and contestable process. This case study considers how common pressures of Europeanization both constrain and enable domestic politics in particular domestic fields. We focus on two sites of Europeanization in Slovenia: political debates surrounding the restructuring of the Slovenian banking sector and political turmoil over the sale of Slovenian breweries to foreign investors. In both cases, domestic societal actors managed to hinder and, in one case, halt, the full-scale liberalization and privatization of the Slovenian economy. These actors not only appealed to nationalist interests, namely the preservation of Slovenias gradualist or nationalist–capitalist development path; they also framed these political struggles within a larger European political sphere.

Emerging Party Cleavages in the House of Representatives, 1962-1996

Income has the potential to divide people politically. Most attempts to assess the impact of income focus on individual-level analyses. Representatives, however, are elected in districts, which have varying compositions of constituents. To assess the connection between income and party in congressional elections, we need to focus on income composition of districts and how partisan outcomes are related to these variations. This analysis assesses that relationship and how it has changed in recent decades. The focus is on U.S. House districts from 1962 to 1996. The relationship of district income and party outcomes is then examined by region. Since 1962, income has emerged as a significant source of political divisions in the South and North, whereas the remainder of the country has not developed a relationship. Finally, we analyze the 1994 and 1996 Congressional elections, and find that the relationship of income to party continues to be significant, but the 1994 election attenuated the relationship.

Conflicting Identities: Solidary Incentives in the Serbo-croatian War

Conflict elites often mobilize by distributing to their constituents solidary incentives to participation. Although elites find this strategy relatively cost-free at mobilization time, it greatly limits their action possibilities at conflict settlement time. The non-retractability of solidary incentives limits the ability of leaders to accommodate their adversaries. It thereby tends to produce protracted conflicts. This article draws upon the Serbo-Croatian conflict to illustrate this general proposition. It shows how distributions of solidary incentives contributed to the protractedness of the 1990-95 conflict between Croatia and Serbia following the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The reliance of political leaders on solidary incentives also helps account for subsequent difficulties in implementing the Dayton Peace Agreement. The article concludes by reflecting on how the non-retractability of solidary incentives could affect practical strategies for producing peace in this setting.

Hedging its Bets: The UK and the Politics of European Financial Services Regulation

Some argue that European financial services regulation is witnessing a shift from a ‘market-making’ to a ‘market-shaping’ paradigm after the global financial crisis. This so-called ‘new’ political economy explanation stresses the role of ideas to understand this change. We consider this claim by providing an in-depth examination of recent European hedge fund legislation from the perspective of two key ‘market-making’ coalition members: the UK government and the hedge fund industry. We accept that the legislation represents a set-back for the ‘market-makers’ but question whether it represents a victory for the ‘market-shapers’. Moreover, we cast doubt on the causal role of ideas, calling for a domestic politics approach.

Wither Diversity of Post-Socialist Welfare Capitalist Cultures? Crisis and Change in Estonia and Slovenia

The paper considers the impact of the current economic crisis on post-socialist welfare capitalist states through an examination of two most different cases: neo-liberal Estonia and neo-corporatist Slovenia. The crisis prompted the most sustained political contestation with respect to each model in two decades. Considering national public sphere discussions within a broader European context, the paper shows how transnational advocates of austerity reinforced Estonia’s neoliberal model but emboldened critics of the Slovenian model to roll back the state. While public sphere debates within small, peripheral states must be understood within transnational contexts, in both cases we can observe more continuity than change in the collective ideas underlying each model.

Power trips: Europeanization, market-governance, and energy policy in the Western Balkans

Abstract This paper examines how the EU seeks to export its ‘market-governance’ approach to energy policy to the Western Balkans: developing open markets and regulatory institutions to promote efficient, secure and sustainable energy. The paper argues domestic change is limited to date due to normative inconsistencies within EU policy. In particular, EU pressure to open energy markets are resisted by state owners and the domestic energy-intensive industries they subsidize, while environmental groups argue the EU has privileged market liberalization over environmental goals. The result is simple ‘adoption’ of EU rules with little evidence of transformation of the status quo.

What's Left for ‘Social Europe’? Brexit and Transnational Labour Market Regulation in the UK-1 and the EU-27

ABSTRACT The paper examines UK government positions on the regulation of transnational labour in the context of Brexit. Through an analysis of EU regulations on posted workers – the practice whereby a company based in one EU member state sends workers to carry out a service in another EU member state – the paper argues that the UK has consistently advocated further liberalisation of transnational labour markets in EU level decision-making, a position consistent with promoting increasingly ‘flexible’ labour markets at home. Brexit marks a turning point. Demands from British workers for stronger protection against liberalising pressure help explain the UKs recent shift towards relaxing its opposition to ‘market-correcting’ EU initiatives like the revised posted worker directive. Brexit provides a window of opportunity for the revitalisation of ‘Social Europe’ in the EU-27, without a longstanding veto player at the bargaining table, but one more likely focused more on upholding national labour protections than initiating new supranational policies.

The Politics of Europeanization

The chapter sets out a framework for analyzing how ‘Europe’, and in particular the EU, is contested within and across an enlarged EU composed of diverse welfare capitalist models. Understanding European integration as an open-ended, contingent, political project, the chapter considers two dimensions of EU contestation: (a) left/right ideas on state intervention in the economy and (b) market-making versus market-shaping ideas on European integration. The chapter offers a constructivist political economy approach to EU political contention considering how domestic actors, namely post-socialist intellectual technocratic elites, ascribe the EU with different meanings depending on particular national, collective understandings about the ideal relationship between the state, market, and society.

The First European Community and the British Position

This chapter traces the role of the United Kingdom (UK) in the European integration process, from the founding of the European Communities to its eventual membership in 1973. It considers several key factors leading to the UK’s exclusion from the European Communities in the 1950s and 1960s, including economic factors related to its coal and steel industries, its relationship with the Commonwealth, as well as diplomatic concerns within the realm of ‘high politics.’ The chapter also considers the UK’s role in creating alternative integration arrangements, namely the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The chapter provides a historical foundation to understanding the UK’s relationship to the European Community as an ‘awkward partner,’ shedding light on its eventual exit from the EU four decades after joining.