Sabrina P. Ramet

Memory and identity in the Yugoslav successor states

Reading the psychological literature on memory, there is little doubt who plays the leading roles on this stage. The radiant hero in the limelight is Remembering, attracting all attention, support and sympathy. The shady villain is Forgetting, the trouble maker who is lurking behind the scenes, always ready to counter-act Remembering and thwart its achievement. There are various scenarios in which this plot is acted out. Typically, Remembering is forced to use all kinds of tricks to resist the villain’s assaults and to guard the treasure – the accumulated wealth of past experience and knowledge. While Remembering strives to defend this precious treasure, maintaining it as untouched as possible, Forgetting never tires of trying to steal and destroy it (or at least to damage or, insidiously, to distort and falsify it). In this way, the conflict about the treasure of the past takes on still another dramatic dimension: it becomes a struggle for truth. (Brockmeier 2002, 15)

Controversies in the Social and Political Engagement of the Catholic Church in Poland Since 1988

The collapse of communism through Eastern Europe during the course of 1989–1991 resulted in the pluralisation of the societies, economic privatisation, and policy transformation, including in the religious sphere. In the case of Poland, the Catholic Church, which claims the allegiance (at least nominally) of 90–95 % of Poles, has made a number of gains, which have strengthened its position in the country. Of central importance was the signing of a Concordat with the Holy See in 1993. Beyond that, the Church’s agenda included obtaining a ban on abortion, protection of Christian values in the broadcast media, the introduction of religious instruction in state schools, and also changes to the text of the Constitution, adopted finally in 1997. The Church was successful in all of these areas. But the Church has also found itself drawn into controversy. Noisy controversies were provoked by revelations concerning the collaboration of some bishops and priests with the security police in the communist era, and the move towards the eventual adoption (in June 2015) of legislation spelling out the conditions for offering in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to childless couples—an act which the Church opposed, both because most of the embryos involved die and because the Church believes that the procedure reduces the newborn to commodities.

Eastern Europe and the Challenges of Modernity, 1800–2000

last decades of the tsarist regime and eastern Siberia, but does so at the end of a book that covers all of the imperial period and the entirety of Siberia, thereby offering a much greater degree of contextualisation. Furthermore, as Badcock recurrently notes, she found very few accounts from the criminal (as opposed to the political) occupants of the Siberian exile system: this is a source problem that Beer’s wider geographical and chronological scopes allows him to escape somewhat, thus presenting the opportunity for a more substantial discussion of the experiences of common criminals. So, while there is little to fault in terms of Badcock’s analysis, source coverage, or argumentation, this new book cannot be called original: much of what is interesting in it can be found elsewhere. As such, this tome is best represented as a supplement to the more comprehensive volumes available on the market for specialists seeking further details about certain aspects of Siberian exile in the imperial period.

The Importance of Tolerance: Intolerance and Its Consequences in the Yugoslav Successor States

Whether one considers the United States or Russia, the Western hemisphere, Eurasia, or the Southern hemisphere, intolerance undermines equality, negates human rights, and puts minorities at risk. Sabrina Ramet identifies three major forms of chauvinism in the Yugoslav successor states: ethnic/national chauvinism, patriarchal chauvinism, and religious chauvinism. Although manifestations of these forms of chauvinism may be symbiotically intertwined, their overall political impact varies. Here, the argument is advanced that the interaction of these forms of chauvinism and accompanying values interact distinctively in certain states, but not others. Thus, ethnic/national chauvinism involves fear of the ethnic “other” combined with hostility toward difference. Also, intolerance is negatively correlated with educational attainment and positively correlated with religiosity, in most cases. Or, to put it more simply, uneducated religious people are likely to be less tolerant of religious diversity and of sexual minorities than are educated non-religious people. Although intolerance is a global phenomenon and thus certainly found across the post-socialist region, in the case of the Yugoslav successor states, the War of Yugoslav Succession (1991–95) and the War for Kosovo (1998–99) did much to traumatize locals and sow resentment while deepening tendencies to intolerance of members of other ethnic and religious groups. The question of tolerance vs. intolerance in the Yugoslav successor states raises some preliminary questions. To begin with, what do we mean by “tolerance”? Jurgen Habermas neatly distinguishes “tolerance” as a “form of behavior” from “toleration” as “the legal act with which a government grants more or less unrestricted permission to persons to practice their particular religion.” We might extend that definition beyond the juridical sphere to include certain government policies such as socialization themes that promote tolerant attitudes. The association of religious practice and toleration is almost self-evident. To avoid violence, one must tolerate what cannot be compromised. For this reason, Susan Mendus considers skepticism an important reason for justifying toleration. The skeptic affirms tolerance as a basis for liberal democracy and, in particular, an “attitude of neutrality of the state in matters of religion.” Tolerance is not indifference, however. Joseph Raz identifies tolerance as a “distinctive moral virtue” only if it curbs the tendency to suppress what one considers undesirable.

Sources of the Strength of the Church in Poland: An Introduction

In Poland, the Catholic Church may be considered the fourth branch of government, influencing the legislative process in the years since 1989 and facilitating the conclusion of a Concordat (between the Holy See and the Polish state). What accounts for the strength of the Church? One can enumerate at least seven sources of strength for the Church, although the first of these chronologically—the role of local priests in taking the side of Polish insurgents against Russian rule in the nineteenth century—has probably lost almost all, if not all, of its earlier power. The Church’s role in standing by Poles against the communist authorities in the post–World War II era, and especially after 1970, is still important, but is likely to fade over time.

Post-Yugoslav Patterns of Democratization

After more than twenty-five years since the beginning of the transition from authoritarian single-party rule to multi-party politics, there is no doubt that the countries that have emerged from Yugoslavia are democracies. During the years 1989 to 1991, however, this eventual outcome was by no means certain. At that time, the future of democracy in Central and Southeastern Europe was unclear and the countries in the Southeastern tier lagged behind those in Central Europe. Bulgaria and Romania saw a change of leadership in November and December 1989, the former through a palace coup, the latter through a combination of a violent revolution and a coup. Yugoslavia and Albania did not experience any such changes during that year and seemed at first isolated from developments elsewhere. In the absence of Soviet dominance, the combination of the call for democracy and against Soviet influence was less salient and the homegrown legacy of communism appeared to set them apart. However, the communist parties in both countries soon had to agree to allow multi-party elections in 1990 and 1991. If the striking feature of 1989 was the remarkable speed and certainty with which democracy emerged as the sole acceptable political system in Central Europe, doubts lingered in Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania, as well as most Yugoslav republics. Either socialist incumbents, only partially reformed, displayed strong authoritarian traits or new parties often with nationalist ideologies took office with little interest in transforming the states into liberal polities. It would take another move toward democracy through a combination of the ballot box and popular protest movements to shift the countries more decisively toward democracy. However, as this chapter argues, enduring legacies of both communist and post-communist governments have restrained the countries’ consolidation as liberal democracies. While there is a distinct North–South pattern of democratic consolidation, with Slovenia moving quickly toward liberal democracy and Croatia struggling with authoritarianism for a decade before a decisive move toward democracy in 2000, the other post-Yugoslav republics have been struggling with moving toward liberal democracy for different reasons, such as contested statehood (“stateness”) in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo to state capture in Montenegro and authoritarian patterns in Serbia and Macedonia.

The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia

i FiRsT ReAD CRANe BRiNTON’s THE ANATOMY OF REVOLUTION—the inspiration for the present work— back in 1973, as part of my master’s programme. it impressed me already then as one of the most useful works of historical analysis which i had read. Fifteen years later, as i detected what seemed rather obviously to be signs of serious political corrosion in the communist countries of eastern europe, i returned to Brinton, reading his book for a second time. what i saw was that every single symptom of impending revolution which he enumerated—including the defection of intellectuals and loss of confidence on the part of the ruling elites—was present in the region in 1988. Given the enormous impression which Brinton’s book made on me, i was excited to learn that Bailey stone proposed to take up Brinton’s themes and arguments and re-examine them. in the event, the ‘revisit’ more than lived up to my expectations, offering an insightful analysis of the revolutionary eras in england (1640–1660), France (1789–1799) and Russia (1917–1929). where Brinton included not only these three cases but also the American Revolution, stone elected to omit the American case, possibly because it involved secession from a colonial power practising discrimination and what was perceived as unfair taxation, rather than an effort to supplant one political system with a completely different one. stone shows that external challenges and a relative decline in international standing were features in the years leading up to revolution in all three cases, and that in each case there were what one might call ‘dress rehearsals’ occurring ten to fifteen years before the final collapse of the old order. in england, for instance, the Petition of Right drawn up by Parliament in early 1628 asked the King to confirm ‘old liberties’ (pp. 95–96); in France, there was the crisis of 1771–1774; and in Russia, of course, the revolution of 1905 led to the creation of a quasi-parliamentary body known as the Duma. But whereas in england the Parliament revolted against the King, in both France and Russia there was a transitional period in which pre-revolutionary and revolutionary institutions worked side by side. But stone concedes that there were various differences too between the three revolutions, noting inter alia that, in england, Cromwell’s New Model Army was the main agent promoting radical revolution, while in France (with the National Convention) and Russia (with the Petrograd soviet) civilian institutions played this role. stone highlights the fact that the revolutionary regimes in england, France and Russia all resorted to ‘state-sanctioned “terror”’ (p. 319). Moreover, all three revolutions brought in their wake the centralisation and bureaucratisation of power. All three revolutions also included a period of back-pedalling, when controls were temporarily relaxed: in Russia, this came with the so-called New economic Policy (NeP), introduced in 1921. Finally, in all three cases—and incidentally also in the American case—the victorious revolutionaries saw themselves as having an important historical, even messianic role to play: the english Puritans saw themselves as ‘saints’ and ultimately implanted their ideas in North America, while the French and Russian revolutionaries sought to export their respective revolutions across europe. The author closes by stressing ‘the roles of human agency, ideas, and basic contingency ... in the cases of revolutionary england, France, and Russia’ (p. 489). stone’s book is a brilliant tour de force, certain to prove of interest to many readers. Needless to say, it should have a place in every serious university library.

Dissent on the Margins. How Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses Defied Communism and Lived to Preach About It

As of 2010, there were more than 380,000 Jehovahs Witnesses living in states which once made up the Soviet Union—323,670 of these in Russia, Ukraine and Moldova alone. This represents a meteoric r...

Rediscovering the Umma: Muslims in the Balkans between nationalism and transnationalism

present and future. In this way, the book addresses a crucial topic grounded not just in international law and advocacy, but in deep human suffering and in people’s chances for having and building a life. In addition to providing a rich historical background and a clear policy argument against repatriation, the book stimulates readers to ask further questions about refugee policies, cases of expulsion and about the international system at large. Further theoretical and empirical studies can be devised on the basis of the ideas brought forth by Adelman and Barkan. It would be especially fruitful to conduct qualitative research on the state of refugee groups in order to closer investigate refugees’ constructions of “home” and “return.” A discourse analysis of “return” advocacy could also yield a more nuanced understanding of different kinds of claims for repatriation. Even in the event that readers disagree with certain policy interpretations presented in the study, this well-argued work inspires much-needed reflection about the nature of the international system and the contexts of refugee crises. The book is therefore worthy of the attention of peace and security studies scholars, international relations specialists, scholars in the sphere of international law, and policy-makers in the fields of refugee policies, international humanitarian work, conflict resolution and international advocacy and diplomacy work.

The Know Nothing Party: Three Theories about its Rise and Demise

The 19th century was a time of rapid population growth in the United States, and much of it was due to immigration from Europe. In the 1840s and 1850s, the largest proportion of immigrants came from Ireland and Germany, and most were Catholic. The Germans spread across small communities as far west as Wisconsin and Texas, but the Irish concentrated in the larger cities on the eastern seaboard, especially Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Local third- and fourth-generation Protestant immigrants from England resented the new arrivals and organized “Nativist” associations. Among these was the anti-Catholic American Party, better known as the Know Nothing Party, which enjoyed spectacular success in Massachusetts and other states during 1854–1855. But, by 1862, the party was dead. This article examines how moral panic theory, the theory of persistent cultural patterns and cycles, and revitalization theory may offer insights into the Know Nothing Party. Each of these theories explains both the emergence of the party and its rapid demise, and suggest that each can make a contribution to understanding anti-Catholicism in nineteenth-century America, and the Know Nothing Party in particular.