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This book investigates how borders in former Soviet Union territories have evolved and shifted in the thirty years since the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to fifteen independent states and numerous de facto states; but this process of rebordering is not finished, and social, economic, infrastructural, cultural and political networks and spaces continue to develop. This book explores the intersection between these geopolitical shifts and the individual lived experience, drawing on cases from across border regions in the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Throughout, the book introduces and frames the case studies with well-informed theoretical, conc...
As essential components of globalization, the study of practices and processes of space formation promotes a nuanced understanding of globalization. How do people create spaces for social action under the global condition, especially since the nineteenth century, when global interconnectedness increased rapidly? We explore the problem through specific case studies. Anthropologists, historians, geographers, sociologists, global studies scholars, and cultural studies scholars examine the agency of, e.g., members and staff of African regional organizations, Indian migrant workers, female GDR activists, Soviet planning experts, or US novelists. By studying elites as well as middle-class and micro-entrepreneurs – i.e. more and less influential actors – we encourage reflection on the relationship between power and space and examine how spatial entrepreneurs attempt to influence the shaping of space and their spatial literacy. The analysis aims at a better understanding of the different globalization projects, their crisis-like clashes, and the resulting conflictual development of spatial orders.
This book introduces readers to the cultural imaginings of borders: the in-between spaces in which transnationalism collides with geopolitical cooperation and contestation. Recent debates about the "refugee crisis" and the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have politicized culture at and of borders like never before. Border culture is no longer culture at the margins but rather culture at the heart of geopolitics, flows, and experience of the transnational world. Increasingly, culture and borders are everywhere yet nowhere. In border spaces, national narratives and counter-narratives are tested and evaluated, coming up against transnational culture. This book provides an extensive and critical...
Geo-Politics in Northeast Asia focuses on the dynamics of Northeast Asia as a region. The chapters in this book offer a nuanced approach for understanding the geo-politics of this strategically critical area of the world. Focusing on China, Japan, Russia, and the Koreas, as well as the involvement of the United States, the contributors to the volume offer a timely and critical analysis of Northeast Asia. They collectively emphasize the different scales at which the region holds significance, and particularly note how the region is often granted significance by local political forces as well as national interests. Borderlands and sub-regions are especially important in this perspective, and t...
An examination of territorial changes between Czechoslovakia and Hungary and their effects on the local populations of the borderlands in the World War II era
Grenzen haben im Leben der Menschen gerade in Ost-, Mittel und Südosteuropa sehr unterschiedliche Bedeutungen und Auswirkungen. Wer sich im Schengenraum als EU-Bürger ungehindert bewegen kann, spürt die Freiheit ohne Grenzen. Wer dagegen auf der Flucht ist und nach Europa gelangen will, überwindet nur schwer die EU-Außengrenze. In zahlreichen Regionen wirken frühere Grenzen wie Phantome der Vergangenheit nach und geben Anlass zu viel Streit über Grenzverläufe.
Strategieorientierte Planung erlebt seit den 1990er Jahren eine Wiedergeburt. Die Entwicklung und Umsetzung umfassender strategischer Planungsdokumente und Leitbilder ist vor dem Hintergrund des gegenwärtigen sozialen und ökonomischen Wandels sowie im Zusammenhang mit dem Wandel von Staatlichkeit zu sehen, welcher sich im Konzept des "kooperativen Staates" ausdrückt. Das Buch widmet sich zwei zentralen Fragestellungen: einerseits wird nach der Einbettung der verschiedenen Ansätze strategieorientierter Planung in den planungstheoretischen Diskurs, andererseits nach der Rolle strategieorientierter Planung im Wandel des Steuerungsverständnisses auf lokaler und regionaler Ebene gefraft. Das der strategieorientierten Planung zugrundeliegende Planungsverständnis beinhaltet die Vorstellung von Planung als sozialem Prozess sowie als Instrument zur Aushandlung und Vermittlung zwischen widersprüchlichen Interessen.
This book analyses why the Ukrainian state established asylum laws and policies in the thirty years since 1991, even though the number of asylum seekers was very low. International and non-governmental organisations transferred international asylum norms to Ukraine. Various state and non-state actors participated in this process, translating, spreading, and resisting those norms. In many cases, legislative adoption was driven by domestic politicians’ pursuit of recognition by international organisations, such as the European Union and the Council of Europe, and by their desire to meet conditionality requirements. NGOs sought to influence administrative practices, alternating between confrontational and conciliatory, formal and informal approaches, and often relying on personal contacts. Actors used and shifted between scales in order to transfer norms or resist transfer. In the process, they produced, renegotiated, and confirmed those scales. For instance, NGOs resorting to the European Court of Human Rights to prevent refoulement placed the European scale above the national scale. This book offers a new multi-actor and multi-scalar analysis of policy transfer.
Since the Mediterranean connects cultures, Mediterranean studies have by definition an intercultural focus. Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. However, the modern Balkans are usually studied within the context of European history, the southern Mediterranean within the context of Islam. Although it makes sense to connect both regions, this is a vast field and requires a command of different languages not necessarily related to each other. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time and how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas. Also, the discourses in Greek and Arabic reflect the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and it is instructive to see their differences and commonalities which helps explain contemporary politics.