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The Soviet Union is often characterised as nominally a federation, but really an empire, liable to break up when individual federal units, which were allegedly really subordinate colonial units, sought independence. This book questions this interpretation, revisiting the theory of federation, and discussing actual examples of federations such as the United States, arguing that many federal unions, including the United States, are really centralised polities. It also discusses the nature of empires, nations and how they relate to nation states and empires, and the right of secession, highlighting the importance of the fact that this was written in to the Soviet constitution. It examines the attitude of successive Soviet leaders towards nationalities, and the changing attitudes of nationalists towards the Soviet Union. Overall, it demonstrates that the Soviet attitude to nationalities and federal units was complicated, wrestling, in a similar way to many other states, with difficult questions of how ethno-cultural justice can best be delivered in a political unit which is bigger than the national state.
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This collection of essays examines the extent to which nationalism has replaced communist ideology in the foreign policy of communist states.
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In this empirical and theoretical study of nationalism, ethnicity, and immigration, the author compares the reception of large numbers of immigrants in Catalonia, the Basque country, Latvia, and Estonia--developed regions that possess distinct cultures and nationalist movements.
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Since the end of the Cold War there has been an increased interest in the Baltics. The Baltic States brings together three titles, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, to provide a comprehensive and analytical guide integrating history, political science, economic development and contemporary events into one account. Since gaining their independence, each country has developed at its own pace with its own agenda and facing its own obstacles. The authors examine the tensions accompanying a post-communist return to Europe after the long years of separation and how each country has responded to the demands of becoming a modern European state. Estonia was the first of the former Soviet republics to enter membership negotiations with the European Union in 1988 and is a potential candidate for the next round of EU expansion in 2004. Lithuania and Latvia have also expressed their desire for future membership of NATO and the EU.
Lithuania restored her independence, after half a century of Soviet occupation, in the immediate aftermath of the failed Moscow coup in August 1991. As the multi-national Soviet state disintegrated, Lithuania evolved, without war or violence, from a communist state and a command economy to a liberal democracy, a free market, and a society guaranteeing human and minority rights. Lithuania therefore offers a notable example of peaceful transition, all the more impressive in the light of the bloody conflict elsewhere in the former Soviet Union of Yugoslavia, where the aspirations to independence of the constituent republics were either violently resisted or dissolved into inter-ethnic violence....