Poli 438 Midterm 2 SG

Regime Change after 1989, Europe Undivided

• What were the different kinds of regime change in and after 1989?

  • Liberal Democracy: In countries like Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic

  • Illiberal Democracy: In Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia

  • Violent Revolutions: Romania

• Who won the first elections? Why does it matter?

  • The opposition movements in Poland, Hungary, and Czech republic won the first elections after 1989

  • Former communists: Romania, bulgaria, slovakia

  • Establishing a new democratic order and enabling the implementation of liberal reforms

• What were the different conditions at the moment of regime change?

  • Some countries had organized opposition while others had weak or no opposition

  • economic crises and public discontent with communist regimes

  • Media: control and censorship in slovakia, romania, bulgaria

• Two patterns of political change, value of political competition

  • Liberal or illiberal pattern

  • strong political competition and alternation of parties in power help boost democratic quality

• Liberal pattern

  • 1. Higher democratic standards, open political competition

  • -- Level playing field

  • 2. Comprehensive economic reform

  • 3. Tolerance and inclusion of ethnic minorities

  • Czech reppublic hybrid

• Illerbal pattern

  • 1. Concentration of power + abuse of democratic procedures

  • 2. Partial economic reform

  • 3. Scapegoating of ethnic minorities or other supposed threats to the nation

• Potent slogans in post-communist politics: defense of nation, defense from economic reform

  • Illiberal: Romania, bulgaria, slovakia, croatia

  • 1, Defense of the citizen from rapid economic reform

• We will protect you by preventing Polish style shock therapy

Appeal to average workers, shielding that hurts them in futue

• 2. Defense of the nation from its “enemies”

• -scapegoating very weak ethnic minorities

• Authoritarian practice

• How did ethnic minorities experience 1989, early transition – as an opportunity, as a challenge

  • In liberal democracies, they experienced as a opportunity (ethnic tolerance)

  • In illiberal democracies: challenge

    • Defense of the nation from its “enemies”

    • Hungarian minority in Romania and slovakia

    • Turkish minority in Bulgaria (post-empire)

• What was it like for ordinary people to live through this political, economic and social transformation?

  • Economic hardship

  • Political awakening (liberal dem)

  • Social uncertainty

• What happens to the people who worked for the previous regime? What is the right balance?

  • Some held accountable for past actions

  • Others change positions and become democratic so they can compete with opposition

  • In illiberal dems, they pretend to change but still hold on to power and stay authoritarian

Process of qualifying for EU membership

• EU Leverage: How does it work? What are the benefits of membership?

  • Benefits of joining far outweigh the costs of meetingrequirements.

    • • - geopolitical benefits, political benefits, economic benefits

    • • - protection of EU rules

  • Determination to join creates leverage for the EU (passive leverage)

• What are the requirements of EU membership? -- Acquis communautaire, Copenhagen Criteria

  • Acquis communautaire: Rules and regulations in force among existing members

  • Copenhagen Criteria: liberal democracy, market economy

  • EU ill prepared to formulate and enforce requirements in areas where it has no acquis. Example: the judiciary

• EU Leverage on Hungary in 1990s: Why?

  • 1st example of active leverage, direct demands to hungary about foreign policy

  • Active leverage first used successfully on Hungary: Balladur Plan

  • Balladur plan: emphasis on keeping borders, eaasing relations w/ romania and slovakia on hungarian diaspora, good neighbor agreemts.

  • Hungary’s conflicting goals:

    • EU + NATO Membership

    • Protect and fight for Hungarian co-ethnics

  • Destabilizing nature of any rhetoric about

    • peaceful border changes

    • • a “Greater Hungary”

    • • “the prime minister of 15 million Hungarians” (population of

    • Hungary is only 10 million)

  • Why?

    • To lead to peaceful relations in europe

    • Less concerns about minority rights which causes conflicts

• Ethnic minorities in Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria: Who? What problems?

  • Large minorities: Ethnic hungarians in Slovakia and Romania, ethnic turks in bulgaria

  • Use of ethnic nationalism, ethnic scapegoating

  • Escalation of demands on the part of the minority as the minority reacts to oppression, attacks

  • Worry that conflict like former yugoslavia could hapeen in East central europe

  • Escalation contained and reversed in part thanks to external pressure by EU, OSCE, COE

• Why was EU outsourcing to OSCE, COE, what did they do?;

  • EU outsourcing its leverage to COE and OSCE due to lack of acquis in this area (no mechanisms to enforce minority rights)

  • Council of Europe Recommendation 1201 (common standard on treatment of minorities, req for eu and coe membership)

  • Balladur Plan 1994

  • Copenhagen Requirements

  • OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (early warning and conflict prevention too)

• OSCE , Max van der Stoel Commissioner on National Minorities

  • Fact finding, reporting to national government

  • Recommendations to and for governments

  • Diplomatic approach based on mediation

• What are the parallels between the interwar minority rights treaties and the Copenhagen Criteria?

  • Interwar minority rights treaties laid an early foundation for international minority protections, their enforcement failures highlighted the need for stronger mechanisms.

  • The Copenhagen Criteria evolved these principles, linking minority rights to tangible incentives like EU membership and ensuring closer monitoring

OSCE:

• What is it, what does it accomplish? What are its strengths?

  • What is it: Organization that focuses on comprehensive approach to security (human rights, democracy promotion, arms control, conflict prevention/revolution)

  • Accomplishments: election monitoring, prevent conlicts, rebuild after coflict, protect minorities, dialogue and trust

  • Strengths: comprehensive security, inclusivity, minority protection soft power

• How has Russia’s war on Ukraine negated many OSCE agreements?

  • Broken core principle on human rights, arms control, dialogue, conflict prevention, hurting special monitoring field operations in Ukraine, breaching cooperation and trust

• Yet what can the OSCE do, for example, in the face of Russia’s war or backsliding in Hungary?

  • Russia: field missions minoritoring, reporting, diplomatic and political engagement, Reaffirmation of Key OSCE Principles

  • Hungary: promote rule of law, dialogue and cooperation, pressure, and monitor democracy

Council of Europe:

• What is it, what does it get done?

  • international organization focused on promoting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law

  • What they do: Human Rights Protection, democratic governmance, rule of law and justice, combat discrimination, equality

• What is the European Convention on Human Rights?

  • key international treaty created by COE to protect human rights

  • Enforced by European Court of Human Rights (ECHR),

  • freedom of expression, freedom from torture, and the right to a fair trial,

• How are OSCE and Council of Europe different?

  • OSCE focus: Security, conflict prevention, diplomacy

  • COE: Human rights, democracy, rule of law

  • OSCE includes Europe, Central Asia, North America

  • OSCE: Monitoring, field operations, diplomacy

  • COE: Legal frameworks, treaties, human rights court

• How did the COE respond to the Russian invasion? Should it have done that sooner/never?

  • COE suspended Russia’s membership, took applications related to russia’s actions, and solidarity w/ ukraine, justice system

  • Could have done something earlier in relationship to annexation of Crimea

NATO:

What is Article 5?

• It states that an attack against one member of NATO is considered an attack against all members.

What was the purpose of NATO after the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact?

• Consolidation of a peaceful order across Europe

  • A way for the United States to use and amplify its superior military power

  • Platform for consultation on global security issues.

  • Platform for “coalitions of the willing” for out-of-area operations in other regions

  • Coordination against new threats, especially terrorism but also cyber crime, piracy, climate change and other threats.

• In what ways has it been useful in other areas? (besides countering threat from Moscow)

  • Attacking after 9/11: Afhanistan (only time evoking article 5)

  • Libya 2011

  • Balkans 1990s

  • Countering terrorism after 9/11 and cyber security

• What kinds of arguments have it put forward to show its usefulness?

  • Collective security and deterrence

  • Resurgent thrveats like russia

  • Adaption to new security challenges

  • Crisis management and stability

  • Democratic values and economic

• For nato expansion

  • Does significantly help to establish and consolidate democracy. Persuasion, social affirmation

    • NATO norms were key in persuading Polish governments to complete reforms that crafted civilian control of the armed forces. Also replaced self-sufficiency with a strategy of contributing to a common defense. How?

    • 1. Cultivates transnational coalitions

    • 2. Champions a set of values in opposition to nationalism

    • 3. Persuades domestic elites and empowers domestic groups.

  • Against NATO Expansion

    • Little to spread democracy while costs and risks are great.

    • 1. NATO membership has not prevented the breakdown of democracy in the past, and not helping now.

    • 2. NATO membership strengthens the hand of anti- Western forces in Russia.

    • 3. EU better for democracy promotion. NATO membership is only given to states after the hard work of democratic reform is done already

• What have NATO and the US done and not done in support of Ukraine?

  • For:

    • Military aid

    • Financial and humanitarian aid

    • Sanctions of russia

    • Long term security guarantees

  • Not done:

    • Direct military intervention

    • No no fly zone

    • No nato membership

• Did NATO cause Russia’s War Against Ukraine?

  • No, this is a pro russian argument

  • Ukraine has its own agency and can chose to join nato if theyd like (sovreign right)

  • NATO wants to help former soviet nations protect sovereignty and have an open door policy

• Which states belong in NATO?

  • States that want to be in nato

  • And have followed the rules of remaining democracy

  • Maybe need a council to deliberate on turkey and hungary’s membership in natoas non democratic states

• What other ways has NATO changed?

  • Improving eastern flank

  • expand to sweden and finland

  • more defense spending

  • Identify russia as main threat

• How has NATO tried to deter escalation on the part of Russia?

  • Military presence on eastern flank nato, strengthening security and defense

  • Article 5 affirmed

  • Economic and Diplomatic Pressure

  • Defensive stance and deterrence w/o provacation

How do the membership criteria for these institutions differ and what kind of leverage do they have on aspiring and on existing members?

• NATO and the EU have the strongest leverage in terms of economic and military incentives, Council of Europe focuses on human rights enforcement and diplomatic pressure. The OSCE provides a platform for dialogue but lacks the coercive power of the other institutions.

Financial Crisis:

What is the Euro zone?

• the group of European Union (EU) member states that have adopted the euro (€) as their official currency (all must adopt except denmark and formerly uk)

What is the Bloomberg/German/banker way of explaining what caused the Euro crisis?

• that the southern Europeans and Irish broke the fiscal rules of EMU. They borrowed too much in order to spend too much.

• Some truth: sparked in dec 2009 by a new Greek government’s revelation that its budget deficit was more than twice as large as previously reported

  • Crisis of confidence

  • Costs of borrowing skyrocketed for Greece, Portugal,Spain and Ireland

What is missing from this explanation, and how does it help us understand the Euro crisis?

• There are different varieties of capitalism

• Northern export-led growth strategies a much better fit for the Eurozone

  • northern countries led by Germany: strong corporatist bargaining, helps boost technological innovation and training.

  • Low wages, high productivity, high quality.

  • Compete on quality AND price!

  • Huge trade surpluses with southern states

• Southern countries: demand-led growth

  • Governments encourage domestic consumption

  • Use periodic depreciation to make goods produced domestically more competitive and to increase the cost of imported goods. Euro eliminates this tool

  • They lack the capacities for

    • - collaborative skill formation

    • - wage coordination

  • Wages in southern Europe grew faster than in the north, but productivity and quality were not rising. Current accounts deficits ballooned

• Easy money: real reasoning

  • Financial institutions of northern Europe are flush with cash due to their booming economies.

  • -- lending southern governments and consumers money to buy

  • goods made in northern Europe.

  • -- Germany and other northern states keep wages low and savings high.

  • With the advent of the single currency, international financiers treated all the member states as safe markets and flooded them with cheap money. Was it entirely unwise for firms and governments to take advantage of those funds to fuel their growth--yes

What was the role of Germany? Why did it have such an outsized role?

• They had an export drive economy, consistently ran large current account surpluses, exporting far more than it imported

  • Germany’s surpluses were essentially funded by the debts of other Eurozone countries, creating an imbalance.

• Crisis response: bailed out south eu with conditions of austerity; german led institutions

• Fostered resentment/villifcation towards germany bc of austerity

• Why?- they had the export led economy and largest surpluses in eu so led the charge. Also their capitalism is close to coporatism

What are some of the consequences of the financial crisis?

• New fault lines

  • North vs South divide on economic interests and attitudes toward finances. Cultural differences.

  • • Resentment of bailouts vs. resentment of austerity

  • patronizing and disparaging views of the southern states– vilification of Germany

  • Lack of solidarity especially on the part of EU post- communist states

    • Same states that later refuse to take refugees

    • Mindset that “we” are the victims deserving aid.

  • Disillusionment with the EU and the Euro

  • Euroskeptic and populist parties see rise in support

How did the financial crisis help create the conditions for rising support for populist parties?

• Economic hardship and inequality

• Distrust of institutions, eu

• Anti-globalization (bc led to euro crisis)

• Cultural backlash

• rejection of neo-liberal economic system

Refugee Crisis:

What happened in 2015? How did different EU states react?

• Syrian civil war led to million fleeing the country

• Palestinians, venezueleans, and other also displaced

• Germany and sweden welcoming

• Hostile responses from Hugary, Czech republic

• Travel through countries of greece, turkey

What was it like for an asylum seeker who was trying to reach Europe? Why did they take this risk?

• Very dangerous routes and journeys, often on boats

• Took risk in hope of warm welcome and safe area away from violence and constant danger

What is the 1951 Refugee Convention? What do its signatories pledge to do?

• • Definition of a refugee

• • Responsibilities including cooperation with UNHCR

• • Principle of non-refoulement

• obligating signatory states to safeguard the rights and dignity of refugees, allowing them into their country

What is the principle of non-refoulement?

• prohibits states from returning individuals to a country where they face a serious risk of persecution, harm, or other threats to life or freedom.

What was the role of Germany? Why did so many migrants want to go to Germany & Sweden?

• Primary destination for asylum seekers, due to open door policy, economic opportunity; advocated for eu-wide burden sharing mechanism and humanitarian aid

• Both countries were very welcoming; economic opportunities; already had many migrants; generous

What kinds of cooperation among EU members were sparked by the refugee crisis?

• EU member states have cooperated to fortify the common external border – to prevent asylum seekers and other migrants from reaching EU soil

In what areas have EU member states failed to find cooperative solutions?

• It has been much more difficult (so far, impossible) for EU member states to agree to a common asylum system that would

  • Harmonize how asylum seekers and refugees are treated in the EU

  • Distribute the burden of caring for refugees across EU member states

How did the refugee crisis help create the conditions for rising support for populist parties?

• Populist parties framed refugees as threat to national identity and culture

  • AFD party in germany also used fear of islam

• Economic concerns-fight for jobs

• Security fears

• Polarization on social media

• distrust in politcal elites; unpopular policies on refugees

Populism and Ethnopopulism

What distinguishes populist parties with an inclusive and an exclusive view of the people?

What does it mean to say that ethnopopulism is a strategy for winning votes and concentrating power?

What is democratic backsliding? Who does it (incumbents) and how?

How have ethnopopulist parties in power justified democratic backsliding?

Former Yugoslavia

1. What were the war aims of the Croatian government led by Tudjman and the Serbian government led by Milosevic?

• They are opportunistic politicians using extreme nationalist rhetoric take power

• To carve out a ‘Greater Serbia’ and a ‘Greater Croatia’

• Milosevic also wants to stop Repression of Serbian minority in Croatia

2. What were the methods used in “ethnic cleansing”?

• Violence begins as both extremist Serb and extremist Croat leaders seem to want conflict to break out in the Krajina – the part of Croatia where most of the Serb minorities win.

• Full scale ethnic cleansing conducted by the JNA and by paramilitaries sent from Serbia

  • Presence of large amounts of weapons in the hands of the JNA (controlled by milosevic)

What is “Milosevic Legend”?

• Treated as aunty-western hero who will defend serbs (nationalist rhetoric)

• Was created through kosovo and bosnia war

4. What is the definition of genocide?When was this term created? Why is it so universally

condemned – and yet often the international community does nothing to prevent it?

• specific intent to destroy a protected group because of their identity and goal of eradication

• Adopted by Un in 1948

• Goevrnments often find it difficult to intervene on a humanitarian basis, as they do not want to violate sovereignty and end up in war with another country.

4. What were the safe areas in Bosnia, and why and how did they fall?

• Srebrenica: was a safe area designated by UN in Bosnia

• Aug 1995 the safe area fell to Serbian troops and 7-8k boys and men were murdered as dutch peacekeepers stood by

• Part of ethnic cleansing strategy

• After this US through NATO uses military force against the Bosnian Serbs. War over in a matter of weeks

5. What is the Dayton Agreement? Why do some argue that the ethnic cleansers won?

• Peace agreement that ended Bosnian war in dec 1995

• Two main units of Bosnia

  • Republika Srpska – unitary, Serb controlled

  • The Federation – 10 cantons, decentralized and very complicated power sharing between Bosniaks and Croats

  • Bosnian Serbs were given terrirotry that roughly corresponded to the areas they had ethnically cleansed so it practically rewarded their actions by giving them the land

6. How did international actors impact the war in Croatia and Bosnia?

• Germany unilaterally recognizes Croatia and Slovenia without securing any guarantees for minority rights.

• Once fighting breaks out in Bosnia, no party is labeled as the aggressor by international organizations or any Western governments

  • Arms embargo on whole region helps ethnic cleansers Bosnian serbs

• UN and EU could not solve the conflict by force, US would be needed. So negotiations continue!

• United States did advocate “lift and strike.” Through the JNA and help from Belgrade, the Bosnian Serbs were extremely well armed, while the Bosnian Muslims were not. The international community had embossed a complete arms embargo on the region – this hurt the Bosnian Muslims, not the Serbs. The US advocating lifting the arms embargo, and then striking with air power

• International community outfoxed over and over again by Bosnian Serbs.

  • negotiating over lunch while villages are burning

• Srebrenica: UN safe area

8. Under what conditions did NATO fire its first shot?

• After the massacre in UN safe Srebrenica, where peacekeepers were fired at did NATO fire its first shot. US through nato uses military force and once airpower was used the war was over in weeks

9. Why did heavy Western involvement in Bosnia fail to prevent genocide – and some

argue it helped to cause it?

• The Western involvement stayed neutral instead of helping certain groups. UN admits to appeasement for ethnic cleansers. The strategy was more focused on trying to appease then stop the war and things like the arms embargo and safe areas worsened the situation.

10. What is the ICTY? What is positive about it? Why is it criticized?

• International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

• UN-established tribunal created to prosecute individuals for war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars began in 1993

• Positive: accountability for war crimes, justice, intl norms and laws, peace

• Probelms: Delay in Trials and Lack of Swift Justice, unfinished business

• Compels compliance through intl laws, UN pressure, diplomacy, coercions thrugh instituions, and threat of exluciosn from itnl community

Lesson from yugoslavia wars

• Clear diplomacy, effective diplomatic engagement (germany)

• Timely military interventiion

• Robust intl legal frameowkr

When is military force not only justified but an imperative – to prevent

ethnic cleansing and genocide?

• When Diplomatic and Non-Military Measures Fail

• R2P Intervention

• Clear evidence of this and intl community can have success

Why didn’t the US lead and intervene sooner?

• Post cold war

• Don’t want to intervene in regional conflicts and eu and un involvement

• Complexity and costs/public opnion

• Divisions in govt