Ethnic Conflicts

"The Asian style of regional integration may be seen as a “quasi-common economy” that eschews a formal linkup in political
or monetary terms, but manages to generate similar results by strong physical integration and distributed chains of production
and service delivery. This note proposes the Asian quasi-common economy as a benchmark for South America’s regional
integration efforts because it is a better fit than the politically driven, broad-based, European style integrative process"

From the Germans of Danzig (now Gdansk, in Poland) to the Turks of Rhodes: the «Europa etnografica» map (1:6.000.000) of the Atlante internazionale del TCI (1st ed., 1927). For a later version of this map (3rd ed., 1929) you can see www.davidrumsey.com

Using illustrations from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and their aftermath, Baker argues that understanding popular music and public discourses about it can help to understand the dynamics of ethnopolitical conflict. Studies of war and conflict have approached music as political communication, as an object of securitization, as a means of violence and as a symbol of ethnic difference, while international law in the context of another case of collective violence, Rwanda, has even begun to question whether performing or broadcasting certain music could constitute incitement to genocide. Drawing on poststructuralist perspectives on the media and ethnicization in conflicts, Baker explores and interrogates the discourse of popular music as a weapon of war that was in use during and after the violent break-up of Yugoslavia. Music during the Yugoslav wars was used as a tool of humiliation and violence in prison camps, and to provoke fear of the ethnic Other in line with a strategy of ethnic cleansing; it was also conceptualized as a morale-booster for the troops of one's own side. A discourse of music as a weapon of war was also in use and persisted after the war, when its referent was shifted to associate music-as-a-weapon not to the brave and defiant ingroup so much as the aggressive Other. This was then turned against a wider range of signifiers than those who had directly supported the Other's troops and had the effect of perpetuating ethnic separation and obstructing the reformation of a (post-)Yugoslav cultural space. Despite evidence that music did serve as an instrument of violence in the Yugoslav wars (and the precedent of the Bikindi indictment in Rwanda), Baker concludes that music should be integrated into understandings of ethnopolitical conflict not through a framework of incitement and complicity but with respect for the significance of music in the everyday.

The impact of individuals' regulatory focus and the domain of outcomes (non-gains vs. losses) on the target's affective responses to social discrimination were tested. Based on regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997), it was predicted that a prevention focus would lead to more anger and agitation after social discrimination, because experiencing social discrimination is similar to experiencing failure. This pattern was predicted to be more pronounced when social discrimination was based on losses than when social discrimination was based on non-gains (i.e., when the in-group was evaluated more negatively vs. less positively compared to the out-group). The results of three studies using chronic and situationally induced regulatory focus confirmed these predictions. No effect was found for the promotion focus.

"This article reflects on the EU’s strategy towards the Western Balkans. It identifies the lack of a coherent and consistent strategy intended for stabilization and integration. In principle, the Western Balkan states’ road towards Europe is driven by the belief that regional stabilization and EU membership are mutually constitutive and reinforcing objectives. Progress in one is expected to lay the ground for advancements in the other. In practice, however, we claim the Union capitalizes on the prospect of accession to attain transformation. The problem
is that it has so far failed to set out what is the ultimate aim and stake of its strategy. It appears both reluctant to concert its declarations with its intentions and unprepared and unable to
implement its pronounced will. As a result, it finds much difficulty in relating means to achieve the ends in view, and this strips its current strategy of an important part of its value."