​This volume explores the bilateral treaties concluded after 1990 between the Republic of Poland and its neighbouring states (Germany, then-Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Belarus and Lithuania), known as treaties on neighbourly relations or good neighbourhood treaties. These treaties, through which Poland and its neighbours were able to establish their political, security and social relations, were extremely significant in that they provided a unique way for them to organise their interstate post-Cold War relations. This book analyses the consequences of these treaties and addresses a variety of issues, including security policy and cooperation, migration, national minority rights, economic cooperation, education, and cross-border cooperation.

This book examines external perceptions of the Franco-German relationship, both from a historical perspective and as a driving force for regional integration. By providing various country and regional studies, it analyses the various types of perception and self-perception in several regions around the globe. Here, Franco-German cooperation serves as a mirror in which third-party countries view their own situation, today and in the future. The contributions address the questions of if and how the Franco-German reconciliation and cooperation is perceived as a role model for other regions, especially for the reconciliation of other inter-state and international conflicts. A concluding chapter highlights the divergences and convergences between the respective conflicts, and proposes recommendations for actors involved in diplomacy and international relations. The book is intended to provide scientific support for the implementation of the Franco-German Aachen Treaty of January 2019. It will appeal to scholars in political science and cultural studies, and to anyone interested in learning more about the Franco-German relationship and on external perspectives on it.

... dedicated to the advancement and understanding of those principles and practices, military and political, which serve the vital security interests of the United States.

This book examines how the changing post-Cold War order affected Poland’s security policy and particularly how the West’s weakening position and Russia’s revisionist policy reinforced the traditional view of security in Poland. It addresses the reasons why Poland, a middle power in Central Europe, adopted a bridging strategy in the early 1990s; how this strategy changed along with the redistribution of power in the international system; why, after the 2008 Georgian-Russian War, Poland took steps to support NATO consolidation, strengthen relations with the USA, and expand its own military capabilities; and how the Ukraine crisis affected Poland's security. This overview is an invaluable resource for students of international and European studies, security studies, political science, as well as for decision-makers, politicians, EU staff, and anyone interested in international politics in Central Europe.

European Integration & National Adaptations A Theoretical Inquiry

This publication is the first version of the World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples, published in 1997. The full Directory is now available and continually updated on our website. The large majority of violent conflicts in the world today are conflicts within states, with groups polarized across ethnic and religious divides and not across borders. Ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities are often among the poorest of the poor, suffer discrimination and are frequently the victims of human rights abuses. Time and time again in the past, the United Nations system, governments and even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the field of ‘conflict prevention’ have failed to promote the human rights of minorities or to take early action to promote cooperation between communities. Early action may have prevented the loss of millions of lives in many countries, ranging from Rwanda to the former Yugoslavia, and from Sri Lanka to Guatemala. It is also significant that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Dalai Lama in 1989 and to Jose´ Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo in1996 as a result of their peaceful campaigns to promote the rights of their people. The situation of minorities is, then, a matter of major concern, and it is essential that accurate, objective and up-to-date information is made available. This Directory contributes to that process. It is difficult to assess accurately what proportion of the world’s population identify themselves as belonging to minority communities. Conservative estimates place this above 10 per cent, and some suggest that more than 20 per cent of the world’s population belongs to several thousand different minority groups and subgroups. National statistics are often skewed for political reasons, and there is no universally accepted definition of ‘minorities’. The word has different interpretations in different societies throughout the world, while the United Nations General Assembly has not sought to reach a definition beyond that implied in the title of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities adopted in December 1992. Minority Rights Group focuses its work on non-dominant ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, whether or not they are numerical minorities. The concept thus relates to any self-identified community that is marginalized, without power, unable to take decisions over its destiny and often experiencing high levels of illiteracy, under-education and overt or covert discrimination. The basic rights of such communities need protection and promotion. There is, however, a danger of generalizing about minorities and forgetting the complexity of their social composition, including the rural poor, urban migrants, older people, women and children. These groups may be considered as doubly vulnerable. What makes their situation particularly problematic is that there is often a deliberate political policy on the part of majorities and states not to give due regard to the legitimate interests of minorities, while members of minorities see their identity as central to their social and economic situation. They are often excluded from political power and decision-making in the development process, without equal opportunities to secure a better quality of life. One further danger may lie in regarding ethnicities as fixed, rather than as the potentially fluid phenomena that they often are. ‘Situational ethnicity’ does occur, and individuals and groups do modify their self-identifications depending on circumstances. Please note that the terminology in the fields of minority rights and indigenous peoples’ rights has changed over time. MRG strives to reflect these changes as well as respect the right to self-identification on the part of minorities and indigenous peoples. At the same time, after over 50 years’ work, we know that our archive is of considerable interest to activists and researchers. Therefore, we make available as much of our back catalogue as possible, while being aware that the language used may not reflect current thinking on these issues.

Although the score of countries comprising Russia's near abroad (the former non-Russian Soviet republics) and far abroad (the former non-Russian Warsaw Pact states) are behaving with variably increasing independence in their domestic and foreign policies, Russia continues to regard them as remaining within the same core-periphery sphere of influence formerly exerted by the Soviet Union within the same geographic space. Russia misinterprets bids by these countries to adopt liberalizing structural reforms and to join Euro-Atlantic organizations as foreign-inspired and inimical to Russia's security. Whether Russia can learn to recognize that such bids are in fact natural developments of national self-interest will determine whether healthy and mutually beneficial bilateral relations can develop between Russia and the states of her near and far abroad in the 21st century. No previous study of the dynamics of post-Soviet assertive sovereignty has as broad a geographic scope as Eurasia Rising, which considers the whole of Post-Soviet Space: DT Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine DT_ Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania DT Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia DT Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan DT Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia

This book explores the transformation and reinvention of conflict-generated diaspora groups’ politics in countries of residence. Numerous narratives link diasporas and conflicts: diasporas are seen alternatively as peace wreckers or peace makers, as products of forced migration related to conflicts, or as targets of securitization policies. “Transported conflicts” occurring within and between diasporas in their countries of residence, however, remain relatively underexplored, tend to be misunderstood, and often associated with “criminal” or “terrorist” activities. The chapters in this volume draw our attention to various interconnected temporalities explaining patterns of conflict transportation, such as the temps long of diasporic mobilisation, the here and now of what is happening in both host and home countries, and micro-temporalities and diasporans’ life trajectories. Finally, the contributions demonstrate that patterns, shapes and even occurrence of conflict transportation vary according to scale and space. Highly politicized forms of confrontation are not necessarily representative of everyday interactions between diaspora groups, which can entail discrete but tangible forms of cooperation and even solidarity. This edited volume calls for nuancing our approach to the links between diasporas and conflicts, to avoid falling into the essentialisation trap. The chapters in this book were originally published in Ethnopolitics.