Showing papers by "Gearóid Ó Tuathail published in 2006"
TL;DR: In this paper, the results of public opinion surveys related to the tenth anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords are discussed, and the most recent constitutional change proposals are reviewed, as well as results of opinion surveys on constitutional change, reform of the governance structure of BiH state and the Dayton Treaty after ten years are presented and discussed.
Abstract: Two American-based political geographers and the head of a Bosnian public opinion research organization present and discuss the results of public opinion polls related to the tenth anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords. The paper reviews talks between Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) and the European Union (EU) aimed at signing a Stabilization and Association Agreement that should pave the way for eventual membership of BiH in the EU, a process that would stimulate reform of BiH's notoriously complex governance structure. The most recent constitutional change proposals are reviewed, and results of public opinion surveys (N = 614-2000 in late 2005) on constitutional change, reform of the governance structure of BiH state, and the Dayton Peace Accords after ten years are presented and discussed. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I31, O15, O19. 2 figures, 9 tables, 19 references.
39 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine some of the classic ideas of geopolitical analysis using a recent survey of Russian public opinion and pose a series of questions that provide measures of Russia's geopolitical orientations.
Abstract: The authors examine some of the classic ideas of geopolitical analysis using a recent survey of Russian public opinion. Problematizing prevailing assumptions and binaries in geopolitical discourse, they pose a series of questions that provide measures of Russia's geopolitical orientations. Do more Russians think of their country as European or Eurasianist? If the United States is judged the most important state for Russian foreign policy, what country do most respondents view as the most appropriate model for Russia? Logit modeling of the ranking of state importance and preferences of countries as models for Russia show consistent and clear relationships with cleavages in Russian society along socio-demographic and ideological lines. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: F01, F02, Z13. 5 figures, 2 tables, 44 references.
30 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the Bosnian war and the international community's effort to reverse ethnic cleansing from a critical geopolitics perspective is considered, arguing that it was a war against homes in the name of idealized homelands.
Abstract: Critical geopolitics seeks to deconstruct the constructed objectifications of places as ‘territory’ or ‘homeland’ in realist and nationalist geopolitical discourse by remembering the messy spatiality of places as locations of human life and dwelling. This paper considers the Bosnian war and the international community's effort to reverse ethnic cleansing from a critical geopolitics perspective. Developing analysis around the notion of ‘home’, it argues that the Bosnian war was a war against homes in the name of idealized homelands. Domicide, the deliberate destruction of home, was its prevailing logic, the despoilment of Bosnia's multiethnic dwelling spaces its consequence. The international community's effort to promote ‘minority returns’ in the wake of the Dayton Peace Accords sought to roll back homelands but this effort at reverse spatial engineering has only partially reconstituted Bosnia's multigroup spatiality.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the response of Bosnian Serb nationalist forces to returns, namely the strategy of distributing land plots to displaced Serbs to preserve the demographic consequences of ethnic cleansing.
Abstract: The Bosnian war was driven by fantasies of geopolitical and demographic engineering which led to ethnic cleansing and the separation of Bosnia's ethnic qua national communities from each other. The post-war peace opened up the possibility of returns, most especially the politically sensitive cross-boundary return of Bosniaks to their old homes in Republika Srpska and Serbs to the residences in Bosnian Federation. This article considers one response of Bosnian Serb nationalist forces to returns, namely the strategy of distributing land plots to displaced Serbs to preserve the demographic consequences of ethnic cleansing. This study draws upon semi-structured fieldwork interviews with international and local officials in Republika Srpska to contextualize the policy within former Yugoslav norms, post-war Bosnian Serb politics and international community governance in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
20 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed how the strategic Bosnian locality of Brcko emerged as a distinctive geopolitical space during the post-war period and concluded that Brcko as a third geopolitical space holds potential to offer Bosnia a third space, overcoming the oppositional binaries of the war.
Abstract: This article analyses how the strategic Bosnian locality of Brcko emerged as a distinctive geopolitical space during the post-war period. This resulted from the struggle between separatist nationalisms and the international community over the status of displaced persons in Bosnia, but this struggle played out differently in the municipality of Brcko as its status was unresolved at Dayton and for years afterward. Post-war nationalist rivalry to determine Brcko's status through the manipulation of displaced persons provoked the creation of the Brcko District as a territorial condominium nominally shared by Bosnia's two entities but under direct international supervision. Drawing upon fieldwork in Bosnia, we develop a critical geopolitical account of Brcko from wartime through the post-war period to the present. The article concludes by considering whether Brcko as a third geopolitical space holds potential to offer Bosnia a third space, overcoming the oppositional binaries of the war.
20 citations
19 citations