Changing Political Identities in Coastal Central Europe
Political Science 240
Instructor: Paddy Dale
Departments of Political Science and Russian Studies

Nations are not ‘natural' phenomena but constructed forms of political identity the development of which is determined by countervailing political forces. They can be constructed, deconstructed and reconstructed with varying degrees of stability and longevity. Their durability is affected by the extent to which the state accommodates evolving social identities, manufactures them or represses them.

The lands of the Adriatic West Coast provide excellent twentieth century examples of changes of nationhood. Prior to World War I the region contained the borderlands of the Austro-Hungarian and the Ottoman Empires evident today in the V-shaped border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Peace of Versailles then shaped the region in ways which continue to evolve to this day. It created Yugoslavia which collapsed at end of the Cold War leading to the deaths of one quarter of a million people.

The levels of stability of the political communities of the six states which now exist in the territory of former Yugoslavia cover a wide spectrum. On the former Hapsburg side ethnically homogeneous Slovenia is now a member of the European Union and the Euro Zone, and Croatia is a candidate for EU membership unlikely ever to be called to justice for the 1995 ethnic cleansing of the Krajina Serbs. On the former Ottoman side NATO retains peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo and the once ethnically integrated city of Sarajevo now consists of divided communities.

Conceptual elements within the course will include :

  • The sociology of group identity. What is ethnic identity and how does it relate to other types of identity? Significance and role of language, ethnicity, religion, myth, institutions
  • The sources and different forms of political identity – group, community, clan, nation. Different forms of nationalism, civic, cultural and ethnic.
  • The character of ethnic identity before the emergence of the modern state: primordial, personal, sacred and civil ties
  • Change of statehood, nation building. Is nationalism a functional prerequisite for capitalism and the modern democratic state? What are the differences between nationalism and national identity?
  • Factors promoting multi-ethnic integration: elite cohesion vs elite competition; Tudjman, Karadzic, Milosevic.

The basic text for the course will be:

Charles Tilly Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties (Paradigm, 2006)

The book treats interpersonal transactions as the basic elements of larger social processes. Tilly shows how personal interactions compound into identities, create and transform social boundaries, and accumulate into durable social ties. Students will be organized into four groups corresponding to the four components of identities specified in Tilly's text.

These group identities (!) will serve to

  1. focus the journal keeping, field research and contribution to discussions of individual students
  2. provide individual students with a more specific identity within the larger class which can provide social as well as pedagogical support
  3. make individual students and the smaller groups interdependent: they will only grasp the “whole of the picture” of any situation when all groups contribute effectively.

Group memberships will change once, prior to departure for Croatia and Bosnia so that individuals will each participate in two of the four groups.

Sat 1/3 Depart MSP
Sun 1/4 Arrive Trieste, Italy: bus transfer to Piran
Mon 1/5 am Classes begin at the Institute of Mediterranean Heritage, Piran, Slovenia
Tues 1/6 Historical Study tour of Piran
Wed 1/7 Classes in Piran
Thurs 1/8 Study tour of Trieste
Visit to Slovene Community center in Trieste
Fri 1/9 Classes in Piran
Visit to Italian Community center in Piran
Sat Sun 1/10,11 Free days Possibility for Independent Travel to Venice or Ljubljana
Mon 1/12 Class in Piran: Emergence of Slovenia from Yugoslavia
Class: Slovenia as an international Actor: European Union, Euro Zone
Tues 1/13 Revised Reports on Political Identities in Slovenia from Four Identity Groups following discussions with Prof. Bebler
Wed 1/14 Class: Yugoslav Identity and the Politics of Ethnic Panic
Thurs 1/15 Class: Ethnic Cleansing: Attempts to Destroy Civic and Ethnic Identity
Formal closed book in class examination (1hr)
Fri 1/16 Organizational and Pedagogical preparation for study tour
What happened in Zagreb , Vukovar, Sarajevo and Mostar?
Who lived there then and who lives there now?
Sat 1/17 Free day
Sun1/18 Depart Piran for Zagreb
Mon 1/19 Locally guided study tour of Zagreb Depart Zagreb for Osijek
Tue 1/20 Program at Nansen Dialogue Center (NDC) Osijek See: http://www.ndcosijek.hr/engleski/novosti.html
NDC Osijek guided study tour Osijek / Vukovar
Wed 1/21 Depart Osijek for Sarajevo Program at NDC Sarajevo See: http://www.ndcsarajevo.org/index.php?l=en
Thur 1/22 NDC Sarajevo guided study tour Sarajevo
Fri 1/23 Depart Sarajevo for Mostar
Program at NDC Mostar See: http://www.ndcmostar.org/en/default.htm
Sat 1/24 NDC Mostar guided study tour Mostar Depart Mostar for Split
Sun 1/25 Free time in Split Depart Split for Piran
Mon-Fri 1/26-1/30 Reports and Student Presentations in Piran
Sat 1/31 Departure from Trieste