Papers by Magdalena Dembinska
Nationalities papers, Jul 18, 2022
Routledge eBooks, Jul 5, 2017
ABSTRACT Ethnolinguistic political mobilization has spread throughout the post-communist area. Ho... more ABSTRACT Ethnolinguistic political mobilization has spread throughout the post-communist area. However, it is unclear whether it has been accompanied by a strengthening of group boundaries. This paper examines the nation-building process of unrecognized Silesians in Poland. It explores the mobilization strategies used by Silesian ethnopolitical entrepreneurs in their quest for regional autonomy and recognition of their language and group. I argue that the increase in the number of self-declared Silesians and the successful institutionalization of a Silesian national category have not led to mass national consciousness. Due to structural transformations and transnational processes, Silesians display multidimensional fluctuating identifications, which suggest the absence of a sense of national groupness.
Routledge eBooks, Aug 26, 2021
This paper takes a bottom-up perspective on the "boundary issues" that emerged between the EU and... more This paper takes a bottom-up perspective on the "boundary issues" that emerged between the EU and Russia with and since the end of the Cold War: the mobility of people and goods, energy and natural resources, security, and protection of minorities. This paper compares three zones of contact: Estonia, Moldova and Kaliningrad. Our starting point is that there is not a European-Russian relationship, but Russian European relations that vary according to interests and representations on the ground. We argue that cooperation and conflict are not tightly coupled with the geopolitical level but also shaped by the local dynamics of symbolic boundary making.
Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal eBooks, Oct 4, 2018
Nationalities Papers
This article compares the nation-building processes in four well-established Eurasiande factostat... more This article compares the nation-building processes in four well-established Eurasiande factostates. Although all four pursue a set of identity politics that would legitimize the separatist cause, comparing them reveals important differences in boundary-making strategies. While maintaining the image of the enemy parent-state and of an imminent external threat is a common endeavor, they face different challenges and thus have pursued different strategies of identity-building. Transnistria and Abkhazia are two ethnically heterogeneous entities while Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia are more homogeneous since (forced) displacements, mostly of non-titular ethnicities, took place. The Abkhazs, Ossetians, and Armenians claim titular status in their respective regions, but only the latter two have kin in neighboring countries with whom they want to unify. Meanwhile, the “Transnistrian people” is a newly invented construct. Despite their lack of international recognition, the article demo...
Nations and Nationalism, 2018
The 1992-1993 civil wars in Moldova and in Georgia ended with a de facto separation of Transnistr... more The 1992-1993 civil wars in Moldova and in Georgia ended with a de facto separation of Transnistria and Abkhazia, respectively. These de facto states are both inhabited by the kin to the 'enemy' across the administrative border: Moldovans and Georgians/Mingrelians. How do the de facto authorities foster a collective identity in support of their claim for legitimacy and statehood? Engaging with Wimmer's taxonomy of boundary-making, this article argues that nation-building involves not only expansion but also, simultaneously, contraction. Transnistria constructs a higher-level identity category and co-opts and contracts the Moldovan category, separating it into 'our' and Bessarabian Moldovans in order to incorporate the former into the Transnistrian people. In Abkhazia, the nation-building project establishes the Abkhazs as the titular nation allowing, however, for the construction of an Abkhazian people that would include minorities, with Gal/i Georgians said to be Mingrelians, distinct from Georgians. These cases show that elites combine different ethnic boundary-making strategies in order to implement their favoured identity project and to legitimize the claimed statehood.
Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal
Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2021
ABSTRACT This Special Issue examines the ways states, regions, de facto states and local actors s... more ABSTRACT This Special Issue examines the ways states, regions, de facto states and local actors situated in-between the EU and Russia cope with the competitive external pressure coming from the two regional powers. States, diverse groups and actors in this overlapping neighborhood navigate between varied economic and political integration projects and between different values, ideas and visions of society. This introductory article, first, contextualizes this “inside-out” perspective by presenting the nature of the current EU and Russian projects vis-à-vis the region, how they clash and how this puts regional actors in a state of “in-betweenness”. Then, it unpacks the concept of “navigation” by outlining the ways local actors at different levels of domestic governance studied in the contributions to this Special Issue respond to and manage areas of contestation relating to issues such as citizenship politics, minority rights, and political and trade strategies. The role of elite agency serves as a central thread running across the contributions. Caught “in-between” Russia and the EU, domestic actors, be it at national or sub-national level, navigate while adjusting to the external pressures, negotiating and appropriating external discourses. In the process, constraints are often turned into opportunities for the local actors to exploit.
Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal
Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2021
ABSTRACT This Special Issue examines the ways states, regions, de facto states and local actors s... more ABSTRACT This Special Issue examines the ways states, regions, de facto states and local actors situated in-between the EU and Russia cope with the competitive external pressure coming from the two regional powers. States, diverse groups and actors in this overlapping neighborhood navigate between varied economic and political integration projects and between different values, ideas and visions of society. This introductory article, first, contextualizes this “inside-out” perspective by presenting the nature of the current EU and Russian projects vis-à-vis the region, how they clash and how this puts regional actors in a state of “in-betweenness”. Then, it unpacks the concept of “navigation” by outlining the ways local actors at different levels of domestic governance studied in the contributions to this Special Issue respond to and manage areas of contestation relating to issues such as citizenship politics, minority rights, and political and trade strategies. The role of elite agency serves as a central thread running across the contributions. Caught “in-between” Russia and the EU, domestic actors, be it at national or sub-national level, navigate while adjusting to the external pressures, negotiating and appropriating external discourses. In the process, constraints are often turned into opportunities for the local actors to exploit.
Cooperation and Conflict between Europe and Russia, 2021
Cooperation and Conflict between Europe and Russia, 2021
East European Politics, 2020
ABSTRACT This paper takes a bottom-up perspective on the “boundary issues” that emerged between t... more ABSTRACT This paper takes a bottom-up perspective on the “boundary issues” that emerged between the EU and Russia with and since the end of the Cold War: the mobility of people and goods, energy and natural resources, security, and protection of minorities. This paper compares three zones of contact: Estonia, Moldova and Kaliningrad. Our starting point is that there is not a European-Russian relationship, but Russian European relations that vary according to interests and representations on the ground. We argue that cooperation and conflict are not tightly coupled with the geopolitical level but also shaped by the local dynamics of symbolic boundary making.
Journal of Deliberative Democracy, 2015
Engaging with the literature on deliberative democracy, this article contends that in the context... more Engaging with the literature on deliberative democracy, this article contends that in the context of ethnic group hostilities, deliberative processes where participants have a genuine opportunity to communicate and 'hear the other side' can be a way for inter-group dialogue and reconciliation. Separating the deliberative process into three distinct moments, it offers a framework for understanding how unequal and conflicting parties may be brought together to deliberate, how to grasp the micropolitics of deliberation, and to understand the diffusion mechanisms that bring society back in. The approach we propose aims to bridge the normative-macro and the experimental-micro accounts of deliberation in order to focus on non-ideal real-life contexts and to offer 'deliberative lenses' to study the (rare) cases of deliberative inter-ethnic reconciliation. The approach and the three moments are illustrated by the deliberative turn taken to resolve a conflict between the Innu communities, the Quebec government and the local non-Innu in Saguenay-Lac-Saint Jean.
Asia Europe Journal, 2018
The Bfrozen^conflict between Moldova and its separatist Transnistrian region-which developed into... more The Bfrozen^conflict between Moldova and its separatist Transnistrian region-which developed into a de facto state-is dynamic. Despite an active nation-building project to support Transnistria's independence and a stated willingness to join Russia, Transnistria is juggling between Russia and Europe. While economically dependent on the former's subsidies and security guarantees, Transnistrian economic ties with the West are growing strong. While most studies are interested in the geopolitical game and the role of external actors, this article argues for a complementary approach that links macro-with meso-level analysis through the role of externally oriented domestic agents. First, the article shows that Transnistria pursues dual alignment in order to survive and provide the population with public goods for which they need external resources. Although Transnistria relies heavily on its patron state, Russia, facing recurrent crisis and external constraints, it has to search for complementary sources of income. Dual alignment is the result of this Bmultiple asymmetric dependence.Ŝ econd, the article argues that local intermingled economic and political interests, embodied by businessmen with close ties not only to Russia but also to Europe, account for how this balancing act is sustained. These informal international brokers or Bdouble agents^mobilize their political connections to support dual alignment while using their Western and Eastern business connections to consolidate their power in Transnistria. It is further argued that the role of international brokers embedded in Russian and European networks and engaging in cross-border cooperation helps understand why the Transnistrian frozen conflict seems to be withering.
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Papers by Magdalena Dembinska