Contemporary European History

This article examines the tension between the democratic right of public participation on specific environmental issues, guaranteed by European Law, and the degree to which it is being challenged in the UK as a consequence of recent approaches to energy infrastructure planning. Recent trends in UK government policy frameworks seem both to threaten effective public participation and challenge EU planning strategy, in particular those outlined in the Aarhus convention. The research outlined in this study involves an assessment of the changing context of planning and energy policy, in addition to recent changes in legislation formulation in the UK. The research findings, derived from an extensive interview process of elite stakeholders engaged in policy and legislation formulation in the UK and the EU provide a new categorisation system of stakeholders in energy policy that can be utilised in future research. The article concludes with a second order analysis of the interviewee data an...

The emergence of a Soviet cultural diplomacy in the 1920s was hardly predictable. Bolsheviks’ propaganda for ‘world revolution’ reduced the image of Soviet Russia to one of Leninist-proletarian victory, while the rejection of diplomatic tradition and a distrust of artists and intellectuals precluded any commitment to cultural action abroad. This article explores how, when and why a Soviet cultural diplomacy developed. It focuses on two episodes related to the famine of 1921, including, based on new archival evidence, the First Exhibition of Russian Art in Berlin in October 1922. The exhibition's spectacular success paved the way for Soviet cultural diplomacy that moved away from overtly communist propaganda in order to address Western avant-garde literary and artistic milieus.

The canon is generally understood as a body of the most important personalities and key works in a particular field, and for various reasons it evokes an impression of objectivity and impartiality. But is it really objective, or does it exclude someone or something? The study provides a critical reflection on the principles of the formation and reproduction of the canon of 20th century architecture – specifically on the example of its distribution in the academic environment through selected survey literature and syllabi of university courses. First, the text presents argumentation and findings by selected foreign and domestic scholars who view the general processes of canon formation mainly through a feminist perspective. Further, the text offers an content analysis of selected survey literature and syllabi for courses on the history of 20th century architecture taught at Czech universities. On this basis, the study concludes by attempting to answer the research question: What interpretation of architectural history is conveyed in the materials under study, and to what extent this is a history that takes into account the creative contributions of women and the circumstances of their lived experience in the field?

Resumen: El presente artículo analiza la actitud adoptada por el PCI hacia los acontecimientos que tuvieron lugar en Portugal entre el abril de 1974 y el final del "Verano Caliente" de 1975. La Revolución de los Claveles, tras suscitar inicialmente optimismo y esperanzas, fue generando en los comunistas italianos graves inquietudes. En particular, el PCI manifestó serias preocupaciones por la tendencia del Movimiento de las Fuerzas Armadas a ejercer un papel político predominante, por la oposición del Partido Comunista Portugués a la construcción de una democracia de corte occidental y por los ásperos enfrentamientos que se produjeron entre las izquierdas lusas.

Más de un millón y medio de portugueses vivían en el extranjero cuando triunfó la revolución de los claveles. Tras la caída de la dictadura, los nuevos gobiernos impulsaron la publicación de la revista 25 de Abril, una publicación dirigida a los inmigrantes con el objetivo de informarles sobre la situación política, social y económica del país. Este artículo estudia la primera etapa de esta revista entre 1974 y 1976 a través de un análisis de sus contenidos y pretender ser una contribución a las investigaciones sobre el papel de los medios de comunicación durante la revolución portuguesa.

This article examines how cultural restitution was presented and debated in public discourses in the three main post-fascist countries of Western Europe, i.e. Austria, Italy and (West) Germany, from the end of the Second World War to the 1998 signing of the ‘Washington Declaration on Nazi-confiscated Art’. The study focuses on the role played by restitution in the process of memory- building vis-à-vis the development of these three countries’ Vergangenheitsbewältigung, their ‘struggling to cope with the past’. In particular, it examines the transition from a mild Vergangenheitspolitik, ‘the politics of the past’, typical of the early post-war period, to later attempts at a more fully fledged Vergangenheitsbewältigung that characterized the détente and especially the post-Cold War years. Building on a selection of Austrian, British, German, Italian and US printed primary sources, the paper investigates in comparative and transnational fashion how liberal-democratic narratives surrounding the three countries’ dictatorial past were constructed in order to tackle one central question: what role did cultural restitution play in the construction of post-war memory politics, and, vice versa, how did the memory and legacy of fascism impact restitution debates during and after the Cold War? Far from constituting a mere exercise in cultural diplomacy, the restitution of cultural property played an integral role in these three countries’ attempts at rebuilding a sense of national cohesion designed to overcome the ghosts of their fascist past. This often happened at the expense of an in-depth processing of their involvement in the Holocaust. Indeed, restitution came to perform a central function in the shift from amnesty to amnesia of the early post-war years in that it often reduced Wiedergutmachung to an economic transaction through which these countries could ‘make amends’ without effecting any deeper political and social defascistization.

Alain Corbin, Les cloches de la terre. Paysage sonore et culture sensible dans les campagnes au XIXe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1994), 359 pp., €8.69 (pb), ISBN 2080814532.Glenn Watkins, Proof through the Night. Music and the Great War (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2003), 598 pp., $49.95 (hb), ISBN 0520231589.Jeffrey Jackson, Making Jazz French. Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris (Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2003), 266 pp., $21.95 (pb), ISBN 0822331373.Bernard Gendron, Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club. Popular Music and the Avant-Garde (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 388 pp., $55.00 (hb), ISBN 0226287351.David Looseley, Popular Music in Contemporary France (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2003), 254 pp., $25.00 (pb), ISBN 1859736319.Though undoubtedly thriving, the history of music is still a somewhat peripheral area of research which many historians dismiss as secondary. For many years publication ...

This article focuses on the early years of the cold war in Italy in the form of an analysis of the Catholic press from 1947 to the eve of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. In so doing it attempts to answer key questions for Italian Catholicism relating to peace building that arose from total war in the age of mass democracy.

This edited volume studies the logic of community formation and the common view of the past to show how various social bonds of communities functioned during the modern national era of East-Central Europe from the late eighteenth century until today and how multifaceted this group-building really was.
Through an overview of selected examples of communities in East-Central European urban centres, mainly the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its successor empires, the volume shows the potential of re-interpretation or adaptation of the past as a crucial tool for assuring social cohesion and for strengthening the image of group boundaries. It studies not only textual sources but also the cultural construction of local historical writings such as oral tradition and municipal publications, as well as symbolic objects such as epitaphs, plaques, monuments and public edifices. The contributors explore the actual creativity employed by these communities to envision their past and their future in homage to the ideals of centralised nationalism or regionalism and how these strongly ethnically marked historic spaces can be interpreted, celebrated or neglected.

research questions. The chapters on the specific South African fascist movements (Chapters Three through Five) are placed by order of prevalence to which they were in contact with Nazi Germany. Therefore, at a macro scale, the structure of the research report will be thematic rather than purely chronological. The researcher will adhere to the requisite ethics clearance procedure by seeking research ethical clearance from the Scientific Committee of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Free State. Essential ethical standards will be rigorously observed, such as allowing research data to speak for itself and upholding scientific integrity. The research design is scientifically robust and aligned with the study's objectives. This research is strictly a desktop study and does not involve the participation of human research subjects or the use of personal data. All data and information will be stored securely using password-protected backups and handled ethically. Additionally, the researcher will ensure that findings are accurately represented and adequately credited using the Chicago referencing style to avoid plagiarism. The proposed study will adhere to the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), Act No. 4 of 2013. The information used in the study that is considered public includes data published or broadcast for public consumption, is available upon request, and can be accessed online or through other public means. This information is accessible to the public through subscription or purchase, observable by any casual observer, made available at a public meeting, or is obtainable by visiting suitable public locations, such as a library. The study's information and data do not encompass any personal data provided by third parties restricted under the POPI Act.

There is little doubt that national referenda on European Union (EU) treaties have had a decisive impact not only on the process of European integration, but on the development of EU studies as well. The outcome of the Maastricht treaty referenda in France and Denmark in 1992 brought the question of EU legitimacy and democracy at the forefront of scholarly attention. Thirteen years later the stumbling of the European constitutional treaty on the French and Dutch referenda ensured that debates on the democratic credentials of the EU remain as important and as relevant as ever.

Under the EU treaties, provisions for collective (or institutional) forms of political leadership prevail over those made for leadership performed by individuals. Thus, an important leadership input from the EU’s institutions, namely the European Commission, would be expectable, particularly in times of crisis. Although not having the formal power of decision, the monopoly of initiative gives the Commission a considerable ability to influence the course of EU policymaking and overall the integration process. Moreover, the Commission has learned to maximize (and to create) windows of opportunity to act by cleverly using its resources (for example, its privileged access to information and expertise). However, during the current Eurozone crisis, the role of the Commission was overshadowed by the visibility and prominence of some national leaders and other institutions. What was the role of the Commission in the economic and financial crisis? Did the Commission influence the crisis resp...

All the measures taken by the different Hungarian governments in the period between 1920 and 1924 to cope with the financial consequences of the Great War did not record the expected success. At the beginning of 1923, it was quite clear for the leaders of Budapest that the possible benefits of the inflationist phenomenon had disappeared and the country's only chance to recover was the appeal to international financial aid. Consequently, after failing to get a loan from Switzerland, the only solution for Hungary was to ask for the help of the League of Nations, especially that this modality had been successfully used by Austria, who was confronted to a more desperate economic and financial situation than Hungary. Our paper is the story of that endeavour and its immediate outcomes.

This article shows how corporatism in the Nordic countries helped shape the ‘ecological turn’ as governments and conservationist associations co-organised the Council of Europe's ‘European Conservation Year 1970’. The national programmes came to present highly diverging levels of discord, as this nascent policy field channeled challenges to the premise of economic growth. Cross-national comparisons highlight the importance of variations in the institutional maturity of environmental administrations as well as in the power afforded to industrial representatives. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian archival sources illuminate negotiations between governments and private associations, contributing to an in-depth analysis of a rarely researched transnational event.

This paper is a frankly subjective effort to return to questions posed about the nature of communist rule and the sudden collapse of communism in the light of the intervening two decades. It asks, first, why feelings of elation about the transformations of 1989 faded relatively quickly, second, why the communist system collapsed so clamorously, and, third, how might we best describe its earlier operation. The paper suggests that there will always be a sense of let-down after intensely hopeful political activity. It endeavours to provide a model of social complexity that communist rule with its Marxist archetypes of social development could not really master. But it also rejects the idea that 'society' under communism can be judged autonomously apart from the regime that sustained and structured it. Efforts to do so will trivialise the degrees of repression and surveillance. Finally the paper proposes that the nature of communist rule in the decades after Stalin must be described in terms of a 'life cycle' metaphor, such as the idea of 'late style' provides for artistic creation. It is fruitless to describe an ideal type of transformative political regime that makes no allowance for change over time. Hence, returning to the first enquiry, the paper argues that efforts to reclaim communal fulfilment will always exist or revive alongside efforts at individual emancipation. What have we learned since 1989? 1 The harsher version of the question might be, what did historians and social scientists get wrong about 1989? Two quick answers have circulated since that historical moment. The first alleged error was a failure of democratic faith before the events of 1989-91. That is, social scientists failed to foresee the collapse of the Communist Party regimes in the Soviet Union and

This introductory article argues that there is a need to introduce a renewed approach to the field of European Studies which takes into account various perspectives from the ‘periphery’ to unfold complexities and challenges of teaching and learning ‘Europe’ away from the immediate geographical and conceptual focus of the European studies. By elaborating on the notion of ‘periphery’ and exploring how European Studies resonate beyond ‘the centre’, we aim to explore the complexities and challenges of the European studies in its relationality of the broader processes such as EU accession and global university education. This endeavour will contribute to the ongoing disciplinary debate on the future of European studies as well as the introduction of new methods of teaching and knowledge production by presenting alternative narratives on the challenges of the European integration and Europeanisation in the ‘periphery’.

Decolonization was a critical step in restructuring immigration policies in France because, at the beginning of the 1960s, French colonial subjects suddenly became foreigners. At the same time, former bureaucrats from the colonial administration found new employment in the public sector of metropolitan France. This chapter contributes to the academic debate about the continuity between colonial past and immigration present, by studying civil servants in charge of deciding who can enter France, to visit and work, and who can gain access to French citizenship. It is aimed at analysing the discretionary power of the functionaries and to exposing the norms behind their power. To understand what was at stake during this transition, the chapter starts by distinguishing between colonial domination and immigration policy. Then, it analyses the developments in the early 1960s and how certain bureaucrats were able to transfer their skills and practices from one realm to another. Finally, by analysing individual immigration files, it shows how this transition impacted foreigners themselves.

The Ugly Side of Nation-Building O n the morning of Nov. 7, 1923, Georgios Adoniadis, a highly respected barrister and aspiring politician, was walking to the local courthouse from his house in the center of Ioannina, the capital of the Epirus province in northwestern Greece. The area of Ioannina was incorporated into the Greek state in the aftermath of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, when Greece allied with Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro in the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. Before that, Ioannina was part of the Ottoman Empire and the capital of the province of Yanya. Yet the nation-making process proved tumultuous. In the previous months, Adoniadis had published a series of articles in which he decried increasing levels of crime and political corruption and the immunity enjoyed by officials, politicians and businesspeople with ties to criminal gangs, war veterans and bandit groups. The articles sparked an outcry among the local and national political classes and earned him some determined enemies. It was perhaps the most resolute of them, Vasilis Kolovos, a politician, veteran of the

Traditional histories of the Italian ‘Economic Miracle’ have concentrated on two phenomena: the factory and migration. The family has occupied a position of secondary importance, being treated as of lesser interest than ‘other’ arenas of everyday life, in particular the workplace. Those who have eulogised the miracle have underlined the massive effort and sacrifice of millions of workers in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Those who oppose the ‘ideology’ behind the boom have looked to the latent conflicts (and problems) produced by unplanned economic development – frictions which were to explode in 1968. The reality was a complicated combination of both these interpretations. Some took the road of opposition to the system, many millions lapped up the values of the boom, most were affected in some way by both ‘world-views’. The relationship between the family and the boom was a two-way one.The Italian family had as much effect on the ‘miracle’ as the ‘miracle’ did on the family(in muc...

The transnational security dimension ascribed to many phenomena such as terrorism, drug trafficking, pandemics, or people smuggling has led to increased pressures to increase cooperation across national borders to ‘fight’ or ‘manage’ many of the new, transnational security threats. Against this background the EU has sought to promote its own norms and ideas, policy preferences and its own model of regional cooperation and integration in her external affairs. A number of recent studies have examined the growing potency of the EU to actively promote ideas and policy preferences in its neighborhood as well as with the U.S., however, scant attention has been given to EU cooperation with other regional organizations. By closely examining the EU’s cooperation with ASEAN in two policy fields deemed central within JHA – human trafficking and counter terrorism – this paper seeks not only to broaden the empirical basis of scholarship, but additionally seeks to connect the empirical findings w...

El objetivo principal de este trabajo es analizar la genealogía del insurreccionalismo anarcosindicalista desde la Revolución rusa y el origen del llamado anarcobolchevismo. Propongo una comprensión más precisa del insurreccionalismo que nos permita desmitificar la historia del anarcosindicalismo y del movimiento libertario, dado que hasta ahora los orígenes de la política armada anarcosindicalista se han estudiado poco y sin el suficiente rigor. En este proceso se hará evidente la importancia de Alfonso Miguel Martorell en la formación ideológica de Juan García Oliver, la figura más identificada con la vía insurreccionalista y, para muchos, el creador de la “gimnasia revolucionaria”.

Deciphering "revolutionary gymnastics": the genealogy of Juan García Oliver's anarcho-Bolshevik armed struggle (1917-36)
The main aim of this paper is to analyse the genealogy of anarcho-syndicalist insurrectionalism after the Russian Revolution and the origins of anarcho-Bolshevism in Spain. Through a more precise understanding of insurrectionalism we can demystify the history of anarcho-syndicalism and the libertarian movement, since, to date, the origins of anarcho-syndicalist armed politics have been little studied and with insufficient rigour. Here, due importance is given to the role of Alfonso Miguel Martorell in the ideological formation of Juan García Oliver, the individual most identified with the anarcho-Bolshevism and assumed to be the creator of “revolutionary gymnastics”.

ITA: Chi ha inventato l’alpinismo? Davvero è cominciato tutto con la salita di Francesco Petrarca al Mont Ventoux? Oppure sono stati gli illuministi del Settecento? O, ancora, i viaggiatori ed esploratori inglesi dell’Ottocento? E se invece fossero stati gli uomini e le donne che da sempre abitano le Alpi a diffondere la passione per le vette? Questo libro, originale e sorprendente, rovescia la tradizionale narrazione sulla nascita dell’alpinismo e pone al centro di questo racconto i veri protagonisti finora dimenticati: i montanari.

In February 1990 a major conference dedicated to the recent history of the East of Europe was organised at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. The revised papers, edited by Joseph Held, compriseThe Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. It is the first major Western-language compendium discussing a broad region of Europe which brings together the talents of prominent specialists and exhibits thorough familiarity with the latest scholarship. Such an undertaking was predestined to yield a volume of significance. The kaleidoscopic developments over the last few years make this work extraordinarily timely and important beyond its obvious scholarly merits.

The overthrow of Nikita Khrushchev from the posts of first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and the leader of the Soviet state in October 1964 was an unprecedented event in the history of the Soviet Union. The old leader was deposed by the opposition without violence. He was not imprisoned or killed after losing power. While his predecessors Lenin and Stalin and successors Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko all died in power, Khrushchev was sent into retirement, where he lived under supervision for another seven years.

Situating itself at the intersection of colonial history, global history and business history, this article highlights the overlooked history of German colonial companies post-First World War. It argues for an 'imperial afterlife' through continued German corporate interests in African markets, emphasising the economic dimension of imperialism. Using C. Woermann as an example, it shows how the company adapted to the post-First World War global order, underwent organisational changes, and merged with National Socialist policies in Eastern Europe after 1939, revealing the adaptability of imperial enterprises. This apocryphal anecdote testifies to the Woermann family's self-conception in the post-First World War period. 3 Kurt Woermann was determined to start business relations with Africa anew. In telling this episode, he meant to underline the fact that C. Woermann had a long tradition of trade with Africa, which dated back to the time before the colonial partition of the continent. He wanted to demonstrate that the economic and personal relations established over decades had elevated his company

As COVID-19 began to spread across the globe in early 2020, few could have envisaged that it would so profoundly affect our personal and professional lives. In-class teaching soon had to be either replaced with online teaching or could only be carried out with great risk to staff and students. Working from home and a constant stream of video conferences became the norm instead of informal chats on departmental corridors. As if all of this were not bad enough, positions for junior academics, already scarce in the wake of the general financial crisis and the rise of the neoliberal university, were cut. Travel funding was slashed by many universities, and most countries closed their borders. Libraries were closed or could only be accessed with considerable difficulty. Archives were shut or, if they reopened, operated long waiting lists. In situ research, essential for historians of central Europe, became difficult, if not impossible.

The reason why a fuller understanding of the significance of the Hitler dictatorship did not emerge in prewar democracies remains a question of enduring historical interest. This article examines the way in which Unilever, one of the earliest multinational corporations, responded to the challenges of political risk posed by the Third Reich, and how aspects of business activity that gave rise to moral issues were weighed against the need to survive commercially. The realisation that Unilever could be seen as an unwitting accomplice in the dictatorship's criminal activities seems to have come late to the company. While corporate culture reflected the values of contemporary society, multinational business was partly responsible for the failure to sound the alarm over the unique dangers inherent in National Socialism.

The rise of the new social history ('sosialhistorie' in Norwegian) in Norway from around 1970 was more of an evolution than a revolution. The social aspect of Norwegian history writing had been important for decades, a trait which also may explain its success. What was unusual, however, was the conscious application of new terms, theories and methods, partly borrowed from the social sciences, and the introduction of 'social history' as a rallying point. This article tries to show that processes of professionalisationcharacterised by specialisation and with increasing emphasis on originalitywere an important element of this new social history. In a lecture in 1964 the prominent Norwegian historian Andreas Holmsen (1906-89) commented on the state of the country's historiography. Holmsen was a historian of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, known for his structural approach to economic and settlement history, not unlike what was published in the Annales at the time. In the lecture he compared his way of doing history with that of another prominent historian, his contemporary and adversary Jens Arup Seip (1905-92). Seip was trained as a historian of the Middle Ages, but later turned to studying the nineteenth century. Previously sympathetic to the social sciences, he had turned against it (at least as an inspiration to history), and now favoured studying political history and the struggle for power. 1 In the 1960s Holmsen thought Seip to be by far the most influential of the two, or indeed compared to anyone, in the Norwegian history discipline. Political history was dominant. Seip had won, Holmsen wrote, and he had lost. 2 Only a few years later, the tables had turned. From the early 1970s, social historyalso known as the 'new social history' or simply the 'new history'was on nearly everybody's lips. 3 Books, articles, PhD theses and master's dissertations poured out, many declaring explicitly their genre as 'social history', which was the preferred term in Norway. 4 Interestingly, the chronological centre of attention was the century of Seip's research, the nineteenth, with its far-reaching social changes. Perhaps equally interesting was Seip's own reaction. He found much of the new work on

In the first half of the twentieth century, broadly defined, Europe experienced an unparalleled number of civil wars resulting in millions of deaths. Civil war, as much as inter-state war, was a defining feature of the period for many European societies, from Ireland in the west and Russia in the east, to Finland in the north and Spain and Greece in the south. Since the 1990s, a rich and increasingly sophisticated body of literature has emerged on individual incidents of civil war, ranging from military studies to social and cultural analyses. However, remarkably little comparative historical analysis has been undertaken on civil wars in this period. Even fewer studies have explored the connections between them – be it transfers of people, ideas, or practices – beyond their ideological tropes. This has resulted in a tacit assumption of exceptionalism, whereby each civil war is assumed to have been unique and self-perpetuating without any serious attempt to explain how and why that might be the case.

This project, funded by an ERC Advanced Grant (2022-2027, PI: Robert Gerwarth), challenges exceptionalist approaches to civil war. While it recognises that significant differences in causes, forms, and/or aftermaths existed between individual civil wars, it argues that those civil wars can only be fully understood as a phenomenon within a pan-European context. The project will therefore investigate the origins, courses, and legacies of European civil wars through a fully integrated team of scholars with complementary expertise on the Russian, Finnish, Irish, Spanish and Greek cases. This will enable comparison between these different conflicts, but it will also go beyond the nation-centric tendencies of comparative approaches to arrive at a better understanding of what made the first half of the twentieth century an era of civil wars in Europe.

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In 1955-6, three thousand German-speaking men were 'repatriated' from Czechoslovak forced labour camps, where they mined uranium, to West Germany, where they demanded benefits for health damage from radiation exposure. These men connected their group's experiences to the fears and developments of early Cold War West Germany, personifying the health risks of the Atomic Age and citizens' demands that their states offer protection from such risks. These men contributed to public awareness of radiation health risk and to ambivalence about safe 'peaceful nuclear technology' in the late 1950s and 1960s, earlier than is usually assumed. They further inspired concrete policy changes, especially in occupational health protection, illustrating that post-war responses to nuclear technology emerged from the intersection of longer historical experience, specialised local knowledge and grassroots activism, as well as from post-war scientific and political developments. It further shows long-lasting expellee influence in unexpected areas of West German policy. Along with the victims of Hiroshima and the fishermen of Bikini, we are crucial 'lab rats' for science. We, our families, our people (Volk) and all of humanity should be protected from radiation damage. 1 So wrote Karl Cuno in the December 1957 issue of Der Joachimsthaler, a newsletter that he and Peter-Paul Ullmann founded for former political prisoners from the Czechoslovak uranium mines living in West Germany. Cuno and Ullmann were among some 3,000 men who had worked in the mines after the post-war Czechoslovak People's courts sentenced them to forced labour for collaboration with Nazi Germany. 2 They called themselves 'Joachimsthalers' after the Czechoslovak city of Jachýmov/Joachimsthal, known since the nineteenth century as the centre of Bohemian, and later Czechoslovak uranium mining. The Joachimsthalers were simultaneously vestiges of the Nazi era and unwilling frontline participants in the post-war Atomic Age. Most had been German-speaking Czechoslovaks before the Munich invasion of 1938, and many had served in the Nazi administration of the Sudetenland and the Czechoslovak Protectorate, been members of the Gestapo, or were otherwise connected to the National Socialist regime. 3 Czechoslovakia 'returned' them to West Germany as German 'late repatriates' (Spätheimkehrer) in late 1955 and early 1956.

This article investigates the phenomenon of 'unholy alliances': grand coalitions and ideologicallyincoherent coalitions in the EU. In the last decade, these types of government majorities have proliferated, even in countries that have not previously experienced them. This substantial increase happened during the years of the so-called Great Recession, together with the electoral growth of populist movements and new political parties. This article investigates the potential correlation between these 'unholy alliances' and the economic situation of countries. The hypothesis is that negative economic trends might have led to fragmented electoral results, a decrease in the support for mainstream parties and the growth of populist parties and new parties. This generated additional difficulties in forming homogeneous coalitions, forcing the birth of these unholy alliances.

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As recent scholarship has shown, most of East Central Europe remained at war for several years after the official armistice in November 1918, complicating the transition from empires into nation-states. This article addresses another aspect of the state-building process. As opposed to centralising power emanating from capitals such as Prague, Warsaw and Budapest, I argue that local politicians and village leaders made their own territorial and sovereignty claims. Rather than whole nations, it was small communities that first defined self-determination. Here I present a loose typology of such localities (ethno-linguistic republics, non-Bolshevik workers' councils, and radical agrarians), and show that conflicts between mini-states and burgeoning nation-states shaped the development of the latter. In December 1918, Lutheran pastor Emil Hegemann left his native Schwenten in east Prussia and headed for Glogau (present-day Głogów). Hegemann and his 800 or so parishioners felt under attack from the east, where Poles were revolting against German rule. As the ongoing uprising showed, scrappy Polish units were able to take control of town after town. 1 In Glogau, Hegemann sought support from the garrison to bolster his position against the encroaching threat. To his great dismay, the officers informed him that the soldiers' councils were now in charge, and they could not offer Schwenten protection from Polish paramilitaries. While in Glogau, Hegemann was shocked to hear someone lecture on the principle of the self-determination of nations, but citing Lenin and not Wilson. The speaker was clearly justifying what the Poles were doing in Poznań and other formerly German cities. 2 Severely disappointed, Rev. Hegemann returned to his village, now fearing Bolshevism in Germany and a Polish national state to the east. Rather than give up hope, Hegemann declared his town independent in January 1919, with himself as head of state, and the Freistaat Schwenten was born. In a few days, they managed to hold elections for representatives, though the pastor removed all the social democrats. The Schwenten parliament then set up a police force and an army with around 100 young men. In quick succession, Schwenten gained recognition from the Polish government in Warsaw, then Germany, and finally the Allied Commission in Paris. 3 Schwenten continued as an independent entity until August 1919, when the parliament voted to join a more stable Germany. On that same day, a border patrol began its work, and the eastern edges of the Schwenten mini-state marked the border between Poland and Germany. 4

The Unfinished History of European Integration is a companion to the history of the European Union. From the aftermath of the First World War to the EU of 27 member states and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it guides the reader past the main events, crucial sites and key actors that shaped the EU we know today. How did it evolve from a market project to a geopolitical force, what explains the expansion of its membership, institutions, policies and the resistance to this growth, and why does it function as it does?

This book provides more than just a chronological account of over seventy years of European integration. It also shows how observers past and present have made sense of the EU. The Unfinished History of European Integration is therefore a unique introduction for readers with different disciplinary backgrounds to understanding the EU. If over seventy years of European integration have taught us anything, it is that fundamental crises as well as moments of rapid institutional change have been constants in its history.

South Africa's involvement in the Second World War was strongly opposed by elements within the white South African community, especially the Afrikaners. The majority of Afrikaners were historically anti-British, although some supported Britain, and the issue of participation divided them accordingly. Activist elements, such as the Ossewa-Brandwag, became platforms for discontent and various militant groupings violently opposed South Africa's participation in the war. Gen. JC Smuts, infamous amongst Afrikaners for his brutal suppression of the Afrikaner Rebellion in 1914-1915, as well as striking miners in 1913-1914 and 1922, utilised the Union Defence Force (UDF) and South African Police (SAP) to facilitate internment, to spy and to guard strategic objectives in an effort to prevent sabotage and serious damage to the war effort.

This article analyses the relationship between charted (drawn) maps and mental maps of the contested border-region between Italy and Yugoslavia following the First World War. Drawing upon graphic and verbal depictions of tourist routes, railways, supply chains, demographics, topographic features and telephone and telegraph lines, the article analyses representations of an unstable border at a moment of peak uncertainty. In so doing, it reveals the centrality of architects, engineers, tourist bureaus, artists and cartographers in forging an imaginary geography that correlated with emerging political divisions in post-war Europe. On both sides of the contested border, cartography was utilised to change the way people conceived political geography. Maps, the article argues, both revealed existing mental maps and helped to shape new ones.

The mass banditry that emerged in Turkey's Kurdish regions between 1950 and 1970 was labelled a "national problem" in state discourse. Banditry and bandits were thus an integral part of the Turkish nation-state building process and the politico-moral economy of the region. Turkish state policies with regard to banditry, after the transformation of bandits from "criminal citizens" into "traitors" in state discourse, culminated in massive military operations to disarm and suppress the peoples of these regions. This last period of Kurdish banditry, the result of the destabilization of traditional Kurdish society, was a source of political contention between the state elite and Kurdish communities.

The notions of immigration and social integration have increasingly become central themes in public discourse, particularly in the European Union. Besides opportunities, this phenomenon also poses challenges to the host nations of promoting social integration of immigrants. Continuing an earlier Design Science Research project that developed an open learning platform for Civic Orientation in Sweden, this paper attempts to extend this platform using Jürgen Habermas\u27 Theory of Communicative Action as an inspiration. We aim at designing a more inclusive open learning platform for social integration that supports instrumental, strategic, normatively-regulated, dramaturgical, and communicative action. We expect to further the relevance of philosophy in IS research by not only making sense of phenomena through philosophical lens, but also attaining inspirations from philosophy in designing sociotechnical information systems

What is ethnography in times of war? How does war shape the conditions and possibilities of ethnographic research? How do the exigencies of daily life in a war zone ultimately prescribe and restrict what kinds of research can be done? In the following essay, I reflect on my experiences conducting ethnographic fieldwork in southeastern Turkey in unexpected wartime conditions. During the two years that I spent in the field, a series of local and national crises disrupted a fragile peace that had lasted for the previous few years. Confronted with disaster after disaster, I was continually compelled to reevaluate my project—interrogating my research questions, changing my research methods, and assessing whether I would be able to continue my research at all. The war defined my time in the field and dictated the possibilities and limitations of the work that I was able to do. While I had planned to examine earlier histories of violence, ultimately the contemporaneous war and its effects on daily life, the politics of memory, and the landscape became a central focus of my fieldwork.

Contemporary healthcare institutions have come to realized that making prudent decisions is very critical in their resolve to reducing costs in the health care supply chain management. These prudent decisions will inure to the benefit of the healthcare sector by curtailing operational bottlenecks while still maintaining processes efficiency and timely delivery. SCM in healthcare with respect to the products availability and accessibility to patients is of a great concern since it’s premised on life or death. In this regard, there is a strong conviction to always get it right in this all important sector. Simulation Modeling has been used in diverse fields especially in engineering. By adopting Simulation and Modeling (SM) as a new approach in the healthcare sector, solutions and support decisions owing to diverse SCM problems could be tested by supply chain managers. In this paper, we make a case to analyze past Simulation and Modeling (SM) situations that support SCM decision makin...