Columbia International Affairs Online

CIAO DATE: 12/07

Perspectives

25 Winter 2005/2006

Complete Issue (PDF, 106 pages, 485 KB)

• EDITORIAL (PDF, 2 pages, 54 KB)
  Petr Kratochvíl and Petr Jehlička

• The Troublesome Concept of Sovereignty – the Czech debate on European Unity (PDF, 16 pages, 135 KB)
  Mats Braun

  How the European Union is conceptualised in the national and public political debates restricts the European policy options available to that state. It is therefore of interest to see which conceptions of the EU dominate in a country, and to understand how these can be identified and interpreted. This paper outlines a framework for discourse analysis and then applies it to the Czech public discourse on the European Union. I describe how the debate can be analysed according to three different ideal types of legitimation, based on 1) an instrumental rationalisation, 2) a “we feeling”, 3) a “good argument”. I argue that any single actor will likely use arguments drawing upon all three levels, and I conclude that the Eurosceptics (Euro-realists) associated with the Civic Democratic Party came to see EU membership as a “marriage of convenience”, a necessary evil, because their arguments went in two incompatible directions. According to the third ideal type, they had to favour membership as good for the national interest, in economic terms. Simultaneously, this conflicted with the other two levels due to their belief that the EU is a threat to national sovereignty, and their conception of the nation state as the only legitimate arena for democratic decision-making. Advocates of membership, such as Prime Minister Špidla, had a more inclusive conception of the EU, enabling the argument that the EU strengthens nation states in globalising times.

• The Guatemalan Civil War: The Bipolarisation of an Internal Conflict (PDF, 20 pages, 144 KB)
  Ivan Eckhardt

  To approach this topic I first explain the so-called “New Wars” concept, which describes how contemporary conflicts differ significantly from modern interstate “Old Wars”. Subsequently, I use this concept to analyse the civil war in Guatemala in the second half of the 20th Century. I conclude that without external influence this conflict would have had the character of a “New War”. However, international environment of the Cold War shaped the Guatemala’s internal war in one significant measure – the actors were effectively “bipolarised”.

• Neoconservatives Among Us? A Study of Former Dissidents’ Discourse (PDF, 20 pages, 144 KB)
  Jeni Schaller

  Neoconservative political thought has been characterized as “distinctly American”, but could there be fertile ground for its basic tenets in post-communist Europe? This paper takes an initial look at the acceptance of the ideas of American neoconservative foreign policy among Czech elites who were dissidents under the communist regime. Open-ended, semi-structured interviews with eight former dissidents were conducted and then analyzed against a background of some fundamental features of neoconservative foreign policy. Discourse analysis is the primary method of examination of the texts. Although a coherent discourse among Czech former dissidents cannot be said to exist, certain aspects reminiscent of American neoconservative thought were found.

• The Polish-Czechoslovak Conflict over Teschen Silesia (1918–1920): a case study (PDF, 16 pages, 136 KB)
  Félix Buttin

  After describing how Czechoslovakia and Poland took up arms over their shared border, several conceptual tools are applied to this conflict. This article goes beyond pure historiography to reach a theoretical interpretation of the crisis. The analysis focuses by turns on ideological, economic and geopolitical arguments, as well as on the political framework which led to the conflict’s resolution. Finally, the research indicates how the Teschen issue escaped a fair bilateral agreement. It also shows how it embedded a secular distrust and distancing between the Czechs and the Poles, which may have played a crucial role on the eve of the Second World War.

REVIEWS

• Graeme P. Herd and Jennifer D. P. Moroney (eds.): Security Dynamics in the Former Soviet Bloc (PDF, 4 pages, 63 KB)
  London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 200 pages, ISBN: 0-4150-29732-X.
  Marcus Cavelius

• Matthew Hughes and Gaynor Johnson (eds.): Fanaticism and Conflict in the Modern Age (PDF, 4 pages, 55 KB)
  London: Frank Cass, 2005, 196 pages, ISBN: 0-714-68584-4.
  Vít Střítecký

• Yasir Suleiman: A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East (PDF, 4 pages, 62 KB)
  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 286 pages, ISBN: 0521546367
  Nataša Kubíková

• Milada Anna Vachudova: Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, Integration After Communism (PDF, 4 pages, 62 KB)
  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 341 pages, ISBN: 0-19-924119-8.
  Mats Braun

• Immanuel Wallerstein: World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction. (PDF, 4 pages, 63 KB)
  Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1st Edition, 2004, 109 pages, ISBN: 0822334429.
  Ivan Eckhardt

• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS (PDF, 2 pages, 37 KB)