Ideology And National Identity In Post Communist Foreign Policies

A comparative analysis of the foreign policies of eight post-communist states which considers the extent to which official communist ideology has been replaced by nationalism and establishes how these states express their national identities through foreign policy.

This book is based on the premise that the foreign policy of any country is heavily influenced by a society's evolving notions of itself. Applying his analysis to Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, the author argues that national identity is an ever-changing concept, influenced by internal and external events, and by the manipulation of a polity's collective memory. The interaction of the narrative of a society and its foreign policy is therefore paramount. This is especially the case in East-Central Europe, where political institutions are weak, and social coherence remains subject to the vagaries of the concept of nationhood. Ilya Prizel's study will be of interest to students of nationalism, as well as of foreign policy and politics in East-Central Europe.

A state's articulation of its national role betrays its preferences and an image of the world, triggers expectations, and influences the definition of the situation and of available options. Extending Kal Holsti's early work on the usefulness of the concept of role, Role Quests in the Post-Cold War Era examines the nature, evolution, and origins of role conceptions, key aspects largely ignored in a literature obsessed with the quest for immediate relevance. For each country contributors present the major foreign policy debate that took place at the end of the Cold War and examine, through an analysis of major speeches, the relative weight of identity and international status in the definition of the national role. Uncovering the different roles that states claim for themselves allows reflection on the possibility of international cooperation in the maintenance of international order. This study helps assess the importance of identity in national role conceptions, identify potential conflicts arising from the clash of roles masquerading as interests, and clarifies existing contradictions in prevailing roles. Contributors include Caroline Alain, Onnig Beylérian, Christophe Canivet, Jean-René Chotard, André Donneur, Philippe G. Le Prestre, Paul Létourneau, Jacques Lévesque, Alexander Macleod, Marie-Elisabeth Räkel, Jean-François Thibeault, and Charles Thumerelle.

In this timely and pathbreaking volume, scholars in comparative politics and international relations build upon earlier theoretical work on the interaction of domestic and international systems, applying it innovatively to the study of post-Soviet Russian policy and conduct. Individual chapters focus on regime type, leadership politics, interest group politics, nationalism as ideology, international conflict and threat, and international economic opportunities and constraints. The complex interplay between domestic and international factors is highlighted. Exploring both the origins and the outcomes of Russian policy and behavior, this book provides a telling measure of the direction and significance of political change since 1991.

This book focuses on questions of identity that have confronted the countries of Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the communist system that had previously provided them with an identity. This development both facilitated and necessitated a reassessment of the now independent nations’ history, orientation, symbols and identity. In some cases, new states were created without a clear national identity, while in others the nation was regaining statehood, but not always within borders that had an historical association with the nation concerned. The multiethnic character of the space of the former Soviet Union and its erstwhile "satellites," and the long historical legacy of complex relations, boundary changes, population migration, and economic and social changes presented different challenges to the various nations and states concerned. The essays in this volume attempt to elucidate and understand the issues of ethnic and national identity and their relationship to the emerging statehood in various regions of the post-communist world. This study makes clear that some nation-states were far better prepared to handle these issues than others, and that the longer-term impact of the communist experience has varied. This book was previously published as a special issue of Nationalities Papers