The continuous process of recognition and implementation of the Sami people's right to self-determination

This paper explores the status of the recognition and implementation of the Sami people's right to self-determination. The Sami are the indigenous people of Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Kola Peninsula in the north-western region of Russia. They are one people residing across national borders, enjoying a distinctive identity, language, history, culture and social structure, as well as unique traditions, livelihoods and aspirations. Their distinctiveness has given rise to their claim to self-determination based on conventional principles and instruments of international law. But where their right to self-determination has been gradually recognized by Finland, Norway and Sweden, Russia remains reluctant. And where Sami self-determination has been implemented through indigenous Sami parliaments, in Nordic states, the process of recognizing and implementing their right within these states has only taken place incrementally within existing democratic and constitutional mechanisms. It is a continuous process without a predefined outcome.     

Uneven Ground: Nationalist Frames and the Variable Salience of Homeland

When are domestic publics most sympathetic to nationalist territorial ambitions? Conflict scholars commonly assume support should be greatest when territory is framed as being of intangible value to national identity over tangible importance to national security and economic prosperity. This should be especially true regarding lost homelands, territories wherein a state has previously exercised sovereignty and to which it has enduring ethnic ties. This article presents experimental evidence that directly challenges these assumptions, demonstrating the variability of Serbian popular attachments to three lost territories: Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro. It finds that intangible framings do not necessarily engender stronger assertions that such territories belong to the homeland than tangible framings do. Nor do they necessarily motivate greater support for nationalist territorial agendas. These findings cast doubt on conventional wisdom regarding domestic publics' contributions to territorial conflict and offer refined insights regarding in which instances intangible claims are most conflict-prone.     

Indigeneity,Ethnicity, and the State: Australia,Fiji, and New Zealand

This article draws on the politics of indigeneity to distinguish the claims of first occupancy from simple ethnic identity politics, illustrating that relative political marginalization in Australasia is not so much a function of minority status but of indigeneity itself. The politics of indigeneity's aim is to create political space for self-determination and a particular indigenous share in the sovereign authority of the nation-state itself. The Australasian states are compared with Fiji to demonstrate that the significance of historical constraints on political authority transcend the withdrawal of a colonial power and the restoration of collective indigenous majority population status.     

Ethnicity,Colonial Legacies,and Postindependence Issues of Identity Politics in North-East India

The idea of indigenousness has been evoked to legitimize group exclusive claims including separate territories in North-East India. By analyzing experiences in Meghalaya and Manipur, the article argues that the colonial ethnic categorization that produced “ethnic conglomerates” has generated a number of problems leading to conflict in the postindependence period. First, certain composite identities have been formed by bringing together under a single umbrella a range of distinct indigenous groups' identity, often leading to the suppression of smaller identities within the larger group. Thus, the smaller groups struggle to have their own identities recognized. Furthermore, the imposed ethnic categorization has enabled the contemporary political class, which has simply perpetuated the colonial system, to use cultural identity and “indigenousness” instrumentally to their own advantage.     

Searching for Certainty in Purity: Indigenous Fundamentalism

Indigenous resistance to colonial hegemony developed as one based on a politics of difference. This strategic construction of difference relied on the notion of culture to establish a discursive space to articulate the political demands of the subjugated Indigenous minority. This article interrogates the less liberatory impulses of such political constructions of identity and culture. I contend that indigenous responses to colonization that are based on a politics of difference have the potential to, and in particular instances do, invoke the notion of culture and identity as an oppressive site of authority in a way that is, in practice, fundamentalist.     

A Battlefield of Meanings: The Struggle for Identity in the UN Debates on a Definition of International Terrorism

For nearly forty years, debates on a definition of international terrorism as part of a comprehensive convention have been preoccupying the United Nations. This article challenges conventional approaches referring to divergences in national interests and preferences, or to institutional constraints and national legal traditions, to explain why no definition has been agreed upon. It analyzes the inconclusive debates from a critical perspective and argues that the continuous search for a definition can be understood through the prism of collective identity struggles: the desire to define terrorism is not only the desire to give a precise content to terrorism and, thereby, create the identity of an Other. It is also the desire to create a collective identity, a “Self,” representing and uniting those who oppose terrorism. By applying a discursive understanding of collective identity construction to analyze the UN debates, the article elucidates how strongly the definition of terrorism hinders a common understanding among those who are opposing terrorism. Thereby, the analysis highlights that the demonization of terrorism foremost impedes a homogeneous understanding of a collective Self, ready to confront and define terrorism in the first place.     

At the Margins of Multiculturalism: Assessing Kymlicka's Liberal Multiculturalism in Japan

Will Kymlicka's theories of multiculturalism have gained wide interest in the West but only recently have been applied beyond it. This research note assesses whether a Kymlickian approach provides traction for grasping the configuration of nondominant ethnic groupings in Japan and how they have achieved a degree of multicultural recognition. It first identifies equivalents and exceptions within the Japanese case to Kymlicka's key groupings: national minorities, indigenous peoples, immigrants, and metics. It then shows that of these, the last two drove the expansion of multicultural rights. Finally, it examines why they launched claims within a multicultural framework and assess the limits of the multicultural claims for bolstering the rights of subordinate groups.     

How the indigenous got seats at the UN table

Indigenous peoples are the only distinct segment of national populations having voting membership in UN bodies devoted to defining their rights and advancing their concerns. This unusual result was the result of the confluence of three factors familiar to students of transnational social movement politics: a) presence within UN offices and bodies of supporters opening forums and agendas to indigenous concerns, b) deference to the growing network of indigenous activists by anthropologists—the professional community best placed to serve as advocates speaking on behalf of indigenous communities, and c) indigenous activists' success in developing and projecting a globally-valid indigenous identity as “peoples” simultaneously uniting the various indigenous communities and providing a rationale for establishing voting rights that enough other actors could be persuaded to accept. Comparison with UN treatment of other groups indicates that indigenous voting rights are more likely to remain an isolated success rather than a harbinger of similar practices in other UN bodies.     

The Social Construction of Identity: Israeli Foreign Policy and the 2006 War in Lebanon

This article uses a constructivist analysis to consider the social construction of identity and the Israeli military action in Lebanon in 2006. Strands of meaning, constructive of a collective sense of self, emerged out of historical continuities, interacted and were made meaningful in relation to each other around the issue of the Hezbollah threat in 2006. They framed, contextualised and constituted that policy issue to form a situated and contingent identity of the possible, within which the policy decisions that produced the second Lebanon War were taken. Whilst a body of work has resulted from engagement with this conflict, and a well established literature discusses Israeli identity, little has been done to bring the two together and consider in detail the role of identity in constructing the 2006 war as possible and desirable for Israel. This is the focus and contribution of this article. Domestically, the institutional context of the 2006 Knesset elections revealed a national identity in which the multi-faceted vulnerability identity and Fighting Jew identity were salient, interacting strands. The narratives of ordeal, existential threat, and self-reliance acted to increase the power of the Fighting Jew identity, predicated on a faith in military solutions to threats. These ideas came up against and were rearticulated in the context of the global “War on Terror” to make the war in 2006 both possible and desirable.     

Narrating Indigenous Boundaries: Postcolonial and Decolonial Storytelling in Northern Minnesota

This article examines two narrative case studies, one biography and one traditional indigenous story, as they inform the dynamics of community, politics, and nationhood for Anishinaabe indigenous people in northern Minnesota. The narratives both provide power and legitimacy to Anishinaabe national identity but inform different political projects of decolonial and postcolonial nationalism, respectively, complicating both settler and indigenous attempts to define indigenous nationhood in a way that is fixed and static. This finding is used to critique the dominant nation-state centric notions of nationhood and to propose alternative modes of understanding nationhood in the context of indigenous politics.     

Challenging the State,Redefining the Nation: The Contemporary Amazigh Movement in Turbulent Times

This article examines the efforts of the Amazigh (Berber) identity movement during the last 7 years to redefine the content of North African states’ collective national identities, and the responses of state and other societal actors during a period of renewed political contestation. In highlighting the increasingly charged and contested political environment in North Africa, it argues that (a) the Berber-Amazigh identity movement has registered important symbolic achievements, (b) translating these symbolic achievements into concrete ones remains enormously difficult, and (c) the discourse and praxis of the Amazigh current has become increasingly militant, and even ethnonational.     

Security and Power through Interdependence: On the Morality of Globalisation

Rising wealth—the progress from a “state of nature”—is contingent upon an ever wider division of labour. The web of mutual dependence and co-operation thus created has since long transgressed state borders. But as of late this global net of interdependence has become tightly woven. Being thus dependent on others seems at odds with the prime aim of national security, which is to preserve identity and full freedom of action. However, this definition of national security is no longer functional in this era of globalisation. Broad and useful interaction with others enhances national security; while isolation undermines it. There is a moral aspect to this: “identity” demands the “significant other”; and a diversified and wider identity thus calls for a wide interface with many such “others”. Wide interaction is also contingent on the participants being seen as trustworthy. It thus depends on—and creates—a culture of mutual responsibility.     

Civil society and political protest in India—The case of Coca-Cola in Kerala

The Indian economic and political systems have recently opened up for increased foreign investments, which has resulted also in new forms of popular resistance. This article analyzes the campaign launched against the Coca-Cola-Company in Plachimada, Kerala, India, which in 2004 resulted in the closure of its bottling factory after accusations of water depletion and pollution. The analysis in the article is based on the theoretical concept “political opportunity” and concludes that the decision to close the plant was the result of an efficiently run popular campaign based on a tightly knit group of local activists, held together by a tribal identity. Vital for the success was also the help the group attracted by national and international civil society support groups and media, as well as the link between both media and civil society towards the political parties and the state.     

The Confessional State in International Politics: Tudor England,Religion, and the Eclipse of Dynasticism

Whilst religion and collective identity have become issues of central concern to international relations scholars, dynastic concerns and national interests still dominate their analyses of early modern international politics. This analysis contributes to the constructivist emphasis on collective identity to foreign policy by examining Tudor England in light of the concept of confessionalisation. Based on the recent historiography of Tudor England, this analysis demonstrates the importance of religion in defining not only the collective identity of international actors, but also their foreign policies, choice of alliances, and, more generally, their international outlook. Through such a lens, it seeks to draw analyses of the confessional state away from their focus on domestic state formation to the “external” dimension of confessionalisation and its importance for international politics.     

Identity,Individualism, and Activism beyond the State: Examining the Impacts of Global Citizenship

The concept of global citizenship has risen to prominence through its use by policy makers, activists, and scholars, who employ the idea of global interconnectedness to encourage individuals to actively engage with transnational issues. Proponents of global citizenship claim that it will promote greater global unity and equality of rights, and even generate a new, post-national identity. Yet self-professed global citizens operate in a transnational realm marked by extreme disparities in power between the members of different states and economic classes. This article assesses whether global citizenship can live up to the claims of its adherents, or whether it will replicate the existing inequalities and moral hazard currently manifest in global policy-making. The article uses the work of T.H. Marshall to identify the conditions under which citizenship has generated equality and unity in the national realm and examines whether these conditions are present beyond the state. It then compares the resulting theory with global citizenship's observed impacts in transnational activism. It concludes that unity and equality of rights cannot be achieved globally in the absence of a commonly shared pool of social and economic resources and that, ironically, global citizenship may worsen existing power imbalances by legitimating elites' use of power.     

"Small Peoples": The Existential Uncertainty of Ethnonational Communities

This exploratory paper attempts to extend the boundaries of research on the "smallness" of polities. It introduces the concept of "small peoples," a term coined by Czech author Milan Kundera to denote communities that lack a "sense of an eternal past and future." The paper posits "small peoples" as ethnic communities characterized by prolonged and deep-rooted uncertainty regarding their own existence. I argue that in modern times, "small peoples" doubt the validity of their past-based ethnic identity and the viability of their future-driven national polity . Empirically, I analyze two distinct "small peoples"—Israeli Jews and French Canadians (Québécois)—and argue that while the former have been more concerned with the future survival of their polity, the latter have been more concerned with insecurity about their identity. The paper suggests that a focus on communities and their intersubjective processes can enrich the study of states and their objective state.     

‘Not a heap of stones’: material environments and ontological security in international relations

Extant scholarship on ontological security in international relations has focused on the significance of social environments for state identity. In this article, I argue that material environments also provide an important source of ontological security for states. In order to assume this role material environments need to be discursively linked to state identity through either projection or introjection. Once incorporated into state identity narratives, material environments become ‘ontic spaces’: spatial extensions of the collective self that cause state identities to appear more firm and continuous. However, ontic spaces are inherently unstable and require maintenance, especially during periods of crisis or transition. States bear agency in this process but they never achieve full control, as identity discourses are continuously contested both domestically and internationally. I illustrate these claims by looking at the role of the General Staff Headquarters in Belgrade, destroyed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1999, in the ontological security of Serbia.     

Social Europe and/or global Europe? Globalization and flexicurity as debates on the future of Europe

This article claims that the European Union (EU) has had a very peculiar relationship with the globalized post-Cold War economic order. On the one hand, the EU was instrumental in bringing about this order. It aggressively promoted (both internally and externally) the principles and policies upon which this economic order has been based. On the other hand, this proactive engagement was translated within the EU into a highly polarized and antagonistic public discourse that led to a serious identity crisis. In this way, it is argued that economic globalization emerged in the EU as a debate on the nature and future of Europe. After 2005, this polarized and antagonistic discourse started to change. The rise of flexicurity, as a new way of thinking about Europe's place and orientation in the global political economy, has been instrumental in this shift. The article examines and evaluates these developments and their implications for the European project.     

The New Defenders of Human Rights? How Radical Right-Wing TNGOs are Using the Human Rights Discourse to Promote their Ideas

Generation Identity (GI) is at the centre of right-wing politics across Europe. Yet, it does not present itself as a right-wing organisation. In contrast, GI seeks to move from the margins into the centre of civil society. Based on the literature on transnational NGOs’ action repertoires and by situating the discourse of GI with respect to a traditional human rights TNGO, Amnesty International, my qualitative content analysis of the frames of both organisations shows that GI uses the vague language of human rights to formulate its radical right-wing positions in ways that sound familiar with accepted human rights claims. While using similar language, symbols, emotions and performances than Amnesty, GI at the same time promotes an exclusive understanding of human rights based on identity. This allows for a discretionary understanding and application of human rights and, hence, potentially challenges established human rights organisations such as Amnesty because the latter's ability to influence state actors relies on a powerful and strong transnational discourse of human rights as being non-negotiable, indivisible and non-transferable.     

Negotiating National Identity and Self-Determination in Ethnic Conflicts: The Choice Between Pluralism and Ethnic Cleansing

The contradictions of ethnonational identity, which make it a prime force in both the promotion and the destruction of human dignity and social justice, have become more pronounced with the ending of the Cold War. It is necessary to reconceptualize national identity and develop new norms for accepting a group's right to national self-determination through establishment of an independent state expressing its national identity, and even far accepting its claim to national identity itself This article proposes that (1) implementation of a group's right to self-determination cannot be left to the group alone, but must be negotiated with those who are affected by that decision, particularly minority populations; and (2) national identity itself must be negotiated — explored and discussed — with those who are affected by the group's self-definition.