Framing Andijon,narrating the nation: Islam Karimov's account of the events of 13 May 2005

Tashkent's handling of anti-government protests and violence in the city of Andijon on 13 May 2005 has generated enormous controversy and had significant political repercussions. However, there has been no detailed analysis of rival interpretations of what happened. This paper begins to redress this lacuna by analysing a book on the subject authored by the President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov. Using framing theory, it identifies four key themes deployed in the narrative to delegitimize the government's opponents: terrorism and criminality; inauthentic Uzbekness and deviant masculinity/religiosity; constitutional illegitimacy; and the subversion of the scientific laws of states. Significantly for an understanding of regime legitimization and nationalism in Uzbekistan, no recourse is made to the government's intellectual framework known as the ‘ideology of national independence’. The paper points to the need for further research to enable scholars to develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the contemporary politicization of national belonging in independent Uzbekistan.     

The Paris Peace Conference and the Armenian arguments on Garabagh

The South Caucasus, which includes Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, is one of the most challenging regions in the world, owing to its long-lasting and ongoing conflicts. One of these conflicts is between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the current stage of which has continued for 25 years without any prospect of a settlement in the near future. For a better understanding of this conflict it is necessary to go back to 1918 and 1919, which witnessed the emergence of the first Azerbaijan and Armenian Republics. The article examines and assesses the ethnic, historical, economic, geographical and security arguments submitted by the Armenian government to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to substantiate its vision of territorial delimitation between Armenia and Azerbaijan regarding Garabagh. The article argues that Armenian nationalism was ethnic nationalism and that the Armenian government constructed politically motivated arguments to substantiate its claims to Garabagh, which were part of its nationalist aim of constructing an Armenian ‘ethno-nation’ in the area from the Mediterranean to Garabagh.     

Racial attitudes and belief in redeemability: Most Whites believe justice-involved Black people can change

Public belief in redeemability reduces punitiveness and increases support for policy measures such as rehabilitation, expungement, and housing and employment opportunities. Although racial attitudes are known to influence a wide range of criminal justice policy opinions, their effects on beliefs about redeemability and condemnation have not been fully explored. Using data from a 2019 YouGov survey of a national sample of White U.S. adults (N = 766), the current study estimates the effects of three distinct racial attitudes—racial resentment, racial sympathy, and White nationalism—on three measures of belief in redeemability: 1) a race-neutral measure, 2) a measure of belief in redeemability of Black offenders, and 3) a measure of condemnation of Black offenders. The results indicate that belief in redeemability is high—for offenders in general and for Black offenders. These findings are supported by a second 2022 YouGov survey of White U.S. adults (N = 1,505). Racial sympathy and White nationalism have significant effects across all three outcomes, with the positive effect of White nationalism on condemnation of Black offenders being the largest across the three models. These findings suggest that although most Whites agree that formerly incarcerated people are redeemable, racial attitudes influence these beliefs, especially for Black offenders.     

The fundamental characteristics of the Kurdish nationhood project in modern Iraq

The protracted Iraqi-Kurdish conflict has plagued the country since the creation of Iraq in the 1920s. Iraqi-Kurdish relations are dominated by the clash of two contradictory nationhood projects: Kurdish and Iraqi. The Kurdish nationhood project was constructed with the perspective that the Kurds as a nation, could qualify for but is deprived of, achieving nation-state status. Based on the Kurdish project, Kurdistan and Iraq consist of two separate homelands: the Arab part of Iraq, which is part of the greater Arab homeland, and Iraqi Kurdistan which is part of the Greater Kurdistan region.     

The second edition of the EPAC expert survey on ethnonationalism in party competition – testing for validity and reliability

This research note presents EPAC 2017, a dataset resulting from the second round of an expert survey on ethnonationalism in party competition. EPAC provides cross-sectional data on the positions of (ethno-) national and mainstream parties on an ethnonational (also often referred to as ‘territorial’ or ‘centre-periphery’) dimension, as well as other important dimensions of political competition. The 2017 edition covers 222 political parties in 22 multinational European countries. The research note presents the main survey items and performs a series of validity and reliability tests on the data. Results show that EPAC 2017 provides valid and reliable measures of party positions on an ethnonational dimension. A short analysis of party system changes in Spain and Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrates the opportunities of combining the 2011 and 2017 editions. The combined dataset allows studying the mobilization of the centre-periphery cleavage in party competition across Eastern and Western Europe and over time.