southeastern europe

The protests that spread from the relatively small and rather underused Gezi park in Istanbul to a host of cities and towns throughout Turkey are not likely to overthrow the AKP government. As I was pointing out in another note , the demonstrations had a dual effect. On the one hand they were an indictment of the the arrogance and contempt for dissenting opinion displayed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and an expression of increasing unease at the way the party has been introducing issues of public morality in the political agenda as new alcohol regulations and the Ankara Metro protests indicate. And, it is becoming increasingly clear that they constituted a condemnation of the alliance of the AKP with particular corporate elites that seem to benefit from the capitalist development model the party has promoted. On the other hand, they inadvertently exposed the irrelevance and lack of vision of the opposition parties. The protests are likely to fizzle out, the AKP will probably stay on

Taksim Meydanı has been a focal point of political protest in Turkey for the best part of the last one hundred years. It has also seen its fair share of violence and destruction: the Kanlı Pazar (Bloody Sunday) of February 1969, the Kanlı 1 Mayıs (First of May massacre) of 1977 are the most well known such examples. Traditionally the location of choice for the celebration of the 1st of May for the Left, it was off limits this year as the May Day events were not allowed to take place there. As a result, small scale skirmishes between Left-wing activists and the police took place in the surrounding streets a month ago but the area was soon back to normality.  So, earlier last month, no one would have imagined that Taksim would once more become the arena of the violent events of the past few days. The few protesters that started gathering and organized a sit-in at the site of Gezi Park in the run-up to 26 May to protest against the destruction of Gezi Park and the rebuilding on i

English translation of an article originally published in  http://www.sydsvenskan.se/opinion/aktuella-fragor/tala-om-modeller/ IN SEARCH OF A MODEL FOR THE MIDDLE EAST: RETHINKING THE TURKISH AND NORDIC EXPERIENCES På Spaning Efter En Modell För Mellanöstern: … Av Turkiska Och Nordiska Erfarenheter Umut Ozkirimli är professor i samtida Turkietstudier och verksam vid Centrum för Mellanösternstudier vid Lunds universitet. Spyros A. Sofos är gästforskare vid Centrum för Mellanösternstudier vid Lunds universitet. The “Arab Spring” caught everybody off guard. Almost overnight, autocratic regimes have been toppled, social and ideological fissures have emerged, and conflict has become the order of the day, sometimes crashing hopes for freedom, democracy and dignity. But political change is like the Swedish winter, long and replete with challenges. Transition to democracy requires a national consensus and a new social contract based on respect for human rights, rec

The First Agreement of Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations between Kosova and Serbia was signed today. The text is deliberately vague so that it can satisfy both those who want to see the sovereignty of Prishtina over the North recognized and those who want to see some sort of recognition of the predominantly Serb municipalities of North Kosovo, nevertheless, it constitutes a breakthrough in the turbulent relationship between Serbia and its former province. The agreement opens the way for the start of EU accession talks of the two countries - it is expected that Serbia will be invited to start accession negotiations as early as next week. According to Kosovo's Gazeta Express the basic points of the agreement are: 1. There will be an Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo. Membership will be open to any other municipality provided the members are in agreement. 2. The Community/Association will be created by statute. Its dissolution

Serbia and Kosovo have concluded their own version of an interim agreement today. Although the fate of the Greek-Macedonian Interim agreement suggests we should be cautious in our assessment of what has been achieved today, this EU-brokered rapprochement, despite its provisional character and vagueness, represents a very positive step, albeit short of full recognition. Not for Greece though, as its ambitious agenda 2014 of a forward looking Greece in a forward looking Southeastern Europe is a faint mirage of what could have been. Instead, Greece is probably the only country that continues to follow the previous Serbian policy of non recognition of Kosovo. It is probably a symptom of a chronic affliction, of dwelling in a past forever gone. It reminds me of the Greek Communist Party's inability to realize it inhabits a world that has left Stalin's Soviet Union behind at a time that those who lived through it have long moved on. 

The politica l system of the Republic of Cyprus, even after the de facto partition of the island after the invasion of the Turkish armed forces back in the summer of 1974 is a system built on deliberation and compromise. Presidential elections are an intricate affair that can often lead to unlikely bedfellows sharing between them the key political positions of the small state and the power these entail. The likelihood of gaining positions of influence in the state apparatuses, as well as personal rivalries are usually important factors in determining the composition and shape of alliances, especially in the second round of the presidential poll. These are often shortsighted attempts to gain advantages that maintain and reproduce a clientelistic system and perpetuate the "relevance" of political parties that would have otherwise become obsolete. In such a context, the notions of   Left ,   Centre  and   Right  are not able to convey recognizable messages to the unsuspecting

a note on the May 6, 2012 Greek elections appeared in Diplomaatia Elections in Greece by Spyros A.Sofos Instead of the traditional left-right division, Greek political landscape is increasingly divided according to the parties’ attitudes towards austerity measures. On May 6, just less than six months after the coalition government of technocrat Lucas Papademos succeeded that of beleaguered prime minister George Papandreou in order to initiate the reforms agreed at the Eurozone summit on October 26, 2011, Greek voters went to the polls to elect a new parliament and government against a rather gloomy backdrop. The path to the polls The sovereign debt crisis had exacerbated the contraction of the economy and the increase of unemployment (now affecting one in every three young people). The desperate attempts of the last Panhellenic Socialist Movement  (PASOK) and the subsequent tripartite coalition government to raise revenues through hastily concocted tax,