Synopses & Reviews
What drives the politics of majority nationalism during crises and peace mediations? This innovative work on the comparative politics of majority nationalism answers this important questionfor both policy-makers and scholarsby investigating how peacemakers succeed or fail in transforming the language of ethnic nationalism and war in their communities.
The Politics of Majority Nationalism focuses on the Middle East and the Balkans to explore crises, stalemates, and peace mediations involving Turkey and Greece and including European Union, Kurdish, Cypriot, Syrian and (Slav) Macedonian issues. In addition to employing a novel mixed-method research design to study frames, crisis behavior, and mediation analysis, the book also extends its arguments to the post-communist transitions in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine. Drawing on new datasets, elite interviews, and parliamentary debates, the book analyzes and explains the under-emphasized linkages between institutions, symbols, and framing processes that enable or restrict the choice of peace.
Exploring systematically, and for the first time, the politics of majority nationalism in its various manifestations, Neophytos Loizides shows how ethnopolitical frames influence crisis behavior, protracted stalemates, and ultimately the choice of peace. He provides a comprehensive account of the failures and successes of accommodation mechanisms in the Middle East and the Balkans and identifies the ideational pre-conditions of peace and conflict while highlighting for policy-makers and mediators a set of tools to use when communicating peace messages to local and national constituencies.
Review
"In his remarkable and informative book, Neophytos Loizides exploits fundamental advances in prospect theories of the psychology of decision to examine how political frames of reference advanced prior to crises can powerfully determine their outcome. Offering an impressive command of the intimate details of nationalist conflicts in southeastern Europe and the Middle East, he shows that in both dangerous and promising ways, ideas as frames can trump interests as the drivers of history and the shapers of our future."Ian S. Lustick, Bess W. Heyman Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Review
"In The Politics of Majority Nationalism, Loizides theorizes why and how majority nationalism sometimes produces increasing conflict escalation and violence while in other situations there is a movement towards peacemaking and accommodation. To do this, his wide-ranging analysis places the dynamics of framing front and center of his examination of recent cases in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond."Marc Howard Ross, William Rand Kenan Jr. Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Bryn Mawr College
Synopsis
What drives the politics of majority nationalism during crises, stalemates and peace mediations? In his innovative study of majority nationalism, Neophytos Loizides answers this important question by investigating how peacemakers succeed or fail in transforming the language of ethnic nationalism and war. The Politics of Majority Nationalism focuses on the contemporary politics of the 'post-Ottoman neighborhood' to explore conflict management in Greece and Turkey while extending its arguments to Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine. Drawing on systematic coding of parliamentary debates, new datasets and elite interviews, the book analyses and explains the under-emphasized linkages between institutions, symbols, and framing processes that enable or restrict the choice of peace. Emphasizing the constraints societies face when trapped in antagonistic frames, Loizides argues wisely mediated institutional arrangements can allow peacemaking to progress.
About the Author
Neophytos Loizides is a Reader in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent and a Leverhulme Research Fellow.