POSTSOVIET OCCIDENTALISM DEPENDENCIES AND POLITICAL PHANTASIES

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POST-SOVIET OCCIDENTALISM DEPENDENCIES AND
POLITICAL PHANTASIES

• by
• Pal TAMAS IS HAS, Budapest

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ACTUAL FOREIGN POLICY ORIENTED APPROACHES

• CIS non-Russian ELITES
• Framing the newly-established autonomy in
  decision-making
• Alternative sources of modernization
• Recombinant-capacities as demonstration of
  independence
• RUSSIAN ELITES
• Symbolic reconstruction of former state power
  dclients, dependents, court-members
• Complexus of the attacked fortress komplex
  osashdennoj kreposti
• Search for new forms of dominance energy policy,
  as intervention toolkit

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CULTURAL STUDIES APPROACH

• SELF-MAINTENANCE OF THE ELITES
• SHORTAGE OF LEGITIMATION
• RE-LOCATION OF CIVILIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES
• TRUST ENGINEERING
• TIME HORIZONS OF STATE BUILDING WINDOWS OF
  OPPORTUNITIES APPROACH

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METHODOLOGICAL FRAMES

• the West is an imported image, not local
• Perception of choices among the local elites not
  AND, but EITHER/OR
• effect of the soviet past, not the Western
  demand
• ZAPADNICHESTO / OCCIDENTALISM
• foreign policy zapadnichestvo
• cultural zapadnichestvo
• Cultforeignpol Lithaunia,
• Only cultural Armenia,
• Only foreignpol Ukraine, Kazakstan

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FROZEN EAST-WEST BOUNDARIES

• MENTAL FRAMES- COLD WAR
• rigid boundaries
• ideological-cultural division lines
  good/bad, civilized/non-civilized
• known-unknown
• our-their territories
• zero dynamics
• NONE OF THEM IS NATURAL IN A DYNAMIC NETWORK TYPE
  INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

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Western views of eastern Europe(ans) the origins

• Prior to the French Enlightenment, the key
  division of Europe was between south and north
  (the perspective of Renaissance Italy that
  validated itself in reference to ancient Rome)
• With Enlightenment shift in cultural geography--
  from the perspective of Paris and London
• Key term in French Enlightenment is civilization
  Western Europe has it, eastern Europe and the
  Orient dont. Eastern Europe is despotic, no arts
  and sciences, no prudent manners are cultivated
  poor, brutish and wretched condition of people.
• Larry Wolff. 1994. Inventing Eastern Europe The
  Map of Civilization on the Mind of the
  Enlightenment. Stanford Stanford University
  Press.

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EXPORT OF MODERNITY THE WEST

• BRITISH HEARTLAND OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM-
  NATURAL EXPANSION TO THE CONTINENT and not
  oversees
• FRENCH REVOLUTION- ACTIVE EXPORT
• Reactions in the continental Europe the French
  as negative or positive etalons for social change

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SCHOLARS CONCEPTS OF THE EAST IN THE WEST

• DUALISTIC APPROACHES
• Western Europe begins modernization (16th 17th
  centuries)
• Eastern Europe as the Wests defence barrier
• Eastern Europe as the Wests agricultural base
• The West
• Industrializing
• Global trade
• Capitalism
• Nation-state
• The East
• Farming (with pockets of industry)
• Regional trade
• Feudalism
• Empire

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HISTORICAL EUROASIAN INTEGRATION PROGRAMS- ACTUAL
BORDERS OF INFLUENCE

• THE REAL DIVISION LINE
• Sharp ancient civilisational borders-
  reconstructive aspirations Southern Caucasus,
  Central Asia, the Baltics
• None of previous advance statehoods- soft
  borders, Nord, Northeast Sibir-Far East
• Semi-permeabile division lines former Polish
  territories, the Balkans actual influences

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EURASIA, 116 C.E.
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EURASIA, 8TH CENTURY
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EURASIA, 1288
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CULTURAL GENERATION OF LOCAL-NATIONAL ELITES

• 19.c. frames fundamentally different programs
• The protestant Baltics German romantism- search
  of protestant priests for good barbarians
• Volga Tatars- early Moslim trade capitalism
• Ukraine the Galician Kulturkampf
• Georgia Russian projections of the German dream
  abouth theSouth Italy and the British one
  about the Orient

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Western views of eastern Europe(ans) Balkanism

• A gradation within Western views of eastern
  Europe and east central Europeans view of the
  Balkans
• Maria Todorova. 1994. Imagining the Balkans. New
  York Oxford University Press.
• Barbaric, eternal strife and violence
• Aggressive nationalism
• Ill-mannered, rude, drink too much, dirty,
  illiterate, primitive
• These images in travel books and scholarly texts
  dont change since the 1600s The Balkans dont
  change (implied uncapable of progressive change
  on their own)
• Now justification for excluding Bulgaria and
  Romania from NATO

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AFTER WWII MYTHS I ABOUT THE WEST

• MUTUAL PROJECTIONS
• A.THE SOVIET ONE FUTURISM WITH BISANTIAN
  EXCLUSIVENESS FOR CHOOSENNESS
• B. THE WESTERN ONE CLASSICAL ORIENTALISM
• FROM THE 60IES NEW EASTERN VARIANT
• The liberal intelligentsia of the Empire fully
  accepts the oriental self-image
• National versionsthe empire was non-national, or
  supranational, therefore the nation-state
  building is the symbol of European, Western
  modernity fwhich is in principle valid for the
  18-19.cc.

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SOVIET MYTHS ABOUT THE EMPIRE WHO DID EXPLOIT
WHOM?

• RE-INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CENTRE-PERIPHERY
  REALTIONSHIPS
• Debate about the development of the
  underdevelopment who did suffer more?
• Dependency debates about the strategies
• VICTIMOLOGICAL
• SELF-INTERPRETATIONS

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NEW LOCAL PERCEPTIONS OF FOREIGN CLIENT-PATRON
RELATIONSHIPS

• Ideal case
• REGIONAL EXCLUSIVITY
• FULL-SCALE SERVICES military, economic,
  technological
• ACCEPTANCE OF SYMBOLIC NEEDS OF THE LOCAL ELITE
• NON-TRANSPARENCY OF PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

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Orientalism (Said)

• Compare to Foucault (power-knowledge) in European
  history.
• Focus on ideas of mainly Islamic societies.
• The Orient was almost a European invention, and
  has been since antiquity a place of romance,
  exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes,
  remarkable experiences. Now it was disappearing
  in a sense it had happened, its time was over(1).

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Self and Other

• Orientalism was a dispersed, varied body of
  understandings that allowed colonisers - European
  men and women - to understand who they were. That
  understanding was wholly based upon their
  understanding of who they were not, i.e. the
  Oriental.

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Western views of eastern Europe(ans) Balkanism

• A gradation within Western views of eastern
  Europe and east central Europeans view of the
  Balkans
• Maria Todorova. 1994. Imagining the Balkans. New
  York Oxford University Press.
• Barbaric, eternal strife and violence
• Aggressive nationalism
• Ill-mannered, rude, drink too much, dirty,
  illiterate, primitive
• These images in travel books and scholarly texts
  dont change since the 1600s The Balkans dont
  change (implied uncapable of progressive change
  on their own)
• Now justification for excluding Bulgaria and
  Romania from NATO

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Critique of Orientalism (Clifford)

• Is everything representation or can there be a
  more faithful reality of the so called Orient?
• Mimics the the generalising discourse it attacks.
  
• No developed theory of culture as
  differentiating.

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Frank The Development of Underdevelopment (1969)

• Critique of the modernization school
• Most of the theoretical categories and
  development policies from the historical
  experience of European and North American
  advanced capitalist nations-can not help us
  understand problems of Third World nations
• Modernization school offers an internal
  explanation of Third World development
• Third World experienced colonialism-altered their
  path of development
• Frank offers an external explanation for Third
  World development
• The backwardness of Third World countries? Some
  of them were quite advanced before Europe and
  before colonialism
• The historical experience of colonialism and
  foreign domination have reversed the development
  of many advanced Third World Countries
• The development of underdevelopment
  underdevelopment is not a natural condition but
  an artifact created by the long history of
  colonial domination
• Metropolis-satellite model
• New cities implanted by the conqueror to transfer
  economic surplus
• The satellites of the Western Metropolis, but
  also metropolises of provincial cities
• Hypotheses (p163-168)

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Cardoso Dependency and Development in Latin
America (1972)

• Historical-structural methodology
• Focus on
• the internal structures (instead of external)
• Sociopolitical aspects of dependency (as opposed
  to economic)
• a complex relationship between external and
  internal forces, local dominant classes and the
  international ones
• External domination appears to be internal
  through the social social practices of local
  groups who that try to enforce foreign interests
• The military (bureaucratic-technocratic) state
• The multi-national corporation
• The local bourgeoisie
• Dependency as an open-ended process (as opposed
  to structurally determined)
• Dependent-associated development

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THE NEW GAME

• VULNERABILITY OF THE NEW ELITES AND STATES AS A
  CENTRAL PROBLEM
• Primary factors
• External Western geopolitical interests
• Programs of militant nation building and
  consolidation
• Short term Russian geopolitical interests
• Major socio-economic tensions in the new states

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THE MAJOR FRONTLINE

• a.THE NEW MIDEAST THE CAUCASUS as part of the
  region
• b. Central Asia- as a borderland between China
  and the Moslim world
• c. Vulnerability of energy supply lines for
  Europe
• Different Russian-Western interests in the 3
  regions. In c stong co-operation is needed, but
  in A. and b. not.

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THE GEOPOLITICAL MATRIX
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MATRIX OF LOCAL STRATEGIES
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GEOPOLITICS-LOCAL STRATEGIES
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CONCLUSIONS

• HOTSPOTS
• ZONES OF EASY COMPROMISES
• CONFLICT AVOIDING STRATEGIES for the local CIS
  elites
• a. no, or very few symbolic actions
• b. selective decisions, networks with
  different vectors
• c. relative, or step-by-step energy
  independence
• d.readyness to compromises in local
  social conflicts