Conflicts and crises in Eastern Europe 2200-9HA-15
The list of topics.
1. Eastern, Central or Central-Eastern Europe: attempts to define the region
2. The legacy of the past in Central Europe: geopolitical dynamics of the region in the historic perspective
- Conflicts, changes of borders and mass migration
- “Pulsating” sovereign states and nation-building processes
- The factor of external powers: Russia, Habsburg Empire, Prussia, Ottoman Empire, France
- The complex of the West, the fear of the East
3. Central Europe in the post-Yalta global order
- The Autumn of the Nations
- Regional integration processes
- Heading for the EU and the NATO
4. The fall of Yugoslavia: from the independence of Slovenia to the secession of Kosovo
- The internal and external factors of the fall of the Yugoslavia
- The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995)
- Assessing the Dayton Accord
- The secession of Montenegro
- Oktobarska revolution in Serbia (2000)
- The Kosovo crisis (1999) and its implications for the regional security
5. The sources of instability in the peripheries: the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia and Albania
- The crisis in Macedonia (2001) and international reaction
- Albania in 1997: a case of a failed state?
- The Albanian factor in the Western Balkans
- Balkan Muslims and the impact of the global Jihad
6. The crumbs of a fallen empire: Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, the Russo-Georgian war (2008)
- The Soviet legacy in the conflicts
- The phenomenon of quasi-states
- The major power rivalry: Russia, US, EU
- Was the Russo-Georgian conflict a proxy conflict with the West?
7. The harbinger of the new global order? The conflict in Ukraine
- Ukraine: destined to stay an object of a power game?
- The annexation of Crimea
- Hybrid war: a new phenomenon?
- Established powers, rising powers and declining powers’ interests and actions in the Ukraine
- Visible features of the emerging new world order
8. Looking for tinderboxes: the main challenges to the regional stability
- Ethnic minorities and secessionism
- Unsettled situation of the Roma
- Political populism
- Region’s entanglement in the rivalry of the major powers
9. Negotiations: the core concepts
10. Determinants of negotiations: psychology, ideology, culture (styles of negotiations)
11. Strategies, tactics, techniques of negotiations.
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Learning outcomes
In conformity with the learning outcomes set out by the NOHA network, students should achieve the following learning outcomes by the end of this module:
• specialised knowledge about genesis, dynamics and resolutions of conflicts in the region of Eastern Europe
• a critical understanding of incentives for tensions as well as cooperation in Eastern Europe. Has innovative expertise on current problems and challenges to the security in the region
• a thorough knowledge of historical, political, cultural and economical background of the processes in Eastern Europe
• ability to interpret and critically analyse data, information and experience concerning Eastern Europe. Shows high skills to contextualize the obtained data. Has demonstrated a range of coaching and management skills to carefully assess the relevant factors for crisis and conflicts
• ability to formulate independent views in regard to Eastern Europe, support them with elaborate arguments, using a broad range of approaches and theoretical perspectives, formulate coherent conclusions and make a synthetic summary of these conclusions
• specialised problem-solving skills combining interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of the complexity of the situation of crisis-affected people in Eastern Europe
Assessment criteria
While assessing the overall performance of a student, the coordinator takes into account the number of absences, activity during classes (preparing compulsory readings) and the performance in tasks. Since the exam has a specific form of staged negotiations, it is strongly recommended to collect as much as possible points during the semester. However, the points collected during the course will not be taken into account, should the student not take part in the exam.
The fundamental condition of receiving a graded pass is the presence during classes. Student has a right to be absent twice and only during these weeks when she/he does not perform a presentation (!).
During the course students are expected to prepare 4 different tasks, differing in form and difficulty:
- presenting a text of culture (10%)
- presentation of the analysis of a particular conflict (30%)
- participation in a debate (10%)
By being active (covering compulsory readings , asking questions, comments, participating in discussions) during classes a student can increase his final mark by 10%
Overall point from the tasks: 50%
Exam (40%)
System of grades:
55 % - 3 (pass)
75 % - 4 (good)
90 % - 5 (very good)
Bibliography
For the diversity of the discussed problems there is no single textbook. Below the main monographs:
- Joseph Rothschild, Nancy M. Wingfield, Return to Diversity. A Political History of East Central Europe Since WWII, Oxford University Press 2000.
- Lonnie R. Johnson, Central Europe. Enemies, Neighbours, Friends, Oxford University Press 1996,
- Attila Agh, The Politics of Central Europe, SAGE 1998, pp. 1-83.
- Stanislav Kirchbaum [ed.], Central European History and the EU, Palgrave Macmillan 2007, pp. 32-60.
- The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe, III edition, 2013.
- Jeffrey S. Morton et al, Reflections on the Balkan Wars: Ten years after the breakup of Yugoslavia, Palgrave Macmillan 2004, pp. 3-21, 93-118.
- Richard Ullman [ed.], The World and Yugoslavia Wars, 1996, pp. 9-41.
- Robert Bideleux, Ian Jeffries, The Balkans. A post-Communist History, Routledge 2007
- Matthew Sussex [ed.], Conflict in the former USSR, Cambridge University Press 2012, pp. 64-118.
- Nicu Popescu, EU Foreign Policy and Post Soviet Conflicts, Routledge 2011, pp. 38-115.
- Christopher W. Moore, Peter J. Woodrow, Handbook of Global and Multicultural Negotiations, 2010
- Raymond Cohen, Negotiations Across Cultures. International Communication in an Interdependent World, Washington, D.C. 1997, pp. 9 – 43
- Catherine Lee, The New Rules of International Negotiations, 2007.
- Richard Gesteland, Cross-Cultural Business Behavior. A Guide for Global Management, Copenhagen 2012.
I. William Zartman, Maureen R. Berman, The Practical Negotiator, Yale University Press 1982.
- Victor A. Kremenyuk (ed.), International Negotiation. Analysis, Approaches, Issues, Oxford 1991
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: