Stefanos Katsikas

This article discusses post-conflict reconciliation in Greece following the divisive civil war of the 1940s. Focusing on the elite political discourse and the relationship between reconciliation and democratization, its chief argument is that in Greece continuing disagreement about the civil war did not inhibit a process of reconciliation because it was voiced within a normative framework in which violence had been repudiated as a political tool. Particularly since the fall of the Colonels' dictatorship in 1974, reconciliation has been linked to a number of distinct political projects, some of which were as divisive as conciliatory in their effect. In each case, reconciliation meant different things to differing shades of political opinion, but the widespread adoption of the term by both the governing and opposition elites, as well as society as a whole, gradually entrapped politicians of all persuasions into accepting that a process of reconciliation had occurred. Reconciliation in Greece has therefore rested not on the establishment of a single agreed narrative representing the truth about the past, but rather on the righting of perceived injustices and the free articulation of differing interpretations of that past by both left and right within a democratic environment.

This PhD thesis analyses the mechanisms and factors which have determined foreign policy making in Bulgaria since 1989. It contributes to the process of theoretical discussion concerning whether and how democratization affects foreign policy making. This discussion traces its academic origins to the beginning of the 20th century with theoretical debates among international relations scholars on the subject of whether liberal democratic regimes follow by nature qualitatively different foreign policies than authoritarian political regimes. Post-Cold War Bulgaria is a good case study for such a topic. A destabilizing factor in the Balkan region and politically isolated from both the immediate regional and the international environment for much of its modern history, Bulgaria has reversed this position since the end of the Cold War. It has engaged in a course of political integration into the regional and the international environment, following a foreign policy aimed at bringing stability and peace to the Balkan region. Sofia's qualitatively different foreign policy since 1989 has been interpreted as being the direct result of post-Cold War democratization. It is true that both the scope and the depth of democratization have been unprecedented in Bulgaria's modern history, but is it enough to explain the country's post-1989 foreign policy The thesis argues that such an interpretation is only partially true. If democratization refers to the establishment of political pluralism, then this process in itself is not enough to explain the country's post-1989 foreign policy. Bulgaria's political integration into international institutions such as the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has also exercised a large influence on Sofia's foreign policy making since the end of the Cold War. This is because Bulgaria's membership of the EU and NATO was conditional on Sofia's ability to adjust its foreign policy mechanisms for the political needs of Bulgarian integration into these organisations and to align the country's foreign policy decisions on a broad range of issues with the foreign policy decisions of the EU and NATO. The thesis employs a wide range of primary and of secondary sources from both the communist and post-communist periods. These were collected during a lengthy period of fieldwork in Bulgaria which included work in the archives of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The primary sources include foreign policy documents, and personal interviews with a number of political activists, journalists and academics from the communist period and after.

Drawing from a wide range of primary archival and secondary Greek, Bulgarian, and Turkish sources, the book explores the way the Muslim populations of Greece were ruled by state authorities from Greece’s political emancipation from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s up to the country’s entrance into World War II, in October 1940. In particular, the book examines how state rule influenced the development of the Muslim populations’ collective identity as a minority and how it affected Muslim relations with the Greek authorities, Greek Orthodox Christians, and other ethnic and religious groups. Greece was the first country to become an independent state in the Balkans and a pioneer in experimenting with minority issues. With regards to its Muslim populations, Greece’s ruling framework, and many of the country’s state administrative measures and patterns were to serve as a template at a later stage in other Christian Orthodox Balkan states with Muslim minorities (e.g., Bulgaria, Romania, S...

This chapter explores the reasons that led many Muslims to convert to Christian Orthodoxy during the Greek War of Independence and the way their conversions were treated by the Greek civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The chapter assesses the efforts made by Muslim families separated by the war to reunite with missing Muslim and neophyte family members after the end of the war, as well as the measures taken by the administration of Ioannis Kapodistrias to help family reunification efforts and support economically destitute neophyte. This chapter also discusses legal disputes over property issues between Muslim and neophyte family members in eastern Roúmeli and on the island of Euboea. In addition, it explores the measures taken by the Greek government to solve these disputes, and looks at whether sharia law and the Ottoman legal code were taken into consideration by the courts and the Greek authorities. Did solutions for Muslim property disputes in eastern Roúmeli and on Euboea t...

This chapter analyzes the impact of the Greek War of Independence on the Muslim populations of the areas affected and on the lives of Muslims in the Kingdom of Hellas during the reign of King Otto (1833–1862), particularly the ways in which the war determined the legal and social status of Muslims as well as their relations with the Greek state and with the Ottoman Empire. The chapter explores the effects of Greek nationalism on the Muslim population and the reasons that led a number of Muslims in the rebellious areas to support the war. The chapter also discusses how legal and other documents of the time define Greek national identity and the extent to which Muslims were seen and treated as Hellenes (i.e., Greeks) by the Greek authorities. Finally, the chapter explores whether the legal and social status of Muslims in Greece was the same as that of Christian Orthodox and other religious groups, as well as how “Muslim philhellenes,” sympathizers and supporters of the Greek War of In...

This chapter explores the conditions leading to the emergence of Greek nationalism. Emphasis is given to the change of the political conditions in the Ottoman Empire and in Europe after the seventeenth century, leading to power shifts among Christian Orthodox, to the emergence of Greek diaspora communities in non-Ottoman Europe as well as of an economically robust new entrepreneurial class. Both the Greek diaspora and the new entrepreneurial class supported the Greek education and contributed to the advancement of a “Hellenic self-consciousness” among many Christian Orthodox in the Ottoman Empire and abroad who sought political emancipation from the Ottoman Empire. The chapter analyzes the connection between the rise of Greek nationalism and outbreak of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832). It discusses the beginning, the evolution, the international dimension, shifting political and military loyalties by the fighting sides and the outcome of the war. The chapter also examines ...

This article explores the conversion of Muslims to Orthodox Christianity during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832) and the first post-independence years as a case study which shows that religious boundaries in the Balkans do not seem to have been as insurmountable as one might think. The bonds between people of different religious affiliations, including Christians and Muslims, were not so loose in the chaotic period of the nineteenth century. Even though religious differences have always existed in South-eastern Europe, the inhabitants of that region have not always seen fellow humans with different religious affiliations as estranged others. Muslim converts to Christianity were ready to compromise their Islamic faith in exchange for security, social status, and well-being in the changed political and social environment created by Greek nationalism, with a view to advancing their professional opportunities and material interests in the new state. The Greek case is not unique...

This article discusses post-conflict reconciliation in Greece following the divisive civil war of the 1940s. Focusing on the elite political discourse and the relationship between reconciliation and democratization, its chief argument is that in Greece continuing disagreement about the civil war did not inhibit a process of reconciliation because it was voiced within a normative framework in which violence had been repudiated as a political tool. Particularly since the fall of the Colonels' dictatorship in 1974, reconciliation has been linked to a number of distinct political projects, some of which were as divisive as conciliatory in their effect. In each case, reconciliation meant different things to differing shades of political opinion, but the widespread adoption of the term by both the governing and opposition elites, as well as society as a whole, gradually entrapped politicians of all persuasions into accepting that a process of reconciliation had occurred. Reconciliatio...

It is estimated that, in 1913, less than 500,000 Muslims lived in the regions ruled by Greece and around 800,000 Muslims in those areas which were under the authority of the Bulgarian state. In the aftermath of the 1923 obligatory Greco-Turkish population exchange the number of Muslims in Greece reduced to approximately 200,000, of which around 180,000 lived in the region of Western Thrace and 20–25,000 Albanian-speaking Muslims, known as Çams, in Epirus and Greek South-West Macedonia. In the same period, the number of Muslims in Bulgaria was between 800,000 and one million people. Meanwhile, during the two Balkan and the First World Wars a hardly definable number of Muslims lost their lives due to starvation, disease, massacres and physical destruction caused by the military and paramilitary troops of the two Balkan states, as well as due to voluntary and forced migration to areas controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

This chapter explores the relations between Greece’s political elites and its Muslim communities from the country’s foundation as an independent state to the end of the Anatolian War (1919-1922). These relations have ranged from estrangement and enmity, in times of war, to coexistence by necessity, in times of peace. Though shaped in a post-Ottoman environment and driven by contemporary dynamics, these relations were also influenced by experiences under the Ottoman millet system in two major ways: a) By emphasising religion in one’s self-identity, this system set the foundations for a close interconnection between Orthodox Christianity and Greek national identity, which in turn justified policies of exclusion, persecution, extermination and expulsion of Muslims in the process of crafting Modern Greece; b) it served as a base on which Greek political elites organised and administered the country’s Muslim communities.

This chapter discusses the legacy of the Greek War of Independence and its impact on the lives of Muslims in the Kingdom of Hellas up until 1880, particularly the ways in which the war determined the legal and social status of Muslims as well as their relations with the Greek state and the Ottoman Empire. The chapter also explores Muslims’ coexistence with Christian Orthodox in the kingdom. Was the legal and social status of Muslims in Greece the same as that of Greek Orthodox and other religious groups? How did “Muslim philhellenes,” sympathizers, and supporters of the Greek War of Independence fare in the new state?

This article provides a bibliographical review of the major academic works which have been published in or translated into Greek and deal with the life of the Muslim minority of Greece. The article focuses on the methodological approach of these works, the time of their publication and the research fields which they cover or disregard. It argues that Greek academic works on the subject are highly influenced by the climate of Greek-Turkish relations. Most remain silent about Muslim populations who lived in the country prior to 1923 and focus on the Muslims of western Thrace, of whose minority life they give a distorted picture. This picture has started to change since 1989, but there is still a long way to go until Greek academia overcomes its biased, emotional and politically-influenced modus operandi on the subject and adopts a more dispassionate approach.

s (in alphabetical order) Jeanie Bukowski, International Studies, Bradley University “A New Water Culture on the Iberian Peninsula? Evaluating Epistemic Community Impact on Policy Change” Water management on the Iberian Peninsula is challenging due to geographic and climatic factors as well as past policy choices. Spain and Portugal share five major river basins and both states are subject to the requirements of a growing body of European Union environmental legislation, notably the Water Framework Directive. It is under these conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and interdependence that international regime theorists see a potential role for epistemic communities in impacting policy preferences. This approach generally assumes that an epistemic community may serve as a transmission belt of science into policy only if its members develop the relevant scientific knowledge apart from the policy process. That assumption is disputed especially in the science and technology studies (ST...

This PhD thesis analyses the mechanisms and factors which have determined foreign policy making in Bulgaria since 1989. It contributes to the process of theoretical discussion concerning whether and how democratization affects foreign policy making. This discussion traces its academic origins to the beginning of the 20th century with theoretical debates among international relations scholars on the subject of whether liberal democratic regimes follow by nature qualitatively different foreign policies than authoritarian political regimes. Post-Cold War Bulgaria is a good case study for such a topic. A destabilizing factor in the Balkan region and politically isolated from both the immediate regional and the international environment for much of its modern history, Bulgaria has reversed this position since the end of the Cold War. It has engaged in a course of political integration into the regional and the international environment, following a foreign policy aimed at bringing stabil...

Bulgaria has faced previously unimaginable pressures over the last two decades, as it struggles to adapt to a post-communist landscape and to reform both state and society in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, while facing the challenge of increased efforts by NATO and the EU to expand into this region. In Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe, Stefanos Katsikas sheds new light on the mechanisms and factors which have influenced the making and shaping of Bulgarian foreign policy, examining the extent to which both domestic factors and the international environment have affected its trajectory. Rich in primary sources, including personal interviews with key protagonists, Katsikas offers invaluable analysis for researchers of Europe's post-communist international relations, as well as those interested in the processes of democratization and those of foreign policy formation.

The chapter discusses the administration and life of the Muslims in Greece in the turbulent period of the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Asia Minor War (1919–1922). These wars inflamed passions that often worsened relations between Muslims and state and local authorities and ethnic Greeks. After the end of the Asia Minor War, Greece and Turkey decided to exchange what they regarded as their “religious other” in order to achieve religious and ethnic homogeneity and in this way avoid future intrastate wars. As a result, 1,00,000 Orthodox Christians, many of whom did not speak Greek, were sent to Greece, and around 500,000 Muslims, many of whom did not speak Turkish, were sent to live in Turkey. The only Muslims who were exempted from this exchange were those of Western Thrace and the Albanian-speaking Muslims of northwestern Greece, known as Çams.

The annexation of the region of Thessaly to Greece was a turning point in the organization and life of the Muslims in the region. Thessaly did not become part of Greece after a revolution or a military conflict but after prolonged negotiations with the Ottoman state, which were conducted under the auspices of the Great Powers at the time. About 40,000 Muslims lived in Thessaly (11 percent of the region’s total population) prior to the region’s annexation to Greece, and both the Ottoman Empire and the Great Powers forced the Greek state to adopt an institutional framework with the aim of protecting the religious and cultural autonomy of Muslims. Religious officials (muftis) became community leaders, sharia courts were in operation to judge family and property affairs for the Muslims, and aspects of sharia became part of the country’s legal system.

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, two political movements came into conflict in Turkey: the supporters of the old regime, known also as the conservatives, and those supporting the political and the social reformers aligned with Kemal Atatürk, known as Kemalists. That conflict was also reflected among Muslim communities living in the Balkans, including the Muslims in Western Thrace. This chapter explores how conservatives and Kemalists fought one another for control of the minority institutions in Western Thrace, and how this conflict changed the character of the minority and reoriented its relations with the Greek state, ethnic Greeks living in the region, and other ethnic and religious communities. The chapter also examines the influence of Albanian nationalism on the Çams of northwestern Greece during the same period.

This chapter analyzes the emergence and rise of Greek nationalism and its effects on the Muslim populations in the areas affected by the Greek War of Independence. The chapter also explores the close interconnection of Greek national identity with Orthodox Christianity, how legal and other documents of the time define Greek nationality and citizenship in the rebellious areas, and the extent to which Muslims and other non-Christians were seen to fit that definition. The chapter also examines the reasons that led several Muslims in the rebellious areas to support the war.

This chapter shows how Islam emerged and rose in Southeastern Europe and how Muslims in areas that later became part of Greece lived in Byzantine and Ottoman times, particularly after the end of the eighteenth century. The chapter discusses the establishment during the Ottoman era of institutions and patterns of political behavior that were to influence the communal life of Muslims later in the institutional framework that was adopted by the new national environment of Greece after Greece won independence. For example, in the nineteenth century, following pressures by the Great Powers to protect the autonomy and cultural life of Muslims from the assimilation policies of the Greek state, Greek authorities organized the Muslims in a way similar to the way the Ottoman Empire had organized and ruled non-Muslims during its Tanzimât period (1839–1876).

This chapter explores the conditions leading to the emergence, development, and outcome of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832). It analyzes the role of Eastern Orthodox Christianity as a mobilizing factor against the Ottomans among the Christian Orthodox during the war. The war paved the way for Greek Orthodoxy to become the dominant religion, legally, of the newly established Kingdom of Greece in 1832, which was officially called the Kingdom of Hellas. Islam and Muslim communities were regarded as enemies and targeted by the Greek rebels with the purpose of either uprooting Islam from areas that were to become parts of Greece or assimilating Muslim communities by converting their members to Christian Orthodoxy.

Unless Bulgaria and Romania manage to enact judicial reforms, fight corruption and organized crime, and protect human and minority rights, they will not be able to capitalize on the benefits of EU membership, and will continue to be regarded as second-class EU members.

The Greco-Ottoman War of 1897 has created a collective national trauma for Greeks on account of the supposed magnitude of the defeat, feelings of "national shame and humiliation," and a perceived sense of damage to Greek national interests. Scholarship has not paid sufficient attention to this event, which by and large remains in the shadows of history.

... View all notes. Throughout the Ottoman times, the Muslim populations of the Balkans consisted of four main distinct groups: local Islamized groups such as Slavophone Muslims (Pomaks: in the present-day Bulgaria, Greece, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia ...