The Politics of Majority Nationalism: Framing Peace, Stalemates, and Crises

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 in the region drawing on systematic coding of parliamentary debates, 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. The Politics of Majority Nationalism focuses first 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. 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 thechoice 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.