Author Archives: Dr Gerard Toal
Near Abroad
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it invaded Georgia. Both states are part of Russia’s “near abroad”—former Soviet republics that are now independent states neighboring Russia. While the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 faded from the headlines, the geopolitical contest that created it … Continue reading
Srebrenica After Twenty Years
Twenty years ago I was in northern Italy, enjoying that wonderful country and the hospitality of a good family. On the TV news, we saw pictures from the fall of Srebrenica. I remember being struck by the phrase ‘Musulmani’ during the broadcasts … Continue reading
Post Post-Soviet Space
It is a commonplace today to speak of the “map of Europe being re-written” and point to the actions of Russia in Crimea and the Donbas. But the process of ‘re-writing’ the world political map is perpetual. A key question … Continue reading
Geopolitical Games and Ordinary Citizens
Today’s Monkey Cage blog features the first publication of survey data based research on geopolitical attitudes among ordinary citizens in southeast 6 Ukraine and Crimea. This research was funded by a RAPID grant from the Political Science division of the National Science … Continue reading
Fears and Fantasies about the “Flesh of the Nation”
Yesterday Adis Maksic defended his Ph D dissertation “Mobilizing for Ethnic Violence? Ethno-National Political Parties and the Dynamics of Ethno-Politicization.” Adis is a Sarajevo native who was fortunately able to come to the United States with his family after his family suffered a … Continue reading
Airspace in De Facto States: Remarks on Ukraine Crisis at the New School, 3 October 2014
Given the recent helicopter shoot down in Nagorno Karabakh, and the ongoing fighting over Donetsk airport, I’m posting below some remarks I made at the New School conference last month on the Ukrainian crisis. Point 2 addresses airspace. On Overlapping … Continue reading
Introduction: Virtual Special Issue on Russian Geopolitics
Elsevier has placed a number of its political geography articles on Open Access, in a Virtual Special Issue on Russian Geopolitics. Most, but not all, are from Political Geography. Below is the text of my introduction to the Issue, which was … Continue reading
Social Survey Research in De Facto States After Crimea
I’m very happy to announce that I’ve a new home office, as a year long house extension project has come to an end. I will seek to renew my writing for this site, though I’m conscious that time spent writing here and … Continue reading
The Crimea Precedent & the Post-Soviet De Facto States
The well-known Political Science blog The Monkey Cage, now owned by the Washington Post (now owned by Jeff Bezos; we all work for Amazon now) posted earlier today a concise 3 graph summary of what our De Facto State Research Survey reveals … Continue reading
Bosnia by the Black Sea? Could Crimea be another BiH?
I have an op ed on this topic on the Open Democracy Russia website under the title “Could Crimea Be Another Bosnia?” http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/gerard-toal/could-crimea-be-another-bosnia-republika-srpska-krajina For Bosnia specialists, below is the source I used for the opening quote. Specialists will know I … Continue reading
