Symbolic right-sizing and Balkan nationalisms: the Macedonia name dispute and the Prespa Agreement

ABSTRACT

This article examines identity politics on the Macedonian name dispute and draws parallels with identity conflicts in other divided societies to examine how peacemakers and hardliners contest the prospect of negotiated peace settlements. The first part of the article examines competing narratives of the dispute and how the unexpected challenge of ‘symbolic right-sizing’ of national identity on both parts following the dissolution of Yugoslavia provoked major public and political outrage. It compares Greek and North Macedonian understandings of national boundaries, unity and ethnic group entitlement over symbols of national unity and past glory. The second part investigates conflict resolution and the two UN mediated agreements on the Macedonian name dispute: the Interim Agreement negotiated by Richard Holbrook and Matthew Nimitz in September 1995; and the comprehensive Prespa Agreement mediated by the latter in June 2018 concluded in early 2019. In the final part of the article, the wider significance of the case for the region, symbolic ‘right-sizing’, and theories of identity framing and conflict resolution are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• North Macedonia
• Greece
• conflict transformation
• framing
• symbolic conflict
• nationalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Neophytos Loizides is Professor in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent and the Director of the Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC). His research focuses on political institution building within violently divided societies, power-sharing and other formal or informal mechanisms aiming to mitigate protracted disputes. Professor Loizides is the author of The Politics of Majority Nationalism (Stanford, 2015), Designing Peace (Upenn 2016) and Mediating Power-Sharing (with Cochrane and Bodson, Routledge 2018).

Notes

1 The article uses the terms ethnic Slav Macedonians and Republic of Macedonia/former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM)/Republic of North Macedonia. Where historically appropriate, it adopts the current official and mutually acceptable name of Northern Macedonia based on the 2018–19 Prespa Agreement.

2 See, for instance, on Northern Ireland, Moore, Loizides, Sandal, & Lordos, 2014; McGarry & O'leary, 2006; on Cyprus, Loizides, 2007; Demetriou, 2018; and more broadly, Desrosiers, 2008; Kaufman, 2008; Ross, 1997, 2008.

3 To address this gap, the author made a number of proposals, drawing on Northern Ireland’s principle of consent, and aiming to identify ways to involve Greek Macedonians in the mediation. However, these did not generate support in Greek Macedonia or the rest of Greece; see https://theconversation.com/who-gets-to-use-the-name-macedonia-a-decades-old-row-still-to-be-resolved-90708.

4 The Mitsotakis government introduced an oil embargo against the landlocked Republic between January 1992 and September 1992, while Andreas Papandreou introduced a seven-month frontier embargo (excluding food and medicine) on February 16, 1994 (Agence France Presse, 1994; see also Hislope, 2003, p. 136).

5 For informal figures, see Alexandri (1992) and Toronto Star (1992).

6 Greek Parliament February 12th, 1991 (p. 5969).

7 Greek Parliament February 12th, 1991 (p. 5977).

8 This view is introduced in the writings of Romanticism and particularly of Johahn Gottfried Von Herder (1744-1803) who saw nations as natural, perennial and permanent features of humankind. Herder introduced an organic conception of nations and treated them as the eternal and central agents of history. Herder appeared as an opponent to the objectivity of enlightenment and stressed the importance of some of the most subjective elements of human behaviour found in language, customs and the social life of nations. Most national intellectuals in Eastern Europe (including Paparrigopoulos) emulated Herder’s ideas in their writings and tried to identify and ‘revive’ the perennial features of their ethnic groups in language, history and folklore. From the 1960s and onwards, though, most western scholars conceptualize nations as modern constructions.

9 For an excellent summary of these reactions, see Skylakakis (1995)

10 http://www.ekathimerini.com/55610/article/ekathimerini/news/matthew-nimetz-special-un-mediator-seeks-a-just-solution-i-try-to-be-objective-and-even-handed-to-both-sides-involved; accessed 13 March 2020.

11 For information on this rally and various estimates of size, see http://www.voria.gr/article/erevna-ochi-tis-vorias-elladas-sti-chrisi-tis-lexis-makedonia; accessed 13 March 2020.

12 https://www.northernslant.com/new-brexit-poll-finds-a-plan-for-the-irish-border-both-unionists-and-nationalists-can-agree-on/; accessed 13 March 2020.

13 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/18/eu-refusal-to-open-talks-with-albania-and-north-macedonia-condemned-as-historic-mistake; accessed 13 March 2020.