Eiki Berg
Biographic Data
| ID | 971316 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eiki Berg |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eiki |
| FAMILY NAME | Berg |
| SIGNATURE | BERG E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Tartu |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9845-892X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 247 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1961 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Principles and Pragmatism
Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC) is a contested political entity seeking external legitimacy as a member of the international community. The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) maintains that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China and has repeatedly stated the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will not tolerate Taiwanese independence. Lithuania and the Czech Republic have recently drawn attention for their increasing engagement with…
Punching Above Their Diplomatic Weight
How do ‘Frozen Conflicts’ over Territory Defrost? A Three-tier Analysis of Peace, War, and Status Quo Outcomes
Mind the Conceptual Gap
Thank You to Reviewers
Welcomed Friend or Stranger Breaking in? Patron-Client Relations and Ontological (In)securities in Abkhazia
De facto states manifest asymmetric relations with their patrons. Enduring struggle for their existence has led them to demand, dictate, conform to, or defy patronage as their modus operandi. Abkhazia's relations with Russia have been based on external assistance while clearly excluding land ownership. Recent plans to shift some Abkhazian territory to Russia's control have sparked public outcry in Abkhazian society. This paper argues that governi…
De Facto States and Covid-19
This paper takes advantage of the exogenous shock of the COVID-19 pandemic to study de facto state agency. It builds upon previous scholarship on de facto states’ integration into international society by employing seven case studies while developing an independent capacity index. We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic is ideally suited to this task because it provided a powerful exogenous, non-conflict-related shock to all seven of our case studies…
Back to the Future
This article examines recent Great Powers’ revisionist attempts at challenging the post–World War II norm of territorial integrity. These attempts may invigorate sovereignty claims in the old-time fashion of buying, swapping, or annexing territories. We show that recent dynamics in international politics speak a language that challenges the status quo consensus in territorial matters. While the article focuses mainly on the evidence during the pe…
Holding Back or Pushing Forward? Patron-Client Relations and Elite Navigations in Northern Cyprus
This paper focuses on the patron-client relationship (PCR) between Turkey and Northern Cyprus. The PCR becomes visible in asymmetrically configured reciprocal exchanges that create dependence on patron states. These exchanges may motivate de facto states to defy, dictate, or demand patronage from their patron states, depending on their ontological insecurities, which are expressed both by the public in general and by the political elite in partic…
Conflicts and Shifts in the Kremlin’s Political Discourse since the Start of the Putin Presidency (2000–2019)
This article analyses the content and structure of the Kremlin’s political discourse since the start of Vladimir Putin’s presidency in 2000 and in the context of the conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine (annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Donbas). We apply structural topic modelling (STM) and focus on the official English-language Kremlin transcripts, a total of more than 8,000 texts. Our findings demonstrate that these conflicts became importa…
Transnistria’s European Drive
This paper explores the geopolitical role that a de facto state may play while operating in the context of patron-client relations and engagement without recognition framework. This is especially pronounced in Transnistria, which due to economic incentives offered by the EU through the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) may not fit well into the overall military-political or socio-cultural expectations of Transnistrians deemed to be p…
When There Is a State? The Politics of Recognition and Kosovo
The Kosovo case remains topical for understanding the practice of state recognition, especially in the context of secessionist claims to independence. The diversity of reactions of third states to Kosovo’s declaration of independence finds basis on the gaps of international law that allow politics to play out in the practice of state-recognition. This analysis takes a closer look at arguments used by third states in their recognition practices re…
Land for peace
De facto states represent an anomalous sovereign condition. Their parent states are unable to regain control over the territory that de facto states possess, while the de facto states are unable to secure widespread recognition of their self-determination claims without the consent of their parent states. Kosovo and Serbia have recently entertained the idea of making territorial adjustments through which a settlement between the two parties can b…
Routing Borders Between Territories, Discourses and Practices
Quest for Survival and Recognition
There is lack of proper accounts of the foreign policy practices of de facto state authorities. There is no common understanding for whether de facto states have their own agency, or if these fledgling states are used as pawns within the context of wider strategic manoeuvring. This work proceeds from the assumption that de facto states are ‘states’ which, above all, seek to secure their physical survival, as well as to gain the status of legal su…
Introduction
Secessionist de facto states, by their very nature, sit outside of the international system. Having unilaterally declared independence from their parent state, they are invariably prevented from joining the United Nations, and thus taking their place as members of the community of universally recognised countries. While the reasons for such punitive approaches have a logic according to prevailing political and legal approaches to secession, it is…
Bridging the divide between parent states and secessionist entities
This paper departs from the contested nature of the border that separates each side in secessionist conflict – the parent state considers this as an internal administrative line; the de facto state, conversely, sees this as an international border. The argument made builds upon the theoretical aspects of the bordering practices in the current literature, and then examines three cross-border cases – Mainland China-Taiwan, Cyprus-Northern Cyprus an…
The politics of unpredictability
This article focuses on prominent recent episodes where Russia has put sovereignty, the obligation to refrain (O2R) from using force, and self-determination to the test. Most recently in the Crimean context, we see that Russia's systematic instrumental use of these norms does not contest the norms as such, but as their application becomes more contingent and arbitrary, their meaning is nevertheless blurred. We additionally explore how other justi…
How do you tailor diplomatic training? Sizing up peer institutions and their training practices for the Diplomatic School of Armenia
The Diplomatic School of Armenia (est. in 2009) explored how its peer institutions were organized, how they tailored their training programmes and how any existing structures and practices could be suited for Armenia. This paper reviews part of a comparative study which was carried out in 2013–2014. We include a sample of 14 institutes and training centres, ranging from countries which had diplomatic training fully integrated into the ministerial…
Scrutinizing a Policy of “Engagement Without Recognition”
De facto states are conventionally perceived as illegal entities, usually ignored by the rest of the world and therefore also isolated and severely sanctioned in most cases. We investigate US foreign-policy engagement with Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, and Transnistria and explore when, why, and how interactions between the United States and “places that do not exist” has taken place. This is done by extensively using W…
Lost and Found
De facto states are typically seen as marginal actors in the international system. Although they control territory and provide governance, their claims to sovereignty remain largely unrecognized. It is widely believed that such entities are either ignored or viewed with hostility by the vast majority of sovereign states. Rather than theoretically presume such relations, we empirically investigate de facto state–great power interactions through th…
When ‘blurring’ becomes the norm and secession is justified as the exception
Identity and Foreign Policy
Contents: Incompatible identities? Baltic-Russian relations and the EU as an arena for identity conflict, Piret Ehin and Eiki Berg Imperial legacy and the Russian-Baltic relations: from conflicting historical narratives to a foreign policy confrontation?, Elena Fofanova and Viatcheslav Morozov Commemorating May 9: the Baltic states and European memory politics, Eva-Clarita Onken Identity politics and contested histories in divided societies: the …
Mission impossible in Cyprus? Legitimate return to the partnership state revisited
Cyprus has been divided for far longer than it has been united. There have been many attempts to reconcile conflicting parties but without remarkable success. The two communities — Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots — see the solution to the “Cyprus problem” in opposite terms. Although recent public opinion surveys have concluded that the most preferred option for the Turkish Cypriots would be “independence of the TRNC” and “reunification of the…
Merging Together or Drifting Apart? Revisiting Political Legitimacy Issues in Cyprus, Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
One way to approach conflict management is to use a four-dimensional political legitimacy criterion, which could set the agenda for enhancing peace prospects in Cyprus, Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Here the argument is that through measuring the internal legitimacy of conflicting parties and then comparing and contrasting the given empirical values on the scales of cohesion/security and democracy/performance, we may be able to distin…
What Kind of Border Regime is in the Making
The recent round of enlargement has provided new impetus for the study of European Union (EU) external borders. This article conceptualizes the emerging European border regime as a composite policy, arguing that the regime is shaped by policy-making across such diverse areas as Regional Policy, Justice and Home Affairs, Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement. It shows that different policy paradigms attribute diverging functions to the EU external …
Who is entitled to ‘earn sovereignty'? Legitimacy and regime support in Abkhazia and Nagorno‐Karabakh
Abkhazia and Nagorno‐Karabakh are internationally unrecognised political entities, or so‐called de facto states, that have emerged as a result of the incomplete and contested state‐formation of their parent states and of the secessionist movements that emerged in the power vacuum of the post‐Soviet space. In addition to examining the conventional reliance on the self‐determination principle, usually followed by a call for international recognitio…
Introduction
Secessionist de facto states, by their very nature, sit outside of the international system. Having unilaterally declared independence from their parent state, they are invariably prevented from joining the United Nations, and thus taking their place as members of the community of universally recognised countries. While the reasons for such punitive approaches have a logic according to prevailing political and legal approaches to secession, it is…
Writing post-Soviet Estonia on to the world map
Quest for Survival and Recognition
There is lack of proper accounts of the foreign policy practices of de facto state authorities. There is no common understanding for whether de facto states have their own agency, or if these fledgling states are used as pawns within the context of wider strategic manoeuvring. This work proceeds from the assumption that de facto states are ‘states’ which, above all, seek to secure their physical survival, as well as to gain the status of legal su…
Parent States versus Secessionist Entities
I would like to thank Rein Taagepera, Rein Murakas, Piret Ehin, Martin Mölder and Scott Pegg for useful comments and criticism to various drafts of this article. I owe special thanks to Mihkel Solvak for graphic design and Raul Toomla for drafting the questionnaire. I am grateful also to Yücel Vural, Muharrem Faiz, Dino Djipa, Elena Bobkova, Ion Jigau and Arcadie Barbarosie for help in conducting public opinion surveys in Cyprus, Moldova and Bosn…
Scrutinizing a Policy of “Engagement Without Recognition”
De facto states are conventionally perceived as illegal entities, usually ignored by the rest of the world and therefore also isolated and severely sanctioned in most cases. We investigate US foreign-policy engagement with Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, and Transnistria and explore when, why, and how interactions between the United States and “places that do not exist” has taken place. This is done by extensively using W…
What makes sovereignty a relative concept? Empirical approaches to international society
Examining Power-sharing in Persistent Conflicts
The reasons that explain the failures in power-sharing lie in the notions of sovereignty and territoriality and their applications in the (post-)modern world. While territory is largely perceived as indivisible, sovereignty is seen as something that could be shared. Power-sharing schemes tend to fail because of the incompatibility of these two principles. Although enduring compromises between facts and norms may allow talks about diffused power a…
Local Resistance, National Identity and Global Swings in Post-Soviet Estonia
(2002). Local Resistance, National Identity and Global Swings in Post-Soviet Estonia. Europe-Asia Studies: Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 109-122
Holding Back or Pushing Forward? Patron-Client Relations and Elite Navigations in Northern Cyprus
This paper focuses on the patron-client relationship (PCR) between Turkey and Northern Cyprus. The PCR becomes visible in asymmetrically configured reciprocal exchanges that create dependence on patron states. These exchanges may motivate de facto states to defy, dictate, or demand patronage from their patron states, depending on their ontological insecurities, which are expressed both by the public in general and by the political elite in partic…
Lost and Found
De facto states are typically seen as marginal actors in the international system. Although they control territory and provide governance, their claims to sovereignty remain largely unrecognized. It is widely believed that such entities are either ignored or viewed with hostility by the vast majority of sovereign states. Rather than theoretically presume such relations, we empirically investigate de facto state–great power interactions through th…
Re-Examining Sovereignty Claims in Changing Territorialities
Current legal and normative doctrine forbids de jure recognition to those territorial units whose political leadership has been resisted by metropolitan central authorities. Recognition on the basis of uti possidetis juris makes the self-determination of people a territorial issue. This paper presents a framework for conceptualising and analysing the impact of ‘indivisible sovereignty’ and territoriality dilemmas on self-determination claims, res…
Identity and Institutions Shaping Cross-border Co-operation at the Margins of the European Union
This paper seeks to synthesize different theoretical approaches in studying cross-border co-operation (CBC) while considering institutionalization and identity-building as the two major processes behind cross-border developments. Since there still exist some gaps in explaining the conditions necessary for successful development of CBC at the margins of the EU, this paper attempts to contribute with empirical data collected from the Estonian–Russi…
Some Unintended Consequences of Geopolitical Reasoning in Post-Soviet Estonia
Although geopolitical practices have been put forth discursively at various production sites with the aim of supporting prevailing epistemologies, geography and politics still continue to be represented in rather contested ways in post-Soviet Estonia. The production of various texts and policy streams, maps and cartoons is a decentralised and un-coordinated process not subjected to a uniform geopolitical ideology. This article studies these proce…
Spatial Practices and Time in Estonia
The article examines spatial practices and time in post-Soviet Estonia as a particularly illuminating example of the issues involved in post-Soviet geopolitics and the geopolitics of European governance. The article makes use of recent critical geopolitics literature. It enquires into Estonia's early-mid 1990s post-Soviet geopolitics that led to the emergence of the Estonian- Russian land border dispute, the Estonian-Latvian maritime border dispu…
Conflicts and Shifts in the Kremlin’s Political Discourse since the Start of the Putin Presidency (2000–2019)
This article analyses the content and structure of the Kremlin’s political discourse since the start of Vladimir Putin’s presidency in 2000 and in the context of the conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine (annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Donbas). We apply structural topic modelling (STM) and focus on the official English-language Kremlin transcripts, a total of more than 8,000 texts. Our findings demonstrate that these conflicts became importa…
Transnistria’s European Drive
This paper explores the geopolitical role that a de facto state may play while operating in the context of patron-client relations and engagement without recognition framework. This is especially pronounced in Transnistria, which due to economic incentives offered by the EU through the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) may not fit well into the overall military-political or socio-cultural expectations of Transnistrians deemed to be p…
Muted differences
The UNDP report The Silent Majority Speaks (2007) demonstrates widespread consent and a popular desire for change while promoting a single state with strong regions as a compromise model for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Surprisingly, our own research (2009) on political legitimacy reveals quite the opposite tendencies, where political entities such as the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republika Srpska (RS) more often drift …
Borders and Orders in Europe
The breakdown of communist rule provided new opportunities for the restoration of statehood and for national self-determination. Estonia, Moldova and Macedonia have in common a 'minority' large enough potentially to claim a share in nation- and state-building rather than being granted minority rights. Numerous cases of ethnic strife within post-communist states and beyond their borders have demonstrated that domestic ethnicity can easily internat…
Ethnic Mobilisation in Flux
The massive influx of Russian-speaking eastern Slav groups (Russians, Belorussians, Ukranians) from the rest of the Soviet Union laid a fundamental basis for the nationality conflict and political power struggle in post-Soviet Estonia. After Estonia re-established its statehood, this conflict evolved more into one between indigenous people and immigrants, citizens and non-citizens. What deserves additional attention is the previous economically d…
Deconstructing border practices in the Estonian-Russian borderland
The Estonian‐Russian borderland is a relatively fragile, fairly contested and highly politicised arena in which a number of vital issues for both countries meet and are negotiated. This fact makes the borderland a part of the (geo)political process, including bargaining over social space and resource access, where one can find actors located on different spatial levels and situated among various interests groups. The present article attempts to s…
Welcomed Friend or Stranger Breaking in? Patron-Client Relations and Ontological (In)securities in Abkhazia
De facto states manifest asymmetric relations with their patrons. Enduring struggle for their existence has led them to demand, dictate, conform to, or defy patronage as their modus operandi. Abkhazia's relations with Russia have been based on external assistance while clearly excluding land ownership. Recent plans to shift some Abkhazian territory to Russia's control have sparked public outcry in Abkhazian society. This paper argues that governi…
Bridging the divide between parent states and secessionist entities
This paper departs from the contested nature of the border that separates each side in secessionist conflict – the parent state considers this as an internal administrative line; the de facto state, conversely, sees this as an international border. The argument made builds upon the theoretical aspects of the bordering practices in the current literature, and then examines three cross-border cases – Mainland China-Taiwan, Cyprus-Northern Cyprus an…
Introduction
Occupation and Ideology
Political theorists since Aristotle have viewed the middle classes as a source of social stability. In recent times some writers have pointed to a decline in the opportunities for small businessmen, one of the core groups of the old middle classes. The argument has been that as opportunities decline, the tendency of small businessmen is to harbor fundamentalist wishes to return to a less complicated economic system and to experience a disenchantm…
The peculiarities of Jewish settlement in Estonia
Cultural perspectives on the Lake Peipsi Region
Writing post-Soviet Estonia on to the world map
Deconstructing border practices in the Estonian-Russian borderland
The Estonian‐Russian borderland is a relatively fragile, fairly contested and highly politicised arena in which a number of vital issues for both countries meet and are negotiated. This fact makes the borderland a part of the (geo)political process, including bargaining over social space and resource access, where one can find actors located on different spatial levels and situated among various interests groups. The present article attempts to s…
Ethnic Mobilisation in Flux
The massive influx of Russian-speaking eastern Slav groups (Russians, Belorussians, Ukranians) from the rest of the Soviet Union laid a fundamental basis for the nationality conflict and political power struggle in post-Soviet Estonia. After Estonia re-established its statehood, this conflict evolved more into one between indigenous people and immigrants, citizens and non-citizens. What deserves additional attention is the previous economically d…
Spatial Practices and Time in Estonia
The article examines spatial practices and time in post-Soviet Estonia as a particularly illuminating example of the issues involved in post-Soviet geopolitics and the geopolitics of European governance. The article makes use of recent critical geopolitics literature. It enquires into Estonia's early-mid 1990s post-Soviet geopolitics that led to the emergence of the Estonian- Russian land border dispute, the Estonian-Latvian maritime border dispu…
Borders and Orders in Europe
The breakdown of communist rule provided new opportunities for the restoration of statehood and for national self-determination. Estonia, Moldova and Macedonia have in common a 'minority' large enough potentially to claim a share in nation- and state-building rather than being granted minority rights. Numerous cases of ethnic strife within post-communist states and beyond their borders have demonstrated that domestic ethnicity can easily internat…
Local Resistance, National Identity and Global Swings in Post-Soviet Estonia
(2002). Local Resistance, National Identity and Global Swings in Post-Soviet Estonia. Europe-Asia Studies: Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 109-122
Introduction
Some Unintended Consequences of Geopolitical Reasoning in Post-Soviet Estonia
Although geopolitical practices have been put forth discursively at various production sites with the aim of supporting prevailing epistemologies, geography and politics still continue to be represented in rather contested ways in post-Soviet Estonia. The production of various texts and policy streams, maps and cartoons is a decentralised and un-coordinated process not subjected to a uniform geopolitical ideology. This article studies these proce…
Pooling Sovereignty, Losing Territoriality? Making Peace in Cyprus and Moldova
Whereas territory contains a platform for units to participate internationally, it should also have sovereignty to render relations legitimate. Sovereignty is not only dispersed or pooled but also accumulated. Territory makes sense as long as there are attempts to strive for new nation-states or to maintain the territorial integrity of the old ones. One may argue that the less important is territoriality nowadays, the more complex and multifacete…
What Kind of Border Regime is in the Making
The recent round of enlargement has provided new impetus for the study of European Union (EU) external borders. This article conceptualizes the emerging European border regime as a composite policy, arguing that the regime is shaped by policy-making across such diverse areas as Regional Policy, Justice and Home Affairs, Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement. It shows that different policy paradigms attribute diverging functions to the EU external …
Examining Power-sharing in Persistent Conflicts
The reasons that explain the failures in power-sharing lie in the notions of sovereignty and territoriality and their applications in the (post-)modern world. While territory is largely perceived as indivisible, sovereignty is seen as something that could be shared. Power-sharing schemes tend to fail because of the incompatibility of these two principles. Although enduring compromises between facts and norms may allow talks about diffused power a…
Identity and Institutions Shaping Cross-border Co-operation at the Margins of the European Union
This paper seeks to synthesize different theoretical approaches in studying cross-border co-operation (CBC) while considering institutionalization and identity-building as the two major processes behind cross-border developments. Since there still exist some gaps in explaining the conditions necessary for successful development of CBC at the margins of the EU, this paper attempts to contribute with empirical data collected from the Estonian–Russi…
Introduction
An IR community in the Baltic states
Re-Examining Sovereignty Claims in Changing Territorialities
Current legal and normative doctrine forbids de jure recognition to those territorial units whose political leadership has been resisted by metropolitan central authorities. Recognition on the basis of uti possidetis juris makes the self-determination of people a territorial issue. This paper presents a framework for conceptualising and analysing the impact of ‘indivisible sovereignty’ and territoriality dilemmas on self-determination claims, res…
What makes sovereignty a relative concept? Empirical approaches to international society
Muted differences
The UNDP report The Silent Majority Speaks (2007) demonstrates widespread consent and a popular desire for change while promoting a single state with strong regions as a compromise model for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Surprisingly, our own research (2009) on political legitimacy reveals quite the opposite tendencies, where political entities such as the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and the Republika Srpska (RS) more often drift …
Parent States versus Secessionist Entities
I would like to thank Rein Taagepera, Rein Murakas, Piret Ehin, Martin Mölder and Scott Pegg for useful comments and criticism to various drafts of this article. I owe special thanks to Mihkel Solvak for graphic design and Raul Toomla for drafting the questionnaire. I am grateful also to Yücel Vural, Muharrem Faiz, Dino Djipa, Elena Bobkova, Ion Jigau and Arcadie Barbarosie for help in conducting public opinion surveys in Cyprus, Moldova and Bosn…
Who is entitled to ‘earn sovereignty'? Legitimacy and regime support in Abkhazia and Nagorno‐Karabakh
Abkhazia and Nagorno‐Karabakh are internationally unrecognised political entities, or so‐called de facto states, that have emerged as a result of the incomplete and contested state‐formation of their parent states and of the secessionist movements that emerged in the power vacuum of the post‐Soviet space. In addition to examining the conventional reliance on the self‐determination principle, usually followed by a call for international recognitio…
Identity and Foreign Policy
Contents: Incompatible identities? Baltic-Russian relations and the EU as an arena for identity conflict, Piret Ehin and Eiki Berg Imperial legacy and the Russian-Baltic relations: from conflicting historical narratives to a foreign policy confrontation?, Elena Fofanova and Viatcheslav Morozov Commemorating May 9: the Baltic states and European memory politics, Eva-Clarita Onken Identity politics and contested histories in divided societies: the …
Mission impossible in Cyprus? Legitimate return to the partnership state revisited
Cyprus has been divided for far longer than it has been united. There have been many attempts to reconcile conflicting parties but without remarkable success. The two communities — Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots — see the solution to the “Cyprus problem” in opposite terms. Although recent public opinion surveys have concluded that the most preferred option for the Turkish Cypriots would be “independence of the TRNC” and “reunification of the…
Merging Together or Drifting Apart? Revisiting Political Legitimacy Issues in Cyprus, Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
One way to approach conflict management is to use a four-dimensional political legitimacy criterion, which could set the agenda for enhancing peace prospects in Cyprus, Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Here the argument is that through measuring the internal legitimacy of conflicting parties and then comparing and contrasting the given empirical values on the scales of cohesion/security and democracy/performance, we may be able to distin…
Political science (41 works) · Sociology (36 works) · Law (35 works) · Politics (33 works) · Political economy (32 works) · Law (28 works) · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics (25 works) · De facto (13 works) · Economics (13 works) · European Union Policy and Governance (12 works)