Contending Discourses of Marginality

The Case of Kaliningrad

Bibliographic Data

ID3948620
AuthorsChristopher S Browning (0000-0002-1604-9496, Birmingham City University), Pertti Joenniemi (Danish Institute for International Studies)
Year2004
Volume9
Issue3
Pages699-730
Publication date2004-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650040490478747
OpenAlexW1975007171
LanguageEN
Citations received29

Kaliningrad is argued to raise profound questions regarding the role, power and influence of marginal actors in EU–Russian relations as well as international politics at large. Such entities may have to confine themselves to a totally subordinated position but they can also gain, as seems increasing to have been the case with Kaliningrad, considerable influence. As spaces in-between, or as potentially emergent third spaces that significantly problematise the idea of territorial sovereignty, they do not only influence – by blurring borders and various conceptual categories – the setting of local or regional agendas. They may also impact upon the very constitution of subjectivity, in the cases of both the EU and Russia. In this essay these processes are tackled, above all by scrutinising how margins are understood in both common and theoretical discourses with the departures unfolding then explored in the case of Kaliningrad. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Barry Buzan, Stefan Guzzini, Lene Hansen, Ulla Holm, Anna Leander, Noel Parker and the journal reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay. Notes 1 Noel Parker, 'Integrated Europe and its "Margins": Action and Reaction', in Noel Parker and Bill Armstrong (eds), Margins in European Integration (Houndmills: Macmillan Press 2000) p.8. 2 See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell 1958) para.43. 3 For an overview of how mainstream international relations approaches remain stuck in this 'territorial trap', being preoccupied with sovereign states and giving little room for other spaces, see John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge, Mastering Space: Hegemony, Territory and International Political Economy (London: Routledge 1995) pp.80–99. 4 On modernist understandings of territory and their relationship to international relations theorising, see John Gerard Ruggie, 'Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations', International Organization 47/1 (1993) pp.139–74. 5 As Walters puts it, in modernist discourse the border has become understood as 'a continuous structure enclosing a political territory' one function of which was 'the simplification and standardization of internal space'. In other words, and in the terms of Friedrich Ratzel: 'if the state was a body then the border was its skin'. William Walters, 'Mapping Schengenland: Denaturalizing the Border', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20 (2002) pp.565–6; see also pp.563–4. 6 Parker (note 1) p.7. 7 Ibid. p.7. 8 Ibid. p.7. 9 For example, Ellis describes the medieval Anglo–Welsh and Anglo–Gaelic marches as regions where 'English settlements were often interspersed with native areas, so creating multiple, localised frontiers which were fragmented and fluid, rather than consolidated blocs. Both were zones of interaction and assimilation between peoples of very different cultures'. S. Ellis, Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the British State (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1995) p.18. 10 Parker (note 1) p.8. 11 See A.O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1970). 12 Parker (note 1) pp.11–13. 13 Ibid. p.8. 14 Even if they have less power Parker also argues this is also the case for peripheries since as with margins 'The territory beyond is already in a definite relationship with this territory [periphery]' (emphasis original). Ibid. p.7. 15 On this see for example Veronique Pin-Fat, '(Im)possible Universalism: Reading Human Rights in World Politics', Review of International Studies, 26/4 (2000) pp.663–74, and Jenny Edkins, Poststructuralism and International Relations: Bringing the Political Back In (Boulder: Lynne Reinner 1999). 16 Parker (note 1) p.5. 17 For example, see Gerhard Brunn, 'Historical Consciousness and Historical Myths', in A. Kappeler (ed.), The Formation of National Elites (Dartmouth: European Science Foundation, New York University Press 1992). Likewise, Iver Neumann has shown that even if we are increasingly aware of the historically contingent nature of our identities we still feel the need to tell essentialised historicised stories of our identities as if that is what they have always been like. Iver B. Neumann. Uses of the Other: 'The East' in European Identity Formation (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1999) pp.214–15. 18 Viatcheslav Morozov, The Discourses of St Petersburg and the Shaping of a Wider Europe: Territory, Space and Post-Sovereign Politics, COPRI Working Papers No.13 (Copenhagen: COPRI 2002). 19 For an overview of all these issues see Lyndelle D. Fairlie and Alexander Sergounin, Are Borders Barriers? EU Enlargement and the Russian Region of Kaliningrad (Helsinki: Ulkopoliittinen instituutti and Institut für Europäische Politik 2001). 20 See Christopher S. Browning, 'The Internal/External Security Paradox and the Reconstruction of Boundaries in the Baltic: The Case of Kaliningrad', Alternatives 28/5 (2003) pp.545–81. 21 Pertti Joenniemi, 'Kaliningrad, Borders and the Figure of Europe', in James Baxendale, Stephen Dewar and David Gowan (eds), The EU and Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad and the Impact of EU Enlargement (London: Federal Trust 2000). 22 Pål H. Bakke, 'The City-belt Theory and the Hanseatic Space', Mare Balticum 1996 (Lübeck- Travemünde: Ostsee-Akademie 1996) p.42. See whole article for a more general overview. 23 Richard J. Krickus, The Kaliningrad Question (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 2002) pp.17–18. 24 Ibid. pp.18–19. 25 Pertti Joenniemi, 'Kaliningrad: A Region in Search for a Past and a Future', Mare Balticum 1996 (Lübeck-Travemünde: Ostsee-Akademie 1996) pp.85–6. 26 Ingmar Oldberg, 'The Emergence of a Regional Identity in the Kaliningrad Oblast', Cooperation and Conflict 35/3 (2000) p.271. 27 Olga Sezneva, 'Living in the Russian Present with a German Past: The Problems of Identity in the City of Kaliningrad', in David Crowley and Susan Reid (eds), Socialist Spaces: Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc (Oxford: Berg Publishers 2002) pp.47–64. 28 Ibid., p.50. 29 Oldberg (note 26) p.272. 30 Grzegorz Gromadzki and Andrzej Wilk, Overcoming Alienation: Kaliningrad as a Russian Enclave inside the European Union (Warsaw: Stefan Batory Foundation 2001) p.5. 31 Oldberg (note 26) p.272; Krickus (note 23) p.38. 32 Oldberg (note 26) p.272. 33 Yurchak cited in Sezneva (note 27) p.54. 34 If the German period was discussed at all it was denigrated as feudal, capitalist-imperialist and fascist. Oldberg (note 26) p.272. 35 Sezneva (note 27) p.51. 36 Ibid., p.52. 37 Ibid., pp.55–8. 38 Snøfrid Byrløkken, Hvem er vi? Hvor kommer vi fra, och hvor går vi? Identitetsformasjon I enklaven Kaliningrad – Russland [Who are we? Where do we come from, where are we going? Identity Formation in the Enclave of Kaliningrad] (Oslo: Institute for Social Anthropology, University of Oslo 2000). 39 Sezneva (note 27) p.56. 40 Oldberg (note 26) p.274. 41 Ibid., p.271. 42 Pertti Joenniemi, 'Kaliningrad as a Discursive Battlefield', in Paul Ganster (ed.), Cooperation, Environment, and Sustainability in Border Regions (San Diego, CA: San Diego State University Press, Institute for Regional Studies of the Californias 2001) pp.320, 330. 43 Natalia Smorodinskaya, Kaliningrad Exclave: Prospects for Transformation into a Pilot Region (Moscow: Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Kaliningrad Regional Development Agency 2001) p.61. According to Stephen Dewar, between 2000 and 2006 Poland will be eligible for up to e1.1 billion in EU assistance funds per year. For Lithuania the figure will be about e180 million. In contrast, through TACIS Kaliningrad only receives around e4–5 million a year. Stephen Dewar, 'Kaliningrad Needs a Special Development Fund', Kaliningrad – Isolation or Co-operation? (Helsinki: The Finnish Committee for European Security, STETE 2001) p.102. 44 Victor Romanovsky, 'Geography Encourages Co-operation', Kaliningrad – Isolation or Co- operation? (Helsinki: The Finnish Committee for European Security, STETE 2001) p.90. 45 Instead of a visa Russians wishing to travel between Kaliningrad and the rest of Russia by land will require a Facilitated Transit Document. The distinctiveness of this from a visa is highly debatable and reflects the EU's refusal to significantly compromise on the Schengen principles. Consequently the issue may again become a point of controversy in the future. For a text of the agreement see Tenth EU–Russia Summit, Conclusions, Joint Statement on Transit between the Kaliningrad Region and the Rest of the Russian Federation, Brussels, 11 November 2002, available at http:/ /europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/russia/ summit_11_02/concl.htm; see also Commission of the European Communities, Kaliningrad: Transit, Brussels, 19 September 2002, COM (2002) 510 final. 46 Commission of the European Communities, Communication from the Commission to the Council: The EU and Kaliningrad, Brussels, 17 January 2001, COM(2001) 26 final. 47 Dmitri Trenin, 'Security Cooperation in North-Eastern Europe: A Russian Perspective', in Dmitri Trenin and Peter van Ham, Russia and the United States in Northern European Security (Kauhava: Ulkopoliittinen instituutti and Institut für Europäische Politik 2000) p.35. For a more specific analysis of the problems of Schengen and of Schengen in relation to Kaliningrad see Sven Arnswald and Mathias Jopp, The Implications of Baltic States' EU Membership (Kauhava: Ulkopoliiittinen instituutti and Institut für Europäische Politik 2001) pp.60–96. 48 Pertti Joenniemi, 'Kaliningrad – A "Little Russia" within the European Union', in Helmut Hubel (ed.), EU Enlargement and Beyond: The Baltic States and Russia (Berlin: Berlin Verlag 2002) p.422. 49 Ibid., p.418. 50 Christian Wellmann, 'Russia's Kaliningrad Exclave at the Crossroads: The Interrelation between Economic Development and Security Politics', Cooperation and Conflict 31/2 (1996) p.172. 51 Ramunas Janušauskas, 'The 'Kaliningrad Puzzle' in Lithuanian and Russian Political Discourses', in Pertti Joenniemi and Jevgenia Viktorova (eds), Regional Dimensions of Security in Border Areas of Northern and Eastern Europe (Tartu: Peipsi Center for Transboundary Cooperation 2001) p.236. 52 Joenniemi (note 25) pp.95, 96. 53 Lithuania is a partial exception here as in 1993 the Lithuanian ambassador to the United States claimed Kaliningrad as Lithuanian territory. The Lithuanian government subsequently retracted all such statements. Richard J. Krickus, US Foreign Policy and the Kaliningrad Question, DUPI Working Papers No.1998/18 (Copenhagen: DUPI 1998) pp.5–6. See also Wellmann (note 50) pp.171–4. 54 Oldberg (note 26) p.279; Pertti Joenniemi, Stephen Dewar and Lyndelle D. Fairlie, The Kaliningrad Puzzle – A Russian Region within the European Union (Karlskrona: The Baltic Institute of Sweden and the Åland Islands Peace Institute 2000) p.6. 55 Krickus (note 53) p.23; Krickus (note 23) p.70. 56 Pavel Felgenhauer, 'Saber-Rattling No Solution', The Moscow Times, 1 August 2002. 57 Ingmar Oldberg, Kaliningrad between Moscow and Brussels, Working Paper No.17 (Zurich: Center for Security and Conflict Research 2002) p.60. 58 Ibid., p.63. 59 Joenniemi (note 42) pp.324–5. 60 Joenniemi (note 48) p.428. 61 The plan was one formulated between Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl. From Kohl's point of view it was a way to pre-empt a possible mass influx of German Russians to Germany. See Krickus (note 23) p.79; Paul Holtom, 'A "Baltic Republic in the Russian Federation" or the "Fourth Baltic Republic"? Kaliningrad's Regional Programme in the 1990s', Journal of Baltic Studies 34/2 (2003) pp.167–8. 62 Holtom (note 61) p.168. 63 Ibid., pp.159–79. 64 See Stephen Dewar, 'Myths in the Baltic', in Baxendale, Dewar and Gowan (note 21) pp.186–99. 65 On this theme, see Stephen Dewar, 'Kaliningrad – an Opportunity or Barrier for Russian–EU Co-operation?', paper presented at the Round-Table 'Russia and the West: The New Stage of Relations', arranged by the East–West Institute and the Embassy of Finland, Moscow, 7 July 1999. Such pressures for standardisation, however, also emanate from international financial institutions such as the IMF and the talks on WTO membership. 66 See Andrew Dolan, ' Kaliningrad and the European Union: The Clash of Expectations', in Baxendale, Dewar and Gowan (note 21) p.208. 67 Vladimir Jegorov, 'International Relations Vital for the Kaliningrad Oblast', Kaliningrad – Isolation or Co-operation? (Helsinki: The Finnish Committee for European Security, STETE 2001) p.12; Romanovsky (note 44) p.91. 68 Quoted in Marcin Grajewski, 'Russian Enclave at Crossroads before EU Expansion', Reuters, 15 January 2001, available at http://virtual.finland.fi/reuters/ 69 Anatoly Khlopetsky, 'Kaliningrad as a Special Economic Zone', Kaliningrad – Isolation or Co-operation? (Helsinki: The Finnish Committee for European Security, STETE 2001) p.55. The reference to Hong Kong was first put forward in 1993 by Yuri Matochkin, who in 1991 was appointed head of the Kaliningrad administration. Ingmar Oldberg, 'Kaliningrad: Problems and Prospects', in Pertti Joenniemi and Jan Prawitz (eds), Kaliningrad: The European Amber Region (Aldershot: Ashgate 1998) p.9. 70 Oldberg (note 57) p.67. 71 A.P. Klemeshev, S.D. Kozlov and Gh.M. Fyodorov, I Ostrov Sotrudnichestva (Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad State University Press 2002) Summary in English, 'The Island of Co-operation', pp.300–325. For a series of innovative recommendations recently proposed by both Russian and non-Russian scholars see Hanne-Margret Birkenbach and Christian Wellmann (eds), The Kaliningrad Challenge: Options and Recommendations (Munster: Lit Verlag 2003). 72 Paul Holtom, 'Kaliningrad in 2001: From Periphery to Pilot Region?', paper presented at the workshop on the EU's Northern Dimension, Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), University of Birmingham, 7 December 2001. 73 Baltica facilitates cooperation between local regions in Kaliningrad, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Swedien; Saule facilitates cooperation between local regions in Kaliningrad, Lithuania, Latvia, and Sweden; and Niemen facilitates cooperation between local regions in Kaliningrad, Lithuania and Belarus. 74 Oldberg (note 26) p.276. 75 Itogi, 22 May 2001, p.21. 76 Olga Sezneva, 'Fashion for The Past: Historical Revival in a New Style Architecture in Kaliningrad, Russia', paper presented at the ASN Convention, April 2001. 77 In this respect it is also important that Kaliningraders are today freer than at any time in the past to travel. This has resulted in a situation where many Kaliningraders, particularly the young, are likely to have had more direct experience of the West than of the Russian homeland. Kaliningraders now often speak about going 'to Russia' or of their relatives 'in Russia', terms implying a certain social distance to Russia proper, in contrast to the more 'European' Kaliningraders. Oldberg (note 26) pp.275, 281–2. 78 Peter Lodenius, 'Kaliningrad – tyskarnas Karelen', Ny Tid, 2 September 2003; Kristian Gerner, 'Kaliningrad – gränsland', Ny Tid, 25 November 2003. 79 Oldberg (note 26) p.276. 80 Vasiliy Valuev, Russian Border Policies and Border Regions, Working Papers No.36 (Copenhagen: COPRI 2002). 81 Sergei Jakobson-Obolenski, 'Change of Attitude Towards Kaliningrad?', Ballad Reports, 14 February 2001. Available at http://www.ballad.org. The conference was held on 8–10 February 2001, with the papers published in Kaliningrad – Isolation or Co-operation? (Helsinki: The Finnish Committee for European Security, STETE 2001). 82 For an analysis of this document, see Yuri Borko, 'EU/Russia Co-operation: The Moscow Perspective', in Baxendale, Dewar and Gowan (note 21) pp.59–74. 83 On the initiative, see Vygautas Usackas, 'Lithuania and Kaliningrad: Building Partnership for the New Europe', in Baxendale, Dewar and Gowan (note 21) pp.143–50. 84 Igor S. Ivanov, 'Moscow Ready to Make Kaliningrad into a Eurobridge', Baltic Sea Agenda (Baltic Development Forum, Copenhagen) 2 (June 2002) pp.11–13. 85 Council of the European Union, Action Plan for the Northern Dimension with External and Cross-Border Policies of the European Union 2000–2003, Brussels, 14 June 2000, 9401/00; Council of the European Union, The Second Northern Dimension Action Plan 2004–2006, 29 September 2003. 86 This is not to say the Northern Dimension has been totally sidelined. For example, in May 2000 the EU, in cooperation with Denmark, organised a conference on Kaliningrad in the context of the ND. Although the dialogue did not bring the debate further, not to speak of any concrete results, it did constitute one of the few occasions that has provided Kaliningrad, as part of the Russian delegation, with an opportunity of airing a number of concerns and tabling some recommendations. See Conference on the Northern Dimension and Kaliningrad: European and Regional Integration (Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2000)

Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Cross-Border Cooperation and Integration · European Politics and Security · Gender Studies

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