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Balkanization, or Balkanisation, is a geopolitical term, originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or uncooperative with one another. Balkanization is a result of foreign policies creating geopolitical fragmentation as can be seen at times in the Western Balkans with respect to the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Third Reich, the United Nations and NATO. Foreign policies can be precipitous to Balkanization.
Contents
The term is nondescript since the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were Balkan in origin and, for the most part, counter-examples to the term.
The term is used in fallacies drawing from appeal to consequences, loaded language, historical fallacy and hasty generalization such as in the cases of Spain and Catalonia, Canada and Quebec, UK and Scotland, and the internet and nation states.
Nations and societies
The term refers to the division of the Balkan peninsula, formerly ruled almost entirely by the Ottoman Empire, into a number of smaller states between 1817 and 1912. It was coined in the early 19th century and has a strong negative connotation. The term however came into common use in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, with reference to the numerous new states that arose from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
There are also attempts to use the term Balkanization in a positive way equating it with the need for decentralisation and sustenance of a particular group or society. Current research on the positive aspects of Balkanization, including whether a Balkanisation of the current United Kingdom into separate countries such as Scotland, Wales and England will improve the living standards of its people, is being carried out by Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss with Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College.
The larger countries within Europe, often being the result of the union of several historical regions or nations, have faced the perceived issue of Balkanization. The Iberian Peninsula and Spain especially has from the time of Al-Andalus had to come to terms with Balkanization, with several separatist movements existing today including the Basque Country and Catalan independentism.
Canada is a stable country but does harbor separatist movements, the strongest of which is the Quebec sovereignty movement which seeks to create a nation-state that would encompass the majority of Canada's French-Canadian population. Two referendums have been held to decide this question, one in 1980 and the last one in 1995 being lost by the separatist side by a tiny margin. Less mainstream, smaller movements also exist in the western provinces, namely Alberta, to protest what is seen as a domination by Quebec and Ontario of Canadian politics. Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow had also considered separation from Canada if the 1995 Quebec independence referendum had succeeded; which would have led to the balkanization of Canada.
Quebec has been the scene of a small but vociferous partition movement from the part of anglophone activist groups opposed to the idea of Independence of Quebec, as such a country would be dominated by francophones on the order of 80%. One such project is the Proposal for the Province of Montreal, which wishes for the establishment of a separate province from Quebec from Montreal's strongly anglophone Anglo-Saxon and immigrant communities.
In January 2007, regarding the growing support for Scottish independence, the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, and later Prime Minister, Gordon Brown talked of a "Balkanisation of Britain". Independence movements within Britain also exist in England, Wales, Cornwall and Northern Ireland.
Other uses
The term is also used to describe other forms of disintegration, including, for instance, the subdivision of the Internet into separate enclaves. However, Robert Morgus' and Tim Maurer's study suggests that the alarmist term “Balkanization” should be replaced with more appropriate terms such as fragmentation and diversity. The term has been used in American urban planning to describe the process of creating gated communities. Andrej Grubacic rejects the racist, colonialist conception of "balkanization" as a process by which "ancient, ethnic hatreds" lead to a process of chauvinistic fragmentation—usually juxtaposed to enlightened, Anglo-European federalization and unification. Grubačić terms this account as "balkanization from above"—Orientalist, colonialist, racist literature acting as the bulwark for the like policies advanced by the European Union and United States, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Kosovo. He contrasts it, on the other hand, with what he terms "balkanization from below," a narrative that insists on social and cultural affinities, as well as on customs in common resulting from interethnic mutual aid and solidarity, and resulting in what can be termed an interethnic self-activity, one that was severed through the Euro-colonial intervention. The historical legacy on which Grubačić draws is that of the Balkan Federation, an horizontal organization of peoples, with no nations or states, organized regionally and organically for mutual aid and empowerment, "a world where many worlds fit."