During 1991/92, Greek politics seemed overtaken by the Macedonia naming dispute. At the end of the same decade, Turkish politics were submerged in the crisis of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan’s extradition. The dominant ethnic majorities in both countries hailed these causes—keeping “Macedonia” Greek, getting Öcalan to Turkey—as rallying calls for mass national mobilization, eclipsing other, seemingly more conflict prone, affairs. Years later, both Greece and Turkey reluctantly tried a more conciliatory approach—toward Macedonia and the Kurds, respectively—and toward each other as well. Why? What explains this variation in foreign policy? Neophytos Loizides’ answer: “framing” (read: strategic discourse). The author eloquently weaves insights from previous research and from his own analysis of primary sources to make the case for the relevance of framing to an understanding of ethnonational discord and concord. As with any fine treatise, however, The Politics of Majority Nationalism raises thorny questions as much as it tries to answer them.
Questioning the very questions that drive this book may be an apt way to begin. Loizides finds the “confrontational actions” of both Greece and Turkey quite perplexing, even paradoxical. First, “what is particularly odd in Turkey and other post-Ottoman societies is the absence of successful federal and consociational arrangements” (p. 34). Second, Greece and Turkey “employed confrontational strategies, regardless of financial and political costs to their nations” (p. 9). Arguably, this would not have happened had Turkey learned from the Ottoman Empire that consociationalism aids peace and prosperity, and had both regimes calculated more carefully the risks involved in their moves. After all, “it is not always rational for elites to opt for confrontational policies” (p. 18). We may debate whether (quasi-) consociationalism did, in fact, help Turkey’s extinct precursor, and whether Greece and Turkey paid that heavy a price for their supposedly perilous policies. But even if these policies were indeed “irrational,” should that really surprise us? Perhaps so; perhaps after all we have learned (e.g., Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, 2008), we still expect actors to follow rational (and liberal) logic and are surprised when they do not, but then that surprise may reveal more about us, and about our scholarship, than about our object of inquiry—the actors and their social actions (see Uriel Abulof, “The Malpractice of Rationality in International Relations,” 2015). While Loizides calls for “nonrational approaches to conflict” (p. 13), a puzzlement at nonrationality seems to drive his study, which is itself quite paradoxical.
To resolve the oddities of Greece’s and Turkey’s foreign policies, the author employs the concept of “majority nationalism.” It foregrounds political demography to denote the nationalism of an ethnic majority that dominates a state, which the ethnie can use to effectively mobilize masses. But is majority nationalism merely stronger, or does it also develop unique national programs? Some of the tasks Loizides mentions as distinct—for example, protecting the ethnie, its culture, and its kith and kin (p. 2)—are clearly shared by ethnies that do not dominate a state, politically or demographically.
Perhaps, then, majority nationalism is more belligerent? The author implies that much. He argues that “nationalism in contemporary politics is an obstacle to peace” (p. 97) and that “ethnic entrepreneurs [that] dismiss any positive qualities among their opponents, undermine the likelihood or success of cooperation” (p. 23). Majority nationalism leverages its domination over the state apparatus to more effectively engage in hostile behavior. But has nationalism truly hindered peace, or has the rejection of nationalism been more perilous (Hall and Malešević, Nationalism and War, 2013)? Loizides dodges this debate. But even if we grant that nationalism, and majority nationalism in particular, are belligerent, then considering the modern ascendance of majority nationalism, we should expect an ongoing rise in ethnic violence. As I have argued elsewhere, however, that is not the case.
Delving into the politics of majority nationalism, Loizides suggests that “elite framing in ethnic politics” drives radicalization and conflict (p. 122). Specifically, precrisis adversarial framing of grievances and opportunities, once entrenched and institutionalized, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and shapes foreign policies. However, if effectively employed by moderates, framing may also foster compromise. He astutely illustrates how framing permeates the politics of majority nationalism before, throughout, and after the diplomatic crises in question. And while the author focuses largely on politicians, mainly, and perhaps too narrowly, in specific parliamentary debates, he also introduces a couple of illustrations from public discourse (such as the story of Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis). Still, the distinct features and the explanatory force of framing are not wholly resolved.
Framing has a considerable pedigree in the social sciences, including the study of violence (Daniel Ziegler et al., Framing Excessive Violence: Discourse and Dynamics, 2015). Loizides distinguishes framing from perception, since the former is “not reflections but simplifications of ‘perceived realities’” (p. 29). But are perceptions truly that much more subtle and complex? Arguably, framing signifies “conscious strategic efforts to shape shared understandings” (p. 28). But how can we discern such consciousness? Loizides ultimately opts for the actors’ identities. Elites, especially politicians, frame; other people merely perceive. And so, “the Balkan peasants of the eighteenth century” did not frame since they did not “draw clear distinctions between themselves and their neighbors” (p. 30). How we know that for sure, and why framing is predicated on identity politics, remain unclear. Moreover, I think we tend to conflate painting and framing; both require objective material to work with, but whereas painting (re)creates reality, framing merely foregrounds certain given aspects of it. Politics involves both; which, when, why, and to what effect constitute the real riddle.
Causality is yet more demanding. Surely, no objective factor translates into human motivation without first been subjectively processed. Thus, for example, balance of power motivates people only on the basis of their subjective take on it. Scholarship has not been oblivious to this. In international relations, “balance of threat” theory tackles the challenge from the realist perspective (Stephen Walt's The Origins of Alliances, 1987), and securitization theory does so from a constructivist angle (Barry Buzan et al., Security: A New Framework for Analysis, 1998); political and social psychology follow suit, probing, for example, “sacred values” (Scott Atran, Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the Un(Making) of Terrorists, 2010) and “societal beliefs” in intractable conflicts (Daniel Bar-Tal, Intractable Conflicts: Socio-Psychological Foundations and Dynamics, 2013). Loizides does not address this literature, which makes it harder to discern the distinct explanatory utility of framing.
Overall, human thought and action are so steeped in language that explaining conflict through inimical discourse might seem like explaining single combat through heavy breathing. Could we, should we, isolate framing as an “independent variable” (p. 131)? Whatever we think or do is partly reflected in, and is affected by, words. Loizides is aware of the lurking tautology, but his temporal resolution—“precrisis framing defines subsequent decisions, regardless of changes in the external opportunity structures” (p. 27)—is flimsy. After all, where does successful precrisis framing come from? If, as he seems to suggest, it comes from effective framers, political expediency, symbols, and entrenched identities, then perhaps the study of charisma, audience costs, ethno-symbolism, and “ontological security,” respectively, can provide a better explanation.
Moreover, material, exogenous factors are in fact quite important, even per the author’s own narrative. Greece targeting the weak Macedonia, rather than Albania or Turkey, and the latter targeting the stateless Kurds, rather than Greece, Syria, or Italy, makes much sense in terms of hard power politics, which may have shaped the grievance-opportunity framing more than the other way around. And of course, the force majeure of the 1999 earthquakes also greatly facilitated the Turkish—Greek rapprochement (pp. 103–7). Finally, while Loizides focuses on domestic framing, foreign framing, too, has played a role in all cases, for example in the international pressure on Greece to accommodate Macedonia.
Finally, to my mind, a fundamental question raised by Loizides’ analysis is the interplay between freedom and framing. Does framing make us forget we always have a choice? The author reveals the force of framing as self-entrapment, demonstrating that engaging in friend—foe framing, often building on self-victimization, may chain the body politic and undercuts a sense of choice by politicians and public alike. In times of “post-truth,” freedom calls for defying frames in order to paint better pictures that still distinguish right from wrong, both factually and morally.
