Self-Determination and Sovereignty: an Introduction

In his introduction, the editor explains how the present book collects the findings of a two-year research project carried out by a group of senior and junior scholars (mostly all of them historians, but with different academic backgrounds and specializations) from four Italian Universities: Bologna, Siena, Chieti-Pescara and Rome “La Sapienza”. The research project was conducted with a grant from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research within the framework of a specific program in support of highly qualified national research proposals (PRIN). the participants in this research decided to promote a collective project involving historians with different backgrounds and geopolitical preferences. This cooperation was directed at analyzing those dynamics and solutions which emerged during the 20th century within the broader framework of the European Continent. This approach has been considered particularly helpful in view of the radical changes that occurred in Europe at the end of the cold war. In fact, after the collapse of socialism the role played by EU integration processes suddenly acquired a new and unexpected dimension, as they offered the necessary space for re-establishing the network of relations that Europeans have developed for centuries, thanks to their diasporas, travel, trade, the circulations of ideas and innovation, communication webs, religious and political competition, cultural syncretism and hybridity. Within this framework, the dynamics of the events that have characterized the European continent at the end of the millennium went far beyond the old partitions of disciplines and/or ideologies. Indeed, the process of European integration has been the most visionary event and the most inspiring alternative, at least experienced up to now, to the balance of power mechanisms and the opposing state alliances that repeatedly led Europe into devastating wars, what is more–involving the whole world. Consistently, this research has investigated the extent to which the ideas of self-determination and sovereignty have been developed during the 20th century and then reframed (if they have been reframed) in political praxis, when a pathway– never before explored in Europe – was envisaged and carried out thanks to EU deepening and widening. In other words, the authors of the present book agree that the persistence of historical legacies, in terms of political cultures of the nation-state, is to be considered not only in relation to the policies implemented within the rationale of “nation-state sovereignty”, but also in light of EU conditionality, the soft power implemented on the EU’s eastern neighbors, and the impact of the crisis the integration project has endured since 2005.