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Transborder State Reterritorialization in Eastern Europe: the Lower Danube Euroregion Gabriel Popescu

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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 Transborder State Reterritorialization in Eastern Europe: The Lower Danube Euroregion Gabriel Popescu Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES TRANSBORDER STATE RETERRITORIALIZATION IN EASTERN EUROPE: THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION By GABRIEL POPESCU A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Geography in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006 Copyright @ 2006 Gabriel Popescu All Rights Reserved The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Gabriel Popescu defended on 04.28.2006. __________________________ Jonathan Leib Professor Directing Dissertation __________________________ Dale Smith Outside Committee Member __________________________ Barney Warf Committee Member __________________________ Patrick O’Sullivan Committee Member The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii To my parents iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Jonathan Leib for his valuable guidance and encouragement during my academic career at Florida State University and for his unwavering support and critical insight throughout this research. I am grateful to Barney Warf for providing inspiration for my academic career as well as generous assistance in my research. I would like to extend my thanks to committee members Patrick O’Sullivan and Dale Smith for helping me with this dissertation. I am especially grateful to my contacts in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova who provided me crucial information and personal insights that informed this research. This research was supported in part by the following grants and awards: Association of American Geographers, Political Geography Specialty Group, Dissertation Enhancement Award. Florida State University, Dissertation Research Grant. Association of American Geographers, Dissertation Research Grant. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables.……………………………………………………………………………….........vi List of Figures.……………………………………………………………………………...........vii Abstract.…………………………………………………………………………………..............ix 1. INTRODUCTION.………………………………………………………………..…………....1 2. THE CHANGING MEANING OF TERRITORIAL SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZING SOCIAL LIFE.…......................................................................................................................................11 3. RESEARCH DESIGN.....................................................................................................…......66 4. EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND TRANSBORDER REGIONALISM..............................79 5. TERRITORIAL BORDERING IN THE LOWER DANUBE REGION: HISTORY, SPACE, AND POLITICS....................................................................................140 6. TRANSBORDER COOPERATION IN THE LOWER DANUBE SPACE: LIMITATIONS OF THE TERRITORIAL STATE IDEA AND THE QUEST FOR UNCONVENTIONAL POSSIBILITIES................................................................................174 7. BREAKING THE MOLD: THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF TRANSBORDER TERRITORIES BETWEEN ROMANIA, UKRAINE, AND MOLDOVA .................................................................................................................................................200 8. RETERRITORIALIZING THE STATE ACROSS ITS BORDERS: THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION AS A TRANSBORDER SPACE........................257 9. CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................285 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................295 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.......................................................................................................326 v LIST OF TABLES 1. The LDE profile by territorial-administrative units.................................................................210 2. The LDE profile by member national region...........................................................................210 3. The ethnic structure of Akkerman and Ismail Counties after the 1930 Romanian census......213 4. The ethnic structure of Akkerman and Ismail Counties after the unpublished 1927 Romanian census.....................................................................................................................213 vi LIST OF FIGURES 1. The European Union and EU Candidates in 2005.....................................................................86 2. European Euroregions in 2000.................................................................................................111 3. Romanian Principalities during the Middle Ages....................................................................142 4. Romanian Principalities during Early Nineteenth Century.....................................................144 5. Romanian Historical Regions Today.......................................................................................147 6. Historic Moldova and Contemporary Romania.......................................................................148 7. Bessarabia and Bucovina during Early Nineteen Century.......................................................149 8. The Territory of the Republic of Moldova during the 20th Century........................................152 9. Gagauzia and Transnistria........................................................................................................153 10. Ukraine in 2005......................................................................................................................154 11. The Disappearance of Ukrainian Lands.................................................................................155 12. Soviet Ukraine’s Territory between the Two World Wars....................................................157 13. The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic........................................................160 14. The Lower Danube Region and Eurasian Migrations during the Middle Ages....................170 15. The Carpathian Euroregion....................................................................................................189 16. The Danube-Cris-Mures-Tisza Euroregion...........................................................................193 17. Euroregion Bug......................................................................................................................194 18. Euroregions between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova........................................................195 19. The Lower Danube Euroregion.............................................................................................201 vii 20. The Odessa Region................................................................................................................208 21. The Romanian-Ukrainian Border on the Lower Chilia.........................................................215 22. Palanca Village Area at the Moldovan – Ukrainian Border..................................................216 23. The Giurgiulesti Village Area at the Moldovan-Romanian-Ukrainian Border Tripoint.......217 24. The Snakes Island..................................................................................................................247 viii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the relationships between the state and reterritorialization of social life by examining the role transborder regions, commonly known as Euroregions, play in the reterritorialization of the international state system. Europe is currently experiencing an unprecedented process of state reterritorialization in the context of European Union integration. In the territorial state system that has characterized Europe for the past four centuries, borders have been the central locus of state territoriality. Euroregions, created across state borders, are crucial to the European reterritorialization process aimed to redefine centralized state territoriality that has proven inadequate in a world of flows. This research investigates the ways in which traditional state territoriality is changing in Eastern Europe by the establishment of Euroregions. In the context of the European Union’s enlargement it is as yet less evident how the State-Euroregions-European Union nexus will play out in Eastern Europe where EU membership has not yet been achieved by all states. I examine this process through an intensive case study of the Lower Danube Euroregion, created between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Findings drawn from the experience of the Lower Danube Euroregion show that the capacity of Euroregions to reterritorialize social life in East European borderlands unfolds through a series of dimensions including institutional, political-territorial, legal, and cultural. However, state transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions is a highly contingent process that is imbued with power relations structured around supranational, national, and subnational scales. Transborder reterritorialization takes place at the juncture of these scales which generates a multiscalar geopolitics of Euroregions where Euroregions are used as tools in international politics to advance the interests of states, the European Union, and subnational actors. Under these circumstances, transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe remains a top-down
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