Visualizing Virtual Borders: Identity Territorialization Shifts and “Imagined Geographies” in the Albanian case BY Ilir Kalemaj Submitted to Central European University Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Supervisor: Prof. Erin Jenne (PhD) Budapest, Hungary CEU eTD Collection 1 DECLARATION I hereby declare that no parts of this thesis have been submitted towards a degree at any other institution different from CEU. I hereby declare that this thesis contains no materials previously written and/or published by any other person, except where appropriate acknowledgment is made in the form of bibliographical reference. Ilir Kalemaj March 10, 2013 ------------------------------------------------ Signature CEU eTD Collection 2 Abstract The primary research question that this dissertation addresses is: Why national borders change and why they are perceived differently inside versus outside of the state? What motivates such changes and what are the primary actors and factors that make groups have a certain mapping perception and when virtual shifts occur? This broad and general question is broken down into two empirical and specific questions: (1) how the understanding of the Albanian nation takes on different geographical borders over time-- with some periods associated with the Albanian nation mapping onto Albania's state borders and other periods the Albanian nation expanding on the broader concept of "Greater Albania", and (2) why different Albanian communities (in Albania in one hand and Macedonia and Kosovo on the other) have often imagined the borders of the Albanian nation differently at the same point in time? This dissertation, builds on the argument that power struggles between ‗internal‘ and ‗external‘ (diasporic) elites plays the primary role in building political agendas that create national borders. I construct here a theoretical model that captures the dynamics of domestic versus international constraints on elite choices and how this leads to (re)construction of borders. This builds on the logic that the elites engineer and manipulate national(ist) symbols to create the necessary environment for personal political gains, which is mainly getting and retaining political power. In other words, these competing elites use expansionist/contractionary versions of national map and imagined virtual borders that may or may not be congruent with internationally recognized ones. In embracing one or the other map project, such elites, through cost-benefit calculations, are always constrained by external pressures, which conditionalize domestic discourse and place limits their on their actions and how it influences map weaving. Although the primarily case is the Albanian case, studied comparatively in both spatial and temporal dimensions, as well as investigating compatibility/differences in mass and elite discourse and actions, the references include many empirical bits from a multitude of cases. In addition, the findings have general applications in both analytical and policy-level axes because concurrent maps exist across states and societies and elite clashes are often largely dependent on geopolitical limits, while policy relevance extends to include the degree and scale of map materialization. CEU eTD Collection 3 Acknowledgements First of all I want to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Prof. Erin Jenne. Having her as my mentor and friend in this endeavor has been the greatest honor. Her openness, constructive criticism and continuous support have made this journey tremendously rewarding and I thank her very much. I have also benefited a great deal from Dr. Matteo Fumagalli`s comments and feedback of various drafts on progress of this dissertation. I also have learned a lot from exchanges with Professors Irina Papkova, Alex Astrov, Michael Merlingen and others in the course of the studies at CEU as well as the continuous understanding and support from staff where special thanks go to Irén Varga, Júlia Paraizs, Krisztina Zsukotynszky and Eszter Fugedi. My family has continuously been an enormous support in this endeavour. I thank my parents and brother for their love and for believing in me, while apologizing for all the time that I have not been able to spend with them. I am greatly indebted to the Ministry of Education and Science in Albania for awarding me the Excellence Scholarship that partly funded the field work. CEU eTD Collection 4 Contents Chapter 1 Delineating the Playing Field Virtual Borders and Imagined Geographies 8 1.1 The Focus of the Study ...................................................................................................... 12 1.2 The Puzzle of Shifting Borders in National Imagination ................................................... 14 1.3 The Argument: Elite Clashes and International Constraints in Determining Border Shifts .................................................................................................................................. 19 1.4 Why is Important? .............................................................................................................. 22 1.5 Methodology/Research Design .......................................................................................... 26 1.6 Plan of the Dissertation/ Conclusion .................................................................................. 35 Chapter 2 Boundary Mapping and Territorialization of Identity 44 2.1 Existing Theories of Nationalism and How They Explain Borders................................... 44 2.2 A Theoretical Framework of Virtual Border Shifts .......................................................... 57 2.3 Delineating borders in nationalist discourse and nation`s mental mapping ....................... 66 2.4 The two overlapping maps of the Albanian nations .......................................................... 70 2.4.1 External constraints during the mapping of virtual borders 75 2.4.2 Domestic political competitions and (re)drawing of national map 78 2.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 3 From nation-building to state formation: how virtual mapping intersected with recognized borders in the Albanian imagination 83 3.1 Albanian identity construction and how it mapped onto territory in pre-1880 era ............ 85 3.2 The map resulting from the Albanian elite struggles during the years 1878-1899 and 1911-1912: Hypotheses and Predictions ........................................................................... 94 CEU eTD Collection 3.3 The Mapping of Albanian Boundaries from the League of Prizren to Independence ....... 97 3.4 Great Powers geopolitics and its effect on shaping the newly created Albania`s borders: the shifts in the periods 1912 to 1917 ................................................................ 109 5 3.5 Elite struggles, ethnic underbidding and map contraction during 1912-1917 period in Albania ........................................................................................................................ 118 3.6 National borders as perceived by the masses in both sides of border from the period 1878 to beginning of WWI .............................................................................................. 120 3.7 Elite struggles, ethnic underbidding and map contraction from 1912 to WWI period amongst Albanian elite in Yugoslavia ............................................................................. 130 3.8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 135 Chapter 4 Interwar Period and Various Shifts in the Configuration of Boundaries in Elite Level and National Imagining Amongst Albanian in Albania and Kin Abroad: From Contractionary to Expansionary and Vice Versa 136 4.1 External Constraints in Interwar Years for Albanians and the Effects it Produced in Map Weaving .................................................................................................................. 137 4.3 Elite Struggles and the Outcome of Albanian Map from Independence to WWI ........... 142 4.4 The Imagined Nation amongst the Ethnic Kin: Expansionary Map in Kosovo in Interwar Period ................................................................................................................ 161 Chapter 5 From Greater Albania during WWII to Contractionary Borders in Communist Era 172 5.1 Direct International Intervention during WWII and Redrawing of Map to Create the ―Greater Albania‖ ............................................................................................................ 173 5.2 Elite Struggles and the Irredentist Outcome .................................................................... 181 5.3 Main Map Shifts During the Early Communist Period in Albania and its Impact on Visualizing the Nation`s Borders .................................................................................... 184 5.4 Consolidation of National-Communism in Albania and its Effects on the Imagined Map and Visualization of Borders ................................................................................... 188 5.5 Perception of Borders of the Ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia during Communist Period ..............................................................................................................................