Thread by @alxgraef

New Publication: "'Let's forget that #Slovakia is small': @GLOBSEC, Status-Seeking, and Agency in Informal Elite #Networks",
forthcoming in "Agency, #Security and Governance of #Small States", edited by Harlan Koff & Thomas Kolnberger
1/8
routledge.com/Agency-Securit…

2/8 I look at #GLOBSEC from the perspective of how "small states" in Central & Eastern Europe set out to improve their positions within the social hierarchy of the Western community after they had joined the EU & NATO. Slovakia is a particularly interesting case for two reasons:

3/8 First, after 1992 it had to cope with two challenges at once, state-building and democratization. Second, the political struggle between the elites in the 1990s (Mečiarism) delayed integration into Western institutions, at least when compared to the other Visegrad members.

4/8 When Slovakia finally joined the EU and NATO in 2004, it found itself within a different coordinate system of power and identity: it had to reinvent itself as useful, special and advance within informal networks that remain(ed) dominated by elites from larger Western states.

5/8 The Bratislava Global Security Forum or short, GLOBSEC, allows Slovakia to contribute to and shape Western strategic debates, which precede bureaucratic decision-making processes. Established in 2005, GLOBSEC has been the first of its kind in Central & Eastern Europe.

6/8 Based on interviews, my article tells the story of GLOBSEC, which is special, because it originally evolved as a students' project rather than an official event. Today, there are many similar platforms in the region, many of which have been directly modelled after GLOBSEC.

7/8 GLOBSEC's success derives from initial US support and transatlantic networks but it also depends on representing the entire region in the West rather than just Slovakia. Nevertheless, social hierarchies of international conferencing endure with the @MunSecConf at the top.

8/8 Check out the volume for more details, and many more great contributions on various aspects of small state politics covering all world regions by, among others, @RevePedi and @AndersWivel, Iver Neumann, Wouter Veenendaal, Edith Kauffer, @BaldurThorhalls and many more.