Professor Tom Gallagher - Staff Profile

NameProfessor Tom Gallagher
Contact PositionProfessor of the Study of Ethnic Conflict and Peace in the Department of Peace Studies
Room and BuildingPemberton Building
Email Address t.g.gallagher@bradford.ac.uk

Research Areas

Main Areas of Research
¿    Post-Communist Conflict and peace-Building in the Balkans

¿    Romania: Democratization Without Decommunisation

¿    The European Union and the Balkans

¿    Managing Territorial Politics and Ethnic and Religious Diversity in  Britain

¿    Other Professional Activities




Main Geographic areas

¿    The Balkans

¿    Great Britain and Ireland


Research Summary

Much of my work has explored ways of preventing the politics of ethnic antagonism being used to erode human security and jeopardise regional and international stability. I have emphasised the need to understand long-term patterns of external interference and internal patterns of ethnic relations in order to acquire the broad insights needed to understand a range of complex internal disputes in different parts of Europe. The region I have been concentrating on for over a decade is South-East-Europe, the scene of four wars since 1991 and ambitious peace-building efforts subsequently.  A related research interest, strongly reflected in my teaching has been the struggle in Europe over the past two hundred years to install representative forms of government  and the resistence to mainstream democracy from a range of political ideologies, including fascism, communism and in our own time, cultural relativism.  I have also developed a strong research  interest in the role of nationalism in international politics, particularly the pressures faced by long-established states with declining legitimacy, especially  among minority nations and ethnicities.



Managing Religious Diversity in 20th Century Britain

Following research awards from the ESRC and the British Academy in the early 1980s, I began research on a project entitled `Class, Creed and Community Integration in the West of Scotland from 1918 to the present'. This study monitored relations between the Protestant host community and Catholic immigrants and their descendants and examined why community divisions failed to reach critical proportions, although many of the ingredients of the Northern Ireland conflict were present on Clydeside. The key factors encouraging first co-existence and then integration were identified while the failure of sectarianism to be completely eradicated was also investigated.

 The results of this work were published by Manchester University Press under the title Glasgow, The Uneasy Peace, a 185,000 word study examining how one community slowly  emerged from two discordant traditions. This book is frequently cited as a landmark text on Scottish urban history and politics and its claims and findings have been dissected in a range of subsequent publications on religion and politics in Scotland.
 
My work on regional identities and conflicts was extended to other parts of western Europe at the end of the 1980s  where ethnic cleavages were present. In particular, I have published a series of articles on the economic and cultural basis of North-South tensions in Italy in journals such as Government and Opposition and Regional Politics and Policy.  



Post-Communist Conflict in the Balkans

Since the early-mid 1990s, much of my research has been devoted to examining the role of ethnicity in shaping post-communist politics in the Balkans. Comparative work on ethnicity and democratic politics in eastern Europe has appeared in journals like Democratisation and Daedalus. Between 2001 and 2005 Routledge published a trilogy on the long-term role of the Balkans in international politics. It argued that, since at least the late 19th century, international responses to instability in this strategically-placed region had been influenced by  negative ethnic images which resulted in low-grade and opportunistic policies which often exacerbated local conflicts. Outcast Europe: The Balkans from the Ottomans to Milosevic (2001) examined 200 years of Western and Russian intervention in the region and its effect on the delicate web of inter-faith relationships which had been characterised as much by co-existence as by conflict in contrast to Western Europe during the bloody wars of religion. The Balkans Since The Cold War:  From Tyranny to Tragedy, (Routledge in 2003) examined the failure of conflict prevention and a coherent peace enforcement strategy in the former Yugoslavia until 1995. Each of them has subsequently appeared in paperback and translations into Turkish and Romanian have occurred (see below for the 3rd volume).


Romania: Democratization Without Decommunisation
I have also done extensive research on how ethnicity has shaped the protracted transition from authoritarian rule to democracy taking place in post-communist Romania. Two awards from the Nuffield Foundation (one shared with another scholar) enabled me to carry out fieldwork which culminated in the publication of Romania After Ceausescu: The Politics of Intolerance by Edinburgh University Press in the summer of 1995. It examined how historical grievances placing ethnic Romanians and Hungarians at variance were manipulated by post-communist forces with a restricted agenda for change and it shows how communist power structures were adapted to enable  a narrow range of powerful interests to shape the transition towards a limited form of democracy. Theft of a Nation: Romania Since Communism (Hurst and Co, London 2005) examines how an oligarchy determined to restrict political influence and  economic power to  a restricted group of players consolidated its influence even with Romania starting to be absorbed into Euro-Atlantic security and economic structures after 2000. Particular attention is paid to the tools devised for mimicking change while continuing to have a monopolistic approach to political and economic power.  The book was a best-seller in Romania, the translation going into at least 3 editions.  Abroad, it is considered as  a benchmark text, helping to explain the path Romania has taken since 1989  and as a result I am regularly consulted by international officials  on policy trends in this country and the wider region.



The European Union and the Balkans

This has been the focus for much of my research from 2002 onwards as it became obvious that the EU intended to play a more active role in projecting its post-nationalist and pluralist values towards South-east-Europe than hitherto.    
The Balkans in the New Millennium, (Routledge 2005) a comparative study of externally-sponsored democratisation strategies, asks whether the double transition based on political and economic liberalisation can promote development and participation in societies where privileged groups are bent on state capture.

It places the spotlight on the EU¿s ambitious new foreign and security policy which  is being put to its stiffest test in the region. The dangers of regional conflicts, failing states, and organized crime tie the EU to the Balkans despite the lack of conspicuous success for its policies. This book explores the reasons why progress in overcoming ethnic antagonisms and chronic underdevelopment, has been slow. It asks whether the EU can effectively replace NATO as it retreats from active roles in Bosnia and Kosovo and assesses the international record in these war-shattered territories, and also towards Serbia and Balkan states that remained at peace. It also asks what evidence is there that lessons have been learned and applied as trans-Atlantic engagement with Balkan problems enters its second decade. The book  identifies new problems: organized crime, demographic crises of different kinds, and the collapse of a strong employment base. It asks whether the Balkans can ever become a peace peninsula like Scandinavia?  With enlightened backing can it make common cause with the rest of Europe rather than being an arena of periodic conflicts, political misrule,  and economic misery? Or will the depth of its problems confound the international bureaucrats, politicians, aid-workers and soldiers increasingly embroiled with a region that remains of critical importance for Western security.   
A paperback edition appeared in October 2007

 Romania  and the European Union: Consolidating Backwardness? (Manchester
University press, 2009) explores how successful the EU has been in exporting its values and governing methods to Romania. It argues on the basis of extensive fieldwork, that Romania has joined the EU in 2007 with many vital reforms existing only on paper and with the post-communist political elite remaining unaccountable before the law in key respects. It  concludes that the EU¿s strategy was superficial and that it was  never properly audited when it was clear that reforms it backed in the public administration and the  justice system were having little effect on increasing administrative efficiency and curbing entrenched corruption. My research has been disseminated in reports for the political and economic forecaster, Oxford Analytica and has been published in Open Democracy and the Financial Times. I write regularly for large-circulation independent press outlets in Romania, in one of which I have a twice-weekly column monitoring how domestic political issues shape the broader regional security environment.  





Managing Territorial Politics and Ethnic and Religious Diversity in  Britain

 The biggest challenge to the preservation of the unity of theBbritish state currently emanates from Scotland whose devolved political institutions have been controlled by the Scottish National party since 2007. In 2009 I published a book called The Illusion of freedom: Scotland Under Nationalism (publisher: Hurst and Co) which expressed scepticism about the desire for a genuine new start among Scotland¿s ro-independence movement. The book depicted the SNP as a top-down party content to see the country run by close-knit elites and ready to exchange one union with another, the European Union, where Scotland would be hardpressed to exercise meaningful territorial sovereignty. The book urged the SNP to concentrate its energies on tackling deep-seated social and economic problems and devote attention to building a political and state structure which emphasises widespread participation by individual citizens rather than a power structure based around mobilised interest groups.

 Britain¿s difficulties with integrating Muslim immigrants (and their descendants)  from south Asia has been an increasing challenge for governments especially since the country¿s intervention in a number of Muslim-majority countries provoked ill-feeling, especially among younger British Muslims. From March to August 2008, I was  a Fellow of the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC, exploring why there was less alienation among America¿s Muslim communities even though  elements of the Bush administration¿s foreign policy aroused even more controversy among sections of Muslim opinion. My research in this topic is ongoing and emphasises the fact that immigrants find it more  easy to identify with American public values and political institutions than their counterparts in Britain where the over-arching collective identity is based on organic values and institutions which have fallen into disrepute due to the fast pace of change. Integration is likely to be difficult, even if controversial foreign policy issues cease to resonate among Muslims. This is  due to the low prestige of many state institutions in Britain as well as  a culturally divided  and socially fragmented society beset by high crime and where there is no agreement about the design for living in harmony.  

Other Professional Interests

Other Professional Activities

Since 2005, I have been the Chair of the Research Unit for south-East-European Studies which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2007 with an exhibition detailing the scholarship, twinning activities,  and conferences and seminars hosted by Bradford university on the former Yugoslavia and the  wider Balkan region over that period.

I have endeavoured to assist civic groups working to promote inter-ethnic harmony in South-eastern Europe. In 1992, I secured an award  from the Westminster Foundation For Democracy which contributed to the launch of an independent news agency in a Romanian city, Cluj, badly disfigured by inter-ethnic strife. I also work closely with the Liga Pro-Europa, based in the Romanian city of Tirgu Mures which has promoted cross-community initiatives designed to improve ties between the ethnic Hungarians and Romanians who make up most of the population. In the past, I have also worked equally closely with the Romanian Association for the Defence of Human Rights which has an excellent record on defending minority members in the face of a sometimes illiberal state. More recently, I have also been involved in efforts to safeguard the remaining independence of the media in Romania which is threatened by the rise of crony capitalism.

 I am also a longstanding board member of Democratization, published  by Taylor and Francis and one of the  main journals in this branch of political studies.

Bibliography

Selected Publications

Single-Authored Books

The Illusion of Freedom: Scotland Under nationalism, Hurst & Co/Columbia University Press, 2009
.
Romania and the European Union: How the Weak vanquished the Strong, Manchester University press 2009.

Theft of a Nation: Romania Since Communism, London:  Hurst & Co, 2005

The Balkans in the New Millennium, London: Routledge 2005.

The Balkans Since The Cold War:  From Tyranny to Tragedy, London: Routledge 2003.

Outcast Europe: The Balkans From The Ottomans To Milosevi¿ , 1789-1989, London: Routledge 2001.
.  
Romania After Ceausescu: the politics of intolerance, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995.

Glasgow The Uneasy Peace: Religious Tension In Modern Scotland, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987.

Edinburgh Divided, Edinburgh: Polygon 1987.

Portugal: A Twentieth Century Interpretation, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983.


Edited Volumes
With  G. Pridham,   Experimenting With Democracy :Regime Change in The Balkans, London, Routledge, 2000.
 contributed 2 out of 9 chapters.  


With A.  Williams, A.(, Southern European Socialism, Manchester, Manchester University Press 1989.


With G. Walker,, Sermons and Battle Hymns: Protestant Popular Culture in Scotland, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1990.

. Nationalism in the Nineties, [on Scottish Nationalism] Edinburgh, Polygon Publications 1991.



Selected Journal articles

`Labour and the SNP: the triumph of continuity in a  changing Scotland¿, Political Quarterly, Vol. 80, No 3, October-December 2009 (forthcoming).

`Scottish Democracy in a time of Nationalism¿, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 20, No 3, 2009, p.p.  56-70.

 `Understanding Slobodan Milosevic: between the Cold War and Iraq¿, Open Democracy, 13 March 2006, www.opendemocracy.net

`Romanian tyranny Seen From above and below¿, European History Quarterly, Vol. 35, No 4, 2005 p.p. 559-568 .

`Balkan But Different:  Romania and Bulgaria¿s Contrasting Paths
To NATO Membership 1994-2002¿, Journal of Communist studies and Transition Politics, Vol.  20, No 3, 2004.

The West and the Challenge to Ethnic Politics in Romania¿, Security Dialogue, Vol. 30, no 3, p.p. 293-304, September 1999.

`Folly and Failure in the Balkans¿, History Today, Vol. 49, no 9, p.p. 45-51, September 1999.

`Ceausescu¿s Legacy¿, The National Interest, no 56, p.p. 107-11, Summer 1999.

`Conflict between East European states and minorities in an age of democracy¿, Democratization, Vol. 5, no 3, p.p. 200-24, 1998.

`To be or not to be Balkan: Romania¿s Quest for Self-Definition¿, Daedalus, Vol. 126, no 3, p.p. 63-84, summer 1997.

`Democratization in the Balkans: Challenges and Prospects', Democratization, Vol. 2, No 3, Autumn 1995, p.p. 337-61.

`Rome At Bay: The Challenge of the Northern League to the Italian State', Government & Opposition, Vol. 27, No 4, 1992, p.p. 470-85.