6 - Subnational Variation

Summary

How well does my theory explain state policies toward non-core groups at the subnational level? What accounts for variation in nation-building policies toward different non-core groups within one state? Using both secondary sources and archival material, I focus on the province of Western Macedonia, annexed by Greece during the Balkan Wars, and account for the variation in the nation-building policies planned by the ruling political elites administering the region. I find that the Greek government chose its nation-building policies based not on objective measures of cultural distance or deep-rooted ethnic hatred, but on security and geostrategic concerns. The diplomatic relations between competitor states and Greece within the context of World War I largely determined both the perception of the non-core groups inside Greece and their consequent treatment.

My analysis is based on archival research conducted in Greece in 2006 and 2007. For the purposes of this chapter, I rely mostly on a compilation of reports written by Ioannis Eliakis between 1916 and 1920. To contextualize Eliakis’s reports I use both secondary sources and archival material. Ioannis Eliakis was a close friend of Prime Minister Venizelos from the island of Crete. Born in 1878, he was an MP in autonomous Crete, worked in Venizelos’s newspaper, and published his own newspaper “Crete” from December 1912 to August 1913. Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos sent Eliakis to the recently annexed Macedonia in July 1916 as a representative of the Liberal Party. On 16 September 1916 he led the Revolutionary movement in Western Macedonia. A month later the Provisional Government in Thessaloniki appointed Eliakis as their representative in Kozani and Florina prefectures and later on Governor-General of Western Macedonia. He remained there until 1 November 1920, when Venizelos was defeated in the election.