Multiple-holistic analysis conducted in the Western Balkans has shown that context(s)in the Western Balkans are overflowed with stereotypes, prejudice, and religious intolerance. Thesethree phenomena were included in extensive multiple-holistic case study by conducting interviewsand open-ended surveys among peace activists, journalists, politicians, as well as members of thecivil society, in the countries of North Macedonia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Kosovo. The researchfindings draw a picture of a still deeply prejudiced and divided societies. People categorizeeach other according to their religion (...) and ethnicity. The group they identified themselves with representsthe reference for what is good or bad. Stereotypes and prejudice are deeply rooted in andtransmitted in early childhood experiences, in most cases as a result of family trauma as a consequenceof an earlier conflict. Also, ethnic prejudice are deeply rooted in state systems. Religion inthese contexts plays a crucial but subtle role in designing unstable and divided contexts. It keepsto its own communities and values through exclusion of the others instead of using its power forunifying and tolerance purposes. The presence of deeply rooted stereotypes and prejudice createuncertain societies and uncertainty among people. The conflict contexts in the Western Balkansrequire a serious and sustainable strategy for building relationships among people regardless oftheir ethnicity and religious affiliation in the long term. (shrink)

In the 1990s, Julija Kristeva and Slavoj Žižek developed a unique discourse within psychoanalysis - the psychoanalysis of the Balkans. Their cultural and political analysis represented the Balkans as a pathological region of nations suffering from the syndrome of an “archaic mother.” They propose in their different ways that the subject (nation) must radically separate from oedipal attachment to the attachment to nationalism as unemancipated Oedipus and subordinate to the authority of the symbolic father, that is, to the (...) West. At the heart of such an approach is a conservative policy of labeling the Balkans as primitive behind Kristeva and Žižek loom self-orientalization and geopolitical de-identification with the Balkans as a precondition for their cosmopolitan and universalist identity. (shrink)

Welcome to the second volume of the Balkan Analytic Forum’s proceedings, featuring contributions from BAF2: Dispositions and BAF2+: Dispositions and Values. It is a pleasure and honor to co-edit these proceedings with Dr. Miroslava Trajkovski for the second consecutive year. This volume showcases the vibrant intellectual community and the spirit of curiosity that animate the Balkan Analytic Forum. Now entering its third year, the Forum continues to foster regional philosophical community and international scholarly exchange while engaging global philosophical conversations. Rooted (...) in analytic philosophy, it also seeks to bridge traditions, welcoming approaches that connect analytic methods with phenomenological, historical, and other philosophical perspectives and traditions. Reflecting this commitment to intellectual breadth, the essays collected here engage the concept of dispositions through a variety of philosophical methods and traditions. They explore dispositions as epistemological, ontological, and ethical phenomena, theorizing their nature and function within domains including evidentiary reasoning, cosmological theorizing, virtue ethics, aesthetic experience, and philosophy of mind. The Forum’s vibrant intellectual community owes immense gratitude to Dr. Miroslava Trajkovski, whose leadership and unwavering commitment have created a collaborative space where philosophical curiosity thrives. The Balkans’ rich intellectual history reminds us that philosophical vitality often emerges at the intersection of traditions. The Forum carries that spirit forward in the work collected here. -/- Emily C. McWilliams. (shrink)

Once widely spread in the Dinaric Mountains part of the Balkan Peninsula, swearing to virginity was a social and cultural custom recorded among all groups inhabiting the area. In the absence of a capable adult man in the household, a daughter would take over his social role by ‘becoming’ a man. The standard explanation is that the function of this practice is enabling the continuation of the household’s economic, social, and religious activities. We argue that this explanation fails. A better (...) explanation is that, because the lack of a particular kind of a man (competent and honourable) was perceived as a shame in these societies, the primary reason for swearing to virginity was saving family honour. (shrink)

The article aims to outline the message of the concepts of the European and Euro-Atlantic integration. The text draws attention to the new conditions and criteria for membership of the European Union for the countries of the Western Balkan which they must fulfill in order to join EU. Their recovery and coping with the legacy of the severe wars from the 1990s have not yet come to an end. They first need to pass the stabilization and democratization processes and only (...) after that can be associated. The paper focuses on the European Union’s policy towards the Western Balkans since the launching of the Stabilization and Association Process in 1999 until the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2018. Although all the progress during the last two decades in the countries of the Western Balkans they still don’t have enough achievements in some of the most important areas – democracy, rule of law, human rights and minority rights, competitive market. The willingness of the Western Balkans’ governments to join the Union is prominent but the European leaders are not taking yet any commitment to certain promise regarding the European integration of the region. Keywords: European idea, European Union, enlargement of the EU, Euro-Atlantic integration, Euro-Atlantic values, Western Balkans. (shrink)

Media freedom in Western Balkan countries has been restricted for years, and the authority of the journalistic profession has been systematically undermined. Apart from pressure from governments, political and economic circles, the media in the region are also susceptible to foreign influences. The article analyzes the vulnerability of media in Western Balkan countries to third-party influence driven by cash flows. Prerequisites are presented that increase the possibility of direct intervention in editorial policy. Interference that results in biased coverage, the spread (...) of misinformation or the formation of certain attitudes among the audience. Answers are sought to the questions: what are the motives of foreign governments to sponsor media and “causes” in the countries of the Western Balkans, what is the nature of the funding – secret or public? (shrink)

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the role played by political parties in the penetration/maintenance of informal rules, norms, and networks within state structures, rendering the operation of the rule of law ineffective and undermining democratization processes. Here, we argue that the malfunction of the rule of law from persistent phenomena such as the dominance of informal institutions/rules, state capture, political clientelism, and patronage networks by political parties in Western Balkans countries has made their democratic institutions, (...) or what Guillermo O’Donnell (1996) calls the “full institutional package” of polyarchy, to function with serious deficits. By conceiving the rule of law as a crucial dimension of the democratic system, and by maintaining that democratic rights and freedoms are effectively ensured only to the extent that state institutions/structures are bound by the rule of law, we here advance the argument that political parties have managed to exploit the structural weakness of the state in their environments to subjugate them for partisan gain and advantages. The cases from the Western Balkan countries considered in this study are Albania, Serbia, and North Macedonia. Keywords: Rule of Law, Democratization, State institutions, Informal rules/networks, Particularism, Clientelism, Patronage, Western Balkan countries. (shrink)

Differentiated integration has been under-explored as an option for the Western Balkans. This chapter builds on the premise that it is vital to (re-)examine the region’s EU integration by exploring the legal and political alternatives embodied in the differentiated integration already used widely within or by the EU. This approach would still afford the Union a transformative power and strong presence in the Balkans, despite the relatively slow process of EU integration and its being hampered by numerous factors, (...) both on the EU side and among the candidates. This (re-)examination firstly considers current (differentiated) integration traits for the Balkans and involvement in EU policies, moving on to how the experiences of more developed non-members may provide a model, and the potential role of EU agencies. The possibility of bringing the association process to the next level by utilizing existing experiences and possibilities under the founding treaties, so as to enable the stable Europeanization of the region in the absence of full membership, is also considered. In the context of the ever more clearly seen uncertainty over ever attaining accession in the region, and enlargement fatigue within the Union, this chapter contributes to the debate on future (non-) membership options for the region. (shrink)

In affirming the figure of the refugee, Theo Angelopoulos’s 1991 film The Suspended Step of the Stork radically repositions the latter from its normative casting as another human being worth saving precisely because of sharing a basic likeness to oneself, to a fundamental an-other who is also a prophetic instance of a people to come. The current article argues that the film proceeds to accomplish this remarkable shift by making sovereignty itself an object of abandonment, something which turns Giorgio Agamben’s (...) thesis regarding bare life on its head, opening the horizon up for new adventures in thought and politics. The cinematic novelty and significance of the image of the refugee furnished in Angelopoulos’s film displays deep affinities with and unacknowledged connections to the work of Giles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in so far as it announces becoming as paramount: by offering an audiovisual elaboration of becoming-other, becoming-minoritarian, becoming-imperceptible as a pertinent response to the micro- and macro-fascisms the exclusive nature of the configuration of the political in terms of belonging (or not) to a nation state sets up, the film foregrounds the othering of the self as foundational in the pursuit of a future otherwise. (shrink)

This article, originally published in Bulgarian in a 2022 academic collection, and now translated in English, provides a critical analysis of the complex dynamics between television broadcasters and political power in the Western Balkan region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro). The study highlights the alarming trend of "media capture", where state actors and political elites exert systemic pressure on both public and private media to ensure biased coverage and "political tranquility." By examining specific case studies (...) from 2019 to 2022 - including anti-journalistic rhetoric, legal harassment (SLAPPs), and the strategic use of state advertising - the paper documents the erosion of media pluralism. It further explores how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these vulnerabilities, undermining the media's fundamental role as a democratic watchdog. (shrink)

The recent Balkan Wars are a phenomenon of violence across psychicboundaries, the value-based cosmological Worlds that humans necessarilycreate as the substantive content of consciousness. This violenceresults from the human tendency to consider alien values perceivedacross a psychic boundary as a threat. This violence cannot beeliminated by eliminating these boundaries because these boundariesthemselves cannot be eliminated. Instead, the problem can be addressedonly in terms of establishing public institutions that honor a pluralismof values, thereby attenuating the threat that alien values pose.

Cultural pluralism in the Balkans has often been considered as the source of conflict in the region. Against this perspective it is suggested that Enlightenment political thought in southeastern Europe, as represented by the radical republicanism of Rhigas Velestinlis , incorporated the idea of cultural pluralism in a project for a unitary democratic state, modelled on the 'Republic of Virtue', that was expected to replace despotism and to transform its subjects into free citizens. The political culture of this state (...) would be provided by the principles of republican Hellenism while its ethnic pluralism would be located in its civil society. It is stressed that republican Hellenism was a political and moral, not an ethnic, project. This political project however, was preempted by the emergence of cultural nationalism that cancelled the Enlightenment vision of democratic citizenship, equality and recognition for individuals as well as ethnic groups in a unitary republic. (shrink)

Bu məqalədə Balkan regionunun müasir geosiyasi və təhlükəsizlik mühiti SWOT (Güclü və Zəif tərəflər, İmkanlar və Təhlükələr) analitik çərçivəsi əsasında sistemli şəkildə təhlil edilir. Tədqiqatın əsas məqsədi regionun daxili struktur xüsusiyyətləri ilə xarici geosiyasi faktorlar arasındakı qarşılıqlı əlaqəni müəyyən etmək və mövcud riskləri qiymətləndirməkdir. Məqalə də göstərilir ki, Balkanlar strateji-coğrafi mövqeyi, enerji-logistika dəhlizlərindəki həlledici rolu və Avratlantik strukturlara inteqrasiya səviyyəsi ilə mühüm üstünlüklərə malikdir. Lakin etnik fragmentasiya, münaqişə sonrası sosial-siyasi travmalar, sistematik korrupsiya və "beyin axını" kimi problemlər regionun dayanıqlı inkişafını (...) məhdudlaşdıran əsas struktur zəiflikləri kimi qalmağa davam edir. Tədqiqat nəticəsində müəyyən edilir ki, Avropa İttifaqına üzvlük perspektivi və regional əməkdaşlıq platformaları (CEFTA, Berlin Prosesi) mühüm imkanlar yaratsa da, böyük güclər (ABŞ, Rusiya, Çin) arasında artan rəqabət, dezinformasiya kampaniyaları və Çinin tətbiq etdiyi "borc tələsi" diplomatiyası regionun suverenliyi üçün ciddi risklər formalaşdırır. SWOT metodunun tətbiqi Balkanların həm strateji potensialını, həm də daxili qeyri-sabitlik meyllərini kompleks şəkildə qiymətləndirməyə imkan verir. Yekun olaraq qeyd edilir ki, Balkanların gələcək sabitliyi region dövlətlərinin xarici manipulyasiyalara qarşı institusional dayanıqlılığını artırmasından və etnik barışığa əsaslanan inklüziv siyasi modellərin tətbiqindən birbaşa asılıdır. (shrink)

This paper examines the evolution of tolerance from its mythological and philosophical roots in the ancient world to its contemporary role in interreligious and interethnic relations. It argues that the Balkans, far from being a perpetual zone of conflict, represent a microcosm of coexistence in which religious diversity has shaped identity, culture, and politics. Combining comparative historical analysis with empirical data collected among university students in Macedonia, the study explores how religion continues to function as a fundamental marker of (...) belonging even in secularized societies. Drawing on religious studies, sociology, and security theory, the paper analyzes the dual role of religion—as both a force for peace and an instrument of political mobilization—and identifies education and religious literacy as among the most sustainable paths toward peacebuilding and global security. (shrink)

Our understanding of painting in Renaissance Dubrovnik (Ragusa) depends on a handful of surviving works. Arguably the most sophisticated is the Franciscan polyptych now divided between the Wernher Collection in London and the National Gallery in Prague, which has been attributed to the Kotor-born and Venice-trained artist, Lovro Dobričević. This article challenges existing proposals that associate the Wernher-Prague altarpiece with a commission of ca 1469 for the Franciscan church at Rožat near Dubrovnik, suggesting instead a provenance from the Order’s church (...) at Slano (some 20 miles to the north) and a date ca 1461. The new context and date for the altarpiece situate the work in a brief historical window when the Bosnian province (or “Vicariate”) of the Franciscan Order was actively commissioning altarpieces from Dobričević for their churches around Dubrovnik and in Bosnia proper. The Wernher-Prague polyptych reveals the enduring prestige of late-Gothic Venetian painting in Dubrovnik and also the city’s role in exporting art into its Balkan hinterland. (shrink)

The main thesis of this article is that Western societies risk becoming Balkanized if they confront the superdiversity issue without sound management of intolerance. The Balkanization process has some essential features that allow the use of this term outside the area of origin (namely the Balkan Peninsula). Thus: It always affects a diverse political unit that comprises an inextricable medley of racial, ethnocultural, religious, ideological, or gender identities. It emerges only where neither the hegemony principle nor the confederacy principle can (...) sustain a divided population’s peaceful coexistence. It entails “antagonistic and conflict-oriented relationships resistant to resolution” between the groups or classes dissociated from a diverse political unit. It increases the density of physical and psychological boundaries between the formerly associated parts. It is perpetuated by the great sponsors of the dissociated parts. Any diverse political unit can enter a process of Balkanization, regardless of its degree of culture and civilization. Balkanization does not have a fatal course. Just as there is no society immune to Balkanization, there is no diverse society doomed to Balkanization. Balkanization can be prevented, checked, stopped, or reversed, depending on society members’ individual and collective actions. To survive, the superdiverse liberal democracies from the Euro-Atlantic area need an agonistic public sphere, where actionable truths emerge from a genuine clash of educated opinions. If intolerance management is the first step in preventing the Balkanization of a superdiverse political unit, promoting social and political tolerance towards all people who express educated opinions is the best starting point to genuine tolerance. The return to Enlightenment rationalism values that underpinned our freedom of thought and expression will help us meet the challenges inherent in current and future superdiversity. By feeding enlightened conversations and debates with genuine, educated opinions, people learn to have tolerance for “unpleasant” pieces of knowledge. Then, they spread general tolerance – as a by-product – across the entire society. (shrink)

The Balkan War was a conflict that provoked many parties to intervene. The war was also covered by a number of journalists, who carried out what we may call a “media intervention.” This article ana...

The Battle of Manzikert was a significant turning point in the history of the Byzantine Empire, leaving a profound impact on the empire's political, military, and social structures. This paper analyzes the internal and external challenges faced by the Byzantine Empire before and after the battle, including internal power struggles, the gradual collapse of military organization, and the expansion of the Turks in Anatolia, which posed a serious threat to the security of the empire's borders. The defeat at the Battle (...) of Manzikert not only drastically weakened Byzantine control over Anatolian territories but also accelerated the expansion of Turkish influence and internal turmoil, leading to the collapse of the Byzantine defense forces in the region. The Seljuk Turks' invasion triggered an ongoing security crisis. However, the Battle of Manzikert did not directly lead to the destruction of the Byzantine Empire. This paper examines the efforts of the Komnenos dynasty's revival, particularly Alexios I's initiatives to recover lost territories and rebuild imperial strength through military reforms and diplomatic strategies. Despite the partial alleviation of the crisis and temporary stabilization under the Komnenos dynasty, these measures were ultimately insufficient in the long term to prevent further decline, especially in the recovery of Anatolian territories.The paper also explores the process of Turkification in Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert, where Turkish settlement and cultural infiltration in the region accelerated the loss of Byzantine control. This process not only reshaped the geopolitical landscape of Byzantium but also laid the foundation for the eventual rise of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the article investigates the long-term impact of Turkish expansion on the former Byzantine-controlled Balkan regions. The spread of Turkish migration had a profound influence on the area of Romania (the Byzantine-controlled Balkans), where Turkish culture and the spread of Islam hastened the fragmentation and heterogenization of the European Balkans. Overall, the Battle of Manzikert was not only a critical juncture in the decline of the Byzantine Empire but also marked the beginning of Turkish dominance in the Near East, with enduring political and social effects on the Balkans. (shrink)

The Kohl government sought a policy on the Balkan crisis that would both appeal to the self-conscious pacifist-internationalist strain in German public opinion and avoid direct German and European responsibility for the largely unknown consequences of that policy.

This study has been conducted in order to investigate the role of EU in the new international order and its impact on the Europeanization of the Western Balkans. The paper has a theoretical approach and examines the role and European strategy in the new order, its policy of enlargement, with particular emphasis on its foreign policy towards the Western Balkans after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. EU engagement in the processes in the Balkans has been and (...) remains crucial to the security and stability of this region. This study explores and analyzes in detail the strategy of EU enlargement and the Western Balkan progress towards this integration. The strategy of the EU enlargement and the analysis of European foreign policy towards the Western Balkans clearly demonstrate the commitment of this organization for the future of the Western Balkans and Europe in general. (shrink)

Although hypointellectuals have long been a part of our cultural landscape, it is in post-conflict societies, such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo, that there has arisen a strong need for a different breed of intellectual, one who is more than simply a social critic, an educator, a person of action, and a compassionate individual. Enter the non-partisan intellectual—the hyperintellectual. It is the hyperintellectual, whose non-partisanship is manifested through a reciprocating critique and defense of both the nationalist enterprise and strong (...) interventionism of the International Community, who strives to create a climate of understanding and to enlarge the moral space so as to reduce the divisiveness between opposing parties. It is in this way that the hyperintellectual acts as a catalyst for the creation of a democratic culture within the civil societies of Bosnia and Kosovo. (shrink)

This article depicts empirical research conducted in the Western Balkans and Bulgaria (project Balkan Monitor 2006 conducted by the Gallup Europe) that is geared towards the trust that citizens have in national and international institutions, as well as people in general. Empirical research provides a realistic picture of trust as seen from the inside. According to the data collected, within the general population, the strongest percentage was given to neighbors, followed by the police and European Union. A considerable degree (...) of attention was given to interreligious confidence and focus was placed on the number of adepts of a particular faith and the degree of confidence. From Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism to Protestantism, the degree of confidence diminishes, as well as the number of adherents, which points out to the relationship between minority and majority. The findings suggest that the degree of trust towards religious communities comes as a dominant attitude which means that these are the institutions that merit the greatest degree of trust. The exceptions are Albania and Kosovo where NATO comes first, whereas in Serbia NATO comes last. Ex- communists enjoy trust from 4% of the respondents whereas 24% completely rejects them. 8% of the respondents have a lot trust in people in general whereas 9% have no trust in people at all. For the purposes of this paper we will depict only a number of questions related to the degree of trust in various countries. (shrink)

Being one of the largest movements of displaced people through European borders since World War Two, the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, tested the coordination of the states and international organizations, and as well as the strategies for response of the latter to such enormous fluxes of displaced people along the Balkan corridor. The quick on-time reaction of the specialized humanitarian international organizations made significant achievements by the international organizations in terms of humanitarian assistance for the refugees and (...) support for the governments of the region. Their approach mainly sought to create a partnership with the governments of the Balkan route in handling the serious humanitarian challenges, it showed how important is such coordination at the end, with an aim to avoid further human catastrophes along refugee routes, and to avoid major security repercussions for the countries of the region. With a comparative approach, the paper analyzes the response of the international organizations in terms of the strategies they have applied along the Balkan human corridor and their new innovative approaches used in terms of the coordination with the local authorities and governments of the Balkan route. Different to previous forms of humanitarian interventions and dynamics of the refugee crisis, the roles of the international organizations along the Balkan human corridor following the Syrian war of 2015 and 2016 have shaped many innovative dimensions, including firstly their advising orientation and support for refugees and local authorities. Apart from humanitarian activities for delivering direct aid, the major intergovernmental organizations following the implementation of border controls from very beginning of the refugee crisis have been focused in supporting the local authorities as well as on regulating the flow of migrants. The strategies of response by the international organizations in the latest case of the Balkan human corridor notably shifted from the classical humanitarian dimension of their reactions. These strategies have played as well an important role in advising, and especially in developing a partnership with the local authorities capacity building and legal support for both local institutions and refugees. However, through the comparative approaches the paper identifies that there are different models of management roles played by the specialized international organizations in various countries of the Balkan route and its frontiers. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to interrogate the current mainstream interpretation of the relations between the Balkans and the West by exploring the agencies of the transmission of knowledge through which the Balkans became familiar with the West. Interest is focused on how concepts about `us' and the `other', cultural and social self-definitions were historically mediated by concepts of Europe. Issues of cultural transfer form a point of departure, in this sense suggesting that Balkan visions of Europe (...) cannot be understood as simply mirroring the representations of the Western hegemonic discourse about the Balkans. In order to understand these visions, more attention needs to be paid to local and regional dynamics in the production of ideologies and self-narrations. (shrink)

The article is devoted to an analysis of Carpathian-Balkan studies conducted by the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2006. The Slovak tradition is an important one, as it displays characteristics which are common to the Carpathian region as a whole. Furthermore, there are a number of Carpathian-South Slavic and Carpathian-Balkan parallels in terminology and related phenomena in folk culture.

This paper gives a retrospective of the events in the Balkans in the last 20 years. Hence, it indicates the problems, the progress and the challenges in terms of respecting and promoting diversity. The Western Balkans has always been a very interesting region with many challenges during different historical periods. If we take into consideration all the differences and diversities in this region, then this shouldn’t strike us as surprising. During history the Balkan region has always been a (...) crossroads of many events, conflicts, changes and destructive occurrences. In order to understand the connection between ethnic and the religious diversity, as well as the future of the Western Balkan countries in terms of Euro-Atlantic integration, we need to provide some information about the political, economic and social changes in these countries during the past, especially in the last two decades. To get a better understanding of all the processes and events we need to take a look at the 90s of the last century. This period was one of the most important turning points in international relations. By the end of the Cold War there were two blocks within the societies – The Western and the Eastern, and an agreement for the Balkans to be a balance between these two blocks. This fact was important for the promotion of the concept of the nation-state, which refers generally to both of the blocks. However, changes such as the dissolution and breakdown of the USSR and Yugoslavia, as well as the official Eastern bloc fiasco, brought an increase in the individual identity of the citizens living in these countries. This was the beginning of a new era to be characterized by conflicts, wars, refugees, humanitarian crises, a large number of casualties and injured people, because of the idea that the emerging countries, especially from the Balkan region, should be nation-state countries, i.e. composed of a nation thereby ignoring the ethnic and religious differences or the unrecognized diversity of the citizens of different ethnic groups living in these countries. The establishment of the Euro-Atlantic integration concept as a key national and state priority of almost every country in this region led to the understanding of differences as an asset, and not as an obstacle for the faster integration to the EU and NATO. This fact undoubtedly contributed to the establishment of the criteria for membership, and in particular to the promotion of the rights and freedoms of minorities as most important for the integration process. (shrink)

The article looks into the history of the Albanian national question and the Balkans. It talks about the intellectual movement known as the Albanian National Renaissance which was considered the key catalyst of many important processes for the organization of Albanians. It mentions the Albanian nationalism that represents a sui generis nationalism, which has gone through transformations over time and created as an intellectual and cultural nationalism through a nationwide movement.

The article aims to assess a change in the EU’s soft power in the Western Balkan and Eastern Partnership states in the light of the crises the bloc has undergone in recent years. Generally agreeing with the common argument that the EU’s attractiveness for those countries has decreased, the author challenges the popular wisdom that such a decrease is likely to reverse those states’ pro-EU foreign policy orientations. To prove it, the author applies Joseph Nye’s and Alexander Vuving’s “power currencies” (...) approach to operationalize soft power, considering the bloc’s attraction as a combination of “brilliance” (the actor’s relationship with its work), “benignity” (the actor’s relationship with other actors) and “beauty” (the actor’s relationship with values and ideas). Elaborating on the crises’ influence on each of these currencies, the author shows that their lessening, first, has mainly taken place in absolute rather than relative terms, so the EU’s attractiveness remains strong compared to that of its competitors, and second, it has primarily affected the bloc’s soft power potential rather than its actual behavior towards the target countries. (shrink)

The end of the Cold War marked the beginning of the Balkan and Greek postcolonial and de-colonial studies. The Yugoslav ethnic wars, the Greek “financial crisis,” and the European migration crisis generated a body of critical studies on regional nationalism, coloniality, and racialism and the Balkans and Greece's ambiguous relation to Europe. Cedric J. Robinson's Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition was missing from the large spectrum of postcolonial literature. This absence is surprising given that the (...) book historicizes the simultaneous occurrence of colonialism, capitalism, racism, and modernity in the Balkan and the East Mediterranean during the late feudalism. The absence of this history from the Balkan's post and de-colonial studies deprives these studies of an abolitionist perspective; rather than opting for “provincializing Europe” empowered by this history of the native enslavements and colonization, these studies, much as Black radicalism should mobilize the region for the political culture for the abolition of “Europe.”. (shrink)

The aim is to investigate the Information Communication Technology (ICT) on GDP growth in Western Balkan countries from 2000 - 2019. Different econometric techniques were used such as pooled OLS, fixed effects, random effects, and the Hausman Taylor model with instrumental variables (IV). The findings indicate that fixed telephone subscriptions and individuals using the internet have a positive effect on GDP growth, while the fixed broadband subscriptions and mobile cellular subscriptions have a negative effect on GDP growth. The results also (...) show general government final consumption has a negative effect on GDP growth, whereas foreign direct investment has a positive effect on GDP growth, but the coefficient is statistically insignificant. The study will serve for policy makers to invest more in ICT since this will contribute to the economic growth and welfare benefits. There is no study that has been analyzed about ICT in Western Balkan countries, thus findings will be valuable to the government. (shrink)

The paper examines the meanings of representations of Serbia, the Balkans and Europe at the time of encounter between Enlightenment and Romanticist traditions. The analysis starts from the assumption that the emergence of negative representations of South Eastern Europe cannot be discussed without placing it within the broader context of 18th and 19th century philosophy and literature and the consequences of new philosophical and literary ideas. Underlying the substantial change of the previously dominant paradigms that is expressed in the (...) symbolic division into 'West' and "East', there was a factual rather than symbolic division into an industrial and an agricultural Europe, whose boundaries coincided with the reference points of the symbolic distinction. Insisting on the importance of both analytic levels - the 'symbolic' and the 'factual' - the first section of the paper briefly outlines the development of symbolic geography in the context of 'Balkan' studies in the 1990s, as well as the failure of this genre and the constructivist paradigm in Serbian social theory. The second section is devoted to the discourses of conceptualizing broader communities in symbolic, linguistic, imagological, cultural, political, economic etc. terms, focusing on the beginnings of ideological and linguistic unification of South Slavs and their inclusion into the "enlightened Europe". By analyzing Vuk Stefanovia: Karadzix's writings, as well as correspondence, articles and commentaries referring to Vuk's work in the first half of the 19th century, the author takes the perspective of the past in order to identify the reasons for the failure of imagological and constructivist approach today. U ovom tekstu autorka istrazuje znacenja predstava o Srbiji, Balkanu i Evropi u vremenu susreta prosvetiteljske i romanticarske tradicije. Polaziste je u pretpostavci da se o pocecima negativnih predstava o jugoistocnom delu Evrope ne moze govoriti izvan sireg konteksta filozofije i knjizevnosti XVIII i XIX veka i posledica novih filozofskih i knjizevnih ideja. Sustinska pramena do tada vladajucih paradigmi, izrazena simbolickom podelom na 'Zapad'i 'Istok', u osnovi je imala manje simbolicku a vise fakticku podelu na industrijsku i zemljoradnicku Evropu, cije su se granice uglavnom poklapale sa referentnim tockama simbolicke distinkcije. Potencirajuci vaznost obaju nivoa u analizi, 'simbolickog 'i 'faktickog', prvi deo teksta odnosi se na sazeto predstavljanje razvoja simbolicke geografije u kontekstu studija o Balkanu devedesetih godina proslog veka, kao i na neuspeh ovog zanra i konstruktivisticke paradigme u srpskoj drustvenoj teoriji. Drugi deo teksta posvecenje diskursima osmisljavanja vecih zajednica na simbolickim, jezickim, imagoloskim, kulturnim, politickim, ekonomskim i dr. osnovama, sa fokusom na pocetke idejnog i jezickog ujedinjenja Juznih Slavena, kao i njihovog ukljucenja u prosvecenu Evropu. Analizom tekstova Vuka Stefanovica Karadzica, kao i prepiskama, clancima i komentarima koji su se odnosili na Vukov rad u prvoj polovini XIX veka, autorka iz perspektive proslosti pokusava da ukaze na razloge neuspeha imagoloskog i konstruktivistickog pristupa u savremenosti. (shrink)

This book is of interest to critical realists because its writers show how the neoliberal reforms in the Balkans, related to the provision of social security, demonstrate a complex combination of d...