Balkanizing Europeanization: Fight Against Corruption and Regional Relations in the Western Balkans
Balkanizing Europeanization: Fight Against Corruption and Regional Relations in the Western Balkans

Author: Vladimir Vučković

Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783631746035

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The main theme of this book revolves around the idea of Europeanization of the Western Balkans. In that respect, the volume discusses the fight against corruption and regional relations in former Yugoslav states, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. The objective of the book is to detect the level of effectiveness of the EU impact on domestic structural changes in the Western Balkans regarding aforementioned research issues. The contributors argue that the EU impact in the Western Balkans has so far been limited and point to limitations in this regard. «The book Balkanizing Europeanisation offers timely, detailed, critical and excellently researched insight into the complicated mutual relations of the EU and the countries of the Balkan Peninsula. Based on excellent scholarship, meticulous original research and first-hand experience with the Balkan area, the authors provide a reader with rich and profound analysis of successes and failures of Europeanisation of the Balkan countries. The volume shall become an obligatory reading for many categories of scholars, experts, and people practicing diplomacy with and in the region.» Vít Hlousek, Professor of European Politics, Masaryk University «The limits to and problems connected with processes of Europeanization in the Western Balkans remain an important topic both for policy-makers and for scholarly inquiry. Vučkovic and Đorđevic are to be congratulated for having assembled a first-rate teach of scholars to examine the most vital issues at hand.» Sabrina P. Ramet, Professor of Political Science, The Norwegian University of Science & Technology

The Western Balkans and the EU
The Western Balkans and the EU

Author: Morton Abramowitz

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

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Today, more than fifteen years after the end of the wars that accompanied Yugoslavia's dissolution, the "Balkan question" remains more than ever a "European question". In the eyes of many Europeans in the 1990s, Bosnia was the symbol of a collective failure, while Kosovo later became a catalyst for an emerging Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the last decade, however, the overall thrust of the EU's Balkans policy has moved from an agenda dominated by security issues related to the war and its legacies to one focused on the perspective of the Western Balkan states' accession to the European Union. This Chaillot Paper, which features contributions from authors from various parts of the region, examines the current state of play in the countries of the Western Balkans with regard to EU accession. It brings together both views from the Balkans states themselves and overarching thematic perspectives. For the first time the European Union has become involved in the formation of new nation-states that also aspire to become members of the Union. The EU's transformative power has proved effective in integrating established states; now it is confronted with the challenge of integrating new and sometimes contested states. Against this background, this paper makes the case for a concerted regional approach to EU enlargement, and a renewed and sustained commitment to the European integration of the Western Balkans.

Don't Mourn, Balkanize!
Don't Mourn, Balkanize!

Author: Andrej Grubačić

Publisher: PM Press

Published: 2010-11-15

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1604864702

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Don’t Mourn, Balkanize! is the first book written from the radical left perspective on the topic of Yugoslav space after the dismantling of the country. In this collection of essays, commentaries, and interviews, written between 2002 and 2010, Andrej Grubačić speaks about the politics of balkanization—about the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, neoliberal structural adjustment, humanitarian intervention, supervised independence of Kosovo, occupation of Bosnia, and other episodes of Power which he situates in the long historical context of colonialism, conquest, and intervention. But he also tells the story of the balkanization of politics, of the Balkans seen from below. A space of bogumils—those medieval heretics who fought against Crusades and churches—and a place of anti-Ottoman resistance; a home to hajduks and klefti, pirates and rebels; a refuge of feminists and socialists, of antifascists and partisans; of new social movements of occupied and recovered factories; a place of dreamers of all sorts struggling both against provincial “peninsularity” as well as against occupations, foreign interventions and that process which is now, in a strange inversion of history, often described by that fashionable term, “balkanization.” For Grubačić, political activist and radical sociologist, Yugoslavia was never just a country—it was an idea. Like the Balkans itself, it was a project of inter-ethnic co-existence, a trans-ethnic and pluricultural space of many diverse worlds. Political ideas of inter-ethnic cooperation and mutual aid as we had known them in Yugoslavia were destroyed by the beginning of the 1990s—disappeared in the combined madness of ethno-nationalist hysteria and humanitarian imperialism. This remarkable collection chronicles political experiences of the author who is himself a Yugoslav, a man without a country; but also, as an anarchist, a man without a state. This book is an important reading for those on the Left who are struggling to understand the intertwined legacy of inter-ethnic conflict and inter-ethnic solidarity in contemporary, post-Yugoslav history.

The Border Dispute Between Croatia and Slovenia
The Border Dispute Between Croatia and Slovenia

Author: Thomas Bickl

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 3030533336

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This book re-constructs the evolution of the border conflict between Croatia and Slovenia. The aim is to reveal the processes at work, the historical and contemporary circumstances, and the strategies and motives of the actors involved. The book highlights the roles of the European Union and of judicial third parties in the management of the conflict. Further, it considers the precedent-setting value of the Slovenian-Croatian conflict, the attempts at its resolution, and what they mean for the ongoing and prospective EU enlargement in South East Europe. Internal documents and interviews are at the heart of this process-tracing analysis, which discusses the third-party roles of the European Commission and the EU Council Presidency in 2008/2009 as a mediator-facilitator in the drafting stages of the arbitration agreement, and the judicial work of the arbitration tribunal and the EU Court of Justice. Lastly, the book offers policy recommendations on how to strengthen dispute resolution and solve current bilateral issues in the EU accession process.

Public Sentinel
Public Sentinel

Author: Pippa Norris

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2009-11-19

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 0821382012

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What are the ideal roles the mass media should play as an institution to strengthen democratic governance and thus bolster human development? Under what conditions do media systems succeed or fail to meet these objectives? And what strategic reforms would close the gap between the democratic promise and performance of media systems? Working within the notion of the democratic public sphere, 'Public Sentinel: News Media and Governance Reform' emphasizes the institutional or collective roles of the news media as watchdogs over the powerful, as agenda setters calling attention to social needs in natural and human-caused disasters and humanitarian crises, and as gatekeepers incorporating a diverse and balanced range of political perspectives and social actors. Each is vital to making democratic governance work in an effective, transparent, inclusive, and accountable manner. The capacity of media systems and thus individual reporters embedded within those institutions to fulfill these roles is constrained by the broader context of the journalistic profession, the market, and ultimately the state. Successive chapters apply these arguments to countries and regions worldwide. This study brought together a wide range of international experts under the auspices of the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) at the World Bank and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The book is designed for policy makers and media professionals working within the international development community, national governments, and grassroots organizations, and for journalists, democratic activists, and scholars engaged in understanding mass communications, democratic governance, and development.

The Divided City and the Grassroots
The Divided City and the Grassroots

Author: Giulia Carabelli

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-03-14

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 9811077789

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Focusing on Mostar, a city in Bosnia Herzegovina that became the epitome of ethnic divisions during the Yugoslav wars, this cutting edge book considers processes of violent partitioning in cities. Providing an in-depth understanding of the social, political, and mundane dynamics that keep cities polarized, it examines the potential that moments of inter-ethnic collaboration hold in re-imaging these cities as other than divided. Against the backdrop of normalised practices of ethnic partitioning, the book studies both ‘planned’ and ‘unplanned’ moments of disruption; it looks at how networks of solidarity come into existence regardless of identity politics as well as the role of organised grassroots groups that attempt to create more inclusive; and it critically engages with urban spaces of resistance. Challenging the representation of the city as merely a site of ethnic divisions, the author also explores the complexities arising from living in a city that validates its citizens solely through ethnicity. Elaborating on the relationships between space, culture and social change, this book is a key read for scholars, students, and urban practitioners studying ethnically divided cities worldwide.

Eurasianism and the European Far Right
Eurasianism and the European Far Right

Author: Marlene Laruelle

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2015-07-01

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1498510698

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The 2014 Ukrainian crisis has highlighted the pro-Russia stances of some European countries, such as Hungary and Greece, and of some European parties, mostly on the far-right of the political spectrum. They see themselves as victims of the EU “technocracy” and liberal moral values, and look for new allies to denounce the current “mainstream” and its austerity measures. These groups found new and unexpected allies in Russia. As seen from the Kremlin, those who denounce Brussels and its submission to U.S. interests are potential allies of a newly re-assertive Russia that sees itself as the torchbearer of conservative values. Predating the Kremlin’s networks, the European connections of Alexander Dugin, the fascist geopolitician and proponent of neo-Eurasianism, paved the way for a new pan-European illiberal ideology based on an updated reinterpretation of fascism. Although Dugin and the European far-right belong to the same ideological world and can be seen as two sides of the same coin, the alliance between Putin’s regime and the European far-right is more a marriage of convenience than one of true love. This unique book examines the European far-right’s connections with Russia and untangles this puzzle by tracing the ideological origins and individual paths that have materialized in this permanent dialogue between Russia and Europe.

Europe's Burden
Europe's Burden

Author: Alina Mungiu-Pippidi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1108472427

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Investigates the efficacy of the European Union's promotion of good governance through its funding and conditionalities both within EU proper and in the developing world.