Revisiting the Balkans: Between the West and the Rest

ForewordWednesday, June 26, 2024
The Balkans, a region often caught in the crosscurrents of global power dynamics, stands as a testament to the intricate and evolving geopolitical landscape. Historically a bridge between East and West, the Balkans today are a focal point of...

Aybars Arda Kılıçer

A Broken Promise: EU Enlargement into the Western BalkansFriday, June 28, 2024
There is wide academic and political consensus that the EU enlargement process has decisively contributed to the successful democratization and marketization of the post-communist countries of East Central Europe (ECE) and the Baltics, all of which...

Milenko Petrovic

Macedonia’s Geopolitical Alignment: Navigating without a Compass in the Multipolar WorldFriday, June 28, 2024
The most appropriate phrase that captures the current state of global affairs is something Antonio Gramsci wrote in 1929: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum, a great...

Biljana Vankovska

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Between the West and the RestFriday, June 28, 2024
The United States of America administration, as well as a part of influential Western analysts and theorists, present and perceive the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter: BH) - known as the Dayton Peace...

Zlatan Begic

The Western Balkans and Prospects for the EU and NATO AccessionFriday, June 28, 2024
The Western Balkans region holds vital strategic importance for transatlantic security. Stability in the region has direct implications for European and transatlantic security, stability, and peace. Following the collapse of Former Yugoslavia, the...

Oya Dursun-Özkanca

Albanian-Greek Relations and Tirana’s Quest for the EU MembershipFriday, June 28, 2024
Although Greece and Albania share extensive historical, economic, social, and security ties due to their NATO membership, their bilateral relations from time to time have been problematic, raising concerns for the broader Western Balkans. Several...

George Koukoudakis

Kosovo, the “Four-Pillar” Strategy of Serbia and the Antagonism between the “West” and “More-than-the-Rest” Friday, June 28, 2024
On 7 May 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Belgrade at the invitation of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.[1]The statements included references to the traditional, warm relations between the two states, the comprehensive strategic...

Themistoklis Tzimas

Western Balkans Regimes that Obstruct, and Their External ContingenciesFriday, June 28, 2024
Two notable steps were taken recently within the Euro-Atlantic integration process to assuage growing instability in the Western Balkans. First, the European Commission (EC), in its 2023 Enlargement Strategy, announced it was expediating the...

Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic

The Western Balkans in an Unstable World Order: The Role of China, the European Union and RussiaFriday, June 28, 2024
The recent decade has seen the liberal world order disentangling and experiencing growing instability. States like China or Russia are increasingly challenging the centrality of the West. The so-called rules-based order centers on the promotion of a...

The End of a Fairy Tale, the Start of a New Era? The EU and China in the Western BalkansFriday, June 28, 2024
European solidarity does not exist. That was a fairy tale on paper. I have sent a special letter to the only ones who can help, and that is China…[1] - Alexander Vucic On 15 March 2020, during the Covid-19 era, the words of the Serbian...

Gözde Yilmaz

NATO Has a Gen-Z ProblemFriday, June 28, 2024
Gen Z is not a monolith, but in observing its factions, NATO and its members should be paying closer attention to the trends of this generation's discontent with the existing security architecture. In a Gen Z world where NATO stands for...

Samuel Dempsey

Revisiting the Balkans: Between the West and the RestVol. 23 · No. 1 · Spring 2024

Revisiting the Balkans: Between the West and the Rest
Vol. 23 · No. 1 · Spring 2024