Southeast European Studies: Southeast European Studies
About the Book Series
The Balkans are a region of Europe widely associated over the past decades with violence and war. Beyond this violence, the region has experienced rapid change in recent times though, including democratization, economic and social transformation. New scholarship is emerging which seeks to move away from the focus on violence alone to an understanding of the region in a broader context drawing on new empirical research.
The Southeast European Studies Series seeks to provide a forum for this new scholarship. Publishing cutting-edge, original research and contributing to a more profound understanding of Southeastern Europe while focusing on contemporary perspectives the series aims to explain the past and seeks to examine how it shapes the present. Focusing on original empirical research and innovative theoretical perspectives on the region the series includes original monographs and edited collections. It is interdisciplinary in scope, publishing high-level research in political science, history, anthropology, sociology, law and economics and accessible to readers interested in Southeast Europe and beyond.
Former Combatants, Democracy, and Institution-Building in Transitory Societies: Kosovo and North Macedonia
1st Edition
By Armend Bekaj
December 03, 2024
This book explores the long-term impact on democracy and institution-building in post-conflict and transitory societies, stemming from the political integration of former combatants of intra-state armed groups. By providing a comparative analysis on two countries with certain commonalities but also...
Resisting Inter-Ethnic Violence: Community Approaches to Conflict Transformation in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina
1st Edition
By Valentina Otmačić
December 02, 2024
This book analyses the 1991 to 1995 war experiences of ethnically mixed communities who successfully resisted identity-based violence and segregation in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Challenging the prevailing view of the wars in these countries as ethnic struggles rooted in historical ...
The Revival of the Left in the Balkans: Counter-Hegemonic Activism and Ideas that Fueled It
1st Edition
By Filip Balunović
December 02, 2024
This book explores how the critical discursive breakthrough of social movements in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia disrupted the post-socialist transitional status quo. While critical ideas have long fueled social and political actions, the specifics of their relationship with activism ...
Europeanization and Informal Networks in Southeastern Europe
1st Edition
By Alexander Mesarovich
November 08, 2024
Europeanization and Informal Networks in Southeastern Europe considers the impact of political culture, including informal rules which regulate political behaviour, on formal political processes. Exploring the EU accession processes of Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia, the author identifies how the ...
The Path to Democratic Reform: Bulgaria in Comparative Perspective
1st Edition
By Muzaffer Kutlay
September 30, 2024
This book offers a comparative study of minority-majority relations in post-conflict societies. Drawing on three contentious cases – Bulgaria, Croatia, and Montenegro –it explores how pluralist governance structures are established in the area of minority rights in new EU member and candidate ...
Structural Origins of Post-Yugoslav Regimes: Elites, Civil Society and the State
1st Edition
By Valentina Petrović
September 16, 2024
This analysis of the Yugoslav democratisation process explains the variation of regime outcomes within a structuralist framework. Focusing on the post‑socialist world, it goes beyond ethnicity and elite agency to bring the role of class and the state into discussions of third wave democracies. ...
‘Balkanization’ and the Euro-Atlantic Processes of the (Western) Balkans: Back to the Future
1st Edition
By Liridona Veliu Ashiku
August 30, 2024
This book explores how ‘balkanization’ as a discourse underpins the policies of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) toward the Western Balkans. It shows how EU and NATO policies have emerged from, and led to, the constant reinvention of the unity of the West ...
Intangible Cultural Heritage and Reconciliation in the Western Balkans: An Anthropological Perspective
1st Edition
By Miloš Milenković
August 01, 2024
This book considers the sensitive heritage elements linked to the very issue of the origins of nations. Beliefs, rituals, and traditional knowledge are examples of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), which communities globally regard as the core of their cultural identity. When it is unclear which ...
Peace and Security in the Western Balkans: A Local Perspective
1st Edition
Edited
By Nemanja Džuverović, Věra Stojarová
May 27, 2024
This book outlines the main security threats, actors, and processes in the Western Balkans following the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Exploring the state of peace and security in the region it asks if a stable peace is achievable. The comparative framework explores state perspectives – from ...
Balkan Fighters in the Syrian War
1st Edition
By Tanja Dramac Jiries
May 31, 2023
This book analyses the process of the recruitment of foreign fighters from the Western Balkans, specifically Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, to Syria and Iraq from 2012 to 2015. Utilizing in-depth, semi-structured interviews with foreign fighters and their families, as well as a number of ...
Memory Politics and Populism in Southeastern Europe
1st Edition
Edited
By Jody Jensen
January 09, 2023
This book explores the politics of memory in Southeastern Europe in the context of rising populisms and their hegemonic grip on official memory and politics. It speaks to the increased political, media and academic attention paid to the rise of discontent, frustration and cultural resistance from ...
Forging Transnational Belonging through Informal Trade: Thriving Markets in Times of Crisis
1st Edition
By Sandra King-Savic
September 26, 2022
Analyzing informal trading practices and smuggling through the case study of Novi Pazar, this book explores how societies cope when governments no longer assume the responsibility for providing welfare to their citizens. How do economic transnational practices shape one’s sense of belonging in ...