Nations And Citizens In Yugoslavia And The Post Yugoslav States

Between 1914 and the present day the political makeup of the Balkans has relentlessly changed, following unpredictable shifts of international and internal borders. Between and across these borders various political communities were formed, co-existed and (dis)integrated. By analysing one hundred years of modern citizenship in Yugoslavia and post-Yugoslav states, Igor Š tiks shows that the concept and practice of citizenship is necessary to understand how political communities are made, un-made and re-made. He argues that modern citizenship is a tool that can be used for different and opposing goals, from integration and re-unification to fragmentation and ethnic engineering. The study of citizenship in the 'laboratory' of the Balkands offers not only an original angle to narrate an alternative political history, but also an insight into the fine mechanics and repeating glitches of modern politics, applicable to multinational states in the European Union and beyond.

The first study of citizenship in Yugoslavia, and the post-Yugoslav states, from 1914 to the present day.

This book is the first comprehensive examination of the citizenship regimes of the new states that emerged out of the break up of Yugoslavia. It covers both the states that emerged out of the initial disintegration across 1991 and 1992 (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Macedonia), as well as those that have been formed recently through subsequent partitions (Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo). While citizenship has often been used as a tool of ethnic engineering to reinforce the position of the titular majority in many states, in other cases citizenship laws and practices have been liberalised as part of a wider political settlement intended to include minority communities more effectively in the political process. Meanwhile, frequent (re)definitions of these increasingly overlapping regimes still provoke conflicts among post-Yugoslav states. This volume shows how important it is for the field of citizenship studies to take into account the main changes in and varieties of citizenship regimes in the post-Yugoslav states, as a particular case of new state citizenship. At the same time, it seeks to show scholars of (post) Yugoslavia and the wider Balkans that the Yugoslav crisis, disintegration and wars as well as the current functioning of the new and old Balkan states, together with the process of their integration into the EU, cannot be fully understood without a deeper understanding of their citizenship regimes. This book was originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

The book explores the nexus of intellectual activity and nation-building from a critical discourse-analytical perspective. By examining how public intellectuals from Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina commented on key national events in editorials and opinion pieces, it offers unique insights into contemporary nation-building discourses in an enlarging Europe. Through a detailed reconstruction of the debates concerning the selected events, the book also provides fresh empirical evidence of the implications and challenges of post-socialist transition, post-conflict reconciliation, democratisation and European integration in the post-Yugoslav region. Its versatile framework, which innovatively combines sociological and linguistic approaches to the discursive positioning of intellectuals, may be readily applied to the analysis of intellectual engagement with current affairs and public life in general.

The final chapter brings to the scene the European Union whose influence in shaping the post-Yugoslav citizenship regimes and the lives of their citizens is highly significant. Today the region is divided into the EU members and the potential candidates for membership. When it comes to the EU?s role in influencing, shaping, defining and re-defining the citizenship regimes in the post-Yugoslav region, this chapter shows how diverse the EU?s actions and results are and how often, alongside obvious improvements, they appear problematic, counterproductive or fruitless. The chapter focuses on five major ways whereby the EU itself (mis)manages these citizenship regimes and their citizens: (a) direct intervention and supervision such as in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia; (b) the visa liberalization process in Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia; (c) the pre-accession influence in Croatia (until 2013), Serbia and Montenegro; (d) the post-accession influence in EU members Croatia (after 2013) and Slovenia, and, finally, (e) the influence exerted by individual EU Member States (Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and, after 2013, Croatia) on non-EU post-Yugoslav citizenship regimes. The final chapter in the story of one hundred years of citizenship in and after Yugoslavia brings to the scene another powerful player whose influence in shaping the post-Yugoslav citizenship regimes and influencing the lives of their citizens is far from insignificant. The EU has been the most powerful political and economic agent in this region that has effectively divided it into the EU members and the potential candidates for membership. The former Yugoslav space overlaps with the so-called Western Balkans, a changing geopolitical construct forged in Brussels, composed of those former Yugoslav republics that have not joined the EU so far plus Albania. The?Western Balkans? approach as an umbrella term for the countries outside the EU but completely encircled by the EU, though the Schengen border moves much slower, hides the fact that, regardless of the EU membership, Slovenia is still deeply involved with its southern neighbours and Croatia remains one of the most important actors in the former Yugoslav space. One could say that?Yugoslavia? in this respect has disappeared as a political entity but not as a geopolitical space. The EU does not only directly influence its members (Slovenia and Croatia), supervises the Western Balkan candidates??negotiations? being a euphemism for a one-way communication amounting to the huge translation operation of the acquis communautaire? but it actually maintains there two semi-protectorates (Bosnia and Kosovo). It has developed varied approaches: bilaterally negotiating membership (Croatia before 2013, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania), punishing and rewarding (Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania), managing (Bosnia), governing (Kosovo) and, finally, ignoring (Macedonia blocked in the name dispute with Greece). The EU in the Balkans is therefore not only a club that tests its candidates. It is an active player in transforming them, politically, socially and economically. David Chandler concludes that?the EU?s discourse of governance enables it to exercise a regulatory power over the 174candidate member states of Southeastern Europe while evading any reflection on the EU?s own management processes, which are depoliticized in the framing of the technocratic or administrative conditions of enlargement? (2010: 69). If the EU basically builds future or potential member states, then we have to ask how the EU manages both citizenship regimes of the post-Yugoslav states and their citizens.

The Balkans - Political systems - Yugoslavia's breakup - Transformation of the political system - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Croatia - Kosovo - Macedonia - Montenegro - Serbia - Slovenia

Notwithstanding the advantages of physical power, the struggle for survival among societies is not merely a matter of serial armed clashes but of the nation's spiritual resources that in the end always decide upon the victory. In Europe, there indeed exist independent countries, insignificant from the point of view of the entire civilization, and born by sheer coincidence, yet, this coincidence, this fancy, or diplomatic ploy that created them can just as easily bring them to an end---the nations that count in the political calculations are only the enlightened ones. Therefore, our nation should not merely grow in power, strengthen its character, and foster in people the feeling of love for homeland, but also---inasmuch as it is possible---breath the fresh breeze of humanity's general progress, feed it to the nation, absorb its creative energy. Until now, we have trusted and lived only in the weary conditions, conditions devoid of health-giving elements---now, as a result the nation's heart beats too slowly and its mind works too tediously. We ought to open our windows to Europe, to the wind of continental change and allow it to air our sultry home, since as not all health comes from the inside, not all disease comes from the outside.