Peace Conflict And Developments In The Western Balkans The Role Of Eu Integration

The Western Balkan countries are characterized by an entanglement of different national, ethnic and religious groups. Within all Balkan states, nationalist rivalries have been and are exploited by political leaders as a propaganda tool when faced with internal unrest or unpopularity. Yet, the proximity of ethnic communities to their countries of ethnic origin tie all the Balkan states into a common problem: the spillover effect of regional insecurity. Existing and future disputes require an exhaustive survey of national, ethnic, religious, territorial, economic and political problems, and this is precisely what this volume sets out to do.

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 Serbia, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Kosovo – alongside military, political-societal, economic, and environmental security concerns. The interplay of international actors is also considered. Academics, scholars, and practitioners who deal with Balkan issues, either as a focus or comparatively, and have interests in security and peace studies will find the volume invaluable along with students of political science, security studies, peace studies, area studies (Eastern European studies and/or Southeast European studies), and international studies in general.

This book investigates and explains the European Union’s approach to conflict resolution in three countries of the Western Balkans: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo. In doing so, it critically interrogates claims that the EU acts as an agent of conflict transformation in its engagement with conflict-affected states. The book argues, contrary to the assumptions of much of the existing literature, that rather than seeking the transformation of conflicts, the EU pursues a more conservative strategy based on the regulation of conflict through the promotion of institutional mechanisms such as consociational power sharing and decentralisation. Drawing on discourse analysis of documents, speeches, and interviews conducted by the author with European Union officials and policy-makers in Brussels and the case-study countries, the book offers a theoretically grounded, methodologically rigorous and empirically detailed analysis of EU policy preferences, of the ideas that underpin them, and of how those preferences are legitimised. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners interested in ethnic conflict and conflict resolution, the politics of the Balkans, and the external and foreign policies of the EU.

This book is about the EU’s role in conflict resolution and reconciliation in Europe. Ever since it was implemented as a political project of the post-World War II reality in Western Europe, European integration has been credited with performing conflict resolution functions. It allegedly transformed the long-standing adversarial relationship between France and Germany into a strategic partnership. Conflict in Western Europe became obsolete. The end of the Cold War further reinforced its role as a regional peace project.While these evolutionary dynamics are uncontested, the deeper meaning of the process, its transformative power, is still to be elucidated. How does European integration restore peace when its equilibrium is broken and conflict or the legacies of enmity persist? This book sets out to do exactly that. It explores the peace and conflict-resolution role of European integration by testing its somewhat vague, albeit well-established, macro-political rationale of a peace project in the practical settings of conflicts. The central argument of the book is that the evolution of the policy mix, resources, framing influences and political opportunities through which European integration affects conflicts and processes of conflict resolution demonstrates a historical trend through which the EU has become an indispensable factor of conflict resolution . It begins with the pooling together of policy-making at the European level for the management of particular sectors (early integration in the European Coal and Steel Community) through the functioning of core EU policies (Northern Ireland) to the challenges of enlargement (Cyprus) and the European perspective for the Western Balkans (Kosovo). The book will be of value to academics and non-expert observers alike with an interest in European integration and peace studies.

This book examines the evolution of liberal peacebuilding in the Balkans since the mid-1990s. After more than two decades of peacebuilding intervention, widespread popular disappointment by local communities is increasingly visible. Since the early 2010s, difficult conditions have spurred a wave of protest throughout the region. Citizens have variously denounced the political system, political elites, corruption and mismanagement. Rather than re-evaluating their strategy in light of mounting local discontent, international peacebuilding officials have increasingly adopted cynical calculations about stability. This book explains this evolution from the optimism of the mid-1990s to the current state through the analysis of three main phases, moving from the initial ‘rise’, to a later condition of ‘stalemate’ and then ‘fall’ of peacebuilding.

The aim of this book is to highlight the relationship between the EU and the Western Balkan countries in light of their EU membership perspective and the impact that the EU Enlargement of Central and Eastern European countries at the beginning of the twenty first century has given to the Western Balkans. The book presents, in depth, the dual relationship between the EU and the Western Balkans. On the one hand it displays the continuous EU role in the Western Balkans, in particular in issues such as: the EU accession criteria; the EU approach and enlargement strategy; the visa liberalization process; the Stabilization and Association Process; the Stabilization and Association Agreements; instruments of financial assistance; the EU role in restoring and keeping peace and stability and in increasing the regional cooperation among the Western Balkans countries. On the other hand, it presents and analyses the progress the Western Balkans have achieved and the challenges faced such as: initially with the implementation of the bilateral Free Trade Agreements and then the regional Free Trade Agreement and the Stabilization and Association Agreements; nature and effects of these agreements in developing markets, in increasing trade exchanges among the Western Balkans countries; the progress each country has made toward lasting growth and in fulfilling the criteria of the EU integration process. The book reflects the regional approach of EU towards those countries while differentiating the individual progress in each country. This gives the book an interdisciplinary character. The latest enlargement experiences of the EU are used as a comparison for the current EU policy towards Western Balkans, while confirming a clear integration perspective for the region.

Emerging from a decade of violent ethnic and inter-state conflict during the 1990s, the countries of the Western Balkans entered a phase of rebuilding and reconciliation. Due to the key role played by the EU in the region's rebuilding efforts, "Integrating the Balkans" explores this institution's considerable efforts to influence and shape the nature of state, society and foreign relations, as it utilised the promise of membership as a vital tool to exert its influence. The picture that materialises is one of the EU's discernible, but often contradictory, impact as it offers the carrot of EU membership in the hope that the legacies of the past conflict can be re-evaluated, re-imagined and transformed. By also analysing the conditions that come with EU aid, such as co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Maire Braniff offers an extremely important perspective for all those involved in the study and practice of the processes of European integration and post-conflict resolution.

Investigating local responses to EU peacebuilding, this book develops a relational and spatial concept of agency, helping to understand the processes in which peacebuilding actors engage and interact with one another. The focus on cultural actors reveals the contested nature of local agency and its potential to challenge institutional policies.