War and Change in the Balkans

War and Change in the Balkans PDF Author: Brad K. Blitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521677738
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
A contemporary history of the Balkans from the break-up of Yugoslavia to the present day, first published in 2006.

War and Change in the Balkans

War and Change in the Balkans PDF Author: Brad K. Blitz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521677738
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book

Book Description
A contemporary history of the Balkans from the break-up of Yugoslavia to the present day, first published in 2006.

Western Intervention in the Balkans

Western Intervention in the Balkans PDF Author: Roger D. Petersen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503308
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Conflicts involve powerful experiences. The residue of these experiences is captured by the concept and language of emotion. Indiscriminate killing creates fear; targeted violence produces anger and a desire for vengeance; political status reversals spawn resentment; cultural prejudices sustain ethnic contempt. These emotions can become resources for political entrepreneurs. A broad range of Western interventions are based on a view of human nature as narrowly rational. Correspondingly, intervention policy generally aims to alter material incentives ('sticks and carrots') to influence behavior. In response, poorer and weaker actors who wish to block or change this Western implemented 'game' use emotions as resources. This book examines the strategic use of emotion in the conflicts and interventions occurring in the Western Balkans over a twenty-year period. The book concentrates on the conflicts among Albanian and Slavic populations (Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, South Serbia), along with some comparisons to Bosnia.

The Changing Shape of the Balkans

The Changing Shape of the Balkans PDF Author: Francis W. Carter
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781857281200
Category : Balkan Peninsula
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Written by a closely knit team of well known specialists on Balkan affairs, this timely book provides expert insights into the geopolitical make-up of a region tragically afflicted by war. The broad canvas covered by the book highlights recent changes in the north and western Balkans since the demise of the former communist Yugoslav regime. The ethnic mix of this previous state contains nearly twenty different groups, among whom conflicting ambitions have produced an explosive cocktail. The geographical concepts of international/national boundary changes involved here engage the reader in a deeper appreciation of history's role in leading up to this transformation. Political heritage, historical aspects and current geographical reality are bound together to give insights into this complex and sometimes confusing picture. Indeed, to balkanize has entered the English language as a synonym for the forcible partition of an area into small antagonistic states.

The Balkans in the New Millennium

The Balkans in the New Millennium PDF Author: Tom Gallagher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134273045
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Can the Balkans ever become a peaceful peninsula like that of Scandinavia? With enlightened backing, can it ever make common cause with the rest of Europe rather than being an arena of periodic conflicts, political misrule, and economic misery? In the last years of the twentieth century, Western states watched with alarm as a wave of conflicts swept over much of the Balkans. Ethno-nationalist disputes, often stoked by unprincipled leaders, plunged Yugoslavia into bloody warfare. Romania, Bulgaria and Albania struggled to find stability as they reeled from the collapse of the communist social system and even Greece became embroiled in the Yugoslav tragedy. This new book examines the politics and international relations of the Balkans during a decade of mounting external involvement in its affairs. Tom Gallagher asks what evidence there is that key lessons have been learned and applied as trans-Atlantic engagement with Balkan problems enters its second decade. This book identifies new problems: organized crime, demographic crises of different kinds, and the collapse of a strong employment base. This is an excellent contribution to our understanding of the area.

Balkan Tragedy

Balkan Tragedy PDF Author: Susan L. Woodward
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815722953
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
Yugoslavia was well positioned at the end of the cold war to make a successful transition to a market economy and westernization. Yet two years later, the country had ceased to exist, and devastating local wars were being waged to create new states. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the start of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in March 1992, the country moved toward disintegration at astonishing speed. The collapse of Yugoslavia into nationalist regimes led not only to horrendous cruelty and destruction, but also to a crisis of Western security regimes. Coming at the height of euphoria over the end of the cold war and the promise of a "new world order," the conflict presented Western governments and the international community with an unwelcome and unexpected set of tasks. Their initial assessment that the conflict was of little strategic significance or national interest could not be sustained in light of its consequences. By 1994 the conflict had emerged as the most challenging threat to existing norms and institutions that Western leaders faced. And by the end of 1994, more than three years after the international community explicitly intervened to mediate the conflict, there had been no progress on any of the issues raised by the country's dissolution. In this book, Susan Woodward explains what happened to Yugoslavia and what can be learned from the response of outsiders to its crisis. She argues that focusing on ancient ethnic hatreds and military aggression was a way to avoid the problem and misunderstood nationalism in post-communist states. The real origin of the Yugoslav conflict, Woodward explains, is the disintegration of governmental authority and the breakdown of a political and civil order, a process that occurred over a prolonged period. The Yugoslav conflict is inseparable from international change and interdependence, and it is not confined to the Balkans but is part of a more widespread phenomenon of political disintegration. Woodward's analysis is based on her first-hand experience before the country's collapse and then during the later stages of the Bosnian war as a member of the UN operation sent to monitor cease-fires and provide humanitarian assistance. She argues that Western action not only failed to prevent the spread of violence or to negotiate peace, but actually exacerbated the conflict. Woodward attempts to explain why these challenges will not cease or the Yugoslav conflicts end until the actual causes of the conflict, the goals of combatants, and the fundamental issues they pose for international order are better understood and addressed.

The War in Eastern Europe

The War in Eastern Europe PDF Author: John Reed
Publisher: New York, Scribner
ISBN:
Category : Journalists
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
The author writes about his experience during World War I, and the human beings he encountered in the countries of Eastern Europe from April to October, 1915.

Yugoslavia In The 1980s

Yugoslavia In The 1980s PDF Author: Sabrina Ramet
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000009548
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
The opening years of 1980 were difficult for Yugoslavia: Open revolt has occurred in Kosovo province and economic hardship has added to a general crisis of confidence. The system of self-management, once the pride of Yugoslav ideologists, has come increasingly under fire in post-Tito Yugoslavia as proponents of the system search for a new basis of

From War to Peace in the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine

From War to Peace in the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine PDF Author: Daniel Serwer
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030021734
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
This open access book focuses on the origins, consequences and aftermath of the 1995 and 1999 Western military interventions that led to the end of the most recent Balkan wars. Though challenging problems remain in Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia, the conflict prevention and state-building efforts thereafter were partly successful as countries of the region are on separate tracks towards European Union membership. This study highlights lessons that can be applied to the Middle East and Ukraine, where similar conflicts are likewise challenging sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is an accessible treatment of what makes war and how to make peace ideal for all readers interested in how violent international conflicts can be managed, informed by the experience of a practitioner.

Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States

Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States PDF Author: Mieczysław P. Boduszyński
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 0801899192
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
In the 1990s, amid political upheaval and civil war, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved into five successor states. The subsequent independence of Montenegro and Kosovo brought the total number to seven. Balkan scholar and diplomat to the region Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski examines four of those states—Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—and traces their divergent paths toward democracy and Euro-Atlantic integration over the past two decades. Boduszynski argues that regime change in the Yugoslav successor states was powerfully shaped by both internal and external forces: the economic conditions on the eve of independence and transition and the incentives offered by the European Union and other Western actors to encourage economic and political liberalization. He shows how these factors contributed to differing formulations of democracy in each state. The author engages with the vexing problems of creating and sustaining democracy when circumstances are not entirely supportive of the effort. He employs innovative concepts to measure the quality of and prospects for democracy in the Balkan region, arguing that procedural indicators of democratization do not adequately describe the stability of liberalism in post-communist states. This unique perspective on developments in the region provides relevant lessons for regime change in the larger post-communist world. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers will find the book to be a compelling contribution to the study of comparative politics, democratization, and European integration.

The Balkans

The Balkans PDF Author: Misha Glenny
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0142422568
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 802

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Book Description
A newly revised and updated edition of an award-winning BBC correspondent's magisterial history of the Balkan region This unique and lively history of Balkan geopolitics since the early nineteenth century gives readers the essential historical background to more than one hundred years of events in this war-torn area. No other book covers the entire region, or offers such profound insights into the roots of Balkan violence, or explains so vividly the origins of modern Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Now updated to include the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the capture of all indicted war criminals from the Yugoslav wars, and each state's quest for legitimacy in the European Union, The Balkans explores the often catastrophic relationship between the Balkans and the Great Powers, raising some disturbing questions about Western intervention.