This book provides a detailed understanding of how different types of engagements impact upon the reform and EU integration of the Western Balkan region. It examines the influence of Russia, China, Turkey and the UAE in the region and analyses the range of existing links. Contributors offer an academic and multifaceted perspective of the role of external and non-Western actors in the region that goes beyond, on the one hand, the tendency of some Western decision makers to perceive all engagement by third powers as a sinister threat and, on the other, the view of regional governments of all external involvement as a boon coming at a time of Western neglect and reduced foreign investments. By looking at the importance of Russia, Turkey, China and the UAE in the Western Balkans, the book sheds light on one key arena of global competition, offers new insights on the strengths and weaknesses of Euro–Atlantic integration and advances our knowledge of foreign policy and its economic, social and security dimensions for small and medium-sized countries. It will be of interest to academics, postgraduate and research students, and think-tankers with research interest in IR and Southeast European Studies. European decision makers will also gain an insight into the extent of non-Western influence in the region.

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.

This collection of essays locates, investigates and challenges the manner in which the Balkans and the West have constructed each other since 1945. Scholars from the two sections of the continent explore a wide range of fiction, film, journalism, travel writing and diplomatic records both to analyse Western European balkanism and to study Balkan representations of the West over the last fifty years. The first section looks back to the Cold War, examining the divergent, often favourable images of the Balkans that existed in Western culture, as well as the variety of responses that appeared in South-East European writings on the West. The second section analyses the transitions that took place in representation during the 1990s. Here, contributors explore both the harsh denigration of the Balkans which came to dominate western discourse after the initial euphoria of 1989, and the emerging tradition of contesting Western balkanism in South-East European cultural production. Through this dual emphasis, the volume exposes the representational practices that help to maintain a deeply divided Europe, and challenges the economic and political injustices that result. Despite the rise to prominence of postcolonial theory, with its awareness of global inequality, the current crises in many parts of South-East Europe have received scant attention in literary and cultural studies. The Balkans and the West addresses this deficiency. Ranging in focus from Serbian cinema to Romanian travel literature, from Western economic writings to Yugoslav fiction, and from public discourse in Albania to NATO's vast propaganda machine, the essays offer wide insight into representation and power in the contemporary European context.

2012 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine Embracing Democracy in the Western Balkans offers a comparative, cross-regional study of the politics and economics of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania from 1999 to the present. It was during this period that the first wave of post-communist regime transition ended and the region became more deeply involved in the challenges of democratic consolidation. Lenard J. Cohen and John R. Lampe explore the legacies of communist rule, the impact of incentives and impediments on reform, and the magnetic pull of European Union accession. The authors ask whether the Western Balkans are embracing democracy by creating functional, resilient institutions—governmental, administrative, journalistic, and economic—and fostering popular trust in the legitimacy of those institutions.

This book offers a multifaceted overview of the evolution of spatial development, governance and planning in the Western Balkans from an institutionalist perspective. Written by experts in the field, it features various regional and national studies covering topics such as regional and spatial planning, territorial development and governance, and regional and cross-border cooperation in the Western Balkans. Offering a wealth of national, regional and local insights on territorial cooperation, development and planning, this book will appeal to scholars in regional and spatial sciences and related fields alike.

First published in 1999, Kostis in this book traces the influences Western modern banking systems in Balkan states and the economic development of these countries. The contributors of this book consider a wide arrange of approaches in relation to issues of western-European influence in Balkan countries with the aim to create a further discourse in this subject.

"If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented" was the verdict of Count Hermann Keyserling in his famous 1928 publication, Europe. Over ten years ago, Maria Todorova traced the relationship between the reality and the invention. Based on a rich selection of travelogues, diplomatic accounts, academic surveys, journalism, and belles-lettres in many languages, Imagining the Balkans explored the ontology of the Balkans from the sixteenth century to the present day, uncovering the ways in which an insidious intellectual tradition was constructed, became mythologized, and is still being transmitted as discourse. Maria Todorova, who was raised in the Balkans, is in a unique position to bring both scholarship and sympathy to her subject, and in a new afterword she reflects on recent developments in the study of the Balkans and political developments on the ground since the publication of Imagining the Balkans. The afterword explores the controversy over Todorova's coining of the term Balkanism. With this work, Todorova offers a timely, updated, accessible study of how an innocent geographic appellation was transformed into one of the most powerful and widespread pejorative designations in modern history.