The post-Yugoslav states have developed very differently since Yugoslavia dissolved in the early 1990s. This book analyzes the foreign policies of the post-Yugoslav states, thereby focusing on the main goals, actors, decision-making processes and influences on the foreign policies of these countries.

The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in 1991 shed entirely new light on the character of their political systems. There is now a need to re-examine many of the standard interpretations of Soviet and Yugoslav politics. This book is a comparative study of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union - as multinational, federal communist states - and the reaction of European and US foreign policy to the parallel collapses of these nations. The authors describe the structural similarities in the destabilization of the two countries, providing great insight into the demise of both.

This edited book analyzes Kosovo’s foreign policy and bilateral relations with the United States and several European countries. After the 1999 liberation from Serbia, Kosovo built close relations with various countries that supported it in the process of reconstruction, economic stabilization, institution-building, and state-building. From 1999 to 2008, many of these states were politically and operationally engaged in Kosovo under the leadership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Since its independence in 2008, the Republic of Kosovo has adopted a foreign policy in accordance with its values and strategic interests, a foreign policy that aims to strengthen Kosovo’s security and foster its socio-economic prosperity in collaboration with primarily Western countries. In this volume, each chapter is dedicated to Kosovo’s bilateral relations with a selected state with which it has established diplomatic relations. The book shows that Kosovo has been able to develop and achieve strong bilateral relations with major allies and partners. It argues that Kosovo’s foreign policy aims to develop, maintain, and enhance the position of the young state on the international stage. The volume bridges various methodological and disciplinary approaches in order to present Kosovo’s foreign policy objectives and the trajectory of its relations with some of its most important international partners. This book will be of interest to students of Balkan politics, state-building, foreign policy, and International Relations.

This book is aimed at presenting fresh views, interpretations, and reinterpretations of some already researched issues relating to the Yugoslav foreign policy and international relations up to year 1991. Yugoslavia positioned itself as a communist state that was not under the heel of the Soviet diplomacy and policy and as such was perceived by the West as an acceptable partner and useful tool in counteracting the Soviet influence.

This book is the first to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the foreign policy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a post-conflict country with an active agency in international affairs. Bridging academic and policy debates, the book summarizes and further examines the first twenty-five years of BiH’s foreign policy following the country’s independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. Topics covered include conflict and post-conflict periods, Euro-Atlantic integration, political affairs on both local and regional levels, integration with a variety of international organizations and actors, neighboring states, bilateral relations with relevant other states including the United States, Russia, selected EU countries, and Turkey, as well as BiH’s diaspora. The book highlights that despite their apparent weakness, post-conflict states have agency to carry out foreign policy goals and engage with the international sphere, including in geopolitics, and thus provides a novel insight into weak states and their role in international politics.

Titoist Yugoslavia is a particularly interesting setting to examine the integrity of the modern nation-state, especially the viability of distinctly multi-ethnic nation-building projects. Scholarly literature on the brutal civil wars that destroyed Yugoslavia during the 1990s emphasizes divisive nationalism and dysfunctional politics to explain why the state disintegrated. But the larger question remains unanswered—just how did Tito’s state function so successfully for the preceding forty-six years. In an attempt to understand better what united the stable, multi-ethnic, and globally important Yugoslavia that existed before 1991 Robert Niebuhr argues that we should pay special attention to the dynamic and robust foreign policy that helped shape the Cold War.