The topic of this conference, "Multiethnic State or Ethnic Homogeneity - the case of South East Europe", is both theoretically interesting and practically important. It is directly connected to a highly problematic reality as well as to the awareness of a self-evident need to get out of it not only quickly, but also in a secure way, in order to avoid a turned back of similar events.
Janusz Bugajski, Aldo Bumçi, Spyros Damtsas, Enver Hasani, Constantin Hlihor, Predrag Jureković, Antonio Leitao, Todor Mirkovic, Albert Rakipi, and Filip Tunjic
Publication Date:
04-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:
"Building Stability in Weak States" was the topic of a workshop of the Woking Group "Crisis Management in South East Europe" of the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes which was held from 10-11 November 2001 in Tirana. It is no coincidence, however, that the initiative to develop this important topic for the development of security policy in South East Europe originated at the Albanian Institute for International Studies. Albania is seen as typical "weak State" in South East Europe, even though it has recovered from the quasi-civil war of 1997. This publication has ten articles by conference participants ranging from theoretical discussions to case studies from the region.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, NATO, and International Cooperation
In the following study, Peter Trost analyses the strong interdependencies between economic and security - political factors in a conflict region, specifically focusing on the influence of economical reasons for the break - up of Former Yugoslavia. This is especially interesting as most studies tend to focus on the political aspects rather than concentrating on questions of economy when dealing with the disintegration processes leading to the destruction of the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The Pact of Stability for South East Europe was “born” after the end of the Kosovo crisis in 1999 as a concept of dealing radically with the Balkan instabilities, but also as a geopolitical compromise of the great power centres, involved in the treatment of the post-Yugoslav conflicts.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, International Cooperation, and Regional Cooperation
Passed in November 2001, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1377 notes the importance of regional organizations such as OSCE in fighting and preventing terrorism – including promoting best practices and assisting with implementation of resolution 1373, the comprehensive anti-terrorism document passed in the wake of the September 11th attacks on the United States.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Regional Cooperation, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, Bosnia, Herzegovina, United Nations, and Balkans
The United States and its European allies often found themselves at loggerheads in the 1990s. Disputes over arms control, peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, the environment, and the role of the United Nations (UN) were frequent. European governments repeatedly accused the United States of being disengaged and not living up to its responsibilities as a global power. When it did, they feared U.S. power and its disdain for multilateral approaches to international problems.
The aim of this paper is to elaborate the role of the University in democratization, developing human rights and transforming ethnic conflicts in the Balkan states proposing creative and applicable solutions. The main conclusions are, first, that if a system cannot be qualified as democratic one, appears the complex dilemma what could and should come first: developing democracy (including the university education) or transforming ethnic conflicts or preventing their escalations/deescalating them. Second, during conflict escalation, the Balkan and other University's duty is to offer to country's decision makers and the rest of the society and the world the knowledge residing on scholars in peace and conflict studies, philosophers, historians, economists, engineers, political scientists and many other fields that can help understand the goals, attitudes, interests, identities, and/or behaviors of the other and our conflict side as well as of the mediators, arbitrators, etc.
A training session organized by the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) on 29 and 30 November 2002 brought together approximately twenty local experts from Kosovo and three academics from the United Kingdom. The aim of the session was to increase awareness of different dimensions of integration in the EU, discuss the applicability of the EU model for the Western Balkans and explore the implications of current EU approaches to regional integration in this area, especially for Kosovo.
For more than a decade Serbia was the driving force behind much of the instability in the Balkans. Following the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic on 5 October 2000, it was hoped that Serbia would promptly reform the external policies of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) that had caused such disruption. To date, these hopes have been substantially disappointed.
Topic:
International Relations, Defense Policy, and Government
Nicholas Whyte, Nadia Alexandrova Arbatova, and Dana H. Allin
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
For most of the last ten years, Europeans have been embarrassed by Jacques Poos' rash promise of 1991; during the conflicts in Bosnia and Croatia from 1991 to 1995, the phrase seemed only to sum up the ineffective ness and the pomposity of the European Union's pretensions to be an actor of importance in its own backyard. The Dayton Agreement of 1995 was achieved only when Richard Holbrooke threatened to pull the US out of the process and 'leave it to the Europeans'. Terrified by this awful prospect (at least, according to Holbrooke's version), the warring parties agreed to the deal.