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82. Los Balcanes: Entre el Pasado y el Presente. Una Introducción Históica a los Estudios Balcánicos
- Author:
- Slobodan Pajovic
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
- Abstract:
- This working paper deals with the complex, turbulent and contradictory history of the Balkans region. It is argued that the tragic realities confronting the region derive mainly from its asymmetric geopolitical, economic and cultural position, and its high degree of vulnerability and dependence on Western Europe and the Near East. It suggests that it is possible to study the history of the region by examining processes of both internal fragmentation and external subordination. While the paper cannot constitute a complete or systematic study of the Balkans, it presents and overview of the most salient features in the region's historical, politico-economic and cultural development. Two case studies, Yugoslavia and Kosovo, help to highlight the broader trends.
- Topic:
- Economics, Human Welfare, and Politics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Iran, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and Balkans
83. Kosovo: Orders of Magnitude
- Author:
- Adam Jones
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
- Abstract:
- The issue of the number of civilian causalities in the Kosovo war of 1999, especially of "battle-age" men, attracted considerable controversy both during the war and in its aftermath. This article considers the pattern of Serb atrocities in the province, and the pace and character of the forensic investigations conducted since the war by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It argues that the lowest casualty estimates are highly unlikely, given the evidence of widespread mass executions gleaned from refugee testimony and forensic investigations. The article concludes with some thoughts on the implications of the casualty figures in the policy of human-rights arenas.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Genocide, Human Rights, and Human Welfare
- Political Geography:
- Kosovo and Yugoslavia
84. Sustainable Regional Development through Institutionalised Trans-frontier Cooperation in the Sofia-Skopje-Nis Triangle--Towards the Establishment of a Euroregion
- Author:
- Stoyan Totev and Maria Boyadjieva
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- The transition process in Central and Eastern Europe was associated with increasing intra-regional disparities. It appears also that the regional inequalities in South east Europe are relatively high creating in the same time significantly higher economic and social problems. That refers to Bulgaria, Macedonia and FR Yugoslavia whereas every reform face serious difficulties due to the lower readiness for accession to the EU structures as well as for their backwardness in the economic development. In countries like Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia there exist enough resources for facing the negative effects from one or another reform as well as the necessary readiness of the population the reform s to be carried out.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia
85. Cross-border business activities in the Small and Medium Enterprise sector in the Southern Adriatic border areas of Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Author:
- Ivo Grkovic and Nikola Kalafatovic
- Publication Date:
- 03-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- Analyzing the area of our interest and its economic perspective requires us to take a step back into the past and conclude that history repeats itself. Traditionally, this has been the area of trade, communication, as well as war. The last fifty years, up until the disintegration of ex-Yugoslavia, represented the longest period of peace in this region of different cultures, nations and history. In ex-Yugoslavia, these differences did not represent a limiting factor, and therefore the transport of people as well as goods was free and unlimited. Although the state borders existed, in the legal sense they were not of great importance. We can say that people living in this region were both geographically and economically directed towards each other. However, economic differences were present, and Croatia ranked as the second most developed state of ex-Yugoslavia (after Slovenia).
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, Croatia, and Montenegro
86. Cross-border business activities in the Small and Medium Enterprise sector in the Southern Adriatic border areas of Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Author:
- Ivo Grkovic and Nikola Kalafatovic
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- Analyzing the area of our interest and its economic perspective requires us to take a step back in to the past and conclude that history rep eats itself. Traditionally, this has been the area of trade, communication, as well as war. The last fifty years, up until the disintegration of ex-Yugoslavia, represented the longest period of peace in this region of different cultures, nations and history. In ex-Yugoslavia, these differences did not represent a limiting factor, and therefore the transport of people as well as goods was free and unlimited. Although the state borders existed, in the legal sense they were not of great importance. We can say that people living in this region were both geographically and economically directed towards each other. However, economic differences were present, and Croatia ranked as the second most developed state of ex-Yugoslavia (after Slovenia).
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
- Political Geography:
- Bosnia, Herzegovina, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Maryland, and Slovenia
87. Self-Determination, Territorial Integrety and International Stability
- Author:
- Enver Hasani
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Austrian National Defence Academy
- Abstract:
- This study analyzes the issue of self-determination, territorial integrity and international stability, within the Yugoslav context. However, it is not confined to the Yugoslav case of self-determination alone. The study stretches over other several cases of self-determination and analyzes the historical background of the phenomenon itself. The argument of this dissertation in terms of the history of self-determination, is that the phenomenon has gradually crystallized over the last two centuries. In addition, self-determination is viewed in connection with two other issues: territorial integrity and international stability. In fact, these two segments have been and remain intrinsic to every discussion of selfdetermination. The historical part of the problem also is comprised of scholarly work and the judicial practice that have lead to the final formulation of self-determination as it stands at the present.
- Topic:
- Nationalism and Sovereignty
- Political Geography:
- Yugoslavia and Balkans
88. Autonomy and Ethnic Conflict: Experiences from the Caucasus
- Author:
- Svante Cornell
- Publication Date:
- 08-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
- Abstract:
- Ethnopolitical conflict has, especially since the early 1990s, been a growing source of concern in the international arena. Having grown since the 1960s, it culminated after the cold war with the eruption of conflict in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Ethnic mobilization among minority populations in multiethnic states has often led to demands for self-rule or to secession. Especially in defined geographical areas where minorities are compactly settled, the creation of a separate state is seen as a feasible goal and control over territory often becomes a chief issue of conflict. Many theorists have found that solutions involving regional autonomy are effective in dealing with ethnic conflict. Ted Gurr, for example, has argued that "negotiated regional autonomy has proved to be an effective antidote for ethnopolitical wars of secession in Western and Third World States." Regional autonomy implies the introduction of ethnoterritoriality - linking territorial control to ethnicity. This is the case either when a region is explicitly created as a homeland for an ethnic group or when a minority group constitutes a large majority of the population of an autonomous state structure and perceives it as its own. Advocates of ethnofederalism argue that autonomy solutions are effective conflict-resolving mechanisms and that further federalization of multiethnic states along ethnic lines will help prevent ethnic conflict. In some of the literature, ethnofederalism has been characterized as what David Meyer terms a "cure-all prescription" for ethnic tensions. There is, however, considerable reason to argue that the institution of territorial autonomy may be conducive not to interethnic peace and cooperation but may in fact foster ethnic mobilization, increased secessionism, and even armed conflict.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict and Sovereignty
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Caucasus, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia
89. TFC Nis-Sofia-Skopje: Euroregion Inauguration Conference
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- EastWest Institute
- Abstract:
- At the strong initiative of the Mayors of the cities of Niš, Skopje and Sofia, and with the active support of the EastWest Institute's Programme for Transfrontier Cooperation, a long-term process was launched to intensify transfrontier cooperation between the border regions of the Republic of Bulgaria, the FYR Macedonia and the FR of Yugoslavia. The overall objective of this initiative is to employ intensified cross-border cooperation as a tool for regional economic development and integration within this Niš-Skoplje-Sofia Triangle, as well as to foster conditions of prosperity, security and peaceful co-existence between neighboring peoples and states.
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Maryland
90. Arming Saddam: The Yugoslav Connection
- Publication Date:
- 12-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- The democratic government elected in Belgrade in 2000 did not end the extensive busting of arms sanctions engaged in for many years by its predecessor, the Milosevic dictatorship. The NATO (SFOR) troops who raided an aircraft factory in Bosnia.s Republika Srpska on 12 October 2002 found documents that have begun to strip the veils of secrecy from this significant scandal. From ICG.s own investigations, as well as from those initial revelations and stories that have appeared subsequently in the Serbian press, it appears that arms deals of considerable monetary value continued with Iraq and Liberia despite the change of administrations.
- Topic:
- Politics and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Bosnia, Eastern Europe, Arabia, Yugoslavia, Arab Countries, and Liberia