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71. Through Economy to Democracy and Security? An Integrated Approach to Stability in South East Europe - 7th Workshop of the Study Group "Regional Stability in South East Europe"

Author:
Frederic Labarre
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:
In contrast to the Central European transition countries, the economies of South East Europe (SEE) have been facing complex and interrelated political and economic problems. The dissolution of Yugoslavia combined with market losses, war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, sanctions finally culminating in the Kosovo conflict were the main causes of political and economic instability in the whole region. Taking into account these factors, output recovery has been much slower in SEE than in the Central European countries. Measured in purchasing power standards, Croatia is the best performer in the region, with its GDP at about 38% of the EU average. Next comes Bulgaria (32%), whereas the respective values for Serbia and Montenegro and Albania range between 15-17%. Looking at the economic performance in the 1990-2002 period, Croatia and Romania reached almost 94% of their pre-transitional level in 2002, followed by Bulgaria and Macedonia (about 88% each). Serbia and Montenegro, the worst-affected, reached only about half of what it was in 1990. The cumulative output decline there was one of the largest among all the Central and East European countries.
Topic:
NATO, Diplomacy, Economics, Political Economy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Balkans, and Romania

72. A Possible Path to Change in US-Iran Relations

Author:
Mark Edmond Clark
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
In 1999, I visited Belgrade one month before the start of Operation ALLIED FORCE as a guest of the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs to hear the perspectives of key officials on the possibility of a conflict between Yugoslavia and NATO. I heard a singular perspective that NATO would not use force and threats to do so were used only to get the regime of Slobodan Milosevic to respond to diplomatic efforts by the US and EU. There was simply a refusal to recognize that the threat of attack from NATO was real.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Middle East, and Yugoslavia

73. 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

74. 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

75. Regional Approach - An Obstacle or an Opportunity for an Early Integration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Into the European Structures

Author:
Vladimir Bilandzic
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:
I would have to start this presentation with a disclaimer. When I was kindly invited to give a perspective from Serbia on the issue we are discussing at this seminar, I told the organisers that my contribution could not be regarded as a representative one, since I work for an international organisation - the OSCE - in Belgrade. At the same time, I cannot claim that my views represent the views of the organisation I work for. So, what I am going to say are my personal views, based of course on my experience and research on Southeast European politics, especially in the countries of former Yugoslavia. Therefore, while apologising for not being in a position to give a more authoritative presentation, I will try to give a meaningful contribution on the subject, especially from a perspective of someone coming from Belgrade.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe, Eastern Europe, and Yugoslavia

76. From A Paradigm of Political Crises and A Potential Safety Crisis-Spot in Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to its Possible Role As An Integrating Area of Serbia and Montenegro

Author:
Sefko Alomerovic
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:
Each conversation about Sand_ak as one of the paradigms of political crises in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that is in Serbia and Montenegro, would have to be started with basic data about the area itself, about the causes and the nature of problems that exist concerning Sand_ak and within it, starting from the time when it was, under the title the "sand_ak question", for the first time the subject of interest of the international community, far away in 1858.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Ethnic Conflict, and Genocide
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Montenegro

77. 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

78. 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

79. 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

80. 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