In the shadow of fortress Europe? Impacts of European migration governance on Slovenia,Croatia and Macedonia

ABSTRACT

This article analyses European integration's effects on migration and border security governance in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia in the context of ‘governed interdependence’. We show how transgovernmental networks comprising national and EU actors, plus a range of other participants, blur the distinction between the domestic and international to enable interactions between domestic and international policy elites that transmit EU priorities into national policy. Governments are shown to be ‘willing pupils’ and ‘policy takers’, adapting to EU policy as a pre-condition for membership. This strengthened rather than weakened central state actors, particularly interior ministries. Thus, in a quintessentially ‘national’ policy area, there has been a re-scaling and re-constitution of migration and border security policy. To support this analysis, social network analysis is used to outline the composition of governance networks and analyse interactions and power relations therein.     

Going Home to Pakistan: Identity and Its Discontents in Southeastern Europe

In this article I explore the claim that post-independence Macedonia is a cornerstone of European civilization (a traditional Greek claim) and analyze efforts to assert the country's position in the international arena as a “modern” and authentically Western state deserving of membership in the European Union. Such efforts involve the establishment of ties between Macedonians and the Hunzukuts, who live on the remote Hindu Kush Mountains in Pakistan and claim to be descendants of Alexander the Great. I also analyze comparable initiatives, sponsored in recent years by the Greek state, to prove ties between Greeks and the Kalasha, who also live in remote areas of Pakistan and believe that they are descended from Alexander the Great. Greece and post-independence Macedonia offer us insights into the populist underpinnings of the nationalist promotion of a European identity presented as rooted in the East.     

Orthodoxy and political myths in Balkan national identities

This article analyses the relationship between Balkan national identities and the region's dominant religion: Eastern Orthodox Christianity. After examining the concept of ‘symphonia’ between Orthodoxy and politics that developed during the Byzantine Empire, this article argues that the political myths that have emerged from Orthodoxy are the most potent in the Balkan mythical imaginary. Political myths have a direct impact on contemporary politics developing a threefold structure: the sacralisation of politics; the perception of the nation as a divine manifestation; and, the construction of a divine realm on earth.     

科索沃战争后的巴尔干

1999年,以美国为首的北约对南斯拉夫发动侵略战争后,巴尔干的形势依然很混乱。在科索沃,塞尔维亚少数民族受到阿尔巴尼亚人的可怕压迫,他们中的许多人被杀或被赶出故土。在马其顿,阿尔巴尼亚的极端分子常和政府发生武装冲突,只有在长期艰难谈判后,双方才签署和平协议。而由于塞尔维亚和黑山之间的紧张关系,南斯拉夫正面临新的分裂。巴尔干的前景仍然不明朗。     

Aid and its impact on domestic change: The case of police reforms in Macedonia

This article examines the role that aid from the European Union (EU) has played in leading to change in non‐EU Member States. It particularly explores whether the EU's financial assistance has led to change in Macedonia. The question of police reforms in Macedonia, and of the EU's impact on these, are complex because of the sensitivity of such reforms in terms of the functioning of the country's multi‐ethnic democracy. Using the institutionalism approach, the article argues that the police reforms have indeed been heavily dependent on EU funding and traces the EU's role in the implementation of police reforms in Macedonia.     

Welfare and Democratization – Comparing Croatia,Serbia and Macedonia

The article discusses the main determinants of welfare transformation after the regime change from communism towards democracy. The states of the former Yugoslavia, notwithstanding a common welfare state structure, albeit at different quality levels, after departing communism developed diverse trajectories. In response to the wars, war‐related consequences and growing economic pressures, the national political elites in Yugoslav successor states initially extended welfare provisions and thus thwarted popular mobilization. The international actors' agenda gained ground in a setting characterized by nationalistic resentments, popular disorientation and elite capture. What the analyzed country cases suggest is that democratization has contributed to making reforms more responsive to public concerns. On the other hand, ‘defective’ systems continue to impede economic development and compromise the welfare state's redistributive role.     

“Grandpa was fatally administered by the Bulgarians1”: Family narratives,national identity,and state history

Grandparents’ World War Two (WWII) stories are emotionally powerful, intimate accounts of firsthand experience that can shape grandchildren's ideas of state history, nation, and identity. This effect, I argue, manifests most intensively in critical times when national history and identity are threatened. Such was the case when former Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev relayed a controversial version of Macedonian national history and identity in a TV interview. In reaction, many Macedonian citizens shared fragments of their grandparents’ WWII stories. This study analyzes several more detailed versions of these grandparents’ narratives in order to ascertain the formative power of family WWII stories over one's personal sense of national identity. To do so, it will examine the positioning practices of the present-day narrators, the grandchildren of WWII participants, focusing on the manners in which they interactively reproduce their own sense of national identity vis-a-vis-these stories.