Right-Sizing' And 'Right-peopling' The State In The Post-Yugoslav Space Cover Image

Right-Sizing' And 'Right-peopling' The State In The Post-Yugoslav Space
Right-Sizing' And 'Right-peopling' The State In The Post-Yugoslav Space

Author(s): Zoran Ćirjaković
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: BCBP Beogradski centar za bezbednosnu politiku
Keywords: state-building; multi-ethnic states; Western Balkans; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Western Europe; Sub-Saharan Africa; ‘ethnic cleansing’; democracy

Summary/Abstract: Since the late 1980s, state-building has been the central feature of politics in the Western Balkans. This paper suggests that, when considering why both local and transnational stakeholders have been using, or condoning the results of, brutal policies aimed at moving people and borders, account must be taken of the endurance of ethnic diversity-related challenges to the functioning of the democratic state. In this context, the impact of globalization processes and globalization-related discourses in mediating and hidng both the challenges to and the nature of various policies employed in dealing with them is considered. The author suggests hat various human rights-related discourses have often effectively obscured the fact that state-building in the Western Balkans has been tilted towards creating ‘viable’ majority-nation states. At times his has amounted to lending legitimacy to various minoritydestroying policies. In this context the paper examines the responses and involvement of the international community in state-buildng in the region. Finally, focusing on post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, the author considers the prospects for further violent reshaping of the post-Yugoslav states.

  • Issue Year: 2011
  • Issue No: 21
  • Page Range: 104-115
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English