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Hope and strength in the Western Balkans

Author : Matteo Rivellini

Publisher : European Investment Bank

Page : 41 pages

File Size : 33,25 MB

Release : 2020-08-06

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 9286147015

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Book Description

The Western Balkans have been a crossing point between Central Europe and the East for centuries. Devastated by tragic conflicts, nationalism and neglected investments, the Western Balkan countries are striving to find a new equilibrium. Citizens and institutions in the Balkans have repeatedly affirmed their ambition to become part of the European Union and have made significant efforts to turn this dream into reality. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has done a lot in this region over the past 20years. It has helped build pan-European transport corridors, supported direct foreign investment, helped redevelop urban areas, provided technical assistance and additional finance to enhance and develop social and economic infrastructure, and stimulated private sector growth to create jobs. Looking ahead, there is hope for a brighter and greener future for the Western Balkans. Matteo Rivellini is the Head of Division in charge of lending operations in Slovenia, Croatia and the Western Balkans at the EIB. This is the thirteenth essay in the Big Ideas series created by the European Investment Bank. The EIB has invited international thought leaders and experts to write about the most important issues of the day. These essays are a reminder that we need new thinking to protect the environment, promote equality and improve people's lives around the globe.



The Fight Against Terrorism and Crisis Management in the Western Balkans

Author : I. Prezelj

Publisher : IOS Press

Page : 236 pages

File Size : 38,60 MB

Release : 2008-02-06

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 160750300X

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Book Description

Terrorism is not the only threat that causes the emergence of crises. The so-called ‘crisification’ of our security environment also seems to be rising due to many other factors. Such an environment is generating many crises related to politico-military conflicts, natural disasters, infectious diseases, information disruptions, ethnic or religious violence and others. Many of these crises are completely or nearly completely unexpected and have a strong effect on the security of individual people, states and the international community. ‘Crisis’ has become the key word instead of ‘war’. The awareness of this is partially driven by the growing role of electronic media, bringing negative news and reports to nearly all homes, and partially by objective technical factors that allow the fast escalation of local crises to the international level. Globalization therefore has a strong subjective and objective impact on the understanding of security.



Competitive Authoritarianism

Author : Steven Levitsky

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : pages

File Size : 30,71 MB

Release : 2010-08-16

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1139491482

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Book Description

Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.



Turkey–West Relations

Author : Oya Dursun-Özkanca

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 231 pages

File Size : 41,47 MB

Release : 2019-11-28

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1108775985

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Book Description

This timely book fills an important gap in the literature of international relations, providing a thorough, up-to-date, empirically supported, and theoretically grounded analysis of how and why Turkish foreign policy has changed in recent years vis-à-vis the West. Presenting one of the first balancing studies that employs elite interviews as data, Turkey–West Relations develops a framework of intra-alliance opposition, classifying the tools of statecraft into three categories - boundary testing, boundary challenging, and boundary breaking. Six case studies are examined regarding Turkish foreign policy over the past nine years, exploring an array of topics including Turkey's foreign policy in relation to various nations and organizations, the refugee crisis, defense procurement, energy policies, and more. Dursun-Özkanca demonstrates how international, regional, issue-specific, and domestic factors may serve to explain Turkey's increasing boundary-breaking behavior. This book is crucial for anyone who seeks to understand the recent growing rifts between Turkey and the US, the EU, and NATO.



US Foreign Policy in the Western Balkans from 1993 to 2009

Author : Vladimir Đorđević

Publisher : Masarykova univerzita

Page : 199 pages

File Size : 29,88 MB

Release : 2016-01-01

Category : Art

ISBN : 8021081260

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Book Description

Kniha analyzuje a srovnává zahraniční politiku dvou po sobě jdoucích amerických vlád v období mezi lety 1993 a 2009, tedy během funkčního období prezidentů Williama J. Clintona a George W. Bushe. Prostřednictvím metody obsahové analýzy a zároveň pomocí analýzy diskurzu vybraných primárních zdrojů se text zaměřuje na jejich zahraniční politické cíle a zájmy v regionu západního Balkánu. Analýza prokazuje, že porozumění regionu a americká úloha zde byla v obou obdobích v podstatě stejná.



The Balkans in World History

Author : Andrew Baruch Wachtel

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Page : 209 pages

File Size : 30,91 MB

Release : 2008-11-05

Category : History

ISBN : 0199882738

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Book Description

In the historical and literary imagination, the Balkans loom large as a somewhat frightening and ill-defined space, often seen negatively as a region of small and spiteful peoples, racked by racial and ethnic hatred, always ready to burst into violent conflict. The Balkans in World History re-defines this space in positive terms, taking as a starting point the cultural, historical, and social threads that allow us to see this region as a coherent if complex whole. Eminent historian Andrew Wachtel here depicts the Balkans as that borderland geographical space in which four of the world's greatest civilizations have overlapped in a sustained and meaningful way to produce a complex, dynamic, sometimes combustible, multi-layered local civilization. It is the space in which the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, of Byzantium, of Ottoman Turkey, and of Roman Catholic Europe met, clashed and sometimes combined. The history of the Balkans is thus a history of creative borrowing by local people of the various civilizations that have nominally conquered the region. Encompassing Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, the Balkans have absorbed many voices and traditions, resulting in one of the most complex and interesting regions on earth.



Rival Power

Author : Dimitar Bechev

Publisher : Yale University Press

Page : 319 pages

File Size : 18,15 MB

Release : 2017-01-01

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 030021913X

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Book Description

A nuanced and comprehensive study of the political dynamics between Russia and key countries in Southeast Europe Is Russia threatening to disrupt more than two decades' of E.U. and U.S. efforts to promote stability in post-communist Southeast Europe? Politicians and commentators in the West say, "yes." With rising global anxiety over Russia's political policies and objectives, Dimitar Bechev provides the only in-depth look at this volatile region. Deftly unpacking the nature and extent of Russian influence in the Balkans, Greece, and Turkey, Bechev argues that both sides are driven by pragmatism and opportunism rather than historical loyalties. Russia is seeking to assert its role in Europe's security architecture, establish alternative routes for its gas exports--including the contested Southern Gas Corridor--and score points against the West. Yet, leaders in these areas are allowing Russia to reinsert itself to serve their own goals. This urgently needed guide analyzes the responses of regional NATO members, particularly regarding the annexation of Crimea and the Putin-Erdogan rift over Syria.



Narratives Unbound

Author : Balázs Trencsényi

Publisher : Central European University Press

Page : 512 pages

File Size : 14,8 MB

Release : 2007-07-15

Category : History

ISBN : 6155211299

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Book Description

The first work that covers the post-Communist development of historical studies in six Eastern European countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. A uniquely critical and qualitative analysis from a comparative and critical perspective, written by scholars from the region itself. Focusing on the first post-Communist decade, 1989–1999, the book offers a longer-term perspective that includes the immediate 'prehistory' of that momentous decade as well as its 'posthistoire'. The authors capture the spirit of 1989, that heady mix of elation, surprise, determination, and hope: l'ivresse du possible. This was the paradoxical beginning of Eastern European post-Communism: ushered in by 'anti-Utopian' revolutions, and slowly finding its course towards a bureaucratic, imitative, challenging, and anachronistic restoration of a capitalism that had changed almost beyond recognition when it had mutated into the negative double of Communism. Each individual chapter has numerous and detailed notes and references.



Return to Instability

Author : Francisco de Borja Lasheras

Publisher :

Page : 15 pages

File Size : 21,14 MB

Release : 2016

Category : Balkan Peninsula

ISBN : 9781910118634

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Book Description

"EU's weakness is prompting a new scramble for power for the Balkans with Russia, Turkey and other actors"--Publisher's description.