Gulnur Aybet, Lecturer in International Relations, University of Kent at Canterbury (UK) and Dan Hamilton, Director, Center for Transatlantic Relations, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University

The Business Advisory Council for SEE has been serving as the private sector arm and advisory mechanism of the European and international mechanisms for regional cooperation - first under the auspices of US-led SECI, later the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe and currently with the Regional Cooperation Council.

As part of their program of "national revival," the Government of the Republic of Macedonia has embarked on a program of "antiquization" to lay claim to the legacy of Alexander the Great—in ways that resemble a longer process of antiquization in Greece, and which contribute to tensions between the two countries. This paper reviews the debate over antiquization within the Republic, focusing in particular on the robust critiques offered by a range of dissidents who risk being labeled as "dissidents" or "traitors." It then explores the similarities between the Republic's present and Greece's recent and more distant past, in which scholars and activists who questioned assumptions of cultural continuity and national purity have faced sanctions ranging from stalled career paths to lawsuits and death threats.

Over the last 20 years, Bulgaria and Greece have pursued variable and divergent policies toward their Muslim minorities. During a brief period near the end of the Communist regime, Bulgaria forced Turks to assimilate. This policy was abandoned by the democratic government that took power in the 1990s. At the same time, Greece recognized its Muslim minority and facilitated the "Turkification" of its Muslim citizens throughout the 1980s, but then abandoned that policy by blocking minority rights in the 1990s. Harris Mylonas suggested that these policy shifts are commonly explained by assumptions or models that link minority treatment, regime type, ideology and leadership personalities. Rejecting these hypotheses, Mylonas argued that the structure of the international system was the most salient indicator influencing the treatment of Muslim minorities in both countries.