Western Balkans

East European Studies Short-term Research Scholarships

Jun 07, 2013
The Wilson Center's European Studies Program is now accepting applications for the EES Short-term Grant competition, which is open to academic experts and practitioners, including advanced graduate students, engaged in specialized research requiring access to Washington, DC and its research institutions. Grants are for one month and include residence at the Wilson Center. Candidates must be U.S. citizens, in order to be considered eligible for this grant opportunity. The deadline for this grant cycle is: September 1, 2013. more

Rediscovering the Umma

May 10, 2013
Ina Merdjanova, former Southeast Europe policy scholar, releases her latest monograph Rediscovering the Umma. "Ina Merdjanova discusses the conditions and role of Islam in relation to post-Ottoman nation-building, the communist period, and post-communist developments in the Balkans, focusing in particular on the remarkable transformations experienced by Muslim communities after the end of the Cold War. Amidst multiple structural and cultural transitions, they sought to renegotiate their place and reclaim their Islamic identities in formally secular legal and normative environments, mostly as minorities in majority-Christian societies." (Oxford University Press) more

Russia's Energy Bully Takes a Fall

May 07, 2013
"After years as Eurasia's energy bully, Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, is getting a taste of its own medicine," stated Alexandros Petersen in a recent article published by Foreign Policy earlier this week. more
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East European Studies Short-term Research Scholarships

Jun 07, 2013
The Wilson Center's European Studies Program is now accepting applications for the EES Short-term Grant competition, which is open to academic experts and practitioners, including advanced graduate students, engaged in specialized research requiring access to Washington, DC and its research institutions. Grants are for one month and include residence at the Wilson Center. Candidates must be U.S. citizens, in order to be considered eligible for this grant opportunity. The deadline for this grant cycle is: September 1, 2013.

Rediscovering the Umma

May 10, 2013
Ina Merdjanova, former Southeast Europe policy scholar, releases her latest monograph Rediscovering the Umma. "Ina Merdjanova discusses the conditions and role of Islam in relation to post-Ottoman nation-building, the communist period, and post-communist developments in the Balkans, focusing in particular on the remarkable transformations experienced by Muslim communities after the end of the Cold War. Amidst multiple structural and cultural transitions, they sought to renegotiate their place and reclaim their Islamic identities in formally secular legal and normative environments, mostly as minorities in majority-Christian societies." (Oxford University Press)

Russia's Energy Bully Takes a Fall

May 07, 2013
"After years as Eurasia's energy bully, Russia's state-controlled natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, is getting a taste of its own medicine," stated Alexandros Petersen in a recent article published by Foreign Policy earlier this week.

East European Studies Short-term Research Scholarships

May 02, 2013
The Wilson Center's European Studies Program is now accepting applications for the EES Short-term Grant competition, which is open to academic experts and practitioners, including advanced graduate students, engaged in specialized research requiring access to Washington, DC and its research institutions. Grants are for one month and include residence at the Wilson Center. Candidates must be U.S. citizens, in order to be considered eligible for this grant opportunity. The deadline for this grant cycle is: June 1, 2013.
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The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees and Minorities

May 07, 2013 // 3:00pm — 4:30pm
What drives a state's choice to assimilate, accommodate, or exclude ethnic groups within its territory? In this pathbreaking work on the international politics of nation-building, Harris Mylonas argues that a state's nation-building policies toward non-core groups - any aggregation of individuals perceived as an unassimilated ethnic group by the ruling elite of a state - are influenced by both its foreign policy goals and its relations with the external patrons of these groups.

Beyond Nabucco: An Update on the Southern Gas Corridor and European Energy Security

April 30, 2013 // 10:00am — 12:00pm
The race to build the Southern Energy Corridor to bring Caspian natural gas to Europe is in its final stages. The Shah Deniz consortium in Azerbaijan is set to once and for all decide the long-pending "Nabucco question". How will this improve European energy security? Experts from Baku's Center for Strategic Studies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan gather to discuss this, as well as other pertinent questions at a roundtable discussion co-hosted by the Global Europe Program and the Kennan Institute.

A Muslim Tale of Two Cities: ‘We Met the Trains’

April 10, 2013 // 2:30pm — 3:30pm
The forced migration of Muslims from the Balkans to Turkey is one of the least known movements of people in modern times. In "A Muslim Tale of Two Cities" Frances Trix focuses on urban Muslims from the central Balkans and the hometown associations they founded in Turkish cities.
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Policy Brief VI: Setting an Agenda for Transatlantic Cooperation

According to U.S. and EU officials, transatlantic coordination, communication and cooperation is excellent, and has improved substantially over the last few years. Meetings between the EU, U.S. State Department and OSCE officials occur regularly and conversations happen on a daily basis. The most important elements of the policy toward the Western Balkans are EU led and U.S. supported. This cooperation was most apparent in the Serbia-Kosovo negotiations that were restarted this year. The U.S. has joined the EU on policies dealing with specific issues, such as women’s empowerment, economic development and housing for refugees and internally displaced people. The overall policy of Euroatlantic integration is openly supported not only in Washington and Brussels, but also by civil society: opinion polls consistently reveal that EU accession is what the people of the region want.

Working Paper VI: EU - US Agenda in 2012: Transatlantic Support for Enlargement and Stability amidst Financial Crises

Over the course of 2011 a number of European analysts of US foreign relations predicted that in the future American foreign policy would have a new focus in Asia-Pacific. Stemming primarily from a political economy perspective that focuses on the impact of the market growth in leading emerging economies, this vision highlights the influence of Asia. This argument requires the thinking that geopolitical stability in Western Europe and the Mediterranean area, together with the politics of power and the politics of diplomacy matter less now than they did at any time since the Second World War.

Working Paper V: Barriers to EU Conditionality in Bosnia and Herzegovina

A key question popping up in 2011 will very likely continue to shape policy discussions and debates in the Western Balkans in 2012: why doesn’t the “magnetic pull” of Europe seem to be resulting in reform and progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina? The “transformative power” thesis that grounds the European Union’s engagements in pre-accession countries is predicated on the assumption that the promised riches of membership will drive domestic leaders in any EU-hopeful country to align their country’s policies and practices with the norms required by the Club.[1] The wave of accession over the past decade is used as an illustration of the success of this model. Poland, Hungary and Malta benefitted from the technical rigors of EU accession preparation, followed not so long after by even Bulgaria and Romania. Surely this process promotes and results in the political, social and economic change desired to preserve and expand the European experiment, and to move towards an “ever closer union.”
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Ioannis Armakolas

Lecturer, University of Macedonia and Director of Research, US-Greece Task Force: “Transforming the Balkans”

Nida Gelazis

EducationM.A., Comparative European and International Law (LLM), European University Institute, Florence, Italy; B.A., Political Science, University of Chicago SubjectsBalkan Region,Constitutionalism,Democratization,East Europe,European Union,Human Rights,International Law ExperienceManagi...

Rinna Kullaa

Associate Professor of Modern European History and International Relations, University of Jyvaskyla
 Rinna Kullaa is an area studies expert for South Eastern Europe and an Associate Professor of Modern European History and International Relations at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. She completed her postgraduate studies at St. Antony’s College, the University of Oxford and a...
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