(2021). Local legitimacy and international peacebuilding. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the Alevi-Sunni social conflict in Turkey through an examination of how the politically engaged youth of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) perceived the rights of the Alevi population around the time of the AKP’s ‘Democratic Opening’. Based on qualitative fieldwork involving 78 interviews conducted between 2009 and 2011 in seven different

ABSTRACT The allocation of scarce resources is a grand strategic question – burden-sharing behaviour has clear effects on states’ ability to contribute to collective defence. Both NATO and the European Union encourage members not just to spend more on defence, but to focus those expenditures on equipment modernization and shared operational requirements. After NATO allies formally pledged to improve

ABSTRACT Using Turkey’s Kurdish issue as an example, this article discusses how conflicts produce problems at multiple levels of relations in multi-ethnic societies and considers how debates about different models of democracy and reconciliation can contribute to addressing these problems. Turkey’s Kurdish issue presents an interesting case to discuss how state-group, state-individual and intergroup

ABSTRACT The recent authoritarian turn and democratic backsliding around the world have raised concerns over increased instability and violent conflicts. Turkey is a striking example of this authoritarian turn with the transition from a multiparty democracy to a competitive authoritarian regime. With seven in-depth case studies from Turkey, this special issue sheds light upon the changing dynamics

ABSTRACT The article examines the Democratic Progress Institute’s (DPI) Turkey program as a Track Two comparative consultation initiative applied in the case of Turkey’s peace process regarding the Kurdish conflict, commonly known as the ‘resolution/peace process’ (2012–2015). Based on interviews with high- and middle-level actors participating in events organized by the DPI, the article investigates

ABSTRACT Tophane is a conservative quarter in central Istanbul that has become known for its political support of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This support has included violent vigilantism against oppositional groups. In the last decade, since gentrification has become more tangible in the area, violence has also turned against perceived newcomers and outsiders. Gentrification, however

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the role of pro-state paramilitary groups in Turkey’s Kurdish conflict from the 1990s to the present. The role of paramilitaries in civil wars has been heavily discussed in general but remains understudied in the context of Turkey’s war with the PKK. Turkish state authorities established a number of paramilitary groups in the initial stage of the conflict. Their impact

ABSTRACT This article examines Greece and North Macedonia’s parliamentary ratifications of the Prespa Agreement. Given the decisive role of national parliaments in the process of the agreement’s success, the article investigates to what extent this specific institutional setting influenced the dispute concerning the bilateral agreement. The article poses the following question: which factors explain

(2021). International courts and mass atrocity: narratives of war and justice in Croatia. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 172-174.

(2021). Hidden galleries. Material religion in the secret police archives in central and eastern Europe. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT Contemporary Russophilia is examined in this article as an outstanding feature of Greek political culture. Recent opinion polls (2016–2017) are used to validate a distinction between two different types of Russophilia: the soft, described as a positive predisposition towards Russia, and the hard-core, which suggests an embrace of Russia by breaking with Greece’s ties to the West. Hard-core

ABSTRACT The concept of üst akıl, an all-powerful and sinister agency, has recently been socially and politically influential in the public sphere in Turkey. From the time it was first used in 2014 to today, the concept has served as an enabling device to legitimize a political motive, to delegitimize dissident views, to make an assertion of difference, to safeguard political status and to gain mainstream

ABSTRACT Organized crime and corruption have become the biggest security threats in the Western Balkans since the major wars there ended. They have slowed down the transition and accession progress of several countries. We argue in this paper that the Western Balkans occasionally faces the problem of networked state capture based on a corrupt nexus among organized crime, business, politics, security

ABSTRACT Financialization and neoliberal globalization have increased the dependency of peripheral countries on core economies. This paper tracks the neoliberalization processes of Greece and Turkey, two neighbouring countries on the periphery of Europe. By using a comparative political economy method and borrowing from the variegated capitalism literature, it critically investigates how these two

ABSTRACT This qualitative study, grounded in postcolonial theories and using critical discourse analysis, examines the discourses shaping Kosova’s National Strategy for the Reintegration of Repatriated Persons in order to contribute to the paucity of the literature on repatriating rejected asylum seekers. The main findings suggest that the dominant discourse used in the strategy constructs an exclusive

ABSTRACT Electoral geography is mostly concerned with the geographic distribution of voters and their attributes. We add a new argument to the discussion about electoral geography: that parties pursue geographically oriented stronghold strategies. Parties win electoral provinces, transform them into strongholds, and then use the stronghold´s resources to systematically target nearby provinces. We illustrate

ABSTRACT In this paper, we test a widely accepted assumption in literature, namely, that due to its universal(istic) and humanistic character aiming to transcend ethnic boundaries, art is an effective tool for overcoming inter-ethnic divisions, and further, that people consider art effective to this specific purpose. To test this assumption, we ran a socio-psychological experiment at different universities

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how and why Alevis in Turkey have insisted that they are not a minority community and have been reluctant to formulate their religio-cultural demands in the framework of minority rights, thereby challenging what is often called liberal multiculturalism. Inquiring into the type of minority community Alevis form, alongside Turkey’s minority rights history, it explains

(2021). Architecture, urban space and war: the destruction and reconstruction of Sarajevo. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 170-172.

(2021). The rise of authoritarianism in the Western Balkans. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 167-168.

(2021). Heterotopia and heritage preservation. The heterotopic tool as a means of heritage assessment. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 168-170.

(2020). Islamic law and international law: peaceful resolution of disputes. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 663-664.

ABSTRACT Political parties rely heavily on clientelistic networks in Turkey. However, parties may change and pursue alternative strategies while appealing to voters. The goal of this study is to explain why political parties change their strategies from clientelistic to programmatic or vice versa. Therefore, the key question is: under what conditions do parties adopt a clientelistic strategy or a programmatic

(2020). Kemalism. Transnational politics in the post-Ottoman world. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 661-662.

ABSTRACT This article analyses the triangular relations between Britain, the United States and Turkey in the volatile Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region at the advent of the Cold War. It examines the political, economic and military strategies that enabled Turkey to adapt to the transitional period from the Pax Britannica to the Pax Americana (1947–1957) in the Middle East and the Eastern

ABSTRACT The European Union has been praised for successfully promoting democracy through its political accession conditionality by incentivizing Central and Eastern European countries to establish stable democratic institutions and improve their human rights practices. However, recent democratic downturns in the region have brought into question the quality and longevity of democracy that the Union

This is an intriguing book which deals with a current and hot issue, the relation of energy supply and energy resources to warfare or conflict. The book analyzes the role of energy wealth and, more...

ABSTRACT The Western Balkan region needs credible European development prospects to break the cycle of enlargement and accession fatigue and to speed up regional adjustment to the EU. Post-accession EU budget flows can provide the necessary funding for such prospects. This article assesses the expected changes in the size and composition of EU budget flows to the Western Balkan countries after their

ABSTRACT The voting behaviour of migrants has been studied extensively but limited attention has been paid to how the discussion with families in the home country can be important. This article analyzes under what circumstances migrants influence or are influenced by their families in voting decisions. The analysis uses individual-level data from a survey conducted in 2018 on a sample of 1,839 Romanian

ABSTRACT In this paper, we offer a possible interpretation of reconciliation in the former Yugoslav area. In a conflicting past and not-reconciled region, it is presumed that the truth should be the main pillar of reconciliation. However, according to our empirical analysis of 146 reconciliation projects implemented in the period between 2002 and 2015, there are many interpretations of truths in the

The Turkish currency and debt crisis of 2018 brought the political economy of Islamic-neoliberalism in Turkey under scrutiny as it represents one of the most dynamic emerging economies in the perip...

ABSTRACT The paper analyses almost fifteen years of Croatian parliamentary debates and identifies a discourse of war legacies. Using the latest advancements in natural language processing, the paper utilizes models based on latent semantic analysis and discusses how politicians talk about war in terms of common narratives and shared frameworks. Using a complex vector representation of war-related concepts

ABSTRACT The study analyses ethnic voter-candidate linkages and the electoral consequences of such linkages in an ethnically divided Montenegrin society. I argue that vote choice in Montenegro is a function of the dominance of the identity cleavage between the two largest, dominant ethnicities: Montenegrins and Serbs. I conducted a two-stage experiment on a sample of 240 students where, in the first

ABSTRACT This study examines an understudied aspect of the Gezi protests: its long-term effects on the hegemonic politics of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government. Building on the insights of Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, and Stuart Hall on hegemonic struggles and populism, it contends that the Gezi protests forced the AKP to reformulate its hegemonic strategies

ABSTRACT Since the signing of the historic ‘Brussels Agreement’ on 19 April 2013 on the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and the Progressive Party have oscillated between competing tensions emanating from seeking membership in the European Union and those stemming from the retention of Kosovo, including the party’s uncompromising position on non-recognition

ABSTRACT Despite being a Muslim-majority society, Kosovo increasingly securitizes practising Muslims by politicizing the ostentatiously pious among them as a threat to Europe’s security and Kosovar identity. Given the EU’s significant discursive and political power in Kosovo, this article pursues the question of how European representatives conceive of pious Kosovar Muslims, and whether this image

ABSTRACT Based on a combination of national representative surveys and semi-structured interviews conducted in six Western Balkan countries, the study represents a pioneering attempt at a systematic, comparative analysis of Euroscepticism in the Western Balkans. By employing a theoretical framework that tests the effects of utilitarian, political and cultural factors, the study identifies and interprets

ABSTRACT President Erdoğan and the AKP government initiated a comprehensive restoration process immediately after the failed coup in mid-July 2016. In fact, the country has been experiencing a very comprehensive and violent regime transformation since this time. I assert that recent political developments paved the way for institutionalization of a ‘plebiscitary presidential regime’ that depends on

ABSTRACT Fifteen years have passed since the European Union launched the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Despite the EU’s attempts to reload the ENP, first in 2011 and later in 2015, in response to challenges in the neighbourhood, the ENP continues to suffer from a credibility-expectations gap. This article argues that understanding neighbour perceptions of the ENP offers useful insights about

ABSTRACT Three decades since the beginning of democratization processes, the Western Balkan countries have built a democratic façade by holding elections, by promulgating legal acts guaranteeing freedom of expression, or by constitutionally declaring a strict system of checks and balances. In reality, however, political elites rely on informal structures, clientelism, and control of the media to undermine

ABSTRACT Democracy is backsliding throughout Southeast Europe but there are no signs of full democratic breakdown. Instead, political parties and their leaders incrementally undermine challenges to governmental authority while keeping electoral contest largely intact. This article introduces a special issue that aims to examine and explain democratic decline by looking at the prevalence of illiberal

ABSTRACT The article concludes the Special Issue, Illiberal Politics in Southeast Europe, on the retreat of liberal democracy in the region. It focuses on the central themes that link all the papers together: free and fair elections, media freedom, judicial independence, privileged access to public resources and the role of civil society. It seeks to disentangle the causes and consequences of illiberal

ABSTRACT The present article is part of a broader effort to understand and analyse the relationship between formal and informal norms and institutions in the Balkans. Free and fair elections are a central component of any functioning democracy and, in the case of Albania, an essential element of its EU accession process. Elections can also be affected by political clientelism, which puts their outcomes’

ABSTRACT After 1999, democratization, normalization and Europeanization were the key processes through which Kosovo’s final political status was expected to take shape. All three processes, however, were guided by the stability paradigm. Though Kosovo cannot be categorized as a typical authoritarian state, its political leaders have openly displayed illiberal tendencies, governing in an unaccountable

ABSTRACT Croatia is regarded as a success story of the EU’s enlargement policy. However, this narrative conflicts with the situation on the ground and with expert surveys, which depict incremental, yet persistent democratic backsliding in recent years. A shift towards illiberal practices, primarily focused on the liberal part of the liberal-democratic nexus, is taking place. This research aims to explore

ABSTRACT This study investigates the strength of economic voting in Turkey under various types of governments. A vote equation developed for this purpose, which takes into account all of the key factors mentioned in the economic voting literature, shows that voters hold coalition governments less responsible for their economic performance than single-party governments and minor partners of a coalition

ABSTRACT The contribution assesses the role of the media in respect to democratization and EU accession in the countries of the Western Balkans (WB) and the development of press freedom over the long run. The author closely analyses the legislative framework and its implementation in practice and focuses in particular on the economic and political pressure on the media in the region. The article offers

ABSTRACT Montenegro is at the same time considered both a success story as the leader of European integration in South-Eastern Europe and a country with severe democratic deficiencies. This paper builds upon the theory of democratic backsliding and uses theory-building process tracing to detect and analyse systematic patterns in the illiberal policies that the governing party uses to maintain its position

something new about the WB countries that it cannot explain? The central message of the book is that the model is a good starting point for an enlargement policy for the WB but it has to be adapted to a new reality which appears to change the Europeanization itself (Chapter 2). In his chapter, Florian Bieber claims that the current approach to enlargement in the Balkans is too ahistorical. We cannot

ABSTRACT Incremental democratic decline is evident in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), but measures of democracy conceal an uneven subnational distribution of autocratization. So far there has been limited research on the drivers and constraints to subnational autocratization. This paper aims to contribute to the literature on power-sharing by exploring instances of illiberal politics enacted by parties

(2019). Humanism in ruins: entangled legacies of the Greek-Turkish population exchange. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 650-651.

ABSTRACT Some scholars argue that Turkish foreign policy has undergone a structural change since 2002. This shift in Turkey’s identity is primarily linked to the ascendancy of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) and its proactive foreign policy towards Turkey’s eastern neighbourhood. The change in Turkey’s identity and foreign policy is mostly intertwined with the Islamist

ABSTRACT This article examines the personalization of Turkish politics during Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s third term as prime minister. While many studies focus on the prime minister’s growing personal domination of the executive branch, we consider how leaders of the opposition reflected and reinforced that trend. To test our hypotheses on this ‘Erdoğanization,’ we employed a content analysis to consider

foreign intervention, advocating for more international support. This call appears to be in open contradiction with what the author maintained beforehand when openly criticizing the patronizing attitude of the international community and expressing mistrust on the efficacy of external actors – such as the US and the EU – in supporting change from below. Overall, Hunger and Fury offers an in-depth analysis

(2019). Re-writing international relations: history and theory beyond eurocentrism in Turkey. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 646-648.

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the underlying characteristics of Macedonian illiberal politics during the 11-year rule of the centre-right party VMRO-DPMNE (2006–2017) focusing on two aspects: institutional and symbolic. We argue that the unfair political competition was enabled by the weakness of pre-existing institutions and the population’s clientelist preferences, which were systematically exploited

ABSTRACT This paper aims to accomplish two goals. First, to present recent empirical evidence supporting the claim that Serbia is on the path towards embracing a more radical version of electoral authoritarianism. This is accomplished by examining most recent illiberal politics aimed at controlling electoral processes and the media sphere, and extracting public funds for partisan purposes. I claim

(2019). Talent abroad: a review of Romanian emigrants. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies: Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 648-650.

ABSTRACT This paper provides a comparative analysis of social movements’ characteristics and capacities to struggle against illiberal tendencies and incite political change in Serbia and North Macedonia. First, we discuss the illiberal elements of political regimes in the countries in question, Serbia and North Macedonia. Then, we provide a comprehensive overview of progressive social movements in