Europeanizing the Balkans: Rethinking the Post-communist and Post-conflict Transition

Abstract

This paper argues that the post-communist and post-conflict transition of the Balkans requires a methodological shift in line with globalization, which shapes political and economic transformation from within through transnational networks. As a specially tailored mechanism leading to the accession of the Balkans into the European Union, the Stabilization and Association Process (SAp) sets the framework for political and economic transformation of the region. The paper posits that the weakness of the EU's approach derives from the fact that it is informed by the dominant transition paradigm, which marginalizes the impact of globalization, and specifically the role of transnational actors. The paper provides a critique of the transition literature and its explanatory potential to account for the post-conflict and post-communist transition in the Balkans. It goes on to examine the Balkan transnational space and the role of transnational actors in the process of transition as an important additional explanation, while taking into account a double legacy: the domestic legacy, inherited from communism, and the transnational and post-communist legacy acquired during the conflict. It advances an argument that a weak state offers us a conceptual nexus for the study of democratic transition in the Balkans in the global age. We demonstrate that transnational networks benefit from a weak state and perpetuate the very weakness that sustains them. At the same time, these networks exploit multi-ethnicity and stir ethnic tensions, lest stabilization should limit their scope for action. As a result, state- and nation building appear as mutually enfeebling rather than reinforcing, thus subverting the existing EU mechanisms.

Notes

1. Macedonia will be used in the continuation of the text as an abbreviated form of ‘the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’.

2. The debate was fired up by the exchange between Valerie Bunce and Terry Lynn Karl and Phillippe C. Schmitter in the Slavic Review (Bunce 1995a; Karl & Schmitter 1995; Bunce 1995b; cf. Bova, 1991; Fish, 1999; Pridham, 1994; Nodia, 1996; Munck, 1997).

3. While regular interactions across national boundaries comprise the essence of transnational relations, we conceptualize transnationalism broadly so as to encompass trans-societal and trans-governmental relations (Risse-Kappen, 1995).

4. Compare Linz & Stepan (1996) and Huntington (1991) with Stark & Bruszt (1998); Bunce (1999); Fish (1998); Verdery (1996).

5. The geography of the region, positioned on the crossroads between developed Europe and destitute zones to the far east, and the upheaval caused by the war and sanctions, were important contributing factors to explain the illicit flows of people and goods.

6. Often these were non-governmental organizations with a broader agenda than officially professed, or legally established foreign offices of local states, e.g. some of the embassies of Bosnia-Herzegovina were used for illicit transfers of money destined towards funding the war.

7. Sapir (2000) defines this process as ‘economic criminalization’.

8. All types of state structures directly or indirectly became a part of this ‘criminal enterprise’: security forces, customs officers, bureaucrats, high-ranking politicians and members of government.

9. Balkan transition has been characterized by a sharp and prolonged output decline, so that trade rather than production became the main economic activity. Chavdarova (2001) describes how the shift from work to transactions is conducive to the spread of informal economic practice.

10. Commenting on the importance of understanding the transnational context in which contemporary wars take place, Nordstrom (2004, p. 150) makes the point that there are many actors implicated in the “fortunes of political instability”.

11. Andreas (2004) identifies clandestine trade as an arena of ethnic cooperation and conflict.

12. These links were not entirely new; while small-scale and isolated before the conflict, they became ubiquitous in the course of the war. Duffield has argued that the war is “an axis around which social, economic and political relations are measured and reshaped to establish new forms of agency and legitimacy” (2001, p. 136).

13. Recent research shows that, in terms of GDP per head in purchasing power parity (PPP), the position of a number of countries in the region has deteriorated compared with the EU15 in 1910–2004 (cf. Kekic, 2005).

14. This holds true for both types of actors: those with an informal/criminal slant and others such as service-delivery NGOs, which took over the provision of some of the services normally provided by the state.

15. The outcome of Croatian elections has at times been determined by the diaspora vote.

16. Funding from the Croatian state to Bosnian Croat structures extended informally during 2000; from then on much smaller amounts were redirected through the Bosnian Federation government structures. Funding from Croat diasporas continues, with initiatives promoting the goal of Bosnian Croat autonomy.

17. The provision of services by international non-governmental organizations can have a similar effect.

18. This then provides a direct route through which organized crime becomes an actor influencing local processes.

19. The reasons for the poor effectiveness of some internationally sponsored schemes are organizational issues, inadequate funding and, in the case of development assistance, corruption.

20. Organized crime also flourishes in a strongly interventionist state.

21. Not even Albania which, despite bouts of violence, escaped a full scale conflict, has been safe from it.

22. Severing the links with organized crime has been daunting, even when attempted under international pressure. This was illustrated by the assassination of Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Dindjić, killed because he was attempting to clamp down on organized crime.