When a State Seeks a Nation and a Nation Seeks a State – EU Accession in the Foreign Policies of Montenegro and Serbia

ABSTRACT

This article examines the foreign policy of two of the post-Yugoslav states – Montenegro and Serbia. The two countries shape their external relations through attempts to balance domestic ethno-political compounds with their aspirations to become member states of the European Union (EU). The main question of the article is to what extent their respective national identities pose an obstacle to the Montenegrin and Serbian foreign policy vis-à-vis the EU. By making use of Hansen and Waever’s identity theory, we examine the different roots and manifestations of the state-nation constellation in the two countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Serbia
• Montenegro
• EU
• foreign policy
• state-nation

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Correction

Acknowledgements

Authors are grateful to Soeren Keil and the anonymous reviewers for guidance and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2023.2215190)

Notes

1 We use the term ‘post-Yugoslav space’ to refer to the politics and societies of the countries that have been established after the multiple breakups of the former Yugoslavia.

2 According to the 2011 census (Monstat 2011), the ethnic composite in Montenegro is: Montenegrins (45 per cent), Serbs (28.7 per cent), Bosniaks (8.6 per cent), Albanians (4.9 per cent), Muslims (3.3 per cent), Croats (1 per cent), and Roma (0.3 per cent).

3 Ethnic minorities and the pro-independence Liberal Alliance of Montenegro (LSCG) boycotted the referendum.

4 The Survey was conducted by IPSOS on behalf of the University of Oslo and University of Rijeka, under the auspices of the project ‘Symbolic Nation-building in the Western Balkans’ funded by the Norwegian Research Council, from 31 August to 18 September 2011.

5 The Parliament of Montenegro approved NATO accession in April 2017. Montenegro became a NATO member officially in June 2017.

6 The powerful head of the secret police (UDBa) of Serb origin – Aleksandar Ranković – championed centralization efforts and exercised full control over the Communist party and the entire state bureaucracy (Rusinow 1978, 189).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jelena Džankić

Jelena Dzankic is Part-Time Professor in the Global Governance Programme at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, where she is Co-Director of the Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT). Her research interests include citizenship acquisition and loss, wealth-based migration and new mobilities, Europeanization and state-building.

Mladen Rudi Mladenov

Mladen Mladenov is a PhD student at the University of Passau. His research is focused on Serbian foreign policy and Europeanization in SEE countries.

Bernhard Stahl

Bernhard Stahl is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Passau. He has also worked as a professor for of European Integration in Serbia on behalf of the German Economic Cooperation. His main research interests lie in the fields of comparative European foreign policy, EU foreign policy (especially vis-à-vis SEE), and identity theory.