Back to the Future

Download or read book Back to the Future written by Liridona Veliu Ashiku and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this thesis is to explore how 'balkanization' underpins policies of the EU and NATO towards the (Western) Balkans. As a discourse which mediates between the Euro-Atlantic processes of the (Western) Balkans as foreign policy on one hand and the identity of the (Western) Balkans on the other, 'balkanization' constructs a disintegrated (Western) Balkan 'other' who stands juxtapositionally to the Western 'self'. By asking the central question - How does 'balkanization' shape the Euro-Atlantic processes of the (Western) Balkans, and vice versa? - this thesis expands on an understanding of EU and NATO policies towards the (Western) Balkans as shaping and being shaped by ideas of 'selves' and 'others'. This dissertation relies on a poststructuralist theory and method of identity and foreign policy for bringing out the empirical complexity of identity construction. It presents with an analysis of texts from the West and the (Western) Balkans. Though the main period under study covers post-Yugoslav events from (North) Macedonia's independence in 1991 to its change of name in 2018, the discourse is traced genealogically back to its World War I roots, showing in this way how current Euro-Atlantic processes are underpinned by older articulations of identity. The analysis focuses on two (Western) Balkan countries: (North) Macedonia and Serbia. This dissertation shows how EU and NATO policies towards the (Western) Balkans being underpinned by 'balkanization' have emerged from and led to the constant reinvention of the unity of the West through 'balkanizing' the (Western) Balkans. The study further illustrates how this dynamic is maintained by and instrumentalized for the political elites. It argues that the Euro-Atlantic processes of the (Western) Balkans though seemingly aimed at uprooting them from their shameful past into a brighter future within the EU and NATO, instead trap the (Western) Balkans into old articulations of their identity as 'balkanized' for this serves the united West and the political elites.