What do Kosovo’s Election Results Mean for Inter-ethnic Relations, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice?
The results of last Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Kosovo have been hailed in local, regional, and international media as a turning point. Being the first post-independence elections in which former UÇK (Kosovo…
Haradinaj’s Resignation 2.0: The Continued Politicisation of Transitional Justice in Kosovo
While Ramush Haradinaj’s resignation as Kosovo Prime Minister sparked dramatic reactions, and ignited speculation about political ramifications, these latest developments highlight continuity more than change. The continuing influence of UÇK (Kosovo Liberation…
Serbia’s Orthodox Far-Right Increases its Visibility — and Adaptability — with Protests
There is something rotten in the state of Serbia. The on-going anti-government protests, which began on November 30th, 2018, are manifestations of major dissatisfaction with the rule of President Aleksandar Vučić. The…
Beyond Balkanism
Beyond Balkanism: The Scholarly Politics of Region Making By Diana Mishkova Routledge, 282 pp., £115, July 2018, 9780815376705 In 1998, Maria Todorova opened her seminal work, Imagining the Balkans, by asserting…
Sarajevo’s Cities: Being ‘We’ in Bosnia
Sarajevo has always been a remarkable place, in at least the sense of being worth a remark; not always for desirable reasons it must be said, although its beauty and hospitality have…
Memory of Wounds: Refugee Reflections Two Decades Later
The life of a refugee is counted in moments. Never knowing what tomorrow will bring. In the above photo are my people – the refugees – at the front of the factory…
The Arc of Kosovo
When I reflect on it, in one way or another, Kosovo has always been a part of my life. This was so from my earliest days growing up in an immigrant Serb…
Moldova’s Political Crisis: A Problem of the EU’s Own Making
On Moldova’s current crisis, the EU’s role in facilitating its state capture, oligarchs, and the country’s competing pro-EU political forces. Out on the distant fringe of the Balkans, The Republic of…
Aleksandar Vučić, the Director of Serbia’s Political Theater of the Surreal
Regime-organized rallies, fake analysts and experts, fake PhDs, and a tabloid-mediated alternate reality: Welcome to Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbia. ‘Disunity’ is the term that best describes Serbian society today. Under the authoritarian…
From Tradition to Art: Albanian Dowry Practices Adapt to the 21st Century
Among Albanians, it is tradition that when a woman is to be married, she must construct her dowry (Albanian: çejz, pronounced CH-aze). Taking the form of an exhibition that is supposed to…