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Serbia is still widely thought of as an unfinished state, whose people struggle to establish a compelling identity narrative in answer to the question 'who are we?'. While existing literature has over-analyzed Serbian nationalism, the Serbian public sphere remains largely ignored. This engaging and timely book fills this gap by giving context to the persistent and overwhelming dialogue between opposing factions on the identity spectrum in Serbia. Omaljev's focus on elite discourses provides a fresh perspective on this contentious subject. It offers an original understanding of the competing arguments surrounding 'First' and 'Other' Serbia and of the contested visions of Serbian national iden...
This volume examines and evaluates the impact of international statebuilding interventions on the political economy of post-conflict countries over the past 20 years. While statebuilding today is typically discussed in the context ofpeacebuilding and ‘stabilisation operations, the current phase of interest in external interventions to (re)build and strengthen governmental institutions can be traced back to thegood governance policies of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in the early 1990s. These sought political changes and improvements in the quality of governance in countries that were subject to, or were seeking support under, IFI-designed structural adjustment programmes....
At a time when some EU member states are attracting attention for the rise to power of illiberal, anti-democratic political movements, this book’s analytical focus on ideas and identities helps explain why institutional progress is not necessarily reflected in the formation of liberal, democratic publics. Starting from the premise that citizens can only uphold the institutions of liberal democracy when they understand and identify with the principles enshrined in them, the author applies normative public sphere theory to the analysis of political discourse and everyday discussion in Serbia and Bulgaria. From this perspective, the Serbian public sphere is observed to be more contested, plur...
'An eerily familiar reflection of our current moment ... It continues to haunt me' NATASHA BROWN, I PAPER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'I will go wherever she takes me. A phenomenal book' DAISY JOHNSON 'A brilliant, scalding novel ... sharp, intricately layered, impossible to forget' MEGAN HUNTER 'Stunning ... beautifully written and deeply unsettling' BOOKSELLER, EDITOR'S CHOICE CHOSEN AS A 2021 BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR BY OBSERVER, INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES, EVENING STANDARD, GRAZIA, STYLIST, ELLE THE NATIONAL, FIVE BOOKS AND BURO A couple drive from London to coastal Provence. Anya is preoccupied with what she feels is a relationship on the verge; unequal, precarious. Luke, reserved, stoic, gives awa...
Contemporary European Playwrights presents and discusses a range of key writers that have radically reshaped European theatre by finding new ways to express the changing nature of the continent’s society and culture, and whose work is still in dialogue with Europe today. Traversing borders and languages, this volume offers a fresh approach to analyzing plays in production by some of the most widely-performed European playwrights, assessing how their work has revealed new meanings and theatrical possibilities as they move across the continent, building an unprecedented picture of the contemporary European repertoire. With chapters by leading scholars and contributions by the writers themselves, the chapters bring playwrights together to examine their work as part of a network and genealogy of writing, examining how these plays embody and interrogate the nature of contemporary Europe. Written for students and scholars of European theatre and playwriting, this book will leave the reader with an understanding of the shifting relationships between the subsidized and commercial, the alternative and the mainstream stage, and political stakes of playmaking in European theatre since 1989.
The life stories of Roma Pentecostals in Croatia and Serbia reveal both significant hardship and resilience, which notably impacts how they incorporate a Pentecostal identity and the ways in which they transform their daily lives in accordance with Pentecostal theology.
National history has once again become a battlefield. In internal political conflicts, which are fought on the terrain of popular culture, museums, schoolbooks, and memorial politics, it has taken on a newly important and contested role. Irrespective of national specifics, the narratives of new nationalism are quite similar everywhere. National history is said to stretch back many centuries, expressesing the historical continuity of a homogeneous people and its timeless character. This people struggles for independence, guided by towering leaders and inspired by the sacrifice of martyrs. Unlike earlier forms of nationalism, the main enemies are no longer neighbouring states, but internationa...
This is a comprehensive overview of contemporary European theatre and performance as it enters the third decade of the twenty-first century. It combines critical discussions of key concepts, practitioners, and trends within theatre-making, both in particular countries and across borders, that are shaping European stage practice. With the geography, geopolitics, and cultural politics of Europe more unsettled than at any point in recent memory, this book’s combination of national and thematic coverage offers a balanced understanding of the continent’s theatre and performance cultures. Employing a range of methodologies and critical approaches across its three parts and ninety-four chapters...
This book develops a novel way of thinking about crises in world politics. By building on ontological security theory, this work conceptualises critical situations as radical disjunctions that challenge the ability of collective agents to ‘go on’. These ontological crises bring into the realm of discursive consciousness four fundamental questions related to existence, finitude, relations and autobiography. In times of crisis, collective agents such as states are particularly attached to their ontic spaces, or spatial extensions of the self that cause collective identities to appear more firm and continuous. These theoretical arguments are illustrated in a case study looking at Serbia’s anxiety over the secession of Kosovo. The author argues that Serbia’s seemingly irrational and self-harming policy vis-à-vis Kosovo can be understood as a form of ontological self-help. It is a rational pursuit of biographical continuity and a healthy sense of self in the face of an ontological crisis triggered by the secession of a province that has been constructed as the ontic space of the Serbian nation since the late 19th century.
This volume casts a fresh look on how the political spaces of the Western Balkan states (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania) are shaped, governed and transformed during the EU accession process. The contributors argue that EU conditionality in the Western Balkans does not work ‘effectively’ in terms of social change because rule transfer remains a ‘contested’ business, due to veto-players on the ground and strong legacies of the past. The volume examines specific policy areas, salient in the enlargement process and to a different degree incorporated in the accession criteria, as well as EU foreign policy in the spheres of post-conflict stabilisation, democratization and the rule of law promotion.