This original, fast-paced tale catapults us into the seedy underworld of a country whose violent past still echoes into a fractured present. "Prisoners" meets "The Deer Hunter."

This original, fast-paced tale catapults us into the seedy underworld of a country whose violent past still echoes into a fractured present. "Prisoners" meets "The Deer Hunter."

The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s ended the Yugoslavian Federation, which for nearly fifty years had succeeded in preserving a delicate coexistence among the ethnic, religious, and national components contained within it. Following this, the Balkans became a violent arena of confrontation due to these warring factions. Islamic Terror and the Balkans describes and analyzes the growth of radical Islam in the Balkans from its inception during the years of World War II to the present. Shay's account shows how the Bosnian War between the Muslims and the Serbs provided the historical opportunity for radical Islam to penetrate the Balkans, at a time when the Muslim world, headed by Iran and the various Islamic terror organizations, including Al-Qaida, came to the aid of the Muslims in Bosnia. In the framework of the mobilization of these entities in aiding the Muslim side in the conflict, the operational and organizational infrastructure of Iranian intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards was established, as well as those operated by other Islamic terror organizations. When war in Bosnia ended, terrorist infrastructures remained in the Balkans and served as a basis for these entities' intervention in the confrontation that developed in the Balkans in the late-1990s, specifically in Kosovo and Macedonia. Today, the Balkans serve as a forefront on European soil for Islamic terror organizations, which exploits this area to promote their activities in Western Europe, Russia, and other focal points worldwide. Shay's analysis of terror activity in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and exposure of terror cells throughout the world, and particularly in Europe, attest to the increasing involvement of the "Balkan alumni" and of the terrorist infrastructure from this area in creating global terror activity.

Noemi Marin analyzes famous writers from the area as critical intellectuals and exiles in order to explore the role of rhetoric and identity in writers' own experiences during the long history of communism. Along with examinations of discursive relationships among power, culture and resistance in works by George Konrad, Andrei Codrescu, and Siavenka Drakulic before and after the fall of communism, Marin proposes specific dimensions for a rhetoric of exile pertinent to communist Eastern and Central Europe. After the Fall shows how critical works on identity, culture, and communist history by the writers studied aid in reconstituting a rhetoric of dissidence, identity, and legitimation in the public discourse of a changing Europe. The book offers a unique perspective on the complex contexts of political transition, in which competing public discourse on freedom and democracy intersect with totalitarian regimes, unsettled societies, and issues of resistance.

This book provides a detailed understanding of how different types of engagements impact upon the reform and EU integration of the Western Balkan region. It examines the influence of Russia, China, Turkey and the UAE in the region and analyses the range of existing links. Contributors offer an academic and multifaceted perspective of the role of external and non-Western actors in the region that goes beyond, on the one hand, the tendency of some Western decision makers to perceive all engagement by third powers as a sinister threat and, on the other, the view of regional governments of all external involvement as a boon coming at a time of Western neglect and reduced foreign investments. By looking at the importance of Russia, Turkey, China and the UAE in the Western Balkans, the book sheds light on one key arena of global competition, offers new insights on the strengths and weaknesses of Euro–Atlantic integration and advances our knowledge of foreign policy and its economic, social and security dimensions for small and medium-sized countries. It will be of interest to academics, postgraduate and research students, and think-tankers with research interest in IR and Southeast European Studies. European decision makers will also gain an insight into the extent of non-Western influence in the region.

The overall character of the Black Sea region has been defined over time in various ways. For specialists in economy and trade, it has represented a region at the crossroads of the trade routes between Europe and Asia; for political scientists and historians, it has been a space of confrontation between the great terrestrial and naval powers; for the scholars attentive to its cultural dimensions, it has been a contact zone, a space of interaction between different peoples, religions and cultures. These attempts at a definition all revolve around an essential (and ambivalent) feature of the Black Sea as a factor of connection, a bridge, and at the same time a border, a dividing line between Europe and Asia, between the Baltic and the Mediterranean region. In this fluctuation between the two, the predominance of one over the other (“bridge” or “border”) has depended on a number of factors, first among them the distribution of power relations in the region. This volume, which originated in a symposium hosted by the New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest, brings together contributions coming from scholars within the Black Sea region and outside it, in an attempt to look at the Balkans and Caucasus from a comparative and multi-disciplinary perspective, highlighting their differences, as well as their common features. The overarching question this volume and the papers included in it address – and leave open – is to what extent we are dealing with a coherent zone, whose past, present and future can legitimately be considered as being traversed by meaningful interrelations, suggesting a shared destiny.

Balkan Propaganda Wars provides an historical, political, and propagandistic perspective of the volatile situation that exists in the Balkans. The book reviews the historical background of the Balkan people--especially those belonging to the former Yugoslavia--from Antiquity through the troubled centuries of the Middle Ages, and continuing with the birth of the modern Balkan states in the 19th century and the more recent political and military evolutions during the 20th century. For each period, the role of propaganda is underlined and examined. The unbiased background the book supplies will allow users to gain an impartial perspective on events such as the Yugoslav War, the Kosovo War, ethnic cleansing, and the large population shifts these events brought about. UN and NATO informational performances in Bosnia and Kosovo are deeply scrutinized and compared during UNPROFOR, IFOR, SFOR, and KFOR missions. The resulting information war between NATO and Yugoslavia are also presented and analyzed. For scholars, historians, journalists, and anyone else who wishes to understand how to see through the information they are presented on war, Balkan Propaganda Wars will prove invaluable.

The situation in the Balkans, such as the solution to the status of Kosovo, is currently the largest international political problem in Europe, with the potential to burst into a world crisis regarding the Eastern - Western relations. On the other hand, a successful solution to the problem in the Balkans could serve as a model for solving the Muslim - Christian tensions elsewhere in the world. It is the intention of this book to contribute proposals for solutions to the problems of Balkans. The starting principle for the solutions to be effective is that they should come in a natural way from the people below and should not be enforced by the political elites from above. Based on self-determination of nations as a starting principle, they should encourage intra-regional cooperation among the regional entities (economic, cultural, sport, as a basis for political, social understanding and cooperation); secondly, accelerate their economic, political and social development and thirdly, as a final step enable the inclusion of the Balkan countries into the European Union.

Since the end of the Cold War there have been a number of cases where the democratization process has been turbulent, or even violent. Addressing electoral violence, its evolution and impact in the Western Balkans, this book explores the conflict logic of election and tries to understand its basic patterns. Two decades of electoral competition in the region are analysed to identify an interesting evolution of electoral violence in terms of forms, actors, motivations and dynamics. By identifying the potential drivers of electoral violence and explaining the escalation and stimulus of violence-related events, the author combines a theoretical approach with original data to emphasise the variability of the phenomenon and its evolution in the region. The book will appeal to students and scholars of post-communist Europe and democratisation processes and the Western Balkans in particular. It should also be of interest to political advisors and those involved in developing or implementing democratisation programmes.

This book considers the sensitive heritage elements linked to the very issue of the origins of nations. Beliefs, rituals, and traditional knowledge are examples of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), which communities globally regard as the core of their cultural identity. When it is unclear which element of heritage “belongs” to whom, like in the Western Balkans, where the majority of heritage elements are shared, ICH disputes exacerbate conflict. Its mishandling is especially acute when minority heritage is excluded from governmental cultural policies. With a focus on Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro, this book has a global thematic scope, theoretical depth, and policy relevance to the scholars of anthropology and heritage studies as well as to those interested in cultural diversity, human rights, and cultural and educational policies. It will serve as a guide for those who professionally use cultural heritage, or want to start doing so, in the processes of reconciliation, stabilization, and development.