When a country is going through deep systemic changes in its political, economic, and ideological makeup, its (inter)dependence on the international environment may intensify greatly. This took place in almost all post-communist countries 25 years ago. The need to use internationally established models in systems which are only beginning to develop political pluralism and democracy, as well as solutions for functioning rule of law, and overall opening up of society, which is accompanied by the ideal of freedom, have led to a conscious openness to external influence.
The articles compiled for this edition of Perspectives bring together different accounts of current challenges for international intervention in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia1, and Serbia.
1This edition of Perspectives was published before the Prespa Agreement
Over the course of 2015, an estimated 1.5 million people – the bulk of them refugees from Syria – made their way from Greece to Western Europe via the Balkan route. The shift to this previously marginal route for irregular entry of refugees and migrants into the EU led to the collapse of the EU’s external border in the Aegean and turned the long-standing problem of the EU’s deficient common asylum policy, which disproportionately affected the southern member states, into a full-fledged crisis.
