by Evangelos Aretaios

Lights turn off and silence spreads. Only the big plastic palm trees in the background of the podium are highlighted by strong projectors. Then, three whirling dervishes appear while the sound of “Allah u ekber” (Allah is Great) spreads through the loudspeakers.

by Yannis Piliouris

The term public diplomacy has attracted lots of attention in recent years. As once smartly put, it is about an old wine in a new bottle¹, an old practice favored nowadays by the expansion of communications instruments and the democratization of information. The term was first used in 1965 by Edmund Guillon, and it concerns the pursuit of certain foreign policy objectives by dealing directly with the people of foreign countries, using modern instruments.

Oguz Demiralp interviewed by Eleni Fotiou

Ambassador a was born in Istanbul on  22 January 1952.
After he graduated from Istanbul Saint Joseph High School in 1971 and from METU in 1976 he has served as a diplomat in various positions as Director of Actual Political issues , OSCE and Disarmament in the Department of Policy planning, Consular of Turkish Permanent Representation to the Office of UN in Geneva, Deputy Permanent Representative of Turkey before  European Council,...read more »

by Ioannis Armakolas

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has in its 60-year history seen several successful rounds of enlargement. In the post-cold war era, NATO enlargement could for some time be seen as an unproblematic endeavor. It was quicker than the process of EU enlargement and required fewer and more easily accomplished reforms. But after 2004, when, among others, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia were brought in, further NATO enlargement became more complicated. NATO...read more »

by Julian Memetaj

It is often asserted that Ottoman Empire legacies and communist regime policies had profoundly weakened the institutions and administrative capacity of Albania. In 1912, Baron d’Estournelles thought that Ottoman-ruled Albania was “more widely separated from Europe than Europe from America.” Notwithstanding this, nowadays the democratic forces risen from the “ashes” of the old regime have considerably overlapped the trap of historical d...read more »

by Ilir Deda

Ten years ago, on the eve of its 50th anniversary, NATO conducted an air campaign against Serbia (then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FRY) to end crimes against humanity, and the war in Kosovo. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo marked the introduction of the doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” in international affairs. Ten years ago, at the Washington Summit, NATO adopted a new strategy concept envisaging NATO intervention “out of area&rdquo...read more »

by Senada Selo Sabic

Since the year 2000, when it joined the Partnership for Peace (PfP), and since 2002, when it joined the Membership Action Program, Croatia has undertaken a series of critical steps to reform its military and bring it in line with NATO standards. The military structure formed in the war proved inappropriate for the country’s security needs in peacetime as well as for its new role on the regional and international levels. The need for deep structural reforms...read more »

 by Damir Hadzic

Some memories fade with time. Not this one. What just a few minutes ago sounded like distant thunder is now the distinct sound of explosions. In the midst of the war, the Bosnian Army and Croatian Defense Council are fighting with the Republika Srpska Army for the control of a near-empty city. Villages around town are almost all destroyed, with scores of people killed or forced to leave. We take our positions in near darkness behind the burned shell of a former...read more »

by Boris Georgievski

It’s been almost a year since the last NATO summit in Bucharest. Three Balkan nations were eagerly awaiting the verdicts from the Romanian capital on April 3 of last year. All of them had invested a lot in the “project” called NATO membership. Eighteen years have passed since the fall of communism in Croatia, Macedonia and Albania, in which years those three nations have made a somewhat successful transition from civil war and chaos into more o...read more »

by Darko Ninkov

During the previous years, the European Union (EU) has been for the region of Western Balkans (WB) an idea of right direction for their transition processes, a model they chose to orientate to, a perspective of better life and a vision of way of solving problems.

by Nedjeljko Rudovic

Podgorica – The Montenegrin government is resolute in its intention for Montenegrin entrance into the NATO alliance as soon as possible. But in the last half-year, Montenegro has more often been confronted with NATO officials’ warnings that this wish must be supported by a high percentage of the Montenegrin public.

by Jelena Radoman

Serbia stands as a distinguishing exception among the other Western Balkan states when it comes to relations with NATO. Unlike Croatia and Albania, which have been invited to join the alliance, Macedonia, which failed to receive the same invitation due to its name dispute with Greece, and unlike Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have clearly stipulated that achieving full membership in the alliance is among their top priorities, NATO membership is not on...read more »

Lately, both Greece and Turkey are suffering from their own respective domestic crises: Greece was shaken by violence and demonstrations in its capital and other major cities against not only state institutions like the police but also against wider mainstream politics, while Turkey has been faced with rounds of conflict over the ideological foundations of its state and the role of religion within the public sphere. While the two crises might not have much in common, they do alert us to the fa

In this book, Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, examines the impact of improving EU-Turkey relations on Turkish political culture since Turkey became a candidate for EU membership in 1999. While a multi-party political system was introduced in Turkey in 1946, political liberalism was the missing part of Turkey’s democratic consolidation. Turkish political culture valued submissiveness toward state authority and did not favor citizen participation. This study evaluates the impact that Turkey’

SEESOX/Alpha Bank Fellowship on the Political Economy of South East Europe

Following a donation from Alpha Bank, Greece, we are pleased to announce a Visiting Fellowship for 2009-10.

We seek a candidate who will undertake research on the political economy of SE Europe, in one of the following indicative areas: post-communist political, economic and/or social developments; foreign direct investment in the region; reform and European integration; developments in transport, energy, migratio