Editor's note

Dear Reader, welcome to the Contemporary Southeastern Europe! This peer-reviewed journal (DOAJ, CEEOL, Scopus) is published as an open-access academic journal, by the Centre for Southeast European Studies. We are firmly committed to the highest standards of academic publishing, including rigorous, double-blind, peer review and making research available, free of charge, to an interested audience. As subscription costs rise and many libraries have to save resources, we are committed to making high quality research available for researchers without cost.

Research Articles

From economic remittances to societal transmittances: Experiences from the European Union

By: 
  • Ludger Pries
Analysis and debates on remittances concentrate on sending money from the Global North to the Global South. Here we deepen the aspects of social remittances and propose a broader view on transmittances as bi-directional and multi-dimensional flows in the context of migration taking Europe as a region less taken into account in these debates. The effects of remittances have to be analyzed in the overall context of historical conditions, economic and demographic cycles and transnational societal textures between the regions under consideration. We take the example of the accession of Poland and of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU and show the usefulness of an extended perspective on transmittances, that is, taking into account the multifaceted bidirectional impacts of migration. Some conclusions on desiderata for further research are drawn.

Election Analyses

The 2022 Elections in Bulgaria: Another Dead-end Street

By: 
  • Emilia Zankina
In October 2022, Bulgarian voters went to the polls for the fourth time in 18 months. The elections produced a fragmented parliament unable to agree on a coalition government and new early elections are scheduled for April 2023. In fact, only one of the previous four elections resulted in a government which stayed in power for seven short months. For the rest of the time since April 2021, Bulgaria has had a series of caretaker governments appointed by the president, a scenario that will continue at least until April 2023.

Event Analyses

Licence plates to kill?

By: 
  • Frauke M. Seebass
On 9 September 2021, the government of Kosovo announced that it would not renew an interim agreement with Serbia on the use of licence plates bearing the status-neutral acronym “KS” for Kosovo, instead of the official “RKS” for Republic of Kosovo implying legal sovereignty. The deal dates back to an agreement between Belgrade and Prishtina on Freedom of Movement from 2011 and was renewed in 2016 for another five years, at which point it was to be reviewed by the two parties. However, no such negotiations took place, and the government around prime minister of Kosovo Albin Kurti from the Self-Determination Movement party (Lëvizja Vetëvendosje, LVV) decided to create reciprocity based on the fact that since 2011, drivers of cars with “RKS” plates had to purchase temporary plates when entering Serbia.

Conceptual Analyses

Book Review Analyses

Building State Failure in Kosovo?

By: 
  • Joseph Coelho
Two recent books on Kosovo offer some compelling insights and answers as to why international state-builders stumbled in Kosovo: Elton Skendaj’s, Creating Kosovo: International Oversight and the Making of Ethical Institutions and Andrea Lorenzo Capussela’s State-Building in Kosovo: Democracy, Corruption and the EU in the Balkans. Both books are welcome additions to the growing discourse on state-building and touch on some of the more important themes that have recently dominated the literature, including the principle of local ownership, the limitations of technocratic approaches to state-building, and the dilemmas of political corruption and state capture in postwar societies.