Publications

Politics around Europe are becoming one-men (rarely women) shows. From the likes of Orban and Janša to Vučić and Đukanović – the political influence seems to be vested deeply in the capacities and wills of an individual. Trends like personalization are addressed as attributes to politics and rarely as stand-alone phenomena. Personalization of politics is one of those phenomena that are an increasing attribute to political parties and politics worldwide. Still, at the same time, it is profoundly affecting the very idea of balance of power and endangering democratic concepts.

Third edition of Political Trends and Dynamics and the last one in 2021 offers insights on diplomacy in Southeast Europe – one of the critical tools in state arsenal for navigating through the international arena, for better or for worse. In this edition, we consulted former foreign ministers and diplomats to assess the battles won and ongoing when it comes to practices of diplomacy in the region, with a particular focus on the Western Balkans, three decades after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and in the face of reemerging security crises.

Nine countries, one region: a first-of-its-kind political economy study on the barriers to an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable energy transition in SEE and how to overcome them. The study offers understanding of the interplay of private and public interest in energy, and highlights the lack of political courage to tackle mine closure and just transition. Focusing on transposing and implementing EU rules affecting the energy sector, the authors give dommendable actions for a bottom-up and top-down approach, strengthening the overall rule of law and benefiting from the regional synergies and cooperation.

Second edition of Political Trends and Dynamics for 2021 focuses on security politics in the Western Balkans, against the backdrop of arms trafficking and recent security developments. Two decades after the wars of the 1990s, there seem to be two distinct, and paradoxical trends, circulating the region.

On the one hand, security concerns are still regularly permeating the political discourse, stoked by increased violence, following Russia´s invasion of Ukraine, as well as nationalist movements and the criminal underground. From auxiliary police forces to massive increase in sizes of regular armed forces and their arsenals, the Western Balkans are arguably undergoing an arms race. On the other, despite the legacies of the conflicts, or…

The energy transition in North Macedonia must inevitably follow the path of the EU’s Clean Energy for all Europeans package.On this path, it is our responsibility to respect the techno-economic specificities of existing energy systems and to achieve a transition that ultimately benefits society.

Marking International Women's History Month, Political Trends and Dynamics newsletter brings to the fore the phenomenon of women as emerging leaders in the regional sustainable energy sector. While Southeast Europe largely remains inefficient in tackling energy transition, and with an already visible toll of climate change, one of the most prominent exceptions to the unspoken rule of disengagement is women.

The current covid-19 pandemic, as ‘an hour of the executive’, offers an unprecedented opportunity to elected incumbents for a power grab and erosion of checks and balances. We have been witnessing a curtailing of civil and political rights on a massive scale, which is unprecedented in peacetime, accompanied by the adoption of new laws and measures that vested extra powers in the executive. There remains the danger that the COVID-19 crisis will make the already fragile democracies in Southeast Europe even less resilient and more susceptible to executive takeovers.

The Coronavirus crisis has laid bare both the strengths as well as the weaknesses of political systems, democratic institutions and the political parties throughout the region, mirroring the real state of democracy on the ground. The already weakened democratic institutions have deteriorated even further, and the fragile checks and balances systems have demonstrated their inefficiency in practice. Political leaders rarely managed to resist the temptation to use the unprecedented opportunity of power up for grabs, misusing restrictive measures as a convenient instrument to strengthen the position of government and weaken political opposition.