Extending the European Security Community: Constructing Peace in the Balkans

First and foremost, this is a book about the Balkans - that is, the following pages are an inquiry into the perspectives, the prospects, and the perplexity of the region. At the same time, this is a book about the patterns of international life since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the analytical frameworks that have been promoted for the explanation and understanding of international life. As the epigraph prefacing this chapter suggests it is not uncommon that thinking about the Balkans vacillates between the perceptions and the substance of regional patterns. Thus, while many of the debates on the Balkan trends since the end of the Cold War were primarily aimed at making empirical contribution, this book addresses the need both to systematize the knowledge produced on the experience of the region and, thereby, to provide theoretically-informed observations. In this respect, this volume is simultaneously about the place of the Balkans in world politics and the way international affairs affect the Balkans. At the same time, it is also a book about the place of the Balkans - both actual and appropriate - in the study of world affairs.