Building upon the previous Regional Cooperation in South East Europe and Beyond: Challenges and Prospects, this volume switches the focus from the political relationships between nation states and supranational organizations to questions concerning the multi-level processes of region building in different thematic settings while also attempting to bring in more multidisciplinary and methodologically diverse perspectives. Presented by Stubbs (Institute of Economics, Croatia) and Solioz (Secretary General of the Center for European Integration Strategies), the volume's nine chapters discuss such topics as social networks and anti-war activism; dynamics of regional co-operation in trade, energy, and justice; cultural factors of economic integration; the role of networks in constituting the South East European cultural space; the clash between fluid identity and ethnic mixing in borderlands and the ethnic conceptions and practices of dominant political elites; the institutional regional responses to organized crime; and the relation of film production to hegemonic and counter-hegemonic narratives in Yugoslavia and its successor states. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
This volume presents a series of interlinked reflections on the possibilities and problems of emergent forms of regional cooperation in South East Europe (SEE). Taking diverse themes, such as the economy, crime, borders, culture, and civil society, the contributors explore some of the facets of "open regionalism," consisting of multi-actor, multi-level, and multi-scalar processes producing a complex geometry of interlocking networks. The book situates "new regionalism" in SEE in the historical context of the legacies of Yugoslavia and the wars of the Yugoslav succession. Contemporary processes of Europeanization in relation to SEE are also examined as complex, contingent, and radically unfinished. The book moves beyond the constraints of objectivist notions of regionalism as consisting of sets of relations between sovereign nation states, to address complex constructions of meaning and place. (Series: Southeast European Integration Perspectives - Vol. 6)
