210117 SE M9: States market and democracy in turbulent times: insights from Southeastern Europe (2025W)

While the challenges of simultaneous economic and political systemic changes have marked the transformations in the entire post-socialist world, they have been particularly stark in Europe’s Southeastern region. Contested states mired by national conflicts, persistent corruption, political instability and the resulting underdevelopment are still seen as more characteristic of Western Balkans or Bulgaria and Romania than the rest of Eastern Europe. And yet, there is remarkable divergence within the Southeast, in their stateness, democratic record, economic development or modes of European integration. The seminar aims to explore this puzzling divergence within the region and put the Southeast European trajectories in a broader comparative context of post-socialist transformations. Furthermore, the course also seeks to draw insights from Southeastern Europe for understanding more general challenges of politics in turbulent times. What can the dissolution of Yugoslavia tell us about the prospects for disintegration in the EU? What does the economic success of Romania suggest about developmental opportunities and constraints for weak peripheral states in global capitalism? How can the analysis of nationalist myths and conspiracy theories in the Western Balkans help us understand the proliferation of conspiratorial discourses in the USA? The course thus aims to engage in a two-way dialogue, applying general political science theories to explain developments in Southeastern Europe, but also using the region as a laboratory for understanding global political phenomena.