The feminist edition of Perspectives Magazine, a regional publication published annually by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, aims to present the perspectives of Southeastern Europe to an international audience, to analyze global and regional trends and to provide insights into developments and political debates. The theme of this year's issue is gender and feminism in the Western Balkans, which is presented through four thematic units (State of the Art, Gender in Transitions: Revolution is Female?, Interventions and Resistance), which gives an overview of the context, perception of gender and the state of women's rights, and opens the issue of gender by social (re-)evolution and conflicts, initiatives and practices that contribute to the dismantling of patriarchy and very concrete practices of resistance in our countries. Through the issues of gender violence, political participation, economic relations, ecology, activism, physicality and from the perspective of female scientists, activists, journalists and writers, we focus on a kind of strategy for women's rights in the Balkans: is it based on the premise that we do not get tired and give up.
This issue of Balkan Perspectives was written by women and describes the rights and fights for gender equality which last for generations in the Western Balkans.
Rarely, if ever, has a genocide been as normalized as the genocide against the Bosniaks. It is a process which began simultaneously with the genocide itself—not only with the expansive cover-up campaign of its perpetrators, but with the rhetorical onslaught of minimization undertaken by the international community.
Thus far, BiH political leaders have not demonstrated substantial progress in fulfilling the integration’s requirements, nor in joint efforts of prioritizing EU integration and putting it before particular ethnic interests. In case of Mr. Čović and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ BiH), it is necessary to keep in mind the type of EU-BiH perspective they advocate for, as well what their policies imply for BiH.
The “Strategy Group for a political, societal and economic European integration of the
Western Balkans Six” is a group of legal, historical and political researches from all WB6
countries organized by Heinrich Böll Stiftung’s Belgrade, Sarajevo and Berlin offices.
Its aim is to credibly advocate for a more effective European integration of the Balkans
in European as well as Balkan capitals.
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has been part of the “Balkan route” for smuggling people, arms and drugs for decades, but also a migrant route for people who have been trying to reach Western Europe and the countries of the EU in order to save their lives and secure a future for themselves. This report offers insight into the situation on the field: is there a system responsible for protection, security, and upholding fundamental human rights? What has the state response been like? What is the role of the international community?
As an epilogue to the failure of the initiative, the EU is now facing a political challenge in the context of constitutional reform, for which it is ill-prepared: amendment of the electoral law of BiH following the ruling of the Constitutional Court in the case of Ljubić. At the same time, the express support of the Croatian Government for the ethno-nationalist agenda of the HDZ BiH poses a serious threat to the EU's unity in its approach to Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in the context of constitutional reform. The EU, which wants to avoid any discussion about constitutional reform, now stands with its back to the wall.It looks like, after the parliamentary elections in October 2018, the EU will be forced to face the country's biggest constitutional crisis since the end of the war and the failure of its initiative in BiH.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation presents the study "Media and Shrinking Space in BiH: Silenced Alternative Voices" by the authors Prof. Dr. med. Lejla Turčilo and dr. Belma Buljubašić. The study is a continuation of last year's publication "Shrinking Spaces in the Western Balkans," which deals with the global phenomenon of shrinking space actors in civil society. In this issue, the authors focus on this phenomenon in relation to the media.
Diese Ausgabe des Perspectives Magazins beschäftigt sich mit dem Captured-States-Phänomen - Korruption und Nepotismus und die Auswirkungen auf den Rechtsstaat und das leben der Bürger/innen Bosnien-Herzegowinas. AUch die Vergabe von Arbeitsplätzen an taugliche, aber nicht kompetente Personen, der Einfluß von Politik auf Bildung, Pressefreiheit, Nationalismus als politisches Instrument der Machterhaltung und andere Themen werden in dieser Ausgabe genauer beleuchtet.
Das Magazin ist in englischer Sprache verfasst.
The implementation process of the reform agenda has shown that the leading international actors in BiH are well able to push the country towards a sustainable reform course. This has primarily demonstrated the application of strict conditionality by the IMF. The fact that the EU initiative has so far produced only limited results was not due to the fact that a policy of conditionality in BiH does not work or can function, as many EU officials regularly claim, but because of the lack of political will of the EU, conditionality and consistency strictly apply.
Wenn der Staat tiefgreifende politische, wirtschaftliche und ideologische Veränderungen vornimmt, kann seine Abhängigkeit von einer internationalen Umgebung wachsen. Genau das ist vor 25 Jahren in fast allen post-kommunistischen Staaten geschehen. Die Notwendigkeit für internationale Modelle in Systemen, die einen politischen Pluralismus und Demokratie als Staatsform eingeführt haben und sich nach Außen hin öffnen, öffnen auch Einflüssen von Außen das Tor. Die Artikel in dieser Ausgabe erzählen verschiedene Geschichten über die Herausforderungen der internationalen Interventionen in Albanien, Bosnien und Herzegowina, Kroatien, Mazedonien und Serbien.
