This book is the first comprehensive examination of the citizenship regimes of the new states that emerged out of the break up of Yugoslavia. It covers both the states that emerged out of the initial disintegration across 1991 and 1992 (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Macedonia), as well as those that have been formed recently through subsequent partitions (Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo). While citizenship has often been used as a tool of ethnic engineering to reinforce the position of the titular majority in many states, in other cases citizenship laws and practices have been liberalised as part of a wider political settlement intended to include minority communities more effectively in the political process. Meanwhile, frequent (re)definitions of these increasingly overlapping regimes still provoke conflicts among post-Yugoslav states.

This volume shows how important it is for the field of citizenship studies to take into account the main changes in and varieties of citizenship regimes in the post-Yugoslav states, as a particular case of new state citizenship. At the same time, it seeks to show scholars of (post) Yugoslavia and the wider Balkans that the Yugoslav crisis, disintegration and wars as well as the current functioning of the new and old Balkan states, together with the process of their integration into the EU, cannot be fully understood without a deeper understanding of their citizenship regimes.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

Contents:


1. Introduction: Citizenship in the New States of South Eastern Europe Jo Shaw and Igor Štiks 2. A Laboratory of Citizenship: Shifting Conceptions of Citizenship in Yugoslavia and post-Yugoslav States' Igor Štiks 3. Imagining and managing the nation: tracing citizenship policies in Serbia Jelena Vasiljević 4. Understanding Montenegrin citizenship Jelena Dzankić 5. Overlapping Jurisdictions, Disputed Territory, Unsettled State: The Perplexing Case of Citizenship in Kosovo Gëzim Krasniqi 6. Conceptualising Citizenship Regime(s) in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina Eldar Sarajlić 7. The Fractured ‘We’ and the Ethno-National ‘I’ – the Macedonian Citizenship Framework Ljubica Spaskovska 8. Framing the citizenship regime within the complex triadic nexuses: The case study of Croatia Viktor Koska 9. In the name of the Nation or/and Europe? Determinants of the Slovenian citizenship regime Tomaž Deželan

This special issue of Citizenship Studies comes out of the first phase of research conducted under the aegis of the CITSEE project (The Europeanisation of Citizenship in the Successor States of the former Yugoslavia), during which the research team concentrated on in-depth country case analyses. This introduction briefly presents the CITSEE project, locating it within the broader frame of current trends in citizenship studies, and defines the notion of citizenship regime as it is used in the following analysis, before highlighting some critical and common elements that emerge in the papers, including the ongoing processes of Europeanisation evident in the region.

This contribution deals with the violence, conflicts and wars that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in the former socialist multinational federations. The question of why these federations disintegrated so soon after the collapse of the communist regimes is followed by more puzzles. Why did violence occur in some places and not in others? Where, under what circumstances, and when was violence most likely to happen? Finally, why was the disintegration of Yugoslavia so uniquely brutal? In the author’s view, two crucial questions determined the fate of many citizens of the former socialist federations in the context of their imminent disintegration: Did the incipient states (republics) and the federal centre accept the separation and the existing borders? Did all groups and all regions accept independence and the authority of the new states? The analysis of the possible answers to these questions across the former socialist federations and their former republics that experienced violence brings us to what the author defines as three decisive triggers of violence: citizenship, borders and territories, and the role of the military apparatus of defunct federations.

In this article the author examines the multiple changes in the nationality and citizenship status of the former citizens of Yugoslavia in three distinct phases between 1991 and 2006. After Yugoslavia's break-up, almost all successor states used their citizenship laws as an effective tool of nation-building and ethnic engineering. The recent democratization of the region under EU influence resulted also in significant improvements in the nationality and citizenship legislations and administrative practices. Nevertheless, this trend depends largely on the further process of EU enlargement and eventual accession of the ex-Yugoslav states.

This paper focuses on shifting conceptions of citizenship in Yugoslavia, from its establishment in 1918 to its disintegration in 1991/1992, and in its successor states from the early 1990s to the present. It analyses the history of Yugoslavia and its successor states as an instructive and rare example of how citizenship can be used for different and even opposing goals: as a tool of national integration in the first Yugoslavia (1918-1941), as a tool of socialist re-unification after the failure of the previous national integration and the ensuing inter-ethnic conflicts (1945 to the mid-1960s), as a tool of cooperation among nations and their republics in a socialist multinational (con)federation (beginning in the late 1960s and continuing until 1990), as a tool of fragmentation and dissolution (1990-1992) and, finally, of ethnic engineering in Yugoslavia’s successor states. It also shows that during the last decade citizenship has been used both as a tool of reconciliation and of creating new divisions. It remains to be seen whether the introduction of European citizenship, following the eventual integration of all of Yugoslavia’s successor states into the EU, will be yet another citizenship experiment.

The publication is available for download at
http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/cp126-The_Western_Balkans_and_the_EU.pdf

The politics of citizenship in post-Yugoslav Croatia are deeply marked by the political climate in which they emerged. Almost all of Yugoslavia's successor states--with some variation according to their specific context and at a different pace--used their founding documents, constitutions and citizenship laws as effective tools to accelerate nation-building and to "ethnically engineer" their populations to the advantage of the majority ethnic group. Croatia in the 1990s was no exception to this rule. With the death of Franjo Tudjman in 1999 and the subsequent electoral defeat of his party (HDZ), the beginning of 2000 marked a sharp con­trast with the practices of the previous decade.
Owing in part to the democratic changes within Croatian politics and to Croatia's bid for EU membership, the implementation of the citizenship laws began to demonstrate more inclusiveness towards ethnic non-Croats, although the law on citizenship itself remained unchanged. The case of Croatia demonstrates how sticks and carrots employed by the EU could alter relations between a nationalising state and its internal minorities as well as between a kin-state and its ethnic diaspora in the "near abroad". At the same time, it shows how the latter relations can be preserved within the institutional framework of the EU. We thus witness parallel attempts to integrate a country into the supranational institutions of the EU, to democratise its political life, and to clearly show political and social inclusiveness towards ethnic minorities; but also to maintain a transnational ethnic community by using ethno-centric citizenship laws.

The politics of citizenship in post-Yugoslav Croatia are deeply marked by the political climate in which they emerged. Almost all of Yu­goslavia’s successor states—with some variation according to their spe­cific context and at a different pace—used their founding documents, constitutions and citizenship laws as effective tools to accelerate nation-building and to ‘ethnically engineer’ their populations to the ad­vantage of the majority ethnic group. Croatia in the 1990s was no exception to this rule. With the death of Franjo Tuđman in 1999 and the subsequent elec­toral defeat of his party (HDZ), the beginning of 2000 marked a sharp con­trast with the practices of the previous decade.
Owing in part to the demo­cratic changes within Croatian politics and to Croatia’s bid for EU mem­bership, the implementation of the citizenship laws began to demonstrate more inclusiveness towards ethnic non-Croats, although the law on citizenship itself remained unchanged. The case of Croatia demonstrates how sticks and carrots employed by the EU could alter relations between a nationalising state and its internal minorities as well as between a kin-state and its ethnic diaspora in the ‘near abroad’. At the same time, it shows how the latter relations can be preserved within the institutional framework of the EU. We thus witness parallel attempts to integrate a country into the supranational institutions of the EU, to democratise its political life, and to clearly show political and so­cial inclusiveness towards ethnic minorities; but also to maintain a transnational ethnic community by using ethno-centric citizenship laws.

This paper presents the basic framework of the CITSEE project (the Europeanisation of Citizenship in the Successor States of the Former Yugoslavia). It covers the basic objectives, approach and methodology of the study, which develops an approach to studying citizenship through so-called 'constitutional ethnography'. The paper explains some basic terminological definitions used in the project, and reviews the key areas where CITSEE is expected to contributed to intellectual debate and theoretical understandings.

This paper focuses on shifting conceptions of citizenship in Yugoslavia, from its establishment in 1918 to its disintegration in 1991, and in its successor states from early 1990s to the present. It analysis the history of Yugoslavia and its successor states as an instructive and rare example of how citizenship can be used for different and even opposing goals: as a tool of national integration in the first Yugoslavia (1918-1941), as a tool of socialist re-unification after the failure of the previous national integration and the ensuing inter-ethnic conflicts (1945 to the mid-1960s), as a tool of cooperation among nations and their republics in a socialist multinational (con)federation (beginning in the late 1960s and continuing until 1990), as a tool of fragmentation and dissolution (1990-1991) and, finally, of ethnic engineering in Yugoslavia’s successor state. It also shows that during the last decade citizenship was used both as a tool of reconciliation and of new divisions. It remains to be seen if the introduction of European citizenship, following the eventual EU integration of all of Yugoslavia’s successor states, will be yet another experiment in a century-old Balkan laboratory of citizenship.

The focus of this paper is the citizenship regimes of the seven states now established on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, viewed in their wider European context.

The paper identifies six principal mechanisms through which exogenous pressures are brought to bear upon these regimes:

• Adoption of and compliance with international norms
• EU conditionality
• Direct intervention by international organisations
• Direct supervision by international organisations
• Other forms of international pressure
• The effects of overlapping regimes between neighbouring states

Together these mechanisms contribute to what the paper terms a mosaic-like pattern of intersecting norms which govern the multilevel citizenship regimes which exist in this complex and rapidly changing legal, political and territorial space. Thus even in relation to an issue where ostensibly the EU has no competences as such, that is in relation to the acquisition and loss of national citizenship, distinct effects on citizenship regimes can be seen in a number of the new Balkan states. Alongside various forms of adaptive compliance with ‘international standards’ in relation to norms of citizenship acquisition and loss, we can also see cases of resistance and non-compliant absorption of international pressures. These points are illustrated by reference to the framework rules governing the boundaries of membership, when viewed in the context of one of the most fundamental elements of European integration, namely the organisation and re-organisation of borders and the principles of freedom of movement.

The aim of this paper is to provide a preliminary mapping of these effects, with a view to sketching out a comparative framework for further research into national citizenship regimes under the shadow of Europeanisation in its broadest sense, comprising not only the effects of European Union laws and policies, but also other practices and norms of regional integration. In methodological terms, therefore, the broader challenge of the paper and of the research which underpins it is to bring about a better understanding of the relationship between legal scholarship which focuses on patterns of EU and international legal norms and their domestic impacts, and the wider literature of ‘Europeanisation’, mainly located within the disciplines of international relations and comparative politics. At present these two literatures rarely intersect. We hope to start a more extended conversation between them.

This contribution deals with the violence, conflicts and wars that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in the former socialist multinational federations. The question of why these federations disintegrated so soon after the collapse of the communist regimes is followed by more puzzles. Why did violence occur in some places and not in others? Where, under what circumstances, and when was violence most likely to happen? Finally, why was the disintegration of Yugoslavia so uniquely brutal? In the author's view, two crucial questions determined the fate of many citizens of the former socialist federations in the context of their imminent disintegration: Did the incipient states (republics) and the federal centre accept the separation and the existing borders? Did all groups and all regions accept independence and the authority of the new states? The analysis of the possible answers to these questions across the former socialist federations and their former republics that experienced violence brings us to what the author defines as three decisive triggers of violence: citizenship, borders and territories, and the role of the military apparatus of defunct federations.

At first sight, it would appear that the concept of soft law is of little relevance in the field of EU citizenship. While the concept of EU citizenship is rather limited when compared to national citizenship, nonetheless it seems to be entirely a creature of (hard) law, both in terms of the concept as defined in the EC Treaty and in terms of the case law of the Court of Justice which has been extremely influential in extending the tentacles of that concept into the interstices of national law, especially national immigration law and national welfare law.

According to a terminological glossary developed by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions:

‘Soft law is the term applied to EU measures, such as guidelines, declarations and opinions, which, in contrast to directives, regulations and decisions, are not binding on those to whom they are addressed. However, soft law can produce some legal effects.’

That same glossary entry goes on to argue that soft law is used where the Member States are unable to agree upon the use of hard law mechanisms. This understates the complexity of arguments which attach to the development of concepts such as citizenship which are heavily imbued with the symbols and practices of sovereignty, and fails adequately to capture the dynamics of two areas where soft law has been used in relation to European citizenship, in such a way as to blur its sharp edges:

• In relation to the status of third country nationals under EU law, for whom the Commission proposed in the aftermath of the Treaty of Amsterdam a vision of a status akin to a form of EU citizenship-lite in which they would enjoy most of the rights under EU law given to nationals of Member States who are resident in other Member States
• In relation to external conditionality in relation to accession, where there has been some evidence in relation to the Western Balkan states to show that EU law has had direct and indirect effects vis-à-vis national citizenship law definitions, but these effects have taken the form of ‘soft’ rather than ‘hard’ law pressure (i.e. there are no formal enforcement mechanisms).