Ethnic composition of Bosnia in 1991

The wars following the break up of the former Yugoslavia were the first real tests of the political, legal, and diplomatic institutions Europe developed after the first and second World Wars. The rapid rise of nationalism in the Balkans, the development of brutal patterns of ethnic violence, and the creation of a democratic citizenry recalled with shocking similarity the events and transformations of the early twentieth century which Europe’s neo-liberal governments were expressly designed to address.

It is almost impossible to determine the successes and failures of these institutions (and their accompanying philosophies) in the former Yugoslavia. A combination of ideological head-butting, historical nearsighted-ness and the simple irresolution of the armed conflict has left the region in a strange state of suspension, struggling to make its peace sustainable.

With this in mind, I am working for the Balkans Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), a cross-regional news agency that evolved out of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting’s Balkan Programme. Staffed by local journalists in seven countries, BIRN offers a native approach to the political and social issues of the Balkans that continue to confound the international community’s best laid plans to bring stability and prosperity to the region.