Introduction: Balkan Transnationalism at the Time of Neoliberal Catastrophe
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-8-2019
Publication Title
Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
Keywords
neolibralism, Balkans, neocolonialism
Abstract
The collapse of Real Socialism ushered in the unification of two Europes. United Europe as a new political entity without a previous history which has formally denounced colonialism and anti-Semitism, it somehow deserves a clean slate and the right to shift ownership of its colonial histories to former colonial subjects and their national histories. On the one hand, East Europeans denounce any role in the Europe's colonial history, on the other hand, neoliberalism figures today as Europe's internal neocolonialism. In the case of the Balkans, the neoliberal normalization of the unruly Balkans failed both at the periphery and at the center. Today's economic nationalists are now euro-autocrats and the most vocal proponents of fiscal conservativism, austerity, the Protestant work-ethic and the ultimate “Europeanization.” This special issue of the neoliberal Balkans interrogates a neocolonial reconfiguration of the entire region as a massive social overhaul, which includes at once global integration and local social disintegration.
Recommended Citation
Bjelić, D. I. (2018) Introduction, Interventions, 20:6, 751-758, DOI: 10.1080/1369801X.2018.1493392
