ABSTRACT

This book provides a critical understanding of Europeanization and statebuilding in the Western Balkans, using the notion of everyday practices.

This volume argues that it is everyday and mundane events that provide the entry points to showcase a broader set of practices of Europeanization in countries outside the EU. It does this by tracing notions of Europeanization in the everyday statebuilding of Kosovo, Europe Day celebrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, urban politics in Tirana, and space and place making in Skopje. In doing so, the book shows that everyday events tell us that as much as it is about changing structures, institutions, and economic models, Europeanization is also about changing behaviours and ideas in populations at large. At the same time, the work shows that countries outside the EU use everyday events to perform their belonging to Europe.

This book will be of much interest to students of European Studies, Balkan politics, statebuilding, and International Relations generally.

chapter 1|21 pages

Europeanization as statebuilding, Statebuilding as Europeanization

Everyday performative acts in the Western Balkans

chapter 2|21 pages

Kosovo

A EUropean state is born

chapter 3|18 pages

Fantasies of Islam and EUrope

The case of public intellectuals in Kosovo

chapter 4|25 pages

Performing Europe through rainbow flags

Of LGBT politics in Pristina

chapter 6|16 pages

“Tirana will not be Calcutta”

European activities and aesthetics in Tirana

chapter 7|20 pages

If only statues could talk!

The making of European Macedonia through Skopje

chapter 8|16 pages

From Western Balkans to the world

Unravelling EUrope and Europeanization