ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the shifts and continuity in the conceptualisation of meso-regional borders with a focus on the analysis of the specific regional framework adopted by the EU and the major political actors in Bulgaria in the aftermath of the 1999 war in Kosovo. The analysis is premised on Koselleck’s three interrelated methods of conceptual history approach: historical–critical, diachronic and semantic. Such an approach allows, first, to trace the ways in which various discursive situations and events have impacted notions of space, borders and bordering and, second, to throw into relief the role of shifting border concepts as an indicator of the profound political and social changes taking place in the post-Cold War world order. Based on this, the chapter explores the reconceptualisation of borders along the following three directions of investigation: the relocation of Bulgaria from the East (Central) European to the Southeast European orbit; its (self-)promoted role as an island of stability within the turbulent Balkan region, committed to the policies and the political culture of the west; and the interaction between concepts immanent to the language of the modern national state and the concepts promoted by the EU in defining the region of Southeastern Europe.
