Florian Bieber is a Professor of Southeast European History and Politics and Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. He studied Political Science and History at Trinity College (USA), the University of Vienna, and Central European University (Budapest). He is the coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG) and is a frequent commentator on the Balkans for international media. He has worked for the European Centre for Minority Issues and taught at Kent University (UK). Bieber is also a Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at CEU. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the LSE and New York University, and held the Luigi Einaudi Chair at Cornell University. His research interests include democratization, institutional design in multiethnic states, nationalism and ethnic conflict, as well as the political systems of south-eastern Europe.
He is the author of The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans (London: Palgrave, 2019, forthcoming), Nationalism in Serbia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milošević (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2005) and Post-War Bosnia (London: Palgrave, 2006). Ha has edited and co-edited several books, including Illiberal and Authoritarian Tendencies in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe (Peter Lang, 2019), (co-edited with Dane Taleski and Magda Solska) and Social Movements in the Balkans, Rebellion and Protest from Maribor to Taksim (Routledge, 2018,), (co-edited with Dario Brentin). website
The perpetual transition in eastern Europe has led to the spread of an angst-ridden politics. While the derailing of imported western institutions calls into question the project of Europeanization, transnational solidarity remains possible and necessary.
The International Court of Justice ruling on Kosovo’s declaration of independence will not herald a sea-change in Serbian public opinion, but it is likely to facilitate a general coming-to-terms with the fact that Kosovo is “lost”, writes Florian Bieber. The much-feared “domino effect” is also unlikely to occur.
