“What is Europe, anyways?”How students in Belgrade and Pristina engage withdiscourses of Europeanization and Balkanization

Author: Jeff WheelerProject Advisor: Jelena Lončar

Academic Director: Dr. Orli FridmanLafayette College

Major: International Affairs and Psychology

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo: Peace and Conflict Studies in the Balkans, SIT Study Abroad, Spring 2015

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments .……………………………………………………… 3Abstract ….....…………………………………………………………… 4Introduction ...…………………………………………………………… 5Methods and Ethics ...…………………………………………………… 9Literature Review...……………………………………………………… 13Findings .………………………………………………………………… 16

Europeanization Discourse ....…………………………………… 17Balkanization Discourse ………………………………………… 21Migration as an Indicator of Internalized Discourses …………… 28Belgrade and Pristina: Situational Differences,

Discursive Similarities .……………..…………………… 34Conclusions ...…………………………………………………………… 39

Recommendations for Further Study …………………………… 40Bibliography ..…………………………………………………………… 42Appendix A: Semi-Structured Interview Guide ………………………… 44Appendix B: Information about Interviews ………...…………………… 46

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks goes to Orli Fridman and Mirjana Kosić for advising me as I designed my research, as well as to the rest of the SIT staff for organizing the program that brought me to the Balkans and taught me so much about this region. I would also like to thank Jelena Lončar, who served as my incredibly knowledgeable and helpful advisor throughout the research process. I wish her the best of luck finishing her PhD. Much gratitude is also due to the students who agreed to sit down with me for interviews, because they not only made this research possible but also taught me a great deal about student life in Belgrade and Pristina. It was a pleasure getting to know all of them. Thanks also goes to Sunshine, my wonderful host in Belgrade, as well as to Kanik, the best host-dog I could have asked for. They both made me feel right at home, and they provided me admirable moral support in the hours I spent writing this paper, as well as long walks outside to give myself a break. This is truly what the research process should look like.

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to understand how youth perspectives in Belgrade and Pristina are influenced by discourses of Europeanization and Balkanization. Europeanization rhetoric portrays the European Union (EU) as the force that will solve political, economic, and social issues in the Balkans. Balkanization rhetoric, on the other hand, argues that the countries of the Western Balkans are chaotic by nature and incapable of becoming fully functioning states. These discourses define the idea of Europe by positioning the Balkans as the EU’s problematic inferior. For this research I interviewed students in Belgrade and Pristina about their impressions of EU integration, identity politics, and youth migration from Serbia and Kosovo to the EU. My findings indicate that students have internalized some aspects of these discourses, often portraying the EU as a land of opportunity and the Balkans as a place of stagnant problems. Migration is an indicator of this internalization, as students choose to seek opportunities in the EU themselves rather than wait for their countries to someday become member-states. However, students also expressed skepticism towards these discourses, as they questioned the intentions of the EU and sought to push back against negative stereotypes about the Balkans.

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INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this research is to collect and examine youth perspectives on the

European Union (EU) integration process in Serbia and Kosovo. In particular, this research seeks

to analyze how young people’s perceptions and explanations of current events contain traces of

the Europeanization and Balkanization narratives that characterize academic outsider discourses

about the EU and the Balkans. My interest in conducting this research is based upon a previous

interview experience, in which a student in Belgrade explained to me that for Serbia EU

membership will be little more than “an option forever,” so she and other young people are

choosing to emigrate in order to “find other ways of getting into the EU” (personal

communication, 7 March 2015). I therefore sought to learn more about how youth explain EU

integration (or the relative lack thereof), as well as youth migration to the EU.

Academic discourses on EU integration in the Western Balkans revolve around two

ideological trends. On the one hand, Europeanization rhetoric portrays the EU as the future of

Europe that will ‘save’ the people of the Western Balkans from further turmoil (Balibar, 2004;

Cirtautas & Schimmelfennig, 2010). On the other hand, Balkanization discourse portrays the

Western Balkans as an inherently chaotic region that could never produce the same kinds of

stable, functioning states that the EU seeks to create (Hughes & Pupavac, 2005; Surroi, 2011).

These contradictory discourses both serve to define the abstract idea of Europe, either by

including or excluding the Western Balkans from its physical and ideological space. However,

these theoretical frameworks for defining and differentiating among various conceptions of

Europe and the Western Balkans exist in a highly outsider-based context, as they are evident in

the works of scholars and political elites who discuss the Balkans from afar. Less attention is

given to the perspectives of individuals living in the Western Balkans themselves.

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The aim of my research is to examine whether these theoretical discourses serve as lenses

for people in the region to view and explain the EU and the ongoing process of integration, as

well as personal and collective notions of identity. This research also looks for ways in which

individuals are reflecting critically upon these discourses and even working to reject them. In

sum, the topic of this research is: personal engagement with Europeanization and Balkanization

discourses. The following paragraphs will explain the context surrounding this topic, as well as

how my research pertains to geopolitical events of the past three decades.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain that divided Europe for almost 50 years, the future of

Central and Eastern Europe was left uncertain, as people argued whether the countries in that

region should choose to continue associating with Russia or move more towards the ‘West’, i.e.

the European Union. In Southeast Europe, this conundrum was further complicated by the

breakdown of Yugoslavia, as a once stable and independent union fractured into several new

states that had to find their own way in a rapidly changing political world.

The EU itself made its intentions for this region clear at the Thessaloniki Summit of

1993, where it was declared that: “The future of the Western Balkans is within the EU” (Batt,

2013, p. 60). The so-called “Thessaloniki promise” (p. 60) thus proclaimed that the successor

states of former Yugoslavia, as well as Albania, would soon enjoy EU support and eventually

full membership. With this came also promises of deep reforms, such as free market integration,

combatting corruption and organized crime, and establishing institutions to ensure stability and

good neighborly relations in the Balkans (Gallagher, 2003). This is the rhetoric that I here refer

to as ‘Europeanization’, i.e. the belief that problems in Europe can be solved through integration

and the adoption of EU institutions, norms, and values (Jano, 2008).

The EU’s follow-through on this promise, more than twenty years later, has been only

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partially successful. In 2004, Slovenia joined the EU as part of the great wave of accession in

Central and Eastern Europe, and Croatia later joined in 2013. As for the remaining successor

states of the former Yugoslavia (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and

Kosovo) and Albania, there is still no set timeline for accession. Some countries, such as Serbia,

have become official candidate countries for accession, while others, such as Kosovo, currently

enjoy only “European perspectives” (Surroi, 2011, p. 115), i.e. the EU is still invested in

collaborating with them, but they have not yet been offered official candidate status.

However, even for candidate countries accession is not necessarily right around the

corner. Serbia, for example, was officially declared a candidate country in early 2012, and while

cooperation between Belgrade and Brussels has made some crucial steps since then (European

Commission, 2014), the official accession process has stagnated. As of March 2015, Serbia has

completed its screening processes in all 35 chapters of the EU’s accession negotiations, and there

are hopes that some chapters can be officially opened by the end of the year (Government of the

Republic of Serbia: European Integration Office, 2015). However, it has taken three years to get

to this stage, so estimates of how long until Serbia is ready to join are none too optimistic. The

EU itself has indicated that Croatia will likely have been the last country to join in this decade

(Vukadinović, 2013). If such predictions are correct, Serbia will have, at the very least, five more

years of negotiations before it can become a member of the EU.

More than two decades after the Thessaloniki Summit, there is strong disagreement as to

whether the remaining countries in the Western Balkans will ever become fully functioning

members of the EU at all. Since even before the great wave of accession in 2004, EU officials

started to complain about “enlargement fatigue” (Anastasakis & Bechev, 2003, p. 4), i.e. that the

EU was expanding too fast to consider taking on many more new members. Furthermore, some

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even spoke of “Balkan fatigue” (Anastasakis & Bechev, 2003, p. 4), i.e. that the Western

Balkans posed such difficulties that they were draining the EU’s resources in its integration

efforts. These arguments –here referred to as ‘Balkanization’ rhetoric- while they argue that the

EU needs to be realistic about its goals for widening and deepening integration, have drawn upon

prior narratives that the Balkans are inherently problematic and difficult to negotiate with

(Goldsworthy, 2002). Counter-narratives to incorporating the Western Balkans into the European

family thus rely on portraying the Balkans as backwards and unstable, which positions those

countries as inferiors to the rest of ‘sophisticated’ Europe (Balibar, 2004).

I included perspectives from both Serbia and Kosovo in my research because these

countries are at different stages in the accession process. There is also a distinct political and

societal gap between them due to Serbia’s continued refusal to acknowledge Kosovo as a state.

However, both countries are included in the Balkan region that the EU portrays as its

problematic ‘other’ (Anastasakis & Bechev, 2003). My research therefore looks for not only

situational differences between these countries that systematically affect youth perceptions, but

also similarities in how youth engage with discourses about the EU and the Balkans. For the sake

of practicality, however, my research is focused on the two capital cities, Belgrade and Pristina,

where youth were easiest to access in a short period of time.

My research question therefore is: How do youth in Belgrade and Pristina engage with

discourses of Europeanization and Balkanization? In order to contextualize and stress the

relevance of my research, I have focused in particular upon how youth discuss personal and

collective identities, their countries’ EU accession processes, and migration from their countries

to the EU, all of which are interconnected within discourses of what it means to belong to

Europe, the Balkans, or both.

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METHODS AND ETHICS

In order to address my research question, I conducted personal interviews with students

in both Belgrade and Pristina. I met individually with three students in Belgrade (2 male, 1

female) and four students in Pristina (2 male, 2 female), and we discussed the topics included in

my research for between 30 minutes and an hour. I opted for a semi-structured interview style,

which provided me with an ideal mix of replicability and flexibility in order to explore individual

views and perspectives that could then be compared and contrasted (Flick, 2009). My interview

guide is included in Appendix A. In order to ensure confidentiality of information and anonymity

of participants, I applied a coding system based on country codes when reporting my findings.

Belgrade participants were referred to as SRB-(1,2,3), and participants in Pristina were referred

to as RKS-(1,2,3,4). Further interview details are included in Appendix B.

I originally chose to define my target population as ‘youth’ based on Serbia’s legal

definition, which includes people between the ages of 15 and 30. Due to ethical concerns of

involving minors, I restricted my sample to individuals who were at least 18 years of age.

Furthermore, due to situational constraints of being a student in Belgrade, interacting mostly

with universities and student organizations, I defined my final target population as ‘students,’ i.e.

youth ages 18 to 30 currently pursuing a degree at a local university.

I relied on local contacts in both Belgrade and Pristina to reach out to young people for

potential interviews. For example, I contacted the coordinators of some civil society youth

organizations, asking if they could recommend contacts. I also talked to students I met at the

institution hosting my study abroad program. If not in person, I established contact with

participants via email or through social networking sites such as Facebook, based on whichever

was most convenient for each participant.

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I scheduled to meet with each participant in a quiet public location at their convenience.

Participants first signed consent forms telling them about the purpose of my research (“to gather

youth perspectives on the EU and EU-related topics”). Interviews were recorded for later

transcription at each participant’s consent. Participants were informed that they themselves

would remain anonymous in my research paper so as to protect their identities. I elected for

recordings instead of notes so that I could give each participant my full and undivided attention. I

did this to demonstrate my genuine interest in hearing their perspectives, as well as to avoid

making participants uncomfortable by taking notes on their statements.

I asked participants questions pertaining to work, education, travel, EU accession,

identity, and migration. Reflecting on the ethical dimension of my research, I was careful to

approach these later topics very carefully, asking for permission before discussing personal

stories and feelings. This was particularly important when I asked students if they knew anyone

close to them who had left for the EU, or if they themselves were thinking of doing so. Most

participants had few concerns discussing such stories. However, one declined to discuss knowing

anyone personally who had emigrated, and another requested that a story about one of her friends

who studied in the EU remain confidential, which I promised her.

To close out the interview, I thanked each participant for their time, and I answered any

questions they had about my research. As a form of compensation, I offered to pay for their

coffee, if we were at a café. I also asked participants if they would like to hear about my findings

once the research was over, and all expressed interest. This was also an ethical consideration, as

it would increase the transparency and accountability of my research. There were also potential

benefits for participants in these interviews, as they had opportunities to discuss their opinions on

identity, accession, and migration in the Balkans. In addition, my findings could tell them more

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about other students’ perspectives on these topics. This would be especially beneficial

considering the comparison I am making between Belgrade and Pristina in order to reveal key

similarities and differences between those cities.

In approaching this research, I had to be acutely aware of my own positionality when

discussing these topics with students in Belgrade and Pristina. As a researcher, my perspective

was exclusively that of an outsider, as I had only been in the Western Balkans for three months,

and I always had to consider how this would influence the ways in which I approached issues

such as identity, EU integration, and migration.

There were some benefits of choosing students as my target population, because it

provided me avenues for bonding with my participants. It was easier for the interviews to seem

casual, and we often shared similar tastes in sports, popular culture, travel interests, or life in

general as students. As someone who is currently studying abroad and who has lived away from

home for a few years, I was also able to connect more personally with my interviewees when we

discussed travel and migration, because I could empathize with feelings of both excitement and

anxiety surrounding these choices. Participants could also see me as another student who

happened to be doing a research project, which helped dispel the power dynamics between us

that could have made them feel nervous or uncomfortable during our conversation.

However, my positionality in this context was also an obstacle that I had to account for.

As an international affairs student in the US, attending a small liberal arts college with overall

liberal political views, I knew I had a tendency to approach the topic of EU integration

optimistically. Most of my professors, as well as the textbooks they assigned me to read,

portrayed integration in a positive light. There was of course no guarantee that my interviewees

would think of the EU project in this way, and I took care not to express my own prior biases

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about integration. I had to strive to present myself as impartial to the debate, because as a US

citizen the developments surrounding integration in the Western Balkans do not and certainly

never will affect me as they affect people living in Serbia and Kosovo. Thus it was important not

only to be aware of my outsider position but also not to attempt to break out of it.

While transcribing the recordings, I kept in mind the three objectives of my research:

first, to collect and analyze personal statements that referenced discourses of Europeanization

and Balkanization to see how these discourses influence students views on identity, accession,

and migration; second, to assess how students are in turn reacting to the narratives that dominate

these discourses; and third, to examine differences and similarities between Belgrade and

Pristina. To make this comparison, I elected for the ‘most different systems design’ (MDSD)

method (Landman, 2008), in which I hoped to find some similarities in youth perspectives

between the two countries, despite their many situational differences. For example, Kosovo is a

younger state that not all countries recognize, especially not Serbia. Kosovo is also further

behind Serbia in the EU accession process, and it has not yet joined the visa-free travel Schengen

zone. Kosovo and Serbia also differ demographically, in that Kosovo has a much larger youth

population. Unemployment is also much higher in Kosovo, especially among youth (Lücke,

Arenliu, Gashi, et al., 2014). While these tangible differences did indeed influence student

perspectives, my findings also indicate how the two cities are united by their exposure to positive

views of the EU and negative views of the Balkans, which result in youth engaging very

similarly with discourses of Europeanization and Balkanization.

My research did have its limitations, mostly due to constraints on time and resources.

Since my research period was less than a month, I only had the opportunity to conduct seven

official interviews. I also had to limit my research to university students in capital cities because

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that was the group to which I had the most direct access. Many of these students were also

involved in civil society organizations, which was how I got in touch with some of them. Thus

they were not only students, they were also political and social activists as well, which cannot be

said of all young people in Belgrade and Pristina. Additionally, due to language barriers –as my

Serbian is only at a beginner level and I do not speak Albanian- I had to conduct my interviews

in English. While this helped me interpret participants’ statements and avoided the influence of a

translator, I must acknowledge that participants were not necessarily speaking in a language in

which they could best articulate their thoughts and opinions. Thus, not only did my research not

account for non-student and rural perspectives among youth, language may also have been an

intervening factor in the interviews I conducted.

LITERATURE REVIEW

There is extensive literature on the idea of Europe and the question of who is or is not

considered ‘European’. Balibar’s We, the People of Europe? Reflections on Transnational

Citizenship (2004), for example, focuses much of its discussion of European identity on the

question of whether an entity or group, be it defined geographically, politically, or culturally, is

considered part of the “interior space” or “exterior space” of Europe (p. 4). Balibar argues that

both of these spaces are used to define the idea of Europe by drawing political and ideological

boundaries to separate the European from the non-European. The idea of Europe is thus defined

not just by what it includes but also by what it excludes (Balibar, 2004).

During the 1990s, Balibar (2004) explains, Yugoslavia and its successor states were

caught in a rhetorical paradox, in which arguments for EU intervention in the Balkans

characterized the region alternately as both inside and outside of Europe. On the one hand, some

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supporters of intervention described the Western Balkans as part of Europe’s near abroad

(Cirtautas & Schimmelfennig, 2010); preventing crimes against humanity there was thus a matter

of Europe acting externally upon a neighbor that was geographically close yet ideologically

separate. On the other hand, Yugoslavia was also sometimes described as a historically

significant part of Europe, and it would be unethical for the European community to stand by as

crimes against humanity occurred on its own soil (Balibar, 2004). Thus, from a rhetorical stance,

it is unclear whether the successor states of Yugoslavia are considered part of the idea of Europe,

because they can be either included or excluded, depending on whom one asks.

For my research I separated this rhetorical contradiction into its two separate discourses:

the one that includes the Western Balkans within the idea of Europe on the one hand, and the one

that excludes them, so as to maintain a definition of ‘Europe’ by identifying what regions do not

belong, on the other. I refer to these discourses respectively as ‘Europeanization’ and

‘Balkanization.’ The former, as noted by Aspridis and Petrelli (2012), gained rhetorical

popularity during the 1990s, as the EU asserted that the Western Balkan countries, with the

support of EU institutions, would someday become full member-states. This new direction for

EU activity represented a discursive shift in Europeanization theory (Aspridis & Petrelli, 2012).

Originally, Europeanization discourse was mostly applied to the EU’s “domestic impact” (p. 9),

i.e. the deepening of integration efforts within current member-states to promote standardization

and cooperation. However, EU involvement in Central and Eastern Europe symbolized a new era

of Europeanization in which the EU focused more on widening its already deep integration

efforts. The EU’s primary instrument for reform therefore became conditionality, in which offers

of assistance and membership were contingent upon cooperation from hopeful candidate

countries (Aspridis & Petrelli, 2012). According to scholars, the negotiation process in the

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Western Balkans therefore has not been solely a mission of promoting peace and good

neighborly relations in Southeast Europe; rather, it has also been an imposition of European

norms and values upon the Western Balkan region, such that a growing power dynamic makes

EU membership the only plausible long-term vision for these countries (Jano, 2008).

At the same time, the Balkan region is also continually characterized as ‘backwards’ and

in need of drastic political improvement (Jano, 2008). This more pessimistic view on the post-

conflict Western Balkans ties back to narratives far older than the wars of the ‘90s, as literature

and political discourse alike have portrayed the Balkan region as romantic, exotic, explosive,

maladapted, and inherently ‘other’ in many ways, compared to the more ‘civilized’ countries of

Western Europe (Goldsworthy, 2002). This discourse has been interwoven with the discussion of

EU integration, where those opposed to further eastward expansion of the EU have framed the

societies of the Western Balkans, as perpetually unable to meet EU expectations (Hughes &

Pupavac, 2005). Hughes and Pupavac refer to this narrative as “pathologisation” (2005, p. 873),

as it portrays these societies as incurably inferior, arguing that no amount of EU support could

improve their long-term situation or prepare them to be responsible EU members. While this

approach is quite pessimistic, even more optimistic views are still apt to portray the Balkans as

‘other’ or inferior, as many scholars have referred to the Western Balkan states, even if they are

able to join the EU, as ‘second-class’ or even ‘third-class’ (after the rest of the Central and

Eastern European countries) members of the Europe family (Jano, 2008).

While the intertwining narratives of Europeanization and Balkanization are apparent in

the literature and in academic and political discourse, there is less research on how these

discourses have been internalized and incorporated into the views and perspectives of people

living in the Balkan region themselves. One content analysis study conducted by Hayden (2014)

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did however find that literary tropes of Balkanization –such as romanticization and exoticization

of Balkan, specifically Serbian, culture- were apparent in fictional works written by Serbian

emigrants living in the United States. This suggests that discourses that have been shaped and

perpetuated by outsider perspectives may over time become internalized by the people to whom

they refer, such that those individuals reproduce the discourses themselves when they describe

their societies (Hayden, 2014).

My review of the literature has however found very little on the topic of internalized

discourses. While theoretical literature on Europeanization and Balkanization abounds, there has

also been little field research, and even less that focuses on particular social groups such as

youth. One exception of course is a thesis project conducted by Lindell (2010), which

investigated youth views in Serbia on European identity and travel to the EU. Lindell found that

youth overwhelmingly identified Serbia as part of Europe, but fewer were convinced that Serbia

would someday be part of the EU (2010). Whether this disparity between European identity and

prospects of full integration can be explained in terms of internalized discourses remains to be

seen. In addition, there is no literature whatsoever on how young people are reacting to these

discourses, rather than just internalizing them. There is also no comparative research among

Balkan countries. These are the critical gaps in the literature that my research seeks to address.

FINDINGS

Since I only interviewed seven students in total, I only encountered a very small slice of

the rich mosaic of opinions in Belgrade and Pristina on the EU and the Balkans. However, in

comparing and contrasting the responses I heard I analyzed underlying trends based on how my

participants’ opinions were similar or different along various spectra. Every participant engaged

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with Europeanization and Balkanization discourses to some extent during our talks. Furthermore,

not only did they discuss the EU and the Balkans in ways that showed they had internalized

some aspects of these discourses themselves, but they also reflected upon the discourses, thereby

demonstrating their conscious awareness of European and Balkan narratives and, to varying

degrees, their personal skepticism or even rejection of those narratives.

EUROPEANIZATION DISCOURSE

Although participants voiced differing opinions overall on the European Union and how

they would describe its current approach to their own country, it was clear that they had been

exposed to the discourse of Europeanization, this narrative that the EU is the future for Eastern

Europe and that it will be the guiding light for political, economic, and social reform in the

region (Vukadinovic, 2013). Some participants even saw this narrative everywhere, both in

media and in public discourse. SRB-3 best summed up how young people dream of the EU:

We can travel everywhere when we are in the European Union, we can call ourselves European Citizens … Also [we] can have those inner migrations between the states of the EU, if you’re from France you can work in Germany, you can easily find a job, you can go to the UK and work there, you can go and study wherever you want (Personal communication, April 23, 2015).

Participants often referenced this idealized perspective on the EU, that it is a place of freedom

and opportunity. RKS-1, who actually grew up in an immigrant family in Croatia, recalled seeing

commercials on television up until the referendum in 2012 that also stressed this idea that the EU

would offer everything young people could ever dream of:

[It] was basically propaganda, that the EU will come and save us from misery. If I [had been] 18 and watching these kinds of commercials without any knowledge behind it … thank god I did not have that responsibility (Personal communication, April 25, 2015).

She said she found the commercials so ecstatic and optimistic that, given the knowledge about

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the EU she gained later, she feared young people could be easily hoodwinked into voting to join

a supranational organization they did not actually know much about.

While it was clear that all participants were aware of what they had been told to think

about the EU, my research question focused on the extent to which they themselves had come to

accept or reject the Europeanization narrative, and how they personally related to the promises of

the EU. Most participants did say they were in favor of their country, and neighboring countries

in the Balkans, joining the EU. SRB-2 told me: “the EU is a great opportunity for Serbia in the

first place to change itself, to adopt and implement all EU standards, like energy, protection of

the environment, human rights, etc.” (personal communication, April 21, 2015). RKS-1 also said

of people in Pristina, referencing how Kosovo’s new flag symbolized its EU orientation:

Most people are pro-EU because they see Germany, France, or these states that are examples of how states should be, and they see big cities, they see money, they see a lifestyle where you have money and you can get an education, and you have this picture, and the Kosovo flag is very shiny and has stars, so people here wish to be part of that, and I think it’s reasonable (Personal communication, April 25, 2015).

From these statements, I concluded that there is a general acceptance of the EU narrative among

young people in both Belgrade and Pristina, who do see how they could potentially benefit if

their countries became member-states. This I learned not only from participants’ explanations of

their own opinions, but also from their assessments of their peers’ opinions, which lent more

generalizability to my findings.

Internalization of the Europeanization narrative was however even more evident when

some participants discussed the EU without me asking them to intentionally evaluate it. When I

asked him to describe how EU non-membership impacts his daily life, SRB-2 commented not

only that, “the market will be better when we enter the EU; [competition] will be better, and

prices will be lower, and some products will be better,” but also that “there is much more trash

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[here] than in other European cities” (personal communication, April 21, 2015). Here the

economic arguments for EU membership were clear, even reminiscent of a college textbook or

an EU brochure, but what was most telling about his image of the EU was that it is a place where

the streets are cleaner than in Belgrade. This speaks to a conception of the EU where potentially

every aspect of daily life would be better, even with less trash lining the gutters and alleyways.

SRB-1 also described an almost pristine image of the EU when he told me: “I believe that it’s

also good for this region to become a member of the European Union because it’s guaranteeing

peace and stability” (personal communication, April 18, 2015). While maintaining peace was

indeed one of the founding purposes of the EU, there is a lot of meaning implied in saying that

EU membership will guarantee it, rather than just promise to strive for it.

It would however be highly inaccurate based on these statements to say that students in

Belgrade and Pristina have blindly accepted the ideals of Europeanization discourse. On the

contrary, they also engaged personally with this discourse, most often by summarizing what they

believed other people thought about the EU and providing their own critique of that opinion. For

example, SRB-2 said simply: “Some people want Serbia to become a member of the EU because

of the perspective that everything would change the moment that Serbia enters the EU, and it

won’t happen” (personal communication, April 21, 2015). RKS-4 also said that: “most of us

think that being part of the EU means that you have to be really great, but my personal opinion is

that it’s not really that great … first we should change our society” (personal communication,

April 29, 2015). These statements, as well as others, introduced participants’ own understandings

of how complex the EU question is, and to varying extents they all explained why they felt that,

while joining the EU is a worthwhile goal for the Balkans, the process is not so straightforward.

Their skepticism varied along a spectrum, however. SRB-2, who was very pro-EU, explained

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what specific shortcomings he saw in the EU integration process, especially in the Balkans:

The EU has its problems, not just internal problems like the Eurozone, Greece or Portugal. The EU has committed some mistakes, for instance about the process of joining the EU in Croatia. They did not [address] the question of transitional justice … and dealing with the past as such … and they have made pretty much the same mistake here in Serbia (Personal communication, April 21, 2015).

Meanwhile RKS-1, who was much more skeptical of EU integration, told me about how the

process of integration has had a huge negative impact on immigrant families in Croatia:

The European Union … supports capitalism [with its] big malls that can afford to sell water, bread, and milk for half-price … In the meantime in our bakery we cannot afford [to do this], because we only sell bread and we have to at full price … a lot of Albanian immigrant families closed their small shops and went back to Kosovo … so it’s really like a systematic oppression for me, the EU to the small business (Personal communication, April 25, 2015).

SRB-3, who also had friends in Croatia, believed that the main flaw in the

Europeanization discourse is that it floats upon an uneducated population that only hears the

benefits of belonging to the EU and not the sacrifices that come along with them: “[My Croatian

friends say], ‘we have a lot of changes, a lot of money we’re spending on nothing right now, so

everything is very different and [we] don’t know how to deal with the new situation. Nobody

prepared us’” (personal communication, April 23, 2015). This post-hoc understanding of what it

means to be in the EU was also referenced by RKS-1, who, as mentioned above, before the

referendum saw, “commercials [showing] only the good side of the European Union, [saying]

you should vote for the EU, they will save us, we want them” without explaining what EU

membership really entails (personal communication, April 25, 2015).

Skepticism towards the EU narrative, that it will solve all the problems in the Balkans

and that life in the EU is perfect, was thus evident among participants. However, only with RKS-

3 did the skepticism mount to almost complete rejection of the EU integration project: “A few

years ago, I used to believe in Europe, but then I gave up, and now I want to go to the United

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States,” he told me, because the EU was refusing to liberalize visa regimes with Kosovo, which

had prevented him from being able to even leave Kosovo (personal communication, April 28,

2015). Apart from this perspective, most participants engaged in a discussion of things they liked

and disliked about the EU. RKS-2 expressed most of her discontent with the way the process of

integration has depended upon elites: “I don’t think people are involved in this process at all. It’s

officials” (personal communication, April 25, 2015). These and even lighter forms of criticism

however indicate that participants were not basing all of their opinions on, as RKS-1 would put

it, “EU propaganda” (Personal communication, April 25, 2015), but were instead analyzing the

EU narrative in order to dismantle and challenge the idealized, optimistic discourse.

As I will explain in the following section, a very similar thought pattern, of partial

internalization that still does not deter skepticism, was evident when I approached student

perspectives through the lens of Balkanization rhetoric. While this discourse argues against the

aims of the EU project in the Balkans, it is still very much compatible with the worldview of a

superior EU and inferior Balkans that Europeanization discourse purports.

BALKANIZATION DISCOURSE

Understanding how participants engaged with the Balkanization discourse, that countries

in the Western Balkans are inherently chaotic, corrupt, and not fit to become fully functioning

EU member-states, was slightly trickier, although my analysis of their statements about the

Balkans followed roughly the same method as with their attitudes towards EU integration.

Generally speaking, participants were familiar with the negative elements of

Balkanization, which they demonstrated when I asked for them to describe their countries from

their own perspectives, as well as from the perspectives of their and other societies. RKS-4 said

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quite confidently: “There’s a lot of mafia, wars, incrimination, stuff like this, especially

corruption. We are known as people that are corrupted, that like wars, and that makes me not like

myself being called Balkan or Western Balkan” (Personal communication, April 29, 2015). Such

a statement demonstrates not only familiarity with negative Balkan stereotypes, but also

acknowledgement of how pervasive those stereotypes are. I should note that often when

participants characterized the Balkans they did so in this manner, of saying that ‘people think’ or

‘there is a perception that’, rather than stating it purely as fact. As another prime example, SRB-1

explained how he believed the EU would describe Serbia:

Their opinion is that Serbia is a complicated country to work with because of the difficult past that it has, especially when it comes to the conflicts. They believe we are a corrupted country with many, many problems … not only in the government but also in other fields. I believe that they also think that we are a country with big economic problems (Personal communication, April 18, 2015).

While SRB-1 framed this appraisal of the Balkans from an EU point of view, or at least a

Serbian citizen’s impression of the EU’s point of view, other participants mentioned that

Balkanizing statements could also be heard in the Balkans themselves. For example, RKS-1 told

me: “here in Kosovo, [people say] if we don’t desire to be part of the EU, we will be behind with

our culture, we will be more Ottoman” (personal communication, April 25, 2015). This account

harkens back to the discursive approach to Balkanization, in which Europe defines itself by

‘othering’ its neighbors such as the Balkans (Goldsworthy, 2002). In this instance, RKS-1

described a related phenomenon, in which EU proponents in the Balkans push for accession by

claiming that being European would be preferable to being ‘stuck’ in the Ottoman past that

serves as Europe’s inferior ‘other’.

Like with Europeanization discourse, these statements reveal primarily an awareness of

Balkan stereotypes and the ways in which EU countries portray the Balkans in a negative light.

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To hone in on the purpose of my research, however, the main question is to what extent

participants showed that they had internalized the stereotypes themselves, and how they engaged

with the stereotypes. Also similar to my analysis of their opinions on Europeanization, I noticed

that the most telling statements arose when they described the Balkans in passing while

answering other questions. SRB-3, who had spent time in the United States, for example,

described to me how she had to look for different ways of explaining to Americans where

Montenegro (her home country), Serbia, and the rest of the Balkan countries are in the world:

[I] say, do you know Serbia and Montenegro? Have you heard about Yugoslavia? Then at the end [I say], it’s southeastern Europe. I think that’s how we show that we don’t want that identity, that we don’t want to be Europeans. Because maybe on some level we don’t think that we deserve that [term] … or I think because of that ignorance of people who actually never heard about the Balkans, maybe it’s just easier to explain it that way. I’m from Serbia, you know, you probably heard about that country that was bombed and had a lot of wars in the last thirty years (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

SRB-3 said she noticed people from the Balkans in the US would resort to saying they were from

the Balkans in hopes that Americans, who from my personal experience are not known for their

knowledge of geography1, would recognize the term, followed by the name of their country

itself, and then the general region of southeast Europe. In effect, she said, “We are putting

ourselves in that group, we are Balkan people. We are that people, all that misery and wars, you

probably heard about us, we’ve had everything!” (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

SRB-3’s were the most notable of comments on the Balkans that were framed as an

insider rather than an outsider perspective, but other participants articulated such thoughts as

well. Recurring keywords included corruption, wars, hatred, nationalism, poverty, and even

misery. Beyond these buzzwords of Balkanization discourse, participants also occasionally made

comments about their countries or the Balkans in general that positioned them as the EU’s

inferior. For example, SRB-1 said of his favorite travel destinations: “I like those Mediterranean

1 One can only explain to a friend that he is studying abroad in Serbia, not Siberia, so many times.

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countries because they’re quite similar to the Balkans, the people are similar, however the

economic situation is much better than here, so objectively it’s a better place to live” (personal

communication, April 18, 2015). Relating more to the EU itself, he also said: “There are some

norms and rules in the EU that we don’t have, and I believe that if those rules were respected

here then my personal life, my profession and everything else, would be much better” (personal

communication, April 18, 2015). More radically, RKS-1 said: “let’s be realistic, the government

of Kosovo, most of them are criminals” (personal communication, April 25, 2015).

With regards to EU accession, participants also indicated that, whether or not they

strongly hoped for Serbia or Kosovo, or other Balkan countries, to join the EU, they did not

expect it to happen anytime soon. Some estimated it would take 10 years, others 15, or even

more. RKS-3 said “not in my lifetime” (personal communication, April 28, 2015). RKS-2,

though she did not provide an estimate, said that: “I think it would take much more time for

people to be organized and adapted to [the EU] environment. We would have to change

fundamentally to accept the EU standards” (personal communication, April 25, 2015). The key is

that she described the change as ‘fundamental’, implying that the accession process is not simply

one of bringing the Balkans up to speed with the EU; it is more one of completely redoing the

way society functions in those countries. SRB-2 expressed severe doubt that Serbia’s accession

was progressing in the way that it should or how politicians and the media were saying it was:

Serbia should do much, much more in order to improve its position and improve life for its citizens … I’m afraid that the EU thinks that Serbia is respecting and applying these standards, and we are not. The situation in media, for instance. We have very strong censorship here in Serbia nowadays (personal communication, April 21, 2015).

These statements indicate not only that participants were aware of the negative

stereotypes about the Balkans, but when asked to describe their home country or the region at

large they often resorted to using those negative stereotypes. This suggests the internalization of

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certain aspects of Balkanization discourse, for example that politicians are corrupt, that economic

problems abound, and that EU accession has so far been and will continue to be an unproductive

process. It is important to note, however, that their observations were often based on facts they

knew about their countries. RKS-1 said that roughly 50% of girls in rural areas in Kosovo do not

finish high school (personal communication, April 25, 2015), and SRB-3 mentioned the

Belgrade waterfront project that is pouring money into a tourism project while rural areas remain

incredibly poor (personal communication, April 23, 2015). The internalization of negative

Balkan stereotypes should therefore not be understood as mere apathy. Rather, it is a reaction to

stereotypes that are reinforced by real-world happenings. RKS-4 admitted: “outsiders think we

are a country full of corruption, that we don’t have money and stuff like this, and I think it’s too

hard to avoid these stereotypes” (personal communication, April 29, 2015), which underlines

how the internalization of Balkanization is reinforced by on-the-ground realities.

As with Europeanization discourse, however, general awareness of Balkanization

narratives also resulted in thoughtful critique and skepticism among participants, in which they

also expressed their personal discontent with that rhetoric. SRB-1 had perhaps the most notable

reaction, in which he said:

I hate the term Western Balkans, because it’s totally constructed … before, nobody talked about the Western Balkans … when someone from the EU especially refers to this region as Balkans or Western Balkans, it usually has some negative connotation: poor countries, corrupted countries, or something like that. So I prefer Southeast Europe (personal communication, April 18, 2015).

SRB-3 also engaged with the Balkanization rhetoric that accuses Balkan countries, especially

Serbia, of being overly nationalistic and prone to starting wars by proposing that Serbian society

should seek to disregard traditional conservative narratives and take a more informed and

progressive approach to EU integration: “all the traditional opinions, I think they are very crazy

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… we need to clean up those opinions, give people lectures about what the EU means and what

the EU actually gives us, and what the EU takes from us” (personal communication, April 23,

2015). SRB-3 also told me a story from an international debate tournament in Belgrade in which

a young woman stood up and vilified Serbia during a debate session:

[She] said, “Come on, we are talking about Serbs here, they’ve had a lot of wars, they’ve demonized other countries, other people, and I think they’re very genocidal.” … [People] were so angry. [We thought], you cannot come to my country and call me genocidal, giving that generalization upon Serbs (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

She perceived a negative reaction around her towards this image of Serbia when it was voiced by

an outsider. In a way, while she herself characterized Serbia as a place that was by no means a

stranger to conflict, it was apparent that she and her peers were averse to hearing such

condemnation from outsiders, especially when the stereotype was aimed directly at Serbs, rather

than at the Balkans as a whole.

In a sense, this anecdote exemplifies taking ownership of the stereotype, which,

combined with a vision for how to push back against it, again demonstrates that internalizing a

discourse that demeans a country or a region is not always equivalent to acquiescing to that

discourse. Instead, what I heard from some participants was a sense of determination that

fighting back against negative perceptions of the Balkans is a task for Balkan people to

undertake themselves. SRB-3 herself described this as such:

That’s the narrative … You can’t change it by just pointing a finger at that girl or someone who says that publicly. It’s not how to change the narrative. First of all, give up traditional thought, and then change the political system, and then you can discuss changing the narrative (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

SRB-3 thus placed the responsibility for the perpetuation of Balkanization rhetoric, by both

outsiders and insiders like herself, upon Serbia’s rigid adherence to traditional nationalism and

its inability to reform its political system. While these observations fall cleanly in line with

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Balkanization, she also demonstrated her belief that Serbia could still work to overcome the

discursive stereotypes that Europeans have used to condemn it.

In addition to reclaiming the negative stereotypes and turning them into an impetus for

reform, some participants also mentioned positive characteristics of the Balkans, which they

associated very strongly with this term that is both geographic and cultural. SRB-2 provided a

very constructive interpretation of Balkan history:

I think that the Balkans is about the most complex region in the world, because this term Balkans combines not just geographical but also this ethnic background, this religious background … and you have this amount of history … that definitely belongs to the pros of the Balkans. But on the other side we people from the Balkans abused these pros and made cons (personal communication, April 21, 2015).

By highlighting the value of diversity in the Balkans and characterizing the ethnic conflicts of

the 90s as a detriment to that long-standing diversity, SRB-2 also rejected the notion that the

Balkans are chaotic by nature and that wars there are inevitable. This is a clear criticism of the

Balkanization narrative that portrays the region as inherently volatile and crisis-prone.

Further, RKS-2, upon discussing the idea of the Balkans, did not connect her discontent

for political and economic shortcomings in Pristina to the term ‘Balkan’ itself. Instead she

explained: “I’m used to looking at the community’s idea of being Balkan, the stereotypes, [like]

rakija2, also the ‘Balkan temper’. … But Western Balkans, I think that’s something that the

western area uses more than the Balkans itself” (personal communication, April 25, 2015). Here

her opinion was very much in line with that of SRB-1, who saw the term Western Balkans as a

politically constructed idea that was better suited for the ideological usage of the EU than the

Balkans themselves (personal communication, April 18, 2015). RKS-4 showed even less of an

interest in seeing the term ‘Balkan’ as political, let alone demeaning to the countries in that

region: “Well it’s okay, it’s just a geographical location. I use it. But not with any kind of

2 A traditional alcoholic beverage for which Balkan countries are known

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ideology behind it, only the geographical term” (personal communication, April 25, 2015).

While participants demonstrated awareness of Balkan stereotypes, especially negative

ones, their own references to those stereotypes, such as corruption, conflict, nationalism, and

poverty, do not necessarily mean that they personally felt there was nothing they could do to

combat the stereotypes. While their statements indicate internalization of some aspects of

Balkanization discourse, it is clear that they are still outwardly skeptical towards the idea that the

Balkan region cannot escape its stereotypes. Balkanization has not defeated their interest in

political, economic, and social reform; in fact, it serves as a fuel to direct their own opinions on

how the situation in the Balkans can be improved.

MIGRATION AS AN INDICATOR OF INTERNALIZED DISCOURSES

This investigation of how discourses of Europeanization and Balkanization are

internalized yet also critiqued and dismantled by students in the Balkans may help in expanding

the theoretical knowledge about youth perspectives in Serbia and Kosovo. However, the

intention of my research was also to apply this theory to current events and real-world issues that

are important to students in Belgrade and Pristina. I honed in on this aim of my research when I

talked to students about the current issue of migration, of thousands of young people leaving

Serbia and Kosovo to go, among other places, to the European Union.

When I talked to SRB-3, she focused on how the issue of migration, as people in her age

group see it, is fundamentally linked with the opportunities for personal career development that

can be found in the EU (or the US) but not in the Balkans:

I know a lot of people with a college degree who work as a cab driver, or as a server. … When you enter college, you have big dreams, and when you live in countries like Serbia those dreams are doomed to be crushed because you cannot find a job (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

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When I asked her to elaborate on why she personally was considering doing her master’s abroad,

she continued:

I’m studying marketing. People here [say], come on, anybody can do that. It’s not true, that’s why we don’t have good management in a lot of companies here, because people think that everybody can do marketing and everyone can do HR [human resources] … that’s why I want to go … nothing of my dream is in a relationship with the Balkans (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

While participants had different career goals in mind and different thoughts about how to achieve

them, what I could not help but notice was that every single one echoed this sentiment. Studying

in the Balkans, both in Belgrade and Pristina, is perceived as less effective than studying abroad,

because both students and potential employers perceive less quality in the education and

therefore less value in the degree. This was apparent in many statements:

Better a college from Spain or even from Hungary than the University of Belgrade, because even though it’s a strong university in Serbia, it’s still in Serbia, and with that degree you cannot do a lot (SRB-3, personal communication, April 23, 2015).

All of them will tell you the same, I would rather die than finish my master’s here. I also think the same. Even if you want to come back to Kosovo you want to come back with something that makes you different (RKS-1, personal communication, April 25, 2015).

The implications of this mentality are enormous. It is particularly important to note that SRB-3

specifically said she was divorcing her dreams from the Balkans as a region, not just from Serbia

(personal communication, April 23, 2015). SRB-2 also spoke of the Balkan region when he

described young people’s frustration with so few opportunities, even with a college degree:

They are losing much hope that things will change, that anything will change, and they are losing their patience. … They want to live better and they don’t see any kind of hope, neither in Kosovo nor in Serbia (personal communication, April 21, 2015).

Here is the crucial element that links migration with discussions of Balkanization.

Students are losing any hope they might have had that the system in their current countries will

begin providing more opportunities for them. For example, a complaint that was repeated by

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many participants was that “Here [in Kosovo, you] can’t make any money unless you are part of

the oligarchy” (RKS-4, personal communication, April 29, 2015) or that “if you’re not within the

political party … you don’t have many political opportunities” (SRB-3, personal communication,

April 23, 2015). Students often perceived that the system of employment was one in which you

could only get a good job if you had friends in high places, instead of knowledge and experience,

which made college degrees all the more useless. Frustration with unemployment and ineffective

diplomas thus intertwines not only with poor economic conditions but also with perceived

systems of corruption and self-serving elites; in other words, those negative perceptions of the

Balkans that characterize the Balkanization narrative that they themselves are using to describe

their countries.

What follows is the question: if young people are frustrated with this system that gives

them so little, to where are they turning? SRB-1 alluded to the answer when he told me:

In the EU, it’s quite difficult to imagine that to get a job in some government agency or in the government in general, that you have to be a member of the political party that is governing at that moment. Here it’s a rule (personal communication, April 18, 2015).

This should sound familiar. As participants explained, the things that the Balkans lack -the

promises and opportunities for good education, employment, and a future career- are central to

what students hear from the Europeanization narrative. When many think about the EU, they

think of a system they can trust and that will provide for them:

[Young people want] predictability. I mean when you get a job that you work there and you have a salary every first or fifth of the month … life is regulated by laws and nothing else will interfere with your life (SRB-2, personal communication, April 21, 2015).

They don’t see any perspective here in Kosovo, they think [of] getting out, getting into the EU, [that the] EU will ensure them some job, money, medical treatment, stuff like this. I think most want to go to have a job. They want to get really well paid (RKS-4, personal communication, April 29, 2015).

As explained in the previous sections, students’ optimistic perceptions of the EU and the way of

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life there were strongly conditioned by their pessimistic perceptions of the Balkans in accordance

with the discourses established and perpetuated by outsiders. In their explanations of why

migration to the EU is highly desirable, they thus reflected the narratives of both

Europeanization and Balkanization that are so intimately intertwined.

Most participants did not yet have official plans to leave their countries for study or work.

However, it was clear that they had been exposed to this mentality, that if they wanted a decent

education and good job opportunities, either at home or abroad, they would at least need to get

their higher degrees somewhere other than the Balkans. SRB-1, the only one on track to get his

PhD in Belgrade, admitted: “I don’t have any plans … but I’m just thinking, maybe … the time

has come for me to go to the EU?” (personal communication, April 18, 2015), almost as though

migrating to the EU would be inevitable if he wanted to make something of his degree. Most

participants could also think of people close to them who had already left to pursue education

and careers in the EU (as well as the US), and even more who planned to soon. SRB-3 told me of

a discussion she had with one of her best friends who was about to leave for the UK:

I always ask him, you’re very smart, why don’t you stay here and try to change something? And [he says], I would, if I had people to talk to, but you need generations and generations to change the minds of people, so it’s not in my lifetime. I want to take all my chances and build up my career (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

SRB-3 agreed with her friend when she thought about her own hopes to pursue a career in

marketing. The day after our interview, she was granted a visa to go work in the US, where she

would then explore internship and graduate school opportunities, because it was only there that

she could envision her dream coming true (personal communication, April 23, 2015).

So far, these opinions highlight how deeply images of the Balkans and the EU have been

ingrained among students. Firstly, Europeanization discourse encourages them to migrate to the

EU because it is said to be a place for free movement, good education, and opportunities to build

31

up one’s career. Even the narrative that Europe is a place where “you leave all your nationalism

behind and try to have diversity … different cultures joining into one” (RKS-4, personal

communication, April 29, 2015) influences how students view their chances of being able to

build a new life in the EU: “I believe that I could easily become part of some other society or

community [there]” (SRB-1, personal communication, April 18, 2015).

On the related other hand, Balkanization discourse has also encouraged them to not hope

for change in their home countries while they are still young: “[We’re] losing faith in the system,

which is very bad especially when you’re young, because you just want to run from your

country, you don’t want to do anything to make the situation better” (SRB-3, personal

communication, April 23, 2015). With little hope for accession to the EU anytime in the next ten

years, the only way to escape the negatives of the Balkans and attain the positives of the EU is to

relocate themselves. However, as many like SRB-3 noted, while this choice to migrate may be

good for the individual, it does not bode well for the future of the Balkans if everyone who hopes

for a better society leaves: “If you have 50,000 people leaving Kosovo for the EU to get money

or better jobs or whatever, it’s terrifying in a lot of ways” (RKS-1, personal communication,

April 25, 2015). SRB-2 also expressed his fear of what would happen in the Balkans if young

people continued to leave: “I’m afraid about the future of each and every Balkan country …

Because we will lose the human resources, we will lose the capacity to do anything in Serbia if

everyone goes abroad” (personal communication, April 21, 2015).

However, as discussed above, it is important not to focus solely on the internalization of

discourses without also acknowledging skepticism and pushback against narratives. RKS-1, for

instance was less optimistic about what migrating to the EU would achieve for an individual, as

she remembered her own experiences growing up in an immigrant family in Croatia:

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I was born there, and I am still discriminated against … [if you immigrate] you will be working more than eight hours a day, you will live in a horrible apartment, you will be marginalized. People often think, ah, European Union, I’ll get a good job. [But] even if you get a good job, you need to pay your bills, and you won’t have a house there because you’re an immigrant, you’ll have to pay rent … With the higher [wage] you have [to meet] a higher living standard (personal communication, April 25, 2015).

Here RKS-1 expressed her personal skepticism of the EU narrative, that it is a place that

provides equal opportunity for all. This was part of why she, although she planned to pursue her

master’s abroad, intends to come back to Kosovo afterwards to become a professor at her

university: “I’m okay working with and teaching young minds … not telling them the same old

… neoliberal story that comes from some of our teachers” (personal communication, April 25,

2015). RKS-2 also did not feel much hope for the people who were leaving:

They think if they just get out of Kosovo life will be easier, they will be more easily accepted, people will understand their reasons for leaving and will accept them as part of their communities, but they’re not going to (personal communication, April 25, 2015).

SRB-2 also expressed to me his personal hesitation about moving abroad, even though he

also hoped to further his education in Western Europe. He said the biggest thing keeping him

tied to Belgrade and to Serbia was an “irrational connection” of sorts, which he explained:

I would lose … things you cannot buy with money, like family, like friends, like this spirit, the spirit of this country and the spirit of the city, and the food and the music and the society … Because rationally speaking everyone would like to go work for a higher salary, to have better life conditions, and to be able to afford everything he wants. [Staying] is not rational (personal communication, April 21, 2015).

This hesitation can also be classified as skepticism towards the narratives that Balkans are bad

and EU is good, because there were some aspects of Balkan culture, such as food, music, and

people, that SRB-2 would not be willing to give up in favor of economic gains. While a homo

economicus approach would indeed say this is an irrational choice, it also indicates a bond with

Belgrade, Serbia, and the Balkans that event partially internalized narratives cannot break.

In sum, while the migration of young people from the Balkans to the EU is being fueled

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by the narratives of Balkanization (the push to leave) and Europeanization (the pull to enter),

there still exist personal feelings of skepticism towards the EU’s promises, as well as feelings of

affinity with positive aspects of the Balkans, which are keeping young people connected to their

hometowns and countries.

BELGRADE AND PRISTINA: SITUATIONAL DIFFERENCES, DISCURSIVE SIMILARITIES

Another important component of my research was the comparison between students in

Belgrade and students in Pristina, which my research seeks to generalize onto the situations in

those two countries. To summarize my findings in this comparison, I found some incongruities

between the two cities, as I anticipated based on the demographic and political differences

between Serbia and Kosovo, but I still noticed transnational similarities among participants. This

should already be apparent, since so far I have analyzed participant responses without separating

them by location. However, I must further elaborate on these differences and similarities in order

to explain the significance of conducting interviews in two countries.

One notable difference appeared when participants discussed EU accession for their

home countries and for the region in general. Surprisingly, some in each city perceived the other

country in my study to be more in favor of accession. One participant in Serbia said:

Definitely Kosovo would pass … the EU has invested everything in Kosovo right now, so I think it’s not much of a problem, I think all the politicians would say yes and the citizens would say yes, and I think the problem is that the EU cannot say that Kosovo can enter and that Serbia and Montenegro cannot because that would cause a big mess (SRB-3, personal communication, April 23, 2015).

On the other hand, some participants in Pristina believed the reverse to be true:

[In ten years] I can see that Serbia would be much closer to the EU than Kosovo (RKS-1, personal communication, April 25, 2015).

Serbians are supported more by the EU because they don’t want Serbia to go with the

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Russians. This is why they are trying to attract Serbia and say that she’s very good, to flirt with her (RKS-3, personal communication, April 28, 2015).

Based on my discussions with students, I would attribute this divide to students in Pristina’s very

different perception of the influences of the international community. While from outside it may

be perceived as aid and assistance, on the ground it appears more like manipulation:

I think they see Kosovo as an experiment, they see us like, oh what to do about that … they see us like something to play with. … It’s a field for experiments, it’s a toy for high politicians (RKS-1, personal communication, April 25, 2015).

I don’t think [EU] societies have much knowledge about Kosovo or the Kosovo issue … I don’t think it matters as much in social terms as it does in political terms, political interests (RKS-2, personal communication, April 25, 2015).

Furthermore, it is also clear that Kosovo’s developing status as a state, which is not recognized

by many countries including Serbia, makes students view the EU integration process much more

pessimistically. As RKS-1 put it:

We are not formally recognized, we do not have empowerment of the state … If you talk about the process of Kosovo being part of the European Union, it’s like science fiction (personal communication, April 25, 2015).

This perspective is likely why students in Pristina overall predicted it would take longer for

Kosovo to join the EU -15 years or more, if they could estimate at all- than students in Belgrade

did for Serbia –roughly 10 years maximum.

Another crucial difference lies in which people, as my participants perceived it, are

leaving the Balkans and for what reasons. SRB-1 told me: “People who are going to live in the

EU are usually people with higher education, so we lose those smart people, and then none of

them will come back, probably never” (personal communication, April 18, 2015). SRB-2 agreed

that losing educated people for good was the problem: “Serbia is losing the smartest, the best

people that Serbia has” (personal communication, April 21, 2015). In Belgrade, the main impetus

for migration is to seek higher education and job opportunities, often after attending a university

35

in Belgrade. This was evident among my Belgrade participants, all of whom were considering

moving abroad, maybe for good. SRB-1 admitted: “[If] I move to the EU and I find a job, it’s

quite difficult to imagine that I will come back. Maybe when I retire” (personal communication,

April 18, 2015). In this case, the matter is one of so-called ‘brain drain’, in which students who

have knowledge and skills choose to take them elsewhere instead of using them at home.

In Pristina, the story is somewhat different, as three of the four students I interviewed

said they only wanted to study in another country and then come back to Pristina to use their

skills in teaching, civil society, or administration. They were however aware that thousands of

other young people had been leaving in search of employment abroad, including unskilled labor,

especially in January of 2015. Said RKS-4 of this group: “I think they are mostly people who did

not go to university, and many did not finish high school … People who are not educated, they

choose to go out” (personal communication, April 29, 2015). RKS-2 saw the situation similarly.

Based on her assessment, it appears young people’s reasons to leave Kosovo are less about

building a solid career based on high-quality education and more about finding any sort of job, or

even just getting out of Kosovo at all: I haven’t heard of many students who have left, but a lot

of young people … who are thinking that leaving Kosovo will solve their problems, because of

the unemployment rate … [they will do] anything, bartender, janitor, cleaner, whatever (personal

communication, April 25, 2015).

Here it is essential to highlight one of the other major differences between Kosovo and

Serbia that participants noted, especially in Pristina: Kosovo is not part of the Schengen zone,

and visas for international travel, especially outside of the Balkans, are hard to acquire. RKS-1

told me: “It’s not only money, they want to see the world because they are repressed, they cannot

get out” (personal communication, April 25, 2015). RKS-4 added that: “Most of the people who

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apply for visas are refused,” which made him guess that most people leaving do so illegally,

which has resulted in thousands of people being sent back to Kosovo from the EU because they

do not have the proper documents (personal communication, April 29, 2015).

The internalization of Europeanization discourse here is incredibly strong, as the EU is

portrayed as not just a land of opportunity but also an escape in every way possible from

Kosovo. This also leads to very different images of what migration looks like. Students in

Belgrade discussed how they and their peers would apply for scholarships and internships in the

EU, or else look for some sort of work abroad. If they managed that, they would then look to

keep one foot in the door for staying by looking for further opportunities for study or work in

their new country. Others, like SRB-1 and some of his friends, were looking to learn Hungarian

and apply for Hungarian citizenship based on ancestry, which would make them EU citizens and

give them new rights for travel, study, and work, without having to leave Belgrade at all

(personal communication, April 18, 2015). Meanwhile in Pristina, both RKS-1 and RKS-4

recalled coming back to Kosovo after traveling and seeing buses upon buses full of young people

and families waiting to leave, with no indication of what their plans were:

We had some extra sandwiches … from this conference, so the group leader [said], “we should give them, they are leaving, they will need it” … and when he came back … he said … “I saw children crying, and I did not have the power to look those people in the eyes” (RKS-1, personal communication, April 25, 2015).

From such anecdotes, differences between migrants from Serbia and Kosovo become

much clearer in ways that theoretical analysis cannot capture. While Balkanization and

Europeanization narratives push and pull young people in both countries to migrate, political and

societal differences between the two countries have tremendous effects on how that migration

occurs. While students in Belgrade search for career opportunities abroad, young people in

Kosovo, most of them without a university education, contemplate how to escape their country

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and find any new life they possibly can.

Despite these differences, what united participants from Belgrade and Pristina was this

critical engagement with the identity politics of Europe and the Balkans. When beginning my

research, I anticipated that most students would say they identified as European, mostly because

they were born on the European continent. This was the explanation I heard from my friend in

Belgrade who greatly influenced the direction of my research (personal communication, March

7, 2015). However, instead I encountered the response: “What is Europe anyways?” (RKS-2,

personal communication, April 25, 2015).

While SRB-1, for example, agreed that he should call himself European because of his

geographical location (personal communication, April 18, 2015), others had differing opinions of

what they thought it meant to be European. SRB-2 saw European-ness as an identity based on

values, both personally and societally, such as “institutional responsibility, protection of the

environment, respect of human rights, etc.,” and by working to implement those values himself

before Serbia joined the EU he was in a way “pretending to be European” (personal

communication, April 21, 2015). RKS-1 disagreed with this approach, arguing:

I can say I’m European, I’m from this territory and that’s it. If you want to understand being European [as] a value, I find it really problematic, because you’re making this identity superior … [If I say that,] I know I’m [re]producing inequalities in the world (personal communication, April 25, 2015).

Perhaps this could have indicated another difference between Belgrade and Pristina, but RKS-4

also approached the question similarly to SRB-2, noting a value-based gap between Kosovo and

the EU: “You can’t feel European when you have problems with people [Serbia, Albania, etc.]”

(personal communication, April 29, 2015).

By comparing and contrasting these varying definitions of Europe –geographically,

historically, politically, and culturally- students in both cities were engaging intellectually in this

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discussion. This effectively ties all of my research together: from internalization of discourses, to

questioning narratives, to explaining employment-based migration. While tangible differences do

exist between Belgrade and Pristina in terms of international relations and migration, my

research indicates that students in both cities are very much aware of how Europe and the

Balkans are portrayed in society both at home and abroad, and that these portrayals are very

similar for both Serbia and Kosovo. In addition, students in both cities are using the skills they

have learned from education, work, travel, and engagement in civil society to engage with these

common images in a constructive manner.

CONCLUSION

In both Belgrade and Pristina, students are engaging with the theoretical discourses of

Europeanization and Balkanization that are prominent in academia. On the one hand, students

have internalized various aspects of these discourses, which are reflected in their perceptions of

the European Union, the Western Balkans, and current relationships between the two. For

example, they often see the European Union as a land of opportunities for young people, for

example travel, education, employment, and careers. Students also tend to describe their home

countries in terms of the negative stereotypes for which other societies know them, such as wars,

extreme nationalism, corrupt government officials, and economic hardship.

On the other hand, many students are also reflecting critically upon these discourses,

questioning and sometimes even rejecting these common narratives. For instance, some students

criticize the imperialistic nature of the European Union, or else the shortcomings of its approach

to integration in Eastern Europe. In other cases, students also push back at negative stereotypes

by identifying the aspects of the Balkans for which they are proud, or by explaining their visions

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for a future in which the Balkans can work to overcome those stigmatizing narratives.

The internalization of Europeanization and Balkanization narratives is most evident when

it comes to the current issue of youth migration from Serbia and Kosovo to the EU. Students -or

young people in general- are often choosing to seek their futures in the EU because they believe

that more opportunities will be offered there in terms of education and employment. This choice

to leave indicates that they have to some extent internalized the stigmatization of the Balkans as

an unproductive place both politically and economically, and they are seeking to divorce

themselves from those narratives by moving to the EU themselves. Migration presents itself as

the most immediate option, since few believe that the remaining Balkan countries will join the

EU anytime soon, and that social, political, and ideological change in the region would require

decades, if not generations, of hard, almost impossible work.

The desire to leave is particularly strong in Kosovo, where young people also feel trapped

by restrictive visa regimes, high unemployment rates among youth, and an openly corrupt system

of politics. Thus there are undoubtedly situational differences in Belgrade and Pristina that

systematically affect student perspectives, as well as patterns of migration. However, the two

cities are similar in regards to students critically engaging with the narratives of Europeanization

and Balkanization that stigmatize both societies in very similar ways.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE STUDY

By no means is my research exhaustive. Due to time constraints, I had to limit my

interviews to only youth in the capital cities of Serbia and Kosovo, and as a student I was usually

in contact only with other students. For future research, I would feel strongly inclined to expand

my target population to youth in general, so as to better understand how education affects

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individuals’ opinions on the EU, the Balkans, and migration. I would also look to expand my

research into rural areas so as to examine the impacts of location and economic situation upon

youth perspectives. Thinking even further, I would also consider conducting research in other

Yugoslav successor states, such as Croatia so as to include post-accession youth perspectives, or

Bosnia-Herzegovina so as to further examine the effects of a stagnant political system on youth

perceptions of the Balkans and the EU. Such future research could build upon my findings by

including groups of individuals whose perspectives this study did not consider. Nevertheless, the

findings from this research can serve as a foundation for this further research on how youth in

the Balkans engage with discourses of Europeanization and Balkanization.

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APPENDIX A: SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW GUIDE

Bolded headings and numbered questions indicate basic interview structure. Lettered sub-questions are potential follow-up questions based on participant responses.

Introduction

1. Could you please tell me a little about yourself?a. Age, where do you live/have you lived?b. Where is your family from?c. What are you studying? What degree are you pursuing?d. Are you working? What sort of work do you do?

2. Have you had many opportunities to travel?a. Where have you traveled? In former Yugoslavia? In Europe?b. What is your favorite place that you’ve visited? What did you like about it?c. Do you hope to travel more in the future?d. If you haven’t had many chances to travel, what are the obstacles?

European Union

3. I am interested in hearing people’s opinions on the European Union. Have you learned much about the EU before, and, if so, how?

4. What opinions have you heard about the EU from other people?a. Do you hear positive things? Negative things?b. What groups do you think are more likely to be pro/anti-EU?c. What is your own opinion about the EU?

5. What do you think it means to be ‘European’?a. If you had to draw lines on a map showing where ‘Europe’ is, where would you

draw them? What countries would you leave out of ‘Europe’?b. Would you say that (Serbia/Kosovo) is ‘European’? Do you think people would

agree/disagree with you?

Identity

6. Do you consider yourself ‘European’? Why or why not?

7. What other national identifiers would you use to describe yourself?a. Serb(ian)? Kosovar (Serb/Albanian)? Yugoslav? Other?

8. Do you sometimes hear people use terms like ‘Balkan’ or ‘Western Balkans’?a. What are your thoughts on these terms?b. Would you ever describe yourself as Balkan? Why or why not?

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EU Accession

9. How would you describe (Serbia/Kosovo)’s current relationship with the EU?a. Do you think (Serbia/Kosovo) will join the EU? If so, when?b. What do you think countries in the EU think of (Serbia/Kosovo)? Do you think

they want (Serbia/Kosovo) to join?c. Would you say that (Serbia/Kosovo) not being in the EU has an effect on your

own life? If so, how?

10. What do you think (Serbia/Kosovo)’s relationship with the EU will be like in 10 years?a. Will (Serbia/Kosovo) have joined the EU?b. What about other countries in this region? Do you think they will have joined?

Youth Migration

11. Have you heard much recently about young people moving to the EU?a. Why do you think people choose to move to the EU? What do you think they

hope to achieve? Do you think many people will return?b. What may be the advantages or disadvantages of migration? For individuals? For

society as a whole?

12. May I ask if you know anyone personally who has left or is planning to leave (Serbia/ Kosovo)?

a. Could you tell me more about how/why this person made this decision?b. Could you tell me about your thoughts on this event?

13. May I ask if you yourself have ever considered leaving (Serbia/Kosovo)?a. Could you tell me about what has influenced your thoughts/decisions on whether

or not to move?

Conclusion

14. Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts and opinions with me.a. Would you like to know more about the research I am doing?b. Would you like me to send you the results of my research?

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APPENDIX B: INFORMATION ABOUT INTERVIEWS

Participant Sex Interview Date Interview Length

Belgrade

SRB-1 M April 18, 2015 33 min

SRB-2 M April 21, 2015 43 min

SRB-3 F April 23, 2015 56 min

Kosovo

RKS-1 F April 25, 2015 60 min

RKS-2 F April 25, 2015 33 min

RKS-3 M April 28, 2015 30 min

RKS-4 M April 29, 2015 28 min

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