PECOB's Papers series

There are worse things than defeat. If a community has the opportunity to inspect its setbacks its conqueror has stopped short of wiping out the vanquished group's memory and collective existence. If the defeated are a mobile community they might literally look for greener pastures. Sedentary winners and losers, on the other hand, remain in contact, and their paired experiences of victory and defeat affect future actions on both sides.
The Serbs are among those who have developed their identity by moving from defeat to defeat. Enemies have failed to (or refrained from) destroying them, inundating them with non-Serbian settlers, or banishing them to a destructive exile. The iconic battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389 remains an appropriate starting point for a discussion of Serbia's relationship to defeat, but the evolution of songs and memories adapted to the task of honing a Herderian nation, not the battle itself, informs the construction of collective defeat. The peripatetic remains of "Tsar" Lazar, continuing references to his heavenly kingdom, and mass commemorative rallies at the battlefield in 1889 and 1989 remain central, contemporary, touchstones. Serb poets and politicians folded defeats of the 18th and 19th centuries into the Kosovo memory.

This paper studies the social impact of the global economic crisis on the countries of the Western Balkans, with a focus on the Republic of Macedonia. Although almost all countries of the region have been severely hit by the economic crisis in 2009 some, such as Macedonia, that were less integrated into the global economy were apparently less affected initially. The paper sets out the broad impact of the crisis on the region’s economic growth, and identifies the transmission mechanisms of the crisis, through contractions of export demand, falling remittance flows, bank credit, and sharply reduced flows of foreign direct investment...

The Western Balkan countries are significantly exposed to the effects of global crisis because most of them are highly indebted abroad, posses insufficient hard currency reserves and experience high balance of payments deficits. Although the first wave of financial crisis (a fall in prices of new financial instruments) was not critical for them, the second wave in the form of credit crunch, collapse of exports and disruption of...

The Yugoslav diaspora constitutes a highly relevant phenomenon in the history of Australia, having contributed to altering the sociocultural landscape of the country.

In the aftermath of the ‘90s wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, the return of the Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons to their previous houses was listed among the main priorities of the massive international intervention that invested the two countries.

L’esigenza di aprire un corridoio energetico che potesse, dall’Europa, raggiungere i campi di estrazione gasiferi del bacino caspico e, potenzialmente, raccogliere le risorse trasportabili dalla zona medio orientale e mesopotamica è da tempo al centro dell’attenzione sotto il profilo economico, tecnico e geopolitico.

Recent studies on well-being or life satisfaction focus on transition countries. Using the year 2008 of the European Values Study 2010 (EVS), I use simple OLS regressions for life and job satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with government.

Education and education systems are commonly seen to have a positive impact on countries or regions they serve. But in fact education systems may contribute to create or intensify societal tensions and conflicts, and in particular animosities related to some aspects of communities´ identity, such as ethnicity.

Poland and Italy have a long history of cooperation in several domains. Much has been written about cooperation in the field of arts and politics, much less about economic relations. This paper aims to contribute to fill this gap in literature. The paper analyses the last 40 years of Polish-Italian economic relations starting from the rise to power of Edward Gierek in 1970, who in the attempt to modernize Polish socialist economy looked Westward in order to acquire capitals and technology to boost growth in the country.