Regional reactions to the Arab Uprisings: Evidence from the Balkans

Abstract

The Balkans provide an interesting empirical setting to observe variation in the reaction of regional countries to the Arab Uprisings and to probe the causes behind the variation. As a sub-region within the broader Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a geographical space that for almost five decades was under authoritarian/totalitarian one-party communist regimes and that only relatively recently transitioned to democracy, Balkan countries should normally be expected to show at least rhetorical support for the revolutionary changes in the Arab world since 2011 and for the democratic aspirations of the Arab people. Indeed, as noted by Mikulova and Berti (2013, p. 4), the Arab Uprisings “opened the door to a vital new target region for Central and Eastern European democracy support.” Moreover, given that all Balkan countries, with the notable exception of Serbia and its client entity within the Bosnian Federation, are firmly Western-oriented [1], one again should have expected Balkan elites to follow the foreign policy line of Brussels and Washington that initially embraced and supported the popular demonstrations and calls for regime change in the Arab world. Yet, the governments in Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia largely ignored the Arab Uprisings and did not articulate an official public stance towards them...