Small State Geopolitics Research Group

Name: Small State Geopolitics Research Group (HUN-REN KRTK RKI)

Funding: HUN-REN Welcome Home and Foreign Researcher Recruitment Program

Duration:2024-2028 (60 month)

Research Title: Small State Geopolitics in a Multipolar World – Prospects for Southeast European Regional Cooperation

Principal investigator: James W. Scott, Research Professor

Team (Transdanubian Research Department): Péter Balogh, Sára Gibárti, Zoltán Hajdú, Gábor Lados, Dávid Nagy, Imre Nagy, Zoltán Pámer, Szilárd Rácz, Péter Reményi.

Associate members: Norbert Pap (University of Pécs), Magdolna Sass (KRTK Institute of World Economics)

This project asks the question whether small states in Southeast Europe – the former Yugoslavia – have opportunities to achieve their political interests despite the influence of major regional powers such as Russia and Turkey. We also ask whether the European Union is an effective partner that can promote regional cooperation that could serve the development needs of former Yugoslav states. It is no secret that negotiations to enlarge the EU by giving Southeast European countries membership are not going very smoothly. The most problematic situation is that of Bosnia and Hercegovina which is characterised by three ethnocratic regimes that often disagree over the coordination of any cooperation development action. At the same time, the influence of regional powers and their cultural-ethnic politics is contributing to, and indeed appears to thrive on a lack of dialogue. This can only delay further future EU membership hopes.

In terms of the EU’s influence, its apparent inability to broker more effective intercommunal cooperation is seen as a critical risk, helping to propagate a situation of paralysis. The key to breaking the deadlock is robust regional cooperation that serves clear economic, structural and social development aims. For this to happen, communities need to work across borders and ethno-religious difference. Local cross-border cooperation is a laboratory of dialogue and a source of economic development. This is ever more crucial for those border areas that are in effect shrinking through population loss and ageing. This is a general problem across the wider region that could have considerable impacts on local cross-border interaction as a building block of regional cooperation. These observations are, on the one hand, not very positive and they suggest that the road ahead to mutual benefit through regional cooperation as well as EU membership will be indeed rocky. However, our research also suggests that not enough is being done. There are significant potentials for more effective dialogue through cross-border cooperation that need to be properly considered. This cooperation could also bring concrete and sustainable economic benefits if cooperation could be based on real partnerships. More has to be done locally but it is the European Union that especially needs to learn from past failures and provide more effective incentives for cooperation across borders.