Professor Florian Bieber will lecture on the subject of "The Balkans: Promotion of Power-Sharing by Outsiders. "

His lecture will take place on Tuesday April 1, 2008, at 12:00PM in the PPEC Conference Room

Copy of Prof. Bieber's lecture .pdf

Abstract

Power-Sharing has been a central feature of the post-conflict peace agreements and other externally imposed state reforms in former Yugoslavia. Despite pre-existing traditions, Power-Sharing has been imposed by third parties rather than having emerged as a domestic institutional solution to interethnic tension. As this paper will argue the external imposition in a number of cases has been insufficient to create sufficient momentum to consensus-building to render the system operational without continued external intervention. Furthermore, the degree to which groups hold control over alternative power-structures is essential in understanding the success or failure of Power-Sharing. In examining the record of varying forms of Power-Sharing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro, this paper will suggest that Power-Sharing generally lacks a feasible alternative of interethnic accommodation, but in its trajectory needs to develop a centripetal dynamic to persist.

Website

Dr Florian Bieber is a Lecturer in East European Politics. He received his M.A. in Political Science and History and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Vienna, as well as an M.A. in Southeast European Studies from Central European University (Budapest). Between 2001 and 2006, he has been working in Belgrade (Serbia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) for the European Centre for Minority Issues. Florian Bieber is also a Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University, at the Regional Masters Program for Democracy and Human Rights at the University of Sarajevo and the Interdisciplinary Master in East European Studies and Research (MIREES), University of Bologna.

He has been an International Policy Fellow of the Open Society Institute. His research interests include institutional design in multiethnic states, nationalism and ethnic conflict, as well as the political systems of South-eastern Europe. He published articles on institutional design, nationalism and politics in South-eastern Europe in Nationalities Papers, Third World Quarterly, Current History, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, International Peacekeeping, Ethnopolitcs and other journals. He is the author of Nationalism in Serbia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milosevic(Münster: Lit Verlag, 2005, in German) and Post-War Bosnia: Ethnic Structure, Inequality and Governance of the Public Sector (London: Palgrave, 2005) and edited and co-edited four books on South-eastern Europe.

Selected Publications

• 2005. Post-War Bosnia: Ethnic Structure, Inequality and Public Sector Governance (London: Palgrave)
• 2005. Nationalism in Serbia from the Death of Tito to the Fall of Milosevic (Münster: Lit Verlag, in German)