You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures
This article examines the position of Serbia as a small state in the context of external pressures, largely reflecting an ambition to balance the East and the West. While clearly interested in offers and benefits from collaboration with both geostrategic realms, Serbia’s authorities have always left...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Taylor & Francis Group
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Cogent Social Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311886.2024.2389479 |
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| author | Vladimir Vučković Branislav Radeljić |
| author_facet | Vladimir Vučković Branislav Radeljić |
| author_sort | Vladimir Vučković |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article examines the position of Serbia as a small state in the context of external pressures, largely reflecting an ambition to balance the East and the West. While clearly interested in offers and benefits from collaboration with both geostrategic realms, Serbia’s authorities have always left space for possible alternatives—a trend that is expected to serve power preservation or to inform external players to what extent Serbia is keen on balancing and juxtaposing great powers in the region. While analyzing the limited case of the Covid-19 pandemic and the never-ending case of Kosovo, additionally actualized by the Russo-Ukrainian war, the present study suggests that Serbia is at the crossroads between growing ambitions and the real limitations of what its smallness can achieve. The paper concludes that Serbian foreign policy contains all the prerogatives of movement without a goal, a search for strategic partnerships, but without a coherent political vision—an approach that generates suspicion of being labelled as distracted and unreliable. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-afd6f88f9c464bc391e36e63e7c78ea8 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2331-1886 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-12-01 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cogent Social Sciences |
| spelling | doaj-art-afd6f88f9c464bc391e36e63e7c78ea82025-08-20T03:44:14ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCogent Social Sciences2331-18862024-12-0110110.1080/23311886.2024.2389479You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressuresVladimir Vučković0Branislav Radeljić1Department of International Relations and European Studies/International Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech RepublicDepartment of Government and Society, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAEThis article examines the position of Serbia as a small state in the context of external pressures, largely reflecting an ambition to balance the East and the West. While clearly interested in offers and benefits from collaboration with both geostrategic realms, Serbia’s authorities have always left space for possible alternatives—a trend that is expected to serve power preservation or to inform external players to what extent Serbia is keen on balancing and juxtaposing great powers in the region. While analyzing the limited case of the Covid-19 pandemic and the never-ending case of Kosovo, additionally actualized by the Russo-Ukrainian war, the present study suggests that Serbia is at the crossroads between growing ambitions and the real limitations of what its smallness can achieve. The paper concludes that Serbian foreign policy contains all the prerogatives of movement without a goal, a search for strategic partnerships, but without a coherent political vision—an approach that generates suspicion of being labelled as distracted and unreliable.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311886.2024.2389479SerbiaEUChinaRussiaCOVID-19Kosovo |
| spellingShingle | Vladimir Vučković Branislav Radeljić You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures Cogent Social Sciences Serbia EU China Russia COVID-19 Kosovo |
| title | You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures |
| title_full | You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures |
| title_fullStr | You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures |
| title_full_unstemmed | You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures |
| title_short | You are either with us, or against us: the small state of Serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures |
| title_sort | you are either with us or against us the small state of serbia between domestic ambition and external pressures |
| topic | Serbia EU China Russia COVID-19 Kosovo |
| url | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311886.2024.2389479 |
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