Policy Consensus During Institutional Change: Macedonian Foreign Policy Since Independence

Abstract

This chapter investigates the development of Macedonian foreign policy since the country’s independence in 1991. Looking at how the country’s foreign policy has evolved since the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation and at the tools the political elites used to address challenges to it, the evolution of the foreign policy of a small, newly independent state in the post-Yugoslav space will be outlined. What makes Macedonian foreign policy an interesting case for scholarly analysis are the political and institutional transformations the country has been through over the past two and a half decades. In addition, the puzzle driving the discussion below is why and how the foreign policy consensus among Macedonian political elites has survived, despite fundamental changes in the country’s constitutional, party and political system since 1991.