Serbia after Yugoslavia: Caught between Geopolitics and Liberal Promises

Abstract

ABSTRACT Serbia’s foreign policy choices reflect a profound identity crisis. While Serbia denies the independence of Kosovo, it simultaneously pursues membership in the European Union. My approach to understanding these tensions offers an alternative to the mainstream, liberal perspective whereby Serbian foreign policy claims are reduced to purely ideological explanations, thereby, ignoring the complex interplay between social identity crisis and political processes. I evaluate this seemingly contradictory nature of Serbian foreign policy choices from a constructivist and critical geopolitical perspective by bringing to the fore the body of international relations (IR) literature on ontological security and Stefano Guzzini’s conceptualisation of the return of geopolitics in Europe. This allows for a more nuanced analysis that recognises no government would be able to establish a coherent policy unless the underlying identity crisis and foreign policy anxieties are at least mediated.