Centre-Periphery Relations in the Balkans

Abstract

Young democracies and transition societies face many challenges that typically emerge in the early stages of state-building processes. Among them, one central concern for national governments stands out: the core objective to consolidate the newly acquired national statehood and unity. In this endeavour, elites in the central government (centre) are in a continuous struggle with elites in the state’s subnational units (periphery). Nationalist elites often perceive demands for decentralization as a threat to the national unity of the state. Centralists base their argument for unity on the alleged and historically grown indivisibility of nation and state (Gellner 1983; Diamond and Plattner 1994; Brubaker 1995b; Hechter 2000; Migdal 2004a: 21–22; Bunce 2005). Without such “an ultimate unity of allegiance” the legitimacy of centralized rule is questioned (Laski 2003: 5).