Abstract ▼

Geopolitical analysis of the policies of the great powers over and in the Balkans in the period of three years is the object of this paper. The author initiates by retelling an event in 2019, indicative of one of the two theses of the text, namely that the US has returned to the Balkans. The second is the assumption, originally launched by the Russian geopolitician Dugin, that the Balkans are one of two monitors of world politics. The text is divided into five chapters. In the introductory part, the author defines his hypothesis and opts for Italian neoclassical geopolitical thought as a theoretical framework. The second chapter overviews basic socio-historical and geographical features of the Peninsula relevant for geopolitical understanding, while the third part of the text puts local political action of both external and internal actors into a broader geopolitical context. The fourth part is the most extensive and represents an overview of the most significant political actions of the great powers - Russia, the United States and China, and Germany, Turkey, and local countries. The conclusive part answers positively to Dugin’s assumption and confirms the thesis that great powers’ politics in the Balkans has regained importance for the US.

Abstract ▼

The conflict in Northern Ireland was resolved with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and with the great involvement of the Clinton administration. The paper explores how the United States (US) efforts in the Northern Ireland peace process contributed to the US grand strategy of liberal hegemony, approaching the subject from a realist perspective and using the method of a case study. It concludes that the Clinton administration saw the potential for a peaceful resolution of this conflict as an important part of its broader efforts to establish a liberal world order in the wake of the ending of the Cold War. This factor was a major motivation for the increased interest of the Bill Clinton administration. The positive outcome of the peace process, which was sponsored and mediated by the US, has become an important foundation for the justification of further engagements supposed to contribute to the liberal hegemony that Clinton’s foreign policy aimed to construct.

Abstract ▼

Following the end of the Cold War, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) took the initiative in their interactions with the UN Security Council. Since then, mechanisms for informal consultations between NGOs and the Security Council have been established. Through informal consultations, NGOs have successfully influenced the decisions of the Security Council in the area of soft policy. It is critical to take appropriate measures in a timely manner when it comes to international peace and security. Mechanisms of informal access are not able to provide this request because they depend on the goodwill of the permanent members of the Security Council. The author examines possibilities for the establishment of formal interaction between the Security Council and NGOs. The author considers the UN Charter revision or granting international legal personality to NGOs as solutions for the establishment of formal interaction. Until one of these options happens, the paper considers that the Security Council and its permanent members must be more open towards NGOs and use NGOs’ resources to improve their own reputation and increase transparency.

Abstract ▼

In recent years, the analysis of geographic, cultural, and semiotic spaces has gradually piqued the interest of researchers, particularly those involved in interdisciplinary projects in the fields of translation and cultural studies. But, what exactly do we mean when we argue about the translation of geography in terms of the perception and interpretation of space, real or imaginary? And how could literary text analysis offer qualitative and quantitative data in order to represent spaces and cultures and, finally, translate the geocultural coordinates of an area? The purpose of this article is to first identify the characteristics of modern translations of geography, and then to present a geocultural approach to literary text analysis that can reconstruct either geographic or semiotic and cultural space.