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Title Is there an Albanian question? / Judy Batt [and others] ; edited by Judy Batt
Published Paris : Institute for Security Studies, European Union, 2008

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Description 1 online resource (107 pages)
Series Chaillot papers, 1017-7566 ; nr. 107
Chaillot papers ; nr. 107. 1017-7566
Chaillot papers (Online) ; no. 107.
Summary Is there an 'Albanian question'? If so, what is it? Is it a traditional 'national question', centred on the dream of a 'Greater Albania' that would gather in all the Albanian communities in the Balkans? Many outside observers, in particular among the Albanians' neighbours in the Balkans, see it that way and fear its destabilising consequences, but none of the contributors to this Chaillot Paper finds this scenario convincing. The core of the Albanian national question today is Kosovo, an issue that has the power to unite Albanians in the Balkans and in the sizeable diaspora communities spread across the globe. While the answer - for Albanians - is independence for Kosovo, beyond that, views diverge. It seems that only a minority of Albanians remain committed to the project of Pan-Albanian political unification. Most Albanians are fully aware of the diversity of interests of the various Albanian communities in the Balkans, who have lived in different states over the past century. The end of communism made it much easier for Albanians to keep in contact with each other, but this did not lead to greater national cohesion. The dramatic 'high politics' of the Kosovo issue tends to obscure the fact that for most Albanians, the most urgent questions today are not 'national' ones at all, but questions of economic underdevelopment, unemployment, the quality of democratic governance, political corruption and criminality, and the emigration of large numbers of the brightest and best of the younger generation. None of these challenges is unique to the Albanians, but they possess a particular asset in their young diaspora in the West, closely linked via the internet with young democracy activists in the Albanians' Balkans homelands. This new generation of Albanians aims to leap out of the isolation and introversion of traditional village and clan-based politics to form a new 'post-modern' transnational political community, committed to building democracy within their states and across them
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Notes "January 2008."
Print version record
Subject Nationalism -- Albania
Albanians -- Balkan Peninsula
foreign policy.
international issue.
national unification.
the EU's international role.
Albanians
Boundaries
Ethnic relations
Diplomatic relations
Nationalism
Politics and government
SUBJECT Albania -- Foreign relations -- 1990- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh97008806
Albania -- Boundaries
Kosovo (Republic) -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh90005115
Kosovo (Republic) -- Ethnic relations
North Macedonia -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh95001045
North Macedonia -- Ethnic relations
Balkan Peninsula -- Ethnic relations
Subject Albania.
Kosovo.
Albania
Balkan Peninsula
Kosovo (Republic)
North Macedonia
Form Electronic book
Author Batt, Judy.
Institute for Security Studies (Paris, France)
ISBN 9789291981205
9291981206