Interest groups and public affairs in the contemporary Balkans: Project overview and preliminary explanations

• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Danica Fink‐Hafner,Clive S. Thomas
• Date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1716

SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER

Interest groups and public affairs in the contemporary Balkans:

Project overview and preliminary explanations

Danica Fink‐Hafner

1

|Clive S. Thomas

2

1

Faculty of Social Sciences, University of

Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

2

Washington State University, USA

Correspondence

Danica Fink‐Hafner, Faculty of Social

Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana,

Slovenia.

Email: danica.fink‐hafner@fdv.uni‐lj.si

This comprehensive coverage of publicaffairs and interest group activity inthe Balkans

has 2 objectives. One is to produce the first study focusing solely on interest groups in

each of the 7 countries of the former socialist Yugoslavia. The second is to compare

developmentsacross the region to assess the extentto which this study reflects existing

research and whatit can add to this knowledge. To achievethese objectives, this article

explainsseveral aspects of the methodologyused by all contributors. Theseinclude com-

mon use of terms, an explanation of the topics covered, and the survey instrument.

1|INTRODUCTION

As of 2018, there is no comparative study of the interest group and

lobbying aspect of public affairs in the contemporary Balkans. There is,

however, a studyof civil society and its organizations. This Special Issue

of the Journalbuilds on this civilsociety project to providethe first study

of both interest groups in individual countries and a comparative

perspectiveof group activityand the extent to whichpublic affairs is part

of that activityacross the Balkans. To set the scenefor the analysis, this

articlecovers the following. First,it identifies the countrieswe include in

the Balkansand defines keyterms used throughoutthe volume. Next, we

explainthe extent to which the traditional meaningand activity of public

affairs is in a very early stage of development. This is followed by an

outline of the civilsociety project. Then, we explain the interest group

study, includingits methodology and a theory that many of the articles

draw upon. Thefinal section explains the structure of this Special Issue.

2|DEFINITIONS AND EXPLANATIONS:

THE BALKANS AND KEY TERMS AND

CONCEPTS

There has never been an agreed‐upon geographical definition of what

is included and excluded from the Balkans. So for this study it is

important to explain the countries included as Balkan. It is also

necessary to explain the way several political and other terms and

concepts are used in this volume.

2.1 |Defining the Balkans

Some geographical definitions of the Balkansinclude Albania, northern

Greece, western Bulgaria, southeast Romania, and even south‐central

Hungary, together with the countries of the former Yugoslavia

(sometimes with and sometimes without Slovenia). Map 1 shows the

countries includedin these various definitions. In this volume, we define

the Balkans more specifically as the seven countries that emerged on

the territory of the former Yugoslavia, officiallyknown as the Socialist

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), which existed between 1945

and 1991. This was the second political entity designated as Yugoslavia,

the first spanning the years 1919–1941. Unless otherwise indicated,

whenYugoslavia is mentioned in this volume, it refers to the SFRY.

The sevencountries emergingfrom the SFRY, indicatedon Map 1 by

the shadedarea, are Bosnia and Herzegovina,Croatia, Macedonia,Mon-

tenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Kosovo.

1

The historical, socioeconomic,

and political experiences of these seven countries include many differ-

ences, but theyalso exhibit common elementsacross the region, in large

part, shaped by their experiences as members of the two Yugoslavias.

These similarities and differences are exploredin the next article.

2.2 |Explaining key terms and concepts

An understanding of civil society and interest group development in

both authoritarian and democratic political systems requires a

familiarity with several terms and concepts. In the case of this

study, four sets of terms and concepts are useful. The first category

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any

medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2018 The Authors Journal of Public Affairs Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1716

J Public Affairs. 2019;19:e1716.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1716

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of11