Why citizenship in the former Yugoslavia?

After 1991, as Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, new states emerged alongside each other, each with their own citizenship regimes determining who was a ‘citizen’ and therefore had the privileges of citizenship (residence rights, welfare rights, property rights, political rights, etc.). CITSEE examines these regimes against the background of Europeanisation, focusing in particular on the enlargement and related policies of the European Union, but also on the impact of other international regimes such as the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and other aspects of the work of the Council of Europe, such as the Venice Commission.

When CITSEE began its work, most studies of the new citizenship regimes of the ex-Yugoslav new states dated from the 1990s, and are descriptive in character. CITSEE has provided the first fully comparative and contextualised study, drawing its methods from the disciplines of law and political science. You can access the country profiles for the CITSEE states here, with links to full length studies that researchers have undertaken. An entry in the CITSEE blog introduces the special issue of the journalCitizenship Studies produced by the team in order to showcase their work mapping the citizenship regimes of the new states of South East Europe.

Details of how important CITSEE's work is in 2013, the European Year of Citizens, are to be found here.

What are CITSEE's researchers doing?

CITSEE’s researchers are not attempting to supply answers as to ‘best’ or ‘worst’ practices in relation to citizenship regimes, or to evaluate the impact of Europeanisation as negative or positive. But the evaluative studies that they have produced have not been of interest only to researchers, but they have also engaged non-governmental organisations and policy-makers in that region, in the EU institutions, and in other international institutions. It has been filling in many gaps in our current knowledge and it has therefore provided an enhanced evidence basis for policy development in the future.

Who is involved in CITSEE?

CITSEE has involved a large multi-national and multi-disciplinary group of researchersbased at the University of Edinburgh, led by Jo Shaw (Salvesen Chair of European Institutions) and Igor Štiks (Senior Research Fellow). CITSEE is supported by an Advisory Board comprising distinguished scholars working on central, eastern and southeastern Europe.

CITSEE’s main activities, in addition to research, have included:

• Events, in Edinburgh and elsewhere, including visiting speakers, conferences and workshops (CITSEE Dialogues)

• Fellowship and outreach programmes

• Publications including monographs, edited volumes, journal articles and a Working Paper series

• Dissemination of our research results in an innovative way in the region and elsewhere in Europe

• User-friendly webpages that will reach beyond academic community towards wider audiences including regularly updated blogs, links, news and galleries. Our webmagazine Citizenship in South East Europe features topical blogs, photo reportages, op-eds, country profiles and accessible summaries of its working papers. The website allows more insights into what is happening in the Balkan region and provides a valuable resource of information for people who want to quickly understand issues that affect the whole of Europe.

For a pdf format leaflet introducing CITSEE, please click here.

Get in touch with CITSEE by emailing : citsee@ed.ac.uk.

Follow CITSEE on twitter @citseeteam. Or find the project team on Facebook.