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PROTEST AS A FORM OF CIVIC MOVEMENT IN POST-CONFLICT SOCIETY WITH THE EXAMPLE OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA Civic activity, the degree of development of this activity and its multifaceted relationship with the state has been one of the most expressive manifestations of mature democracy for several decades. Citizens’ trust in bottom-up initiatives is a long-term process built in the social space where systemic democracy is present. Serbs, as a society that directly or indirectly experienced armed conflicts, entered the path of democratisation after 2000 and remained on it for about 15 years, when during the rule of the Serbian Progressive Party of Aleksander Vučić, the populist character of the rule slowed down and then reversed the democratisation processes. The aim of the article is to look at the protest as one of the most common manifestations of civic movements and to analyse the subject matter of the protests, their intensity, the possibility of influencing the political and social reality, and finally the cases of its evolution, related to its transformation into other forms of activity.

The article focuses on the issue of Croatia’s ethnic policy towards minorities at the level of administrative and territorial organization. It attempts to answer the question whether and to what extent the ethnic and territorial conflict in the 1990s influenced the processes of transformation of the administrative and territorial organization of the state. The Croatian state, given as an example, at the time of declaring its independence in 1991 had to face the threat of territorial disintegration from the Serb minority living in its territory. The Italian minority was also suspected of such tendencies, but it soon turned out that these suspicions were groundless. The Serbian community could, however, threaten the unification of the state, which initially happened as a result of an armed conflict. After its end, fears did not diminish, especially in the face of the changes in territorial borders that took place until the end of the first decade of the 21st century. The threat could be reduced using one of the tools, which was the local government administration and the shape of its territorial units. The Author analyses this issue basing on the projects of Croatian experts dealing with the issues of administrative and territorial organization of the last three decades and at various stages of Croatian statehood, data on demographic changes and laws regulating the functioning of local and regional local governments as well as regulations concerning the position of national minorities in the state.

11th Congress of South-East European Studies. Sofia 2015 The 11th Congress of South-East European Studies took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, between 31 August and 4 September 2015. It was organised by the International Association for Southeast European Studies (orig. in French: AIESEE – Associacion Internationale d’ Études du Sud-Est Européen). South-Eastern Europe is an area looked upon by world powers with a large amount of ambivalence. As the region’s states are not considered to be key global players, the events that occur in this part of the continent draw interest that is cyclical in nature and that is usually triggered by cyclical issues, too. Though relatively small, the area has been a point of interest for many researchers for over 100 years due to its ethnic diversity and the related inherent multi-nationality the scale of which is not encountered anywhere else in Europe. The cultural, linguistic, and religious pluralism of this region often produces specific social amalgams. With the cyclical interest aside, for a little more than a century the main European (and not only European) political powers have been making efforts to exert influence in the region, understanding the significance of its geographic location, where East meets West. Regardless of the changing dynamics of interest in South-Eastern Europe, the region will certainly remain one of the most fascinating focus areas for researchers and academics across the world, who will meet again not in five, but in four years at another congress this time to be held in Romanian Constanţa to discuss issues and topics related to this corner of the world. 11. Kongres AIESEE, Sofia 2015 W dniach od 31 sierpnia do 4 września 2015 r. w Sofii (Bułgaria) odbył się 11 Kongres Studiów nad Europą Południowo-Wschodnią, zorganizowany przez Międzynarodowe Stowarzyszenie Studiów nad Europą Południowo-Wschodnią (AIESEE - Associacion Internationale d’ Études du Sud-Est Européen). Europa Południowo-Wschodnia jest obszarem, do którego światowe mocarstwa podchodzą z dużą dozą ambiwalencji. Kraje tego regionu nie są głównymi graczami na arenie światowej, przez co wydarzenia związane z tą częścią Europy spotykają się z cyklicznym zainteresowaniem powstającym zazwyczaj w obliczu problemów, które - równie cykliczne wywoływane - zwracają uwagę świata na ten relatywnie nieduży region. Jest on jednak bezsprzecznie obszarem, który wzbudza zainteresowanie badaczy od ponad stu lat ze względu na swoje zróżnicowanie etniczne, pociągające za sobą rdzenną wielonarodowość regionu, niewystępującą na taką skalę gdzie indziej w Europie. Związana z tym wielość kultur, języków i religii generuje często specyficzne dla tej szerokości geograficznej amalgamaty społecznościowe. Również od nieco ponad stu lat o wpływy w tym regionie (abstrahując od wspomnianej cykliczności zainteresowania) zabiegają główne europejskie siły polityczne (a obecnie nie tylko europejskie) ze względu położenie geograficzne, w którym Zachód spotyka Wschód. Bez względu na dynamikę zainteresowania Europą Południowo-Wschodnią jest i będzie ona bezsprzecznie fascynującym obszarem badań naukowców całego świata, którzy ponownie spotkają się za cztery lata na kolejnym kongresie, tym razem w rumuńskiej Constanzy, aby pochylić się nad zagadnieniami związanymi z tą częścią świata.

Serbian aspirations towards European structures. The situation of national minorities and ethnic minorities in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina with particular emphasis on the educational system Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (APV) is an area in the northern part of the Repub­lic of Serbia. This region is inhabited by over 26 national and ethnic minorities, making it the most diverse ethnically area throughout Serbia. On the basis of the Constitution and special statutes in APV the following languages have official status: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Croatian, Romanian and Ruthenian. In addition, this area is the most economically developed throughout the country. Vojvodina is an example of a well-functioning multi‑ethnic commu­nities living in one territory, which in some regions of the Balkans remains an open problem. Therefore government in Belgrade tries to keep the European image of this autonomy to such an extent, that cyclically there appears information about the possibility of obtaining of the total independence of this territory and the separation from the Republic of Serbia. Para­doxically, such speculations can lead to the destabilization in other regions of Serbia. They did not obtain such a level of autonomy and mentioned speculations inspire some minorities into actions in order to get the certain independence (for example Boshniaks from Sandjak in western Serbia). The central authorities are aware of this fact and try to keep the control over all regions of the country that often can lead to ethnic conflicts. That raises the following question: to what extend wide autonomy of the Vojvodina is true and in corresponding to the constitutional policy, what fields of the life does this autonomy include.

After the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the outbreak of conflicts related to that process the international diplomacy decided to introduce military missions, of various nature, in Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina, that is former Yugoslavian republics, where a war was waged in the first half of the 1990s. The Republic of Macedonia declared independence already in 1991, but it became independent peacefully; it did not mean, however, that the country was free from internal problems, for instance of ethnic nature, which escalated before the end of the twentieth century putting the Macedonian state on the brink of civil war on the eve of the new century. The escalation necessitated the invitation by the state authorities of international military missions to assist in stabilising the country’s internal situation.