Balancing in the Balkans

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Authors: Raymond Tanter and John Psarouthakis
Published by St. Martin’s Press
ISBN-13: 978-0312214579
ISBN-10: 031221457X

Description:

Balancing in the Balkans treats the Balkans as a laboratory for exploring ideas about globalism–the creation of transnational economic communities from capital flows across political boundaries, and tribalism–the disintegration of nations into ethnic factions based upon ancient hatreds. In their book, Raymond Tanter and John Psarouthakis debate the best way to achieve “balance” and how parties in conflict can learn moderation and peaceful coexistence. Because Tanter thinks the world is Americanized, he argues that moderation from the Midwestern United States might become an export com
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An authors’ comment
In In today’s world what is it that drives people to engage in brutal, self-destructive actions such as the war in Bosnia and the recent Kosovo conflict were? Authors Tanter (Univ. of Michigan; Rogue Regimes) and Psarouthakis (chair of the Paideia Foundation) are sensitive to the deep ethnic and political divisions in the former Yugoslavia. While Tanter argues that overwhelming military forces can prevail and establish peace, Psarouthakis warns that the Balkan political mentality gravitates toward the extreme but a mini Marshal plan can develop  an economic interdependence between the ethic groups that can result in a peaceful co-existence
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About the Authors

Raymond Tanter: Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan

John Psarouthakis: Chairman of the Board of the Paideia Foundation in Ann Arbor, Michigan.