Description
This panel attempts to bring together different voices of scholarship on the nature of state creation in Southern and Eastern Europe. Traditionally, state creation in international politics has been conceptualised through a dichotomy between constitutive and declarative theories – the state is either created in international law or outside of it. However, this dichotomy has become perceived to obscure the ‘practical aspects’ of state formation and governance – one by assuming that a state can legally exist without any political circumstances ‘on the ground’, the other by assuming that de jure recognition can happen in complete isolation of international political considerations. This panel, therefore, strives to explore perspectives of SE-European state creation and governance that move beyond this dichotomy. Is sovereignty, recognition, and/or state governance gained from ‘the bottom-up’, or awarded ‘top-down’? How important are (international) legal arrangements and principles for SE-European state creators? And how important is their capacity to act ‘beyond’ the law? Who is included/excluded in these processes? Generally, this panel aims to place questions of SE-European state formation in relation to broader fundamental questions of international relations.
