Research questions and context

The regional focus of the study encompasses the Western Balkans, which is here taken to cover the ex-Yugoslav countries apart from Slovenia – in other words, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo¹⁴, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. The decision to limit the examination to these countries is based on their shared Yugoslav past, a similar experience of conflict in the 1990s and common language as well as other cultural features. Therefore, Albania has been left out of this investigation although it is often included among Western Balkans countries.

The term Western Balkans itself can be contested. It came from the European Union and, as it was politically determined from the outside, it did not necessarily elicit a strong sense of identification within the region.¹⁵ However, it is strongly associated with the EU’s objective of reinforcing regional cooperation and therefore easily adopted into the discourse of international organisations with similar aims. The term therefore already illuminates some of the power structures and other factors that have influenced the dynamic between the regional countries and the international community. In particular, the research will take into account the controversies following from a sense of imposing objectives from the outside, from a regional perspective, and the difficulty of introducing beneficial practices, from the international point of view.

12 Trombetta, M. J.: Rethinking the Securitization of the Environment: Old Beliefs, New Insights. In Balzacq, T. (Ed.) Securitization theory: how security problems emerge and dissolve. Routledge, London 2011.

13 Oels, A.. Rendering climate change governable by risk: From probability to contingency. Geoforum 45(1) 2013, 17-29.

14 This designation will be designation used without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

15 E.g. Hansen, L.: Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War. Routledge, Oxford-New-York 2006;

Delevic, M.: Regional Cooperation in the Western Balkans, Chaillot Papers, No. 104. Institute for Security Studies, Paris, 2007.

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From the point of view of examining environmental securitisation, Western Balkans is a highly relevant area. As a post-conflict region, it allows an examination of the thematic from several points of view, including assessments of the environmental consequences of conflicts, environmental peace-making as well as long-term stability-building. In addition, the Western Balkan case gives the possibility to follow the development of the cooperation over time, since it has been going on for about 15 years. Even more importantly, however, the region became a focus of attention for a group of international organisations to promote the environmental security approach. While it is not a unique example of environmental security being implemented, even from a regional perspective, the Western Balkans was one of the earliest cases and presents a focused, programmatic approach.

The main actors are the international organisations that worked in the region in the post-conflict situation. These include the Balkan Task Force, which was a special unit of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as well as the Regional Environmental Reconstruction Programme for South East Europe (REReP), which was specifically set to coordinate environmental cooperation in the Balkans. Out of existing organisations that also worked on the Balkans, particularly active in environmental security were the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Regional Environmental Centre (REC), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Economic Commission in Europe (UNECE) and UNEP. In addition, the aforementioned organisations jointly set up the Environment and Security Initiative (ENVSEC), which became the main actor in environmental security in the Balkans.

The organisations came from different fields and therefore also had different objectives for their engagement in environmental security. Especially with regard to the cooperation through ENVSEC, the differences of perspective were considered an asset that would enable the organisations to pool their expertise. It also reflects a degree of acknowledgement of the complexity of environmental security issues from the very start. However, the variety of focuses among the organisations and the ensuing differences of opinions and objectives also created problems. The environmental security discourse was shaped in the interchange of these influences.

The research delves into the period after the end of the Yugoslav and Kosovo wars, starting from 1999 and leading up towards the present. This timeframe makes it possible to observe the evolution trough different phases from an acute threat of conflict towards the goals of stabilised regional relations and EU integration. In the case of Western Balkans, it is also necessary to bear in mind that apart from being a post-conflict region, it is also markedly a post-socialist society with a vast on-going transformation.

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The development has not been as straightforward as the international community might have hoped, and concerns about the democratisation of the region linger on.

The main aim of this research is to examine how international organisations have shaped the concept of environmental security in the post-conflict Western Balkans and what have been the consequences of the process for both the environmental and security sectors. The starting point is that there has been an attempt to link the environment to security discourse and that it has been promoted by a number of international organisations. This move is analysed using the framework of securitisation, with the aim of contributing to an enhanced concept of security as a whole.

The research will be guided by a number of sub-questions. First, it will examine the ways in which the environmental security linkage has been constructed in the work of the international organisations and programmes presented above. What have been the premises of the actors themselves to engage in environmental security cooperation, and what have been their own objectives in making the linkage?

How and why have they implemented environmental security through their work in the Western Balkans? The discussion will also consider how the trends and topics of environmental security cooperation have developed during the period studied.

Second, the research will discuss how the security linkage influenced the overall environmental cooperation carried out in the region. Have the projects succeeded at simultaneously promoting stability-building, human security and environmental quality? Has the linkage given some added value to the cooperation and facilitated the achievement of its objectives? The aim is not to perform an impact assessment but to trace the role and significance of the environmental security component of the projects that have been implemented.

Third, it is necessary to consider the extent to which the securitisation of the environment has achieved its goals. This analysis consists of two primary strands. On the one hand, it will consider the acceptance of environmental security by the local and the wider international audience. In other words, has it been recognised and adopted into policy in the target countries or in the international community? Has it entered the traditional security sector in the Western Balkans or contributed to the discourse at the global scale? This requires a discussion of the role of audience(s) in securitisation theory overall. On the other hand, the analysis will examine the emergence of environmental security practices, which can be seen as an indication of how the concept was adopted and implemented. Did environmental security cooperation give rise to new security practices and how were these welcomed in the security sector?

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Finally, there are several underlying questions concerning the theory of securitisation itself. In particular, there appear to be grounds to challenge the traditional fixed conditions of the security sector, which have not been able to adequately accommodate new security concerns. The analysis thus explores the role of emerging practices as a more adept measure for securitisation. At the same time, it considers the separation between security and ordinary, democratic decision-making set up by the original securitisation framework. Could an analysis of the environmental sector provide a new perspective on the dichotomy and contribute to reconciling security practices with democratic procedures? Ultimately, this leads the discussion to being concerned with the nature and limits of security itself.

The research thus aims to examine questions concerning both the Western Balkan case and the wider theoretical framework. These two strands of study will interact with one another, and in many ways, it is the historical analysis that will enable the theory-building ambitions. By setting the analysis in a regional and historical context and following its long-term development, the study will take into account the wider range of relevant factors that influence environmental security. By thus yielding a more detailed look at the way the securitisation process is implemented in practice, it will allow a critical perspective into theoretical framework itself.

The historical and regional context is also significant in illuminating that the securitisation process depends on a variety of factors apart from its immediate subjects. In the Western Balkan case, for instance, it is especially necessary to bear in mind that apart from being a post-conflict region, it is also markedly a post-socialist society with a vast on-going transformation. Meanwhile, the post-conflict political development has not been one of consistent progress towards stability.¹⁶ In some of the countries, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the internal situation remains fragile, while others have experienced at least temporary downturns in their democratisation, as in FYR Macedonia.

Although, the risk of conflict has certainly declined, regional relations have not been fully normalised, as is perhaps most pointedly indicated by the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo from Serbia in 2008.

Meanwhile, trends in international politics have also changed and shifted during the period of study, with variable impacts on security discourse. As has been pointed out above, the post-Cold War realignment directed the discourse beyond state security towards emerging topics on a wider perspective. However, political developments and even single events, such as the terrorist attacks in the

16 Mujanović, J.: Introduction. In Mujanović, J. (ed.) The Democratic Potential of Emerging Social Movements in Southeastern Europe. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Sarajevo 2017, 5-6.

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US in 2001, have continued to influence the discourse even after that. These changes have influenced the agendas of the organisations working in the Western Balkans as well.

Questions concerning the securitisation of environment in the post-conflict Western Balkans thus need to be placed in a number of overlapping contexts. This, in turn, yields a variety of insights into both security theory and environmental cooperation. Moreover, it requires a staunch theoretical framework to avoid misinterpretation and methods to integrate it into the historical analysis. Therefore, this research will incorporate an exceptionally thorough discussion of the theory and a methodological approach to support it.