What place for East and West? Discourses, reality and foreign and security policies of post-Yugoslav small states

Abstract

This paper explores different and changing receptions and uses of ‘East’ and ‘West’ in the foreign policy discourses of Serbia and Croatia, as puzzling cases of state identity configuration. The author suggests and gives meaning to the conception of ‘small state reality’ and offers a perspective on the role of historical, contextual and situational elements of state identity in the understanding of foreign policy orientations and agency. The paper discusses the productive possibilities of such a reading in the light of the relational turn in small states’ literature and recent discussions about ‘non-Western’ international relations.