Professor Florian Bieber is Professor of Southeast European History and Politics and Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. A leading international authority on nationalism, democratisation, authoritarianism, ethnic conflict, federalism, and European integration, he also coordinates the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group. From 2019 to 2022, he held a Jean Monnet Chair, and he is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Tirana. His international academic appointments have included visiting professorships and fellowships at the Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University, the London School of Economics, New York University, Cornell University, and the universities of Bologna, Belgrade, and Sarajevo. He serves as president of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, one of the leading scholarly associations devoted to nationalism, ethnicity, and regional politics. His recent books include Hvar in the Modern Age: Identity and Change in Southeast Europe, Was Autokraten fürchten: Aufstand in Serbien und die Krise autoritärer Regime, and Debating Nationalism, all published in 2026, as well as Pulverfass Balkan and The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans. Through his scholarship and public analysis, Professor Bieber has become one of the most prominent voices explaining the political transformation of Southeast Europe and the wider challenges facing multinational states and divided societies.

Gulan: In the early 1990s, international efforts were made to preserve Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity. Nevertheless, the country ultimately dissolved into seven independent states. What were the principal reasons for the failure of those efforts? Were internal conflicts more decisive, or was the absence of a clear international strategy the greater factor?

Professor Florian Bieber: International intervention to keep Yugoslavia only came a time when the crisis of the country had progressed to a point when a compromise was difficult and efforts to find a new political arrangement were made once fighting had broken out. This made the likelihood of success small. The causes of the dissolution of Yugoslavia were many and interlocking, making it difficult in 1991 to preserve the country. The Serbian leadership under Slobodan Milošević wanted to centralise Yugoslavia, whereas the leadership in Slovenia and Croatia sought greater autonomy. Furthermore, they had different visions of the political and economic system. Finally, the Serbian leadership sought to link Serb minorities in other republics closer to Serbia. Milošević, but also the Croatian president Tudjman saw little benefit in compromise, which escalated the situation. All this made it difficult for external actors to find a solution within the framework of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, neither the United State nor the European Community were prepared. The US was distracted by the First Gulf War and the Soviet Union's crisis. The European Community had no experience with such crisis and was not prepared for the level of violence. As a result, it was that external actors were unable to prevent the dissolution, but it was the willingness of domestic actors, in partcular Serbia to use force that led to the war. Otherwise, Yugoslavia could have dissolved mostly peacefully, as did the Soviet Union.

Gulan: Was the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the emergence of seven independent states an experience unique to the Balkans, or can it be viewed as a model or precedent for other regions of the world experiencing national and ethnic conflicts?

Professor Florian Bieber: The dissolution of Yugoslavia was part of the broader dissolution of formerly socialist multinational federations, including Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. The nature of their dissolution differed in the case of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia; it was a consensual dissolution, which raises no broader issues in international law. After all, countries can dissolve voluntarily, or the centre can permit a region to become independent without triggering major questions. Other examples include Eritrea, which became independent from Ethiopia around the same time, and South Sudan, which achieved independence from Sudan in 2011.

Yugoslavia was different as there was no agreement to dissolve the union, but instead the center became so weak that the European Community at the time agreed that the federation had de-facto dissolved. Thus, Yugoslavia was a specific case, as there was an agreement that it was a federal state that had ceased to function. The decision raises a number of problems. It suggests that federal states can dissolve if they start being dysfunctional, which of course can be triggered by its units. This is in fact what Republika Srpska has been doing with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The entity was established in 1995, after the war, and has been a reluctant participant in the joint state. It has repeatedly sabotaged state institutions and thus sought to prove that the state is not working. This disincentivises the establishment of multinational federations.

Gulan: As an expert on the history and politics of the Balkans, what similarities do you see between Russia’s nationalist narratives and justifications for its invasion of Ukraine and the nationalist rhetoric that contributed to the outbreak of the Yugoslav wars during the 1990s?

Professor Florian Bieber: There are many parallels; the nationalist rhetoric in Serbia, for example, denied the existence of other nations, such as Bosniaks or Montenegrins. Furthermore, Serbia and Milošević also questioned the borders between the republics in a similar way that Putin’s Russia has challenged the Soviet borders between the republics. The odd paradox was that, in Russia's case, these claims were articulated as state policy only three decades after the end of the Soviet Union. Under president Yelzin in 1991, there were no such claims, and, in fact, he was a key figure in the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union and in Russia accepting the Soviet borders. Furthermore, even Putin did not challenge the borders during his over a decade in power. It shows the long-term consequences of the dissolution, meaning that the borders, even once fixed and agreed upon, can be challenged decades later. Serbia also often echoes current Russian rhetoric today. For example, when Russia talks about a “Russian world” to claim a sphere of influence, Serbian nationalists in the government have also talked about a “Serbian world” to describe the influence of Serbia over its neighbours through Serb communities which live in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia. One difference is that Russia has a history as an imperial country that preceedes the Soviet Union, while Serbia has not imperial history and thus in Russia, nationalist and imperial claims are mixed, whereas in Serbia the claims are more narrowly nationalist.

Gulan: What direct impact has the Russia–Ukraine war had on the integration of the Western Balkan states into the European Union? Has the war accelerated the accession process, or has it created new obstacles?

Professor Florian Bieber: To some degree, it helped the integration of the countries into the EU. The integration process was stalling before 2022 and the EU was mostly disinterested in EU enlargement. However, the Russian attack on Ukraine highlighted the geopolitical importance of enlargement and with Ukraine and Moldova now also pushing to join the EU, the EU realised the importance of moving the process along. On the one hand, Ukraine and Moldova have now received more attention than the Western Balkans, but on the other, it has become critical to show that enlargement works and can progress. The result is that Montenegro has a prospect of joining in the coming years. However, the EU has been unable to resolve several obstacles to accession in the Balkans, including normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia and reforming Bosnia to make it a more functional state. Furthermore, some EU member states are also blocking enlargement. Bulgaria has been blocking North Macedonia in recent years, and France, more importantly, might stop any enlargement. As such, EU enlargement has become uncertain and unpredictable.

Gulan: You have conducted extensive research on nationalism and ethnic conflict. How do you assess Kurdish nationalism, particularly given that the Kurds, despite their large population, remain one of the world’s largest stateless nations? Is this primarily the result of internal Kurdish factors or broader geopolitical dynamics?

Professor Florian Bieber: I am not an expert on Kurdish history and politics, but considering the emergence of states in the Middle East, I would say that the main cause is the process of state creation after World War One, which did not result in the creation of a Kurdish state, except for the ill-fated Treaty of Sèvres. Once the borders were set, they had little chance of changing. We see the same dynamic in Africa after decolonisation or elsewhere around the world: once borders are established, changing borders becomes very difficult. The main path has been by agreement from the state, and this is rare as states are understandably reluctant to grant part of their territory independence.

Gulan: Within the present international system, what are the principal opportunities and obstacles concerning the right to self-determination for stateless peoples such as the Kurds, especially when compared with the opportunities that became available to the peoples of the former Yugoslavia?

Professor Florian Bieber: The main obstacle is the state-centred international system where states are reluctant to accept threats to other states. Many states worry about their own coherence. We see this in the case of Kosovo, where in the EU alone 5 countries dont recognise Kosovo: Their decision has nothing to do with Serbia, but they worry about the implications for themselves. Spain, Slovakia, Romania and Cyprus (and Greece in solidarity with Cyprus) dont recognise Kosovo because they worried that their own minorities might use the argument to seek independence. There are three opportunities in such a system. First, a case of independence that does not trigger the worry of other states that it creates a new precedent. In fact, the countries that recognise Kosovo claim it was a sui generis case, i.e., a special case with no general implications for others. The second contextual factor is a permissive geopolitical moment. Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Ethiopia all saw some state dissolution and independence of regions at a time when the Cold War ended and the new post-Cold War era was just emerging. These moments provide for greater shifts than more settled times. Third, having allies who might support a change.

Gulan: Can Kurdish federal or autonomous entities, such as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the Kurdish-led administration in northeastern Syria, remain stable and sustainable over the long term without becoming independent states, particularly when surrounded by a largely hostile regional environment?

Professor Florian Bieber: The biggest challenge is, of course, the hostile environment of most states in the region, which might threaten the autonomies. Without statehood, there is always a greater threat that the autonomies might be reversed by the states. Of course, the best safeguard would be a change in the attitude of states and the population majorities towards Kurdish autonomies.

Gulan: Many observers describe federalism in Iraq as a failed or paralysed experiment. In your view, why has federalism not produced greater stability in Iraq? Does the problem lie in the concept of federalism itself when applied to divided societies, or in the way it has been implemented?

Professor Florian Bieber: Multinational federalism is often difficult in practice, as they seek to accommodate very different visions of a state and competing demands for self-determination and a coherent state. Thus, it is less federalism or power-sharing that are the problem, but the fact that they are established in highly contested circumstances. Even in countries without a history of violence, such as Belgium, there are functional difficulties and tensions. This is rendered more difficult in a context of a lack of history of democracy and consensus-seeking. Power-sharing and multinational federalism are not just a set of institutions, but also about a pattern of cooperation among the key actors.

Gulan: When comparing Iraq with Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Dayton Agreement established a particular form of power-sharing, what similarities can be identified between the structural problems affecting their political systems? Why has neither model developed into a fully inclusive and successful system of governance?

Professor Florian Bieber: Both were imposed by external actors rather than homegrown, which has made them hard to become universally accepted structures. The challenge in both has been the difficulty of building three functioning, complex structures at once: a functional democracy, a willingness to seek compromise and consensus, and mutual acceptance of the established state structure. These three levels were interlocking, and we find many key actors who do not accept any of the three premises.

Gulan: Drawing on your research on democratisation and autocratisation, do you believe that Iraq, amid continuing ethnic and sectarian tensions, is moving toward a more authoritarian or hybrid form of governance that combines formal democratic institutions with authoritarian practices?

Professor Florian Bieber: I am not an expert on the politics of Iraq, but there is a global trend toward greater autocratisation, and a decline of democracy is a broader threat. Of course, more complex and federal states are more resilient to autocratic threats than unitary and centralised states.