National interests of Serbia and Bulgaria after major adverse events: Between continuity and change

Kostić Šulejić, Marina (2024) National interests of Serbia and Bulgaria after major adverse events: Between continuity and change. In: National interest(s) in World Politics. University, Faculty of political science, Belgrade, pp. 365-386. ISBN 978-86-6425-129-7

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Abstract

The subject of this paper is to examine the persistence of the previously held notions of national interests of Serbia and Bulgaria in the face of major events that prevented these interests from being fully realized. Did the national interests change or remain the same after major adverse events in Serbia and Bulgaria? Were only the means of the achievement of previously held national interests, such as alliances, and not the interests themselves, what was changed? In reaching the answers to these questions, authors use historical and comparative methods, by tracing and comparing the national interests of Serbia and Bulgaria regarding four variables: territory and sovereignty, national integrity, wellbeing (economic prosperity) and security. The authors will determine the perception of national interests regarding these four variables before and after major adverse events. In the case of Serbia, this is a break-up of Yugoslavia and NATO military intervention in 1999 and, in the case of Bulgaria, the results of the First World War, which were referred to in the historiography as a “national catastrophe”, the results of the Second World War, as well as the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the beginning of the democratic transition. The authors conclude that the previously held national interests did not change significantly, but were constrained due to systematic conditions such as an unfavorable balance of power and the evolution of international law, which led them to start searching for new means of their achievement.

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