The Blue (White and Red) Orchestra: a soundtrack for the country that never was

The aim of the paper is to go beyond the commonly accepted view of Sarajevo’s Plavi orkestar (The Blue Orchestra) as the 1980s “teen pop-rock sensation” and illuminate the less conspicuous, but nevertheless crucial, political dimension of the band’s music and visual aesthetics. This will be done by discussing several “pieces of the puzzle” essential to understanding the background to and motivations behind Plavi orkestar’s political engagement in the second half of the 1980s: (1) the “Sarajevo factor;” (2) the Sarajevo Pop-rock School and the New Primitives “poetics of the local;” (3) the generational Yugoslavism; (4) the New Partisans “poetics of the patriotic;” and (5) the post-New Partisans “hippie ethos.” The concluding section of the paper will reflect on Plavi orkestar’s resurgence in 1998 and explore the question of the band’s continuing resonance within the post-Yugoslav and post-socialist contexts. An argument underlying the discussion of all of these elements is that Plavi orkestar’s Yugoslavism of the 1980s is best understood as a soundtrack for the country that never was (i.e. a popular-cultural expression of what, from the viewpoint of a particular generational cohort and its location in the “Yugoslav socialist universe,” the community they thought of as their own ought to have been but never really was), and that the current value of this soundtrack lies in offering not only a particular window into the pre-post-socialist past but also in being a symbolic referent for a certain kind of retrospective utopia that gauges the realities of the post-socialist – that is, neo-liberal capitalist – present and, in so doing, figures as a “normative compass” for the life of dignified existence.     

Images of Populism and Producerism: Political Cartoons from Serbia’s ‘Anti-Bureaucratic Revolution’*

This article contributes to debates about the break-up of Yugoslavia by focusing on Serbia’s ‘anti-bureaucratic revolution’, a large protest wave that occurred in 1988. Unlike most discussions which focus on elite involvement, this article emphasises the wider cultural resonance of anti-bureaucratic populism. More generally, this article shows that populism can be strengthened if it is coupled with producerism, that is, a discourse that divides society into productive and parasitic groups. Around 800 political cartoons from three Serbian newspapers are analysed. The common theme that emerges is the opposition of the blue-collar worker to the parasitic political functionary.     

Varieties of capitalism in Eastern Europe (with special emphasis on Estonia and Slovenia)

The authors proceed from the assumption that the institutional and economic efficiency of a particular country (or society) depends on its historic legacy or ‘path-dependence’, strategic interactions of the elite and the impact of the international environment. Estonia and Slovenia are both – not only economically, but also institutionally – perceived as relatively successful and prominent post-communist countries and new members of the EU. Yet they have developed completely different – in some aspects even diametrically opposite – regulative settings and socio-political arrangements. The main emphasis is on the connection between the dynamics and ideological preferences of political actors and the pace of reforms as well as institutional regulations. One can argue that the political elite in Estonia encouraged the shaping of the state in a direction close to the liberal-market model, whereas Slovenia is closer to the corporatist social welfare-state model. In both cases, some dysfunctional effects are evident that represent a new challenge to the elites and, at the same time, a test of their credibility and competence.     

Investments in Global Warming Mitigation: The Case of “Activities Implemented Jointly”

This paper examines bilateral cooperation between developed countries (home country) and developing countries (host country) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to enhance carbon dioxide sinks. With the home-host country pair as the unit of analysis, our logistic regression model examines 158 Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) investment projects from 1993 until 2002 across 2541 country-pairs. Because the marginal costs of reducing emissions may be lower in developing countries, the AIJ projects served as a policy laboratory to assess whether such investments might be advantageous to both countries in the event future regimes allowed emission credits from such bilateral projects. Instead of investing in home countries where maximum pollution reductions (or carbon sequestration) might be possible, home countries invest in locations where they can conduct their policy experiments at low transaction costs. Prior trade and aid relationships were used as a proxy. Regarding energy projects, location decisions are driven by home countries’ desire to reduce air pollution that they receive from abroad. Geography – proximity of a host country to a home country – in interaction with host country's coal production, is a very important driver of location decision in AIJ energy sector projects. Location of sequestration projects is impacted by the host country's potential for avoiding deforestation as well as by previous aid and trade patterns between a home and a host country. Proximity is not important in this case.     

Big dreams and small steps: comparative perspectives on the social movement struggle for democracy in Serbia and North Macedonia

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a comparative analysis of social movements’ characteristics and capacities to struggle against illiberal tendencies and incite political change in Serbia and North Macedonia. First, we discuss the illiberal elements of political regimes in the countries in question, Serbia and North Macedonia. Then, we provide a comprehensive overview of progressive social movements in the two countries, formed and organized as a response to different authoritarian and non-democratic tendencies. Finally, we point to some differences in their organizing, coalition-forging and issue-defining principles, which, we believe, may help to explain the relative success of social movements in North Macedonia in producing relevant political outcomes, compared to the weak political impact of social movements in Serbia. Empirical data were collected during the summer of 2018 through in-depth interviews with members of social movements in North Macedonia and Serbia.     

Sexual variation in bucco-lingual dimensions in Turkish dentition

Sexual differences in the human skeleton have been well studied in many populations. Odontometric analysis of the human sexual variation has been less investigated and mostly derived from the dentition of extinct populations. Turkey is situated in a unique location where populations from different regions mixed with each other and created a rich gene pool. One might anticipate that modern Turkish population is composed of genes from the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, Iran and further as well as from ancient Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and Asiatic Turks. It is clear that contemporary Turks are a mixture of these extant and extinct people and ideal to consider it a representative study population. The purpose of this study is to analyze dental dimensions and sexual variation in living Turks and develop forensic techniques to identify human remains from the teeth when any other technique is not available or not reliable. The study is composed of Ankara University dental students (50 male and 50 female casts, average age of 21 years). Bucco-lingual breadths from 14 teeth (I1 through M2 of the maxilla and mandible) are taken from the left side and analyzed using the discriminant function statistics. An intraobserver error test did not indicate any statistically significant difference between any two measurements. Results of the study revealed that males exceeded females significantly (P<0.001) in dimensions. Coefficient of variation was most obvious in I1s and I2s of both jaws in both sexes. Stepwise discriminant function statistics suggested that upper C, and lower C and M2 are the most contributory teeth to the function. Additional formulae were calculated for situation in which only one or a fragmented jaw is available for identification. Overall accuracy of sex diagnosis ranged from 73 to 77%. In conclusion this research supports earlier studies that sexual dimorphism is population specific. While dental difference between the sexes in several human populations has been found highly dimorphic, it was not found so in Turks and accuracy of classification remained low at about 77%. The difficulty or the lack of dimorphism comes from male subjects.     

The identification of a dismembered human body: a multidisciplinary approach

A criminal case was directed to a multidisciplinary forensic team for identification, concerning a victim whose head, having two gunshot wounds, had been separated by a sharp instrument and was recovered 6 months later. The purpose of this research was to determine the sex and age of the victim for human identification. Primarily, macroscopic examination of the skull, tooth, and DNA analysis was conducted for sex determination. A rough assessment of age was made from the skull based on anthropological findings, however a more definitive result of age estimation was determined utilizing dental morphology. The dental data showed an age range of 32-37 from the mineral examination and the formulation of microscopic measurements. The results obtained from the skull and dental analysis matched with the physical characteristics of the victim's body, the known personal data of this person, and with the superposition of the photos gathered by a formal request. Besides, the result of DNA profiling of the victim showed male gender and direct relationship with the victim's presumed wife and daughter. Generally, research on human identification consists of sex and age determination. The sex characteristics can be precisely proved from DNA tests. However, age can be estimated by skeletal, and dental analysis. In this case the performed sex and age analysis lead the research to the selective matching of the missing person's identity.     

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS IN EUROPEAN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS: WHY ARE FAMILY PRACTICES SO DIFFERENT FROM LEGAL THEORIES?

Debates about child custody following parental separation often have been framed in terms of a battle between the competing rights of different family members. In the United States, advocates of mothers’ rights square off against proponents of fathers’ rights, with each side claiming to truly represent children's rights. Of course, not all advocates lay claim to children's rights in contact and custody disputes merely as a tactical maneuver. Some experts believe that children are entitled to (and benefit from) their own, independent legal advocate in custody cases. In theory, at least, the position that children lay claim to a third set of independent rights is strongly held in Europe, more strongly than in many U.S. states, because of the adoption of United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Europe, but not in the United States. In this article, we examine children's rights in custody disputes from a European perspective, particularly children's legal right to contact with their parents, as well as the children's right to be heard in custody and contact disputes. We find that, despite differences in legal theory, tradition, and family demographics, European countries ultimately face a familiar reality: Custody and contact disputes are, in reality, more about renegotiating family relationships than they are a matter of a mother's, father's, or child's rights.