On 31 May 2018, the CEU Center for European Neighborhood Studies (CENS), Andrássy University (AUB) and the Austrian Cultural Forum Budapest jointly hosted an international conference entitled “The Western Balkan’s Diversity of Identities: Political Culture, Minorities and Gender”.

This conference focused on multiple identities which define the people of the Western Balkans and it explored how political culture, minorities and gender are impacting on peoples’ identities. By understanding the way political culture functions helps us understand how and why the Western Balkans governments are organized in a certain way and why democracies succeed or fail in the region. The conference also provided clues to some other elements that define identity, such as minorities and gender. Are minorities a more powerful identity-marker than nationality or ethnicity? What are the main parameters of gender in the region? Does the Western Balkans remain a region dominated by patriarchal gender norms? 

For more details on these issues, please read the event report here.