How Legacies of the Past and Weakness of the State brought Violent Dissolution and Disorder to the Western Balkan States

This article investigates both, the primordialist arguments of ethnicity as well as the modernist arguments of civil divergences as possible explanations in trying to understand the violent conflicts in the Western Balkan case. I argue that ethnic heterogeneity and legacies of the past (primordialist arguments) may favour conflicts but they are not sufficient enough for bursting up a conflict. In the Western Balkans the violent conflicts have been first and foremost a result of the improper relations of state-citizens which brought a societal security dilemma resulting many times into violent conflicts for the whole of the community.