State-Building Politics after the Yugoslav and Soviet Collapse. The Western Balkans and Ukraine in a comparative Perspective. An Introduction

This issue of the journal Southeastern Europe is dedicated to the comparison of political developments and state-building processes in the so-called Western Balkans and the Ukrainian case, which is an emblematic post-Soviet Eastern European country. As any other similar exercise, the comparative framework has its own benefits and limitations. Methodologically and by content, this approach is, in fact, indubitably challenging. On the one hand, comparative studies encourage critical reflections across borders between states or macroregions. On the other, the quantitative analysis of data, which is more frequently applied in these cases, has been replaced, in this issue, by a different approach, preferably based on the qualitative scrutiny of two case-studies, here encoded in the broader geopolitical notion of “South-East Europe”.In this issue we present four articles that cover all above similarities and differences. Their narratives, however, follow a different comparative approach. Two articles, in fact, suggest a binary in-depth analysis between the two peripheral areas under scrutiny. Instead, the other two contributions focus mainly, although not exclusively, on the specific dynamics that are characterizing each of the two macroregions. Our belief is that, in this way, the reader will more effectively grasp both commonalities and peculiarities of these two complex European strategic zones.