Regional Workshop – Tirane, 26-29 October 2011, Hotel Diplomat

During Oct 26-29 2011, in the framework of the project “Security Transitions in the Western Balkans – From Conflict Zone to Security Community“, IDM hosted this Regional Workshop. 20 participants from the Western Balkans as well as prominent speakers in the field of security sector attended the meeting.

The workshop was focused mainly in the revision of all the work accomplished in the framework of this project, and in particular was devoted to the future goals and challenges in the implementation phase.

This is a research project that is being implemented by a consortium of seven think tank organisation form the Western Balkan (Institute for Democracy and Mediation-Albania, Analitica-Macedonia, IMO- Croatia, KCSS- Kosovo, CSS- BiH, BCSS-Serbia and CEDEM-Montenegro) in cooperation with the NUPI (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs). This project is supported by the Research Council of Norway. The purpose of the research project is to explore if and how security regime in the Western Balkans is transforming from a conflict formation towards a security community. In order to do that the overarching theoretical literature for each researcher is ‘security communities’ theories by identifying the mechanisms and trace processes which can be observed in each country. The research methodology will be guided by ‘practice theories’ and professionals’ theories. As a result of the project different articles and papers will be published on e-journals and a final book with each country chapter will be published in 2013 in the end of the project.

A website with the main findings, literature reviews and contributions from the researchers will be a further contribution to the research in the Western Balkans.