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This comparative study at hand has been the result of a two-year research project on floods in 2014 in the Western Balkans engaging eight research teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia. Representing quite different disciplines, the authors of this volume have analysed diverse aspects of the crisis governance and its ramifications. This publication's goals are twofold. Firstly, it pins down the characteristics of the crisis responses during the floods of 2014 in three affected countries, preconditioned by the existing institutions, crisis leadership, the role of media and the social capital as well as the foreign financial aid. On the other hand, through the lenses of the crisis governance we conclude on the state capacities and the nature of political regime of the cases under study. The flood megacrisis did not constitute a "window of opportunity" for individual or institutional learning. On the contrary, it did unveil some authoritarian tendencies in Serbia and Bosnia, and thus stalled the hitherto ongoing democratization process.
List of contents
Vedran Dzihic/Magdalena Solska: The Floods of 2014: Crisis Governance, State Capacities and Political Regimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia - Damir Kapidzic/Dusan Pavlovic/Gordan Bosanac: Crisis Response in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia - Marko Vujacic: Leadership in Megacrisis: The Case of the 2014 Floods in Serbia - Snjezana Milivojevic/Bojana Barlovac: Media and Floods under Crisis in Serbia - Danijela Majstorovic/Zoran Vuckovac: Managing Floods, Challenging Ethnopolitics in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Example of the Town of Doboj - Adnan Efendic: The Role of Economic and Social Capital during the Floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina - Iva Kornfein Gros: International Financial Aid in the Postcrisis Phase in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia - Sanneke Kuipers: Crisis Leadership in Governing Floods: Lessons from the Western Balkans - Appendix 1: Damir Kapidzic/Dusan Pavlovic/Gordan Bosanac: Mapping an Unfolding Crisis: Key Developments during the Floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia - Appendix 2: Dusan Pavlovic/Damir Kapidzic/Gordan Bosanac: Flood Protection Systems in the Precrisis Phase: The Cases of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
About the author
Vedran Džihi¿, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, co-director of the Center for Advanced Studies, South East Europe and senior lecturer at the Institute for Political Sciences, University of Vienna.
Magdalena Solska, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in political science at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
