The environmental issue emerged in industrialized countries from the 1960s onwards as an awareness of the planet's limits in the face of economic growth.

Initially dealt with as a sectoral issue of national public policies, it became from the 1970s onwards, an issue for international coordination by governments (Stockholm in 1972, Rio in 1992) and civil society (multiplication of environmental NGOs: WWF (1961), Friend of the Earth (1970), Geenpeace (1971), etc.). Integrated at the end of the 1980s into development thinking, under the term “sustainable development” (Bruntland Report, 1986), it became more precise and was broken down into different resolution regimes (climate, biodiversity, resources, pollution, etc.).  

Today, environmental issues are shaping new forms of governmentality, linking local situations and global issues, opening up new areas of regulation and standardization. They also trigger conflicts and resistances, leading to new modes of action, coordination and individual or collective identifications.

In this respect, the Balkans constitute a specific area, especially in view of its contemporary history : the dissolution of empires in the 19th and 20th centuries, the relatively “late” creation of Nation-States, the violent trauma of the two World Wars, the experiences of communism after 1945, alternating military and civil regimes in Turkey and Greece, transition paths towards a market economy and liberal democracy, sometimes marked by civil wars and ethno-territorial conflicts. As regards the constitution of the “environmental question”, we are therefore faced with a multiplicity of situations and an extreme fractioning of contexts.

From a legal and political point of view, the convergence of South-Eastern Europe towards the “acquis communautaire” conveyed by the European Union constitutes today an important horizon of (re)formulation of the environmental issues. But it is not the only one.

The journal Balkanologie proposes to devote a thematic issue, open to a broad disciplinary spectrum (history, history of ideas, sociology, anthropology, economic-political, management, political science, etc.) to contribute to a reflection on the constitution and evolution of environmental issues in the contemporary South-East European region.

This call for articles is therefore open to case studies of various theoretical or methodological approaches. These may be of a very contemporary nature, but may also shed light on current issues in a longer-term perspective; they may focus on a specific territorial scale or examine the interactions between several levels of action; emphasize collective dynamics or individual profiles and strategies of actors.