The international scientific conference “Changes”, organised by the Institute of Social Sciences, was closed on 29 October. During the conference’s three days, 27-29 October, scientists, professors and researchers from all the states created in the region after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, analysed the results of movements in their societies and the region in the last thirty years.
The conference comprised one ceremonial and four working sessions. At the closing ceremony, the chairs of the working sessions presented results of the participants and the main conclusions of the panel discussions. Irena Ristić, chair of the session titled “Leviathan and Homo Balcanicus” highlighted the six common points proposed by all the participants: the problem of negating the past, ethnonationalism, war, the problem of theoretical model which should be used in interpretation, the opportunities missed during the transition and the role of the West in the events discussed.
The chair of the second session titled “Welfare State vs. Neoliberalism”, Sanja Filipović, said that during the panel discussion, the three main principles which had been in the foundation of the transition process were defined, based on the experiences in all these countries: quick privatisation, liberalisation and macroeconomic stability. As an important insight by the panel discussion’s participants, she highlighted that the transition had not begun in all these countries at the same time, nor had it had the same model, and that this was evident in different levels of macroeconomic stability in these countries. The participants also drew attention to the evident rise in inequalities in the societies, as well as to the problems of brain drain and strengthening of the influence of right-wing political tendencies.
Chairs of the final two panels, Vladimir Mentus (The World around Us) and Milica Joković Pantelić (Life is a Stream) also acquainted the attendants with the contents of their respective sessions.
In his concluding address, Director of the Institute, Goran Bašić, thanked his colleagues from abroad, as well as from the Institute, for their participation in and contribution to the success of the conference. He assessed that the conference succeeded in offering answers to some issues concerning the changes in the post-Yugoslav space, but also opened a bunch of new questions. He emphasised that “if we want to find solutions to the problems, and there have not been many offered, we should not seek for them in the region, but only in a wider space and context”.
Finally, thanking once again the participants and the Institute’s professional services, Bašić announced publication of the conference’s book of proceedings.
