Balkan Regional Development: Moderate or Radical Islam for the Balkans

This article focuses on the evolution and manifestation of radical Islam in the Balkans and the public policy responses to the issue. It traces the origins and causes that lie behind radical Islam in the region, addresses the issue of foreign fighters involved and examines the measures that have been taken by governments in the region to combat it. The article argues that changes in public policies and in public discourse (via mass media, political narrative and narrative of Islamic communities), accompanied with the first ISIS losses and the depletion of the first wave of enthusiastic recruits and the first disillusioned returnees, were behind the unprecedented drop in the number of newly recruited foreign fighters. The article asserts, contrary to what is usually maintained in the literature, that the mass media remain the decisive channel for spreading messages and changing the public discourse, even in the era of Web 2.0 and in a region with highly favourable opportunity structures for recruitment.