Balkan Social Survey I: North Macedonia 2024

With the end of the Cold War, a rapid process of democratization and transition to a market economy began in the Balkans. This process led to a major transformation in the region in terms of the state, politics, the individual, law, freedoms, constitutional rights, civil society and international politics. However, the region as a whole did not go through this transition process in a healthy, smooth or painless manner, and it was structurally impossible for it to do so. Especially in the 90s, the Bosnian and Kosovo wars and the massive destruction caused by these wars and the seizure of power by the aggressive form of Serbian nationalism prevented a part of the Balkans from being integrated into this new transformation on a more accurate basis with foreseeable problems. This process, which has been transferred to the 2000s, has made the transformation of societies difficult with many problems such as the problems of late modernization, the bureaucratic dilemmas of the socialist past, the inability to build a market economy, and the lack of institutional infrastructure needed for democratization. A 20-year period in which the deficit in democracy, law, market economy, freedoms, etc. was tried to be overcome through EU harmonization processes and NATO membership processes has been left behind. In this process, many different factors such as migration, immigrants, new balances in international politics were also involved in this social transformation. North Macedonia has faced many challenges of modern nation state building in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-lingual social reality. In order to build a determined and stable society, it was necessary to define processes such as nation/ethnicity, religion, sect and historical identity. The necessity to define and find solutions led the state and society to face many challenges, while society and the state were able to overcome social changes, constants and fractures to a certain extent. In 30 years, progress has been made, such as reconciliation with Albanians in the 2001 crisis, reconciliation with Greece on historical identity with a name change in 2019, NATO membership in 2020, and the start of negotiations with the EU in 2020.

In the most general sense, this project is about determining the constants, changes, developments, fractures and tendencies of the social structures of the Balkan countries at certain intervals and repetitively, taking into account the great transformations of the Balkan countries in the last 30 years, and to be able to offer solutions by setting the year 2023 as the starting point and North Macedonia as the first country. This framework includes accessing and interpreting data through surveys and qualitative analysis methods. The main topics of population, socio-economic life, working life, political attitude, culture, (law, education) include analyzing and interpreting societies through sub-headings such as demography, migration, property, income, consumption, savings, work, employment, working life, identity, political party/attitude, international relations, security, religion, religious life, values, state/bureaucracy, lawsuits, corruption.

Objective

The project primarily aims to produce scientific data on the social structure of the Balkans in the long term. Through the data to be produced, it aims to produce a basis for comparative analysis and interpretation of the social structure of the countries in the Balkans for the relevant policy makers and beneficiaries in a way to reveal time series. This comparative data will reveal the changes, fractures and future perspectives on the social structures of the Balkans and related countries. As the first pillar of the project, it aims to interpret the constants, trends and expectations by analyzing the data obtained through surveys on 5 main variables that largely determine the social structure of North Macedonia in the short term.