This panel will interrogate conceptions of gendered and sexual citizenship in the former Yugoslavia. European analyses of gendered and sexual citizenship are frequently only informed by Western European contexts. This panel seeks to redress this imbalance, placing the region of South-East Europe within wider trans-European debates. By focusing on the developments of citizenship regimes, from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the post-socialist, post-Yugoslav states, the papers presented here seek to contribute to the on-going debates on citizenship in its gendered and sexual dimensions. The specific context of the former Yugoslav space is particularly important, since it adds the perspective of an environment which is post-conflict, post-socialist, and multi-ethnic, yet also undergoing a rapid process of globalization and Europeanisation. The region of former Yugoslavia has undergone multiple political and economic 'crises', spurring transformations in citizenship and gender regimes, and generating theoretical and methodological questions that are relevant beyond its borders.  These concerns include (but are not limited to) the role of gender and sexuality in determining inclusion and exclusion, the limits of liberal democratic model of citizenship, and the effects of Europeanisation in South-East Europe.

Adriana Zaharijević's paper on Transformation of Gender Regimes through Transformation of Citizenship Regimes seeks to understand what is the connection between the socialist non-gendered model, the distinctively gendered model of nation-building processes, and the “neutral”, neoliberal model in present gendered lives of citizens of post-Yugoslav states. Oliwia Berdak's paper interrogates male citizenship in the former Yugoslav states of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, in particular in the context of soldiering. Yugoslav male citizens were to contribute to the state as workers and as military conscripts. Today, military conscription has been abandoned and all that remains are veteran associations which are sometimes mobilised by right-wing political parties and sometimes marginalised. The post-socialist, post-conflict and multiethnic specificity will highlight how particular conceptions of masculinity inform but also are reaffirmed by gendered citizenship regimes, impacting on the lives of men. Katja Kahlina looks at the Europeanisation of sexual citizenship and critically reflects upon the process of “Europeanization” by examining to what extent the hierarchical distinction between “West” and “East” present in the negotiation process affects the (nationalist) resistance to the rights of sexual minorities. Chiara Bonfiglioli shows how the citizenship regimes and welfare regimes in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia have undergone profound political, economic and social changes as a result of their post-socialist, post-conflict transition and as a consequence of processes of Europeanization and globalization affecting the region in the last twenty years. She addresses the gendered character of these transformations, focusing on changes in women`s welfare and labour rights. The paper will also consider the impact of EU gender equality policies on post-Yugoslav states.