The forced migration of Muslims from the Balkans to Turkey is one of the least known movements of people in modern times. In "A Muslim Tale of Two Cities" Frances Trix focuses on urban Muslims from the central Balkans and the hometown associations they founded in Turkish cities.

In the post-Yugoslav context, members of these Muslim communities have largely self-identified as Bosniaks, an ethnic/national term that gained prominence among Bosnian Muslims in the period immediately following the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991 and the outbreak of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. While language policies in this region were centrally formulated in the joint state, with the dissolution of the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006, the two halves of the Sandžak experienced divergent language policies. In his presentation, Robert Greenberg, professor of linguistics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, argues that the division of the Sandžak may have been a catalyst for destabilizing and radicalized forces to emerge in the years following the formal Serbia/Montenegro split.

In the last few years and in the course of global crisis we have been observing growing authoritarian challenges to New Democracies in the Western Balkans. Such crisis changes the political landscape of the region resulting in an adaptation of political elites and modes of rule, and seeking for new tools to retain power and secure the legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry. Vedran Dzihic, assistant professor at the Institute of Political Sciences at the University of Vienna, argues that current regimes in the Western Balkans increasingly seek answers to the political crisis by combining democratic with (newly) authoritarian practices and policies.

If you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, where in the world do you belong? Today, the growing visibility and activism among those whose gender identity or sexual orientation is outside of the culturally accepted norms in Southeast Europe is coinciding with international and European pressures to protect sexual and gender differences as basic human rights.