A "Nyugat-Balkán" kritikai geopolitikájának térszemantikai olvasata

The ‘Western Balkans’ is examined as a policy concept of social relations. The starting point in the interpretation is that this name used for the region is not really a scientific and neutral geographical name rather a name of which introduction was determined by geopolitical factors. Using the name of Western Balkans does not refer to a geographical unit but conveys a judgement: countries which have not yet reached the level of democracy and culture required by the EU. Whether using this term or rejecting it, makes a division in scientific discourse sharper than usual but illustrates well the creation of conceptual framework for thinking about the reality surrounding us. The article makes an attempt to show the different layers of this “West Balkan” seen by an external observer, describing how value structures and interest networks determine them in the beginning of the 21st century. The discursive analysis of the geopolitical context is based on the poststructuralist monograph of Predrag Svilar, his discursive critique about “Western Balkans” but the examination here does not stop at the moral findings of value-led “critical schools”. Only sensitive diagnosis is kept from the normative approach of these schools. Limits of the geopolitical and scientific battles on the westernisation of the Balkans are shown by the critique of the critical geopolitics – approaching it from spatial semantics