Framed by complexity-thinking, this book uses the prism of security sector reform (SSR) to trace the co-evolution of the Western Balkans as part of the EU/Europe security community and the European Union (EU) as a security actor. It aims to analyse the suitability and adaptability of EU security governance to a VUCA world, i.e. a world of increasing vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity—the world of transformative change. It takes a detailed view on the transformation of regional and state security in the Western Balkans and the EU’s role in the process between 1991, the year that marked the flare-up of violence and large-scale conflict, and 2013, when the first state of the region joined the EU.

Dr Anastasiia Kudlenko studied Politics and International Relations in Canterbury, England, and Russian, Central and Eastern European Studies in Glasgow, Scotland, and Krakow, Poland. Since 2021, she is Post-Doctoral Research Associate on the GCRF COMPASS project at the University of Kent.

Her papers have been published by, among other outlets, International Peacekeeping, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, and Comparative Southeast European Studies.