GEOPOLITIC DETERMINANTS OF THE FOREIGN POLICY POSITIONING OF SERBIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY

PROROKOVIĆ Dušan (Istraživač‐saradnik u Institutu za međunarodnu politiku i privredu, Beograd), dusan@diplomacy@bg.ac.rs

The foreign policy positioning of the state is a process influenced by at least three indicators: the geographical position, the structure of the world political system (character of the current international relations) and historical experiences. All three of these indicators are related to the phenomenon of spatial (geographical) distribution of the power of key actors of international politics, at the regional or global level, today or in the past. Therefore, we can consider them as geopolitical determinants, In this article, we will present and analyze the geopolitical determinants that are related to all three indicators. The article consists of five parts. The first introductory part is dedicated to explaining what foreign political positioning means and what foreign policy is. The second part deals with geopolitical determinants that affect the country\'s foreign policy. The third part is devoted to the analysis of geopolitical determinants related to three indicators of the foreign policy positioning of the Republic of Serbia. The fourth part describes the current foreign policy of the Republic of Serbia and compares it with the findings from the third part of the paper. The fifth part is the final conclusion. The theoretical framework of this research is neorealism.

Keywords: geopolitics, foreign policy, Serbia, Balkans, world political system, foreign policy positioning, geopolitical determinants