From geopolitics towards demopolitics: Serbian foreign policy and demographic trends

In this paper, the author states and proves the hypothesis that negative demographic trends in the Republic of Serbia, and in Southeast Europe as a whole, can have a significant influence on the pursuing of the foreign policy of both Serbia and its neighboring countries. According to the anticipations of the relevant institutions and individuals-scientists, in the forthcoming decades, Serbia and other Southeast European countries (except the areas inhabited by the Albanians, although they themselves have also deeply stepped into the process of the so-called demographic transition) may expect to face the continuation of the unfavorable demographic trends - a decrease in the number of the inhabitants and an increasingly older population. The main reasons for the stated are the falling rate of natality and migrations of an economic character of the Western developed countries. Due to that, differently from the previous historical periods, it may be expected that the Balkan countries will, for the first time, change their foreign?policy focus - from managing, acquiring and controlling territories (geopolitics) towards managing, acquiring and controlling the population (demo politics). In other words, Serbia and the Balkan countries can, for the first time, be more focused on their own selves and their most critical demographic-political-safety aspect - their decreasing number of inhabitants and increasingly older populations - and less on, historically observed, the traditional goal - the enlargement and control of the territory. This means that, with an increasingly smaller and increasingly older population, the armed conflicts whose basic ambitions would be to change the borders would gradually become increasingly less socially accepted. The author does not consider that the territorial integrity ceases to be an important priority for each one of the Southeast European countries and that geopolitics is completely losing its significance in the Balkans, but he rather asserts that the geopolitical goals that would imply changing the borders are losing their attractiveness in the societies that are rapidly losing their populations. The only exception in that sense is the Albanian ethnic community, whose demographic characteristics partly differ from the Balkan and, generally, European trends. Simultaneously, faced with a decrease in and the aging of their populations, the Balkan countries could find the common basis for a coordinated foreign and safety policy and share costs and resources in facing different safety challenges.