Balkanization

Balkanization, or Balkanisation, is a geopolitical term, originally used to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or uncooperative with one another. Balkanization is a result of foreign policies creating geopolitical fragmentation as can be seen at times in the Western Balkans with respect to the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Third Reich, the United Nations and NATO. Foreign policies can be precipitous to Balkanization.

The term is nondescript since the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were Balkan in origin and, for the most part, counter-examples to the term.

The term is used in fallacies drawing from appeal to consequences, loaded language, historical fallacy and hasty generalization such as in the cases of Spain and Catalonia, Canada and Quebec, UK and Scotland, and the internet and nation states.

The term refers to the division of the Balkan peninsula, formerly ruled almost entirely by the Ottoman Empire, into a number of smaller states between 1817 and 1912. It was coined in the early 19th century and has a strong negative connotation. The term however came into common use in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, with reference to the numerous new states that arose from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

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