This article situates itself in the theoretical space between world-systems theory and postcolonial theory, exploring how the state of peripherality and concomitant dependency is reproduced in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Covid-19 pandemic. The dependent position of the Bosnian protectorate in the world-system, its heritage of colonial rule and peripherality, as well as post-colonial influences of Pax-Americana on state constitution and state capture, have all contributed to the inability of the divided state to adequately respond to the pandemic. This article reveals a multifaceted dependence of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Western core economies in relation to aid, equipment and vaccines as well as its gradual move towards China as a new opportunity. The pandemic also becomes the stage for competition between the Eastern and Western companies for mining concessions needed to secure the green transition in the respective economies, as a new wave of primitive accumulation ravages the European periphery. As a result of this new scramble for the Balkans, and amidst the global shift towards multipolarity, we see a stable reproduction of peripherality in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Western Balkans, and re-emergence of ethnic conflict in previously disputed areas, where ethnic groups identify with the interests of their respective hegemons.

ABSTRACT This article situates itself in the theoretical space between the field of genocide, and postcolonial studies, advocating for a closer relationship between the two, particularly in relation to the emerging field of postcolonial genocide. The Rwandan genocide is illustrative of this need, as a case which remains firmly rooted in identity categories that have been imposed on the native populations during the colonial era. The article traces the persistence of the colonial racial hierarchies in Rwanda and the role they played in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It fosters a particularly significant focus on modernity as the symbolic line that divides the imagined racial categories in the colonial gaze, resulting in a crucial impact of nesting colonialisms in the genocidal rhetoric of the late twentieth century. The Rwandan genocidal project contains within it a desire to fulfil the promise of modernity by facilitating the emergence of an ethnically cleansed nation state, while simultaneously rejecting it as the heritage of violence ridden exploitation colonialism. This paradox of ambivalent modernity presents itself both as a crucial characteristic of the Rwandan genocide as well as a persistent rupture in the formation of contemporary Rwandan identities.

Contrary to its conventional image as a social-democratic paragon, the Danish welfare state has, in recent decades, been undergoing significant changes as a response to the intrusion into the social sphere by self-regulating markets and a final departure from Keynesian politics of universalism and solidarity. This article examines the evident decline of the Nordic model as a result of neoliberal globalisation and establishes an association between the erosion of the welfare state and the emergence of fascist political sentiment in Denmark. An analysis of the Danish People's party and its growing public support among the disenfranchised working class communities in Denmark demonstrates how those overlooked by the free market and unrepresented by the liberal left become increasingly more receptive to the proposed social agendas of the far right campaigns.