The region of the Balkans and the Near East has assumed an important geo-political and global economic significance since the end of the Cold War. This territory, which includes old and new nation-states of the former Ottoman Empire and Soviet Union, stands at the crossroads of an expanding West (NATO, the EU) and a re-emerging East (Russia, China, India). A focus on the Balkans and the Near East in a more globalized world must involve the re-examination of widely held assumptions, modern historical claims, and political, economic and security assertions concerning the nation-states of Southeastern Europe and the Near East. In this context, the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies seeks to address, in an historical and theoretically-informed manner, the complex historical, economic, political, diplomatic, cultural and security issues that confront the region, in the light of such important developments as the process of European integration, the evolution of NATO, and the more general changes in the international governance system after the end of the Cold War in Eurasia and the terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001.

The journal encourages modern historical research, comparative approaches, critical scholarship and a diversity of international relations and geo-political views on the region, as it seeks to construct an academic forum to bring together disparate scholarly perspectives. The Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, which expands and complements the research agenda and fruitful academic experience of the Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, is a strictly peer-reviewed quarterly publication.