Personal Values and National Identity in Post-Yugoslav States: A Comparative Analysis

The dissolution of Yugoslavia produced a group of successor states that share historical, cultural, and political legacies while developing distinct contemporary national identities. Existing scholarship has extensively examined the role of ethnicity, conflict, state-building, and political institutions in shaping national identity across the Western Balkans. However, less attention has been paid to the role of individual value systems and whether personal values predict national identity differently across post-Yugoslav states. This paper investigates the relationship between personal values and national identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Drawing upon Schwartz's theory of basic human values and survey data from the European Values Study and World Values Survey, the research examines whether values such as tradition, conformity, security, self-direction, universalism, and benevolence are associated with differing levels of national identification across these countries. The study adopts a comparative quantitative approach to assess whether shared historical experiences produce similar relationships between values and national identity, or whether national contexts have generated distinct patterns of association. By comparing multiple post-Yugoslav states within a common analytical framework, the paper seeks to identify both regional trends and country-specific variations in the predictors of national identity. The research contributes to broader debates in political science and international relations concerning nationalism, identity formation, political culture, and post-conflict societies. Understanding how personal values shape national identity offers insight into the social foundations of nation-building and political behaviour in societies that have undergone significant political transformation. More broadly, the findings may contribute to discussions surrounding social cohesion, democratic development, and identity politics in contemporary Europe. As part of an ongoing Master's dissertation at the University of Western Australia, this paper presents the theoretical framework, research design, and emerging analysis of the relationship between personal values and national identity across the post-Yugoslav region.