Jure Ramšak presented his research on Yugoslav investments abroad at an international conference in Lisbon

At the 16th Annual Conference in Political Economy, held in Lisbon from 9 to 12 September 2026, Jure Ramšak presented a paper entitled “Playing the Game of Capitalism in the Near Abroad and the Far Abroad: Yugoslav Investments in the Industrial Sector in Austria and Kenya in the 1980s”.

The paper examined Yugoslav investments in the industrial sectors of Austria and Kenya during the 1980s, exploring how Yugoslav enterprises engaged with global economic networks in the late socialist period. The research offers new insights into the economic dimensions of Yugoslavia’s international activities and its position between European and non-aligned development processes.

The presentation brought together findings from the ERC-funded project Open Borders and the ARIS project “Being European and Decolonial: Utopian Realism of the Yugoslav Nonaligned Internationalism”. By combining perspectives on cross-border economic relations with the broader framework of Yugoslavia’s non-aligned engagement, the study highlights the interconnected nature of Yugoslav economic, political, and development initiatives across Europe and the Global South.