Efforts to date have resulted in major interventions in the content of some Bulgarian and Croatian books and the organization of scientific conferences on similar and related subjects. Despite all the feverish research that has been going on in this context all over the Balkans in recent years, the political influence of the scientific community extends only to the point where political volition begins. Because to change the way a people is perceived or approached is a political matter. Scientists cannot draw up foreign policy guidelines. However, inter-Balkan scientific concord and persistent pursuit of the issue of changing the content of school textbooks in order to cultivate patriotism and not chauvinism can go some way towards securing, if not coercing, the necessary political volition.
National identity is formed in relation to the 'other' and evolves in comparison with the 'other'.