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Balkanization, or Balkanisation, is a pejorative

The term has arisen from the conflicts in the 20th century Balkans. While what is now termed Balkanization has occurred throughout history, the term originally described the creation of smaller, ethnically diverse states following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

The term is also used to describe other forms of disintegration, including, for instance, the subdivision of the Internet into separate enclaves, the division of subfields and the creation of new fields from sociology, and the breakdown of cooperative arrangements due to the rise of independent competitive entities engaged in "beggar thy neighbour" bidding wars.

Balkanization is sometimes used to refer to the divergence over time of programming languages and data file formats (particularly XML). The term has been used in American urban planning to describe the process of creating gated communities.

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