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International Norms, Power and the Politics of International Administration: The Kosovo Case
Abstract
This article examines the practices of governance enacted within the framework of the international administration of Kosovo, which was established in 1999. I analyse the complex interplay between power and the liberal-democratic norms around which the UN-led mission defined its role in the province. The international administration exercised significant power in the legal/institutional reconstruction of the province, and in its systematic attempts to socialise Kosovars into accepting Western-based norms of liberal democracy as the only reasonable foundation of their polity. At the same time, however, the norms advocated by the international administration proved to be the source of a certain degree of power for the people of Kosovo. Specifically, those norms provided the framework within which Kosovars were able to criticise the international administration, and to claim the right to greater participation in decisions regarding the province. Over the past couple of years, Kosovo has witnessed the emergence of a shared normative framework within which the international administrators and Kosovar political elites articulate often competitive truth claims about the problems of the province, and mobilise different forms of power in support of those claims.
... Because of its unprecedented exposure to international norm diffusion efforts in recent years, the Western Balkans peace-and statebuilding experiences provide appropriate empirical terrain for such an undertaking. Much has been written about the Western Balkans as a test for the liberal peacebuilding enterprise (Ignatieff 2003;Gheciu 2005;Chandler 2006; Aggestam and Björkdahl 2014;Kappler 2014), and as a laboratory for the limits and potentialities of Europeanisation (Noutcheva 2009;Freyburg and Richter 2010;Bieber 2011a;Elbasani 2013). Undoubtedly, powerful international actors have been heavily involved in the statebuilding process in the region and have contributed to preventing the recurrence of violence through its firm presence on the ground. ...
... Research in the field of post-war peacebuilding is also concerned with the attempt by international actors to socialise and engineer target states and domestic societies (Gheciu 2005;Björkdahl 2006). Many see this generally as a desired approach to promote democracy and development (Doyle and Sambanis 2006), some argue for alterations to the framework due to its resemblance to 'Empire Lite' (Ignatieff 2003) or the mission civilisatrice (Paris 2002), while others criticise the incoherent principles upon which such liberal peacebuilding rests (Richmond 2005(Richmond , 2008. ...
... Many see this generally as a desired approach to promote democracy and development (Doyle and Sambanis 2006), some argue for alterations to the framework due to its resemblance to 'Empire Lite' (Ignatieff 2003) or the mission civilisatrice (Paris 2002), while others criticise the incoherent principles upon which such liberal peacebuilding rests (Richmond 2005(Richmond , 2008. It has been noted that the neoliberal peacebuilding enterprise deeply resembles the imperial practices of socialising and co-opting elites (Chandler 2006;Darby 2009), and that the use of local ownership models and capacity building techniques are essentially attempts at teaching a selected segment of the population the correct 'formula' of liberal democratic systems (Gheciu 2005;Narten 2009). From a postcolonial point of view, authors analyse 'local resistance' to international peacebuilding attempts (Richmond and Franks 2007;Darby 2009; using frameworks that question the basic viability of peacebuilding projects, and the power relations in which they operate. ...
This special issue explores norm diffusion, contestation and localisation in the contexts of political transition in general and post-war peacebuilding specifically. It engages with critical moments in which international diffusion endeavours meet local politics of norm contestation in societies undergoing post-war and/or post-authoritarian transitions. The ‘third wave’ of norm research offers an agency-based approach to the negotiation and contestation of the meaning of norms that is consistent with work in peacebuilding studies on the meeting between international norms and local realities in post-war contexts. By honing in on the ‘normative powers’ of local agents, their perspectives and capacities, and how these contribute to norm construction, the special issue provides theoretical and conceptual advances to capture these transition processes in the context of the Western Balkans.
... At the same time, the IC wants to ensure the conditions for a peaceful and normal life to Kosovars, which refers to agendas, such as reconciliation and social justice, which can be at variance with the first goal, namely stability. Additionally, the various values are promoted in a unidirectional way, leaving questionable the promoters' own adherence to them (Gheciu 2005). ...
... 10 Mertus has recorded in detail this IC mindset in action-as have others (e.g. Gheciu 2005;Lemay-Hébert 2011). For instance, Mertus brings out an instance where international gender experts deemed their approach superior to that of the local gender experts (2001,31). ...
This chapter puts forth a critical just peace lens through which peace missions can be understood. It treats peace as an inherently plural good (peace is fluid and contextually rooted). The value of critical approaches to peace(building) rests on their ability to see beyond the status quo and to critically interrogate the vocabulary of peace missions. The valuable adage to the already existing debate is Amartya Sen’s idea of justice. Sen puts forth that justice should be about people’s lives, i.e. how their everyday lives go. This lens helps to destabilise the extant commonplaces in peacebuilding and instead focus on: what are the peace “goods” offered in a particular context? whom do they serve? who are able to script peace? how are peace “goods” practised?
... At the same time, the IC wants to ensure the conditions for a peaceful and normal life to Kosovars, which refers to agendas, such as reconciliation and social justice, which can be at variance with the first goal, namely stability. Additionally, the various values are promoted in a unidirectional way, leaving questionable the promoters' own adherence to them (Gheciu 2005). ...
... 10 Mertus has recorded in detail this IC mindset in action-as have others (e.g. Gheciu 2005;Lemay-Hébert 2011). For instance, Mertus brings out an instance where international gender experts deemed their approach superior to that of the local gender experts (2001,31). ...
This chapter investigates the EU’s rule of law mission (EULEX) in Kosovo. One of the major themes discussed within this chapter relates to the fact that the EU seems to suggest that expertise comes from outside, and that Kosovo’s agency can be accepted once it has been brought “into the European mainstream”. The prevailing understanding seems to suggest that the EU—and by extension the international community—having reached the pinnacle of democracy, rule of law, etc.—is especially well positioned to “share [the International/European standards] and shape” (this ability is seen as something that is a key characteristic of a global actor according to the EU) the Kosovo authorities.
... At the same time, the IC wants to ensure the conditions for a peaceful and normal life to Kosovars, which refers to agendas, such as reconciliation and social justice, which can be at variance with the first goal, namely stability. Additionally, the various values are promoted in a unidirectional way, leaving questionable the promoters' own adherence to them (Gheciu 2005). ...
... 10 Mertus has recorded in detail this IC mindset in action-as have others (e.g. Gheciu 2005;Lemay-Hébert 2011). For instance, Mertus brings out an instance where international gender experts deemed their approach superior to that of the local gender experts (2001,31). ...
This chapter offers a detailed overview of the EU’s military operation, EUFOR Althea, in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The chapter provides a thorough reading of the context the EU operation was deployed in, coupled with an inquiry into the telling and acting of peace “goods” and the varied dialogical moments these entail. Zooming in on the main peace good on offer—the EU’s objective of contributing to the safe and secure environment in BiH—the chapter details the particularity invested in defining security in very traditional and negative peace terms and how this speaks to the BiH context at hand.
... At the same time, the IC wants to ensure the conditions for a peaceful and normal life to Kosovars, which refers to agendas, such as reconciliation and social justice, which can be at variance with the first goal, namely stability. Additionally, the various values are promoted in a unidirectional way, leaving questionable the promoters' own adherence to them (Gheciu 2005). ...
... 10 Mertus has recorded in detail this IC mindset in action-as have others (e.g. Gheciu 2005;Lemay-Hébert 2011). For instance, Mertus brings out an instance where international gender experts deemed their approach superior to that of the local gender experts (2001,31). ...
This chapter investigates the EU’s first autonomous military operation—code-named Artemis—in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Through the course of the analysis, it becomes visible that the significance of operation Artemis lies in the way that it is discursively mobilised as a success story in articulating a particular, i.e. “credible”, CSDP identity. The analysis reveals the significance of how conflicts are understood—i.e. whose knowledge matters—and the ways in which the EU’s operation was in synch with dominant understandings of the conflict and the implications of this. It goes on to investigate the key themes and partners of the Artemis operation.
... The local Kosovo Albanian political elites, on the other hand, strive consistently for international recognition and a 'full-blown Kosovo Albanian nation-state' (Krasniqi 2012: 360). In more concrete terms, the local elites want a speedy exit of the external supervision, and Kosovo Albanian dominance of Kosovo (Gheciu 2005;Franks and Richmond 2008;Mulaj 2011). 11 Yet, the Kosovo Albanian elites do not reject the global norms but employ democracy, accountability and legitimacy in a systematic and strategic way to end the external presence. ...
... In essence, the norms promoted by the external administration provide the framework within which the local elites are able to claim their rights to exercise control over their own affairs (Gheciu 2005: 134;Ernst 2011;Mulaj 2011). They refuse to implement certain decisions of the external missions as these decisions are not made democratically by the population of Kosovo (Gheciu 2005;Ernst 2011;Mulaj 2011). As argued by Dominique Zaum (2009: 198), 'even if local elites do not necessarily accept the legitimacy of particular norms, they can strategically employ and reinterpret them to argue against the presence of international administrations, to push for more local participation in the statebuilding process, and to support exit from the mission'. ...
This article explores how the ‘liberal democratic peace package’ is received in post-conflict spaces. As such, it is part of a critical peace research agenda that raises critical questions concerning the quality of peace in many post-conflict societies. A close reading of the peace-building process in post-conflict Kosovo provides the backdrop for the theoretical discussion that identifies friction in norm diffusion processes and the different agencies that are generated through encounters between global norms and local practices. We unpack the interplay between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ in peacebuilding and, through the lens of friction, we reveal the diverse and unequal encounters that produce new power relations. By foregrounding agency, we theorise different agentive subjects in the post-conflict setting, and map local agency from various segments of society that may localise, co-opt or reject global norms pertaining to the liberal democratic peace.
... Since the end of the war, UNMIK has been playing the role of "educator" in Kosovo, while teaching the norms of democracy and human rights ( Gheciu 2005 ). Gheciu relates to this dual authority and to its institutions as interpretive authorities which have struggled for the right "to be trusted to know/ speak the truth about Kosovo." ...
... 45 Consequently, the dual governmental structure constitutes an array of constraints which repress collective activities. Th is occurs because the duplication encumbers the implementation of the principle of accountability, by increasing the chances that the two authorities will shirk their responsibility while casting blame on the opponent ( Belloni 2001;Gheciu 2005 ). However, the movement seems to overcome this barrier in terms of the structure of political opportunities by adding to their politics of protest yet another sphere, that of formal politics. ...
Kosovo’s case presents a mixture of post-socialist politics with a post-war reality. Its deeply divided society is struggling to solve the ethnic conflict while dealing with state-building and democratization. Within this context, the existence of a dual governing authority (local and international) has created a unique political and social context of supervised statehood with contested external sources of power. In an attempt to shed light on Kosovo’s contentious politics, in this article I examine the case study of the social movement “Levizja Vetevendosje!” (LV), i.e. the Movement for Self-determination, while arguing firstly that given the discourse of Security and Stabilization, the collective resistance of LV is framed as an issue of security and as such a destabilizing factor, resulting thus in the de-politization and the marginalization of LV’s contentious collective action. Secondly, I claim that the establishment of co-shared governance between the local and international political institutions has led to the estrangement of the domestic society from the daily political arena due to the reciprocal dependency of both sides on each other, resulting in the erosion of citizenship in Kosovo.
... In addition, the establishment in 2001 of the local government called Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISG) constituted an institution that lacked real authority, as it was dependent on UNMIK for every decision. Since the end of the war, UNMIK has been playing the role of " educator " in Kosovo, while teaching the norms of democracy and human rights ( Gheciu 2005 ). Gheciu relates to this dual authority and to its institutions as interpretive authorities which have struggled for the right " to be trusted to know/ speak the truth about Kosovo. ...
... " 45 Consequently, the dual governmental structure constitutes an array of constraints which repress collective activities. Th is occurs because the duplication encumbers the implementation of the principle of accountability, by increasing the chances that the two authorities will shirk their responsibility while casting blame on the opponent ( Belloni 2001; Gheciu 2005 ). However, the movement seems to overcome this barrier in terms of the structure of political opportunities by adding to their politics of protest yet another sphere, that of formal politics. ...
Kosovo’s case presents a mixture of post-socialist politics with a post-war reality. Its deeply
divided society is struggling to solve the ethnic confl ict while dealing with state-building and
democratization. Within this context, the existence of a dual governing authority (local and
international) has created a unique political and social context of supervised statehood with
contested external sources of power. In an attempt to shed light on Kosovo’s contentious politics,
in this article I examine the case study of the social movement “Levizja Vetevendosje!” (LV), i.e.
the Movement for Self-determination, while arguing fi rstly that given the discourse of Security
and Stabilization, the collective resistance of LV is framed as an issue of security and as such a
destabilizing factor, resulting thus in the de-politization and the marginalization of LV’s contentious
collective action. Secondly, I claim that the establishment of co-shared governance between
the local and international political institutions has led to the estrangement of the domestic
society from the daily political arena due to the reciprocal dependency of both sides on each
other, resulting in the erosion of citizenship in Kosovo.
... Relevant examples of how statebuilding operations superseded local agency can be found in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, or Timor-Leste. The UN's main goal in the latter three countries was to build new state institutions and impose new constitutions, norms, rules, and practices by populating those post-conflict societies with a large number of international experts who would set an example and promote Western and democratic norms (Gheciu 2005;Arato 2009). Creating capable states requires constant diagnosis and examinations that take place through externally designed knowledge production, which determines the degree of normalization as well as the duration of the international presence. ...
As we face new challenges from climate change and the rise of populism in Western politics and beyond, there is little doubt that we are entering a new configuration of world politics. Driven by nostalgia for past certainties or fear of what is coming next, references to normalcy have been creeping into political discourse, with people either vying for a return to a past normalcy or coping with the new normal. This book traces main discourses and practices associated with normalcy in world politics. Visoka and Lemay-Hébert mostly focus on how dominant states and international organizations try to manage global affairs through imposing normalcy over fragile states, restoring normalcy over disaster-affected states, and accepting normalcy over suppressive states. They show how discourses and practices come together in constituting normalization interventions and how in turn they play in shaping the dynamics of continuity and change in world politics.
... It is well-known that, following the conclusion of the Dayton Accord in 1995, complex international administration was established in Bosnia and Herzegovina, empowering international actors to perform functions that went far beyond conventional peacekeeping (Paris 2002;Caplan 2005;Gheciu 2005;Zaum 2007). Whether one regards the governance practices conducted within the framework of international administration as relatively benign efforts at turning the country into a stable, Western-style liberal democracy (Ignatieff 2003) or as an unacceptable version of neo-colonialism (Chandler 2006), there can be little doubt that, in post-Dayton Bosnia, international actors came to perform a series of roles traditionally attributed to the sovereign state. 2 As Bourdieu explains, it is the prerogative of the statewhich represents the culmination of a process of concentration of various forms of capitalto interfere in all fields, to impose and enforce regulations 'concerning organizations or the behaviour of individual agents' (Bourdieu 1998: 33). ...
This paper contributes to an understanding of the processes of contestation and localisation of norms in post-conflict societies via a Bourdieu-inspired analysis of the process of security privatisation in two former Yugoslav countries: Bosnia and Serbia. By drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of field, habitus, capital and strategies, this paper sheds light on the ways in which, in Bosnia as well as in Serbia, a particular habitus and forms of capital inherited from these polities’ violent past have shaped the implementation of the liberal project of security privatisation. The result has been a situation in which legislation and institutions aimed at promoting a liberal model of security provision co-exist with practices that are inconsistent with liberal-democratic principles of accountability and respect for human rights and the rule of law.
This article provides an in-depth assessment of the peaceful change in the Western Balkan relations between the years 1999 and 2011 that happened despite weak internalisation of norms and unsuccessful democratisation. It argues that the logic of habit and the creation of new routines of interactions are the crucial missing piece in this puzzle. New routines reduced uncertainty about intentions of former enemies and created automatic responses when addressing conflictive issues. Routinisation can explain why we indeed saw new practices among Western Balkan elites without inadvertent internalisation of new norms. This article thus adds to theoretical debates on peaceful change, Europeanisation, socialisation and norm internalisation. To support my argument, I conducted twenty-six semi-structured interviews with Western Balkan elites that were used to understand the role of socialisation and routinisation in their political relations.
Although capacity building is a growing field of international activity in maritime security as elsewhere, it remains under theorized. The chapter presents a primer for such an effort in firstly discussing how capacity building has been understood to date, then offering an outline of the breadth of capacity building. It then investigates which theory-oriented research might assist in understanding capacity building as a practice. The chapter highlights the need to think of capacity building as a practice of improvisation and experimentation; processes that are poorly understood in current technical guides and manuals.
Post-interventionist security assistance is premised on non-normative security understandings and flexible arrangements between external and local actors. In hybrid political regimes or areas of limited statehood, these forms of assistance, while strengthening specific aspects of a country’s security context, reinforce some domestic actors vis-à-vis others thanks to processes of selective borrowing by local political elites. This paper demonstrates how such processes contribute to the proliferation of hybrid elements in the country’s security sector. In two contrasting case studies, we illustrate how security assistance packages in Lebanon and Tunisia have diluted emerging democratic reforms, producing more coercive manifestation of state power.
This article asks how domestic elites contest and localise global norms in contentious post-war contexts. Engaging with critical norm research, it develops a ‘two-step localisation’ framework in order to explain how seemingly technical security governance programmes depend on active congruence making with constitutive state–society narratives — both by international practitioners and domestic elites. The first step consists of the adaptation that practitioners working in the field make in order to tune their message to local contexts, and the second step constitutes the locally driven processes of contestation through narrative construction. The article thus brings in deeply political negotiations over state–society narratives in order to unpack how local agents contest and reframe global norms. Applying the two-step localisation framework to a comparative case study of Small Arms and Light Weapons Control programmes in Kosovo and Cambodia, the article illustrates how the relationship between arms and state–society narratives is key to understanding the outcome of security governance processes.
This book examines the role of culture in contemporary security policies, providing a critical overview of the ways in which culture has been theorized in security studies. Developing a theoretical framework that stresses the relationship between culture, power, security and strategy, the volume argues that cultural practices have been central to transformations in European and US security policy in the wake of the Cold War - including the evolution of NATO and the expansion of the EU. Michael C. Williams maintains that cultural practices continue to play powerful roles in international politics today, where they are essential to grasping the ascendance of neoconservatism in US foreign policy. Investigating the rise in popularity of culture and constructivism in security studies in relation to the structure and exercise of power in post-Cold War security relations, the book contends that this poses significant challenges for considering the connection between analytic and political practices, and the relationship between scholarship and power in the construction of security relations. Culture and Security will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of international relations, security studies and European politics.
Popolo applies Foucauldian methodology to the understanding of Complexity Science for the purposes of generating new understandings related to International Relations in general and to the Kosovo conflict in particular. He provides an epistemic analysis to the history of International Relations theory to reveal its intrinsic 'modernity', highlighting how such modernity derives from a particular understanding of scientific epistemology, which is being radically undermined by the emergence of Complexity Science. Importantly, the book shows how these theoretical issues affect specific understandings of crisis - in this case the Kosovo crisis - leading to specific policy decisions in the real world of international policy-making.
Popolo applies Foucauldian methodology to the understanding of Complexity Science for the purposes of generating new understandings related to International Relations in general and to the Kosovo conflict in particular. He provides an epistemic analysis to the history of International Relations theory to reveal its intrinsic ‘modernity’, highlighting how such modernity derives from a particular understanding of scientific epistemology, which is being radically undermined by the emergence of Complexity Science. Importantly, the book shows how these theoretical issues affect specific understandings of crisis – in this case Kosovo – leading to specific policy decisions in the real world of international policy–making.
This book explores how and why police reform became an international phenomenon in the era of statebuilding that followed the end of the Cold War.
The international community's practice of administering territories in post-conflict environments has raised important legal questions. Using Kosovo as a case study, Bernhard Knoll analyses the identity of the administrating UN organ, the ways in which the territories under consideration have acquired partial subjectivity in international law and the nature of legal obligations in the fiduciary exercise of transitional administration developed within the League of Nations' Mandate and the UN Trusteeship systems. Knoll discusses Kosovo's internal political and constitutional order and notes the absence of some of the characteristics normally found in liberal democracies, before proposing that the UN consolidates accountability guidelines related to the protection of human rights and the development of democratic standards should it engage in the transitional administration of territory.
The purpose of this article is to analyse collaboration in the process of post-conflict reconstruction in Kosovo. Based on
extensive empirical research, we focus on the parliamentarisation in Kosovo in the context of a multi-stakeholder partnership
(MSP). We investigate the creation, operation and effects of co-operation within an MSP called the Kosovo Assembly Support
Initiative (ASI). This MSP is relevant for the study of parliamentary affairs because of its goals to help in the creation
of a functioning national parliament, but also because several other national parliaments contributed to this goal within
the broader post-conflict peace-building in Kosovo.
It has become almost a cliché in many Euro-Atlantic political and academic circles to argue that the transatlantic security community that defines itself around liberal-democratic values is facing a particularly dangerous set of challenges and must find ways to adapt to an environment marked by the growing power of unconventional enemies, particularly transnationally organized terrorist groups. But the question is, what has this meant in practice? What are the dynamics and implications of the security policies and practices aimed at addressing the (allegedly) new threat of international terrorism? This book examines the practices enacted by three key institutions of the transatlantic security community - the EU, NATO, and the OSCE - in the name of combating international terrorism, and analyses the ways in which those practices have both been affected by and contributed to changes in the field of security. This book argues that contemporary attempts to respond to the perceived threat of international terrorism reflect a particular ethos of risk-management and involve a combination of two different - an inclusive and an exclusionary - logics of security. This book examines the interplay between the two logics and analyses their implications, including the ways in which they have contributed to processes of reconstitution of boundaries and norms of governance in the security community. In developing this analysis, this book also explores some of the normative and political dilemmas generated by contemporary patterns of inclusion/exclusion. On this basis, it seeks to make a significant contribution to the study of security practices and international governance in the post-9/11 world.
This article discusses the politics of international administration and ownership in Kosovo, examining the case of the rebuilding of the higher education system in the period 1999–2007. It looks at the practice of international administration, analysing both the efforts of international actors to rebuild the Kosovar university system and the responses of local actors resisting and deeply influencing this process. A fine-grained reconstruction of the role of the UN administration in the process of building a new inter-ethnic university system in Kosovo reveals that local and international actors negotiated and dealt with each other, creating in the process an institutional structure that reflects the fundamental tensions and lack of consensus between the different stakeholders. The paper also argues that a mechanical view of the concept of ownership is not helpful, and that even in cases of international administration local actors are ‘co-owners’, who have a great influence on international plans and projects. It concludes that although the UN played an intrusive role in the process, the mission did not manage to achieve its goals.
This article examines the implications of two distinct phases of international engagement in Kosovo. We argue that a number of flaws developed during UNMIK's administration (1999–2008), which continue to undermine Kosovo's stability. We then disentangle the complex inter-institutional relations between ICO, EULEX, UNMIK and the OSCE. Indeed, their incompatible positions towards Kosovo's status results in a lack of clarity, coordination and coherence that weaken Kosovo within four policy areas: Kosovo's international recognition and participation, the rule of law, inter-ethnic relations and the fate of North Kosovo. While these shortcomings could be viewed as ‘unintended consequences’, we argue more broadly that the Kosovo case illustrates the limits of liberal peacebuilding and the tensions and implications of strategic peacebuilding.
Between 1995 and 1999, the United Nations established transitional administrations over four war-torn territories -- East Timor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Eastern Slavonia, and Kosovo. These transitional civil administrations began as part of a peace agreement and have or will end with either independence of the territory, as with East Timor, or the reuniting of a war-torn state, as with Eastern Slavonia’s return to Croatia. As of this writing, the United Nations’ mission in Kosovo has not ended.Much has been written about these U.N. missions. This bibliography lists English-language articles, books, and reports that discuss the United Nations’ transitional administrations of these four territories. I have attempted to include everything that discusses this particular aspect of the United Nations’ peacekeeping missions in depth.
This book is a study of regime change in the context of international administration, where the United Nations and other multilateral organizations hold temporary executive authority at the domestic level. Work on the politics of state-building has highlighted how these administration operations can influence nearly every aspect of politics in the country or territory in which they are deployed. This book concentrates in particular on the 'regime-building' practices of these missions, and examines the aims and influences of international administrations in the area of democratic development, as well as their ultimate impact on the process of regime change. Through a comparative analysis of events in Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor, the book demonstrates how external actors assume positions of power conventionally held by domestic elites, and in so doing gain the ability to affect democratic development in ways unavailable to international actors in more conventional settings. In particular, the case studies highlight the ways in which the democracy promotion objectives of international administrators can have both positive and negative effects on democratization processes, with the presence of international authorities helping to rule out non-democratic options in some areas, while at times undermining democratic development in others. The book identifies the key international actors involved, highlights the mechanisms of influence available to them in these contexts, and explores the crucial mediating role of domestic actors and structures.
Strengthening the 'Rule of Law' (RoL) has emerged as a key requirement in the reconstruction of conflict-affected states. No longer simply a philosophical ideal, RoL now exists as a tangible set of policies created and implemented by international actors, to which conflict-affected states are expected to conform. Masked in the neutral, apolitical rhetoric of blind and objective justice, RoL programming is in fact a political tool within the larger liberal peacebuilding project. Its employment as such mutes its potential contribution to constructing a positive peace as it often creates new socio-political tensions and distorts accountability structures. An analysis of reforms in Kosovo under the United Nations administration illustrates the potential for liberal RoL reforms to increase insecurity in the short term and threaten the sustainability of peacebuilding reforms in the long term. Instrumental use of RoL programming thus provides further evidence of weaknesses and contradictions within the politicised liberal peacebuilding project, necessitating reconsideration of its role in post-conflict transformations.
In order to avoid both theoretically eclectic and redundant approaches to constructivism, this article proposes one possible and coherent reconstruction of constructivism understood as a reflexive meta-theory. This reconstruction starts by taking seriously the double sociological and interpretivist turn of the social sciences. Based on 'double hermeneutics', constructivism is perhaps best understood by distinguishing its position on the level of observation, the level of action proper, and the relationship between these two levels. On the basis of this distinction, the article argues that constructivism is epistemo-logically about the social construction of knowledge and ontologically about the construction of social reality. It furthermore asks us to combine a social theory of knowledge with an intersubjective, not an individualist, theory of action. Finally, the analysis of power is central to understanding the reflexive link between the two levels of observation and action. The argument is embedded in a contextualization where constructivism is seen as inspired by 'reflexive modernity', as well as more directly by the end of the Cold War.
Sovereignty and human rights are generally considered separate, mutually contradictory regimes in international society. This article takes issue with this conventional assumption, and argues that only by treating sovereignty and human rights as two normative elements of a single, inherently contradictory modern discourse about legitimate statehood and rightful state action can we explain key moments in the expansion of the international system during the twentieth century. After developing a constructivist argument about communicative action, norm formation and sovereignty, the article focuses on post-1945 decolonization, showing how ‘first wave’ post-colonial states played a crucial role in constructing the ‘international bill of rights’, how they invoked those rights to justify the norm of self-determination, and how this norm in turn licensed the proliferation of new sovereign states in Asia and elsewhere.
This essay deals with democracy promotion & protection by established democracies. It first describes how the dynamics and understanding of regime transitions changes from the first to the present fourth wave of democratization. Subsequently, it defines democracy promotion & protection and described the different components of it. Finally, it discusses the issue of the strategies of the democracy promoters & protectors and takes a critical look at the issue of evaluating of their activities.
The theory that democratic states do not go to war with one another depends upon the claim that such states can recognize each other as democracies and act pacifically in accordance with this recognition. This article argues that analyses of the democratic peace and security communities can benefit from a fuller and more critical engagement with the thinking of Immanuel Kant. Kantian liberalism involves subtle yet powerful processes of identity construction, and the processes of mutual recognition with which these identities are intertwined play essential constitutive and disciplining roles in the development of political relations. These processes of recognition are not merely sociological puzzles, but rather overtly political practices that both entail and enable the exercise of considerable power. The social construction of democratic security communities builds upon these liberal structures of identity and discipline, a situation demonstrated in the case of NATO.
To date, the only account of the `zone of peace' among states in the core of the international system is that found in the democratic peace debates. We rework the conceptual parameters through which the object of analysis — the zone of peace — is defined in the democratic peace debates. Specifically, we historicize the concepts — `democracy' and `war' — that enable the identification of zones of peace and war, and contextualize those histories in processes of globalization. This enables us to offer an alternative account of the emergence of zones of peace and war in the international system and of the central unit of analysis in the democratic peace debates, the sovereign and territorial liberal democratic state. This account conceives of the international system as a whole and recognizes the mutually constitutive character of relations between the zones. It opens up a research agenda focused not on why democratic states do not war with one another but on the international relations of democracy and war.
This article explores the normative framework within which international administrations engage in post-conflict statebuilding. By looking at the aims and justifications for the involvement of the international community in the reform of the civil service in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), it shows how this intervention is shaped by a liberal conception of state sovereignty that emphasizes legitimate state authority. The international administration tries to establish legitimate state authority by pushing for certain reforms. The article concludes that international involvement can be characterized as a'paradoxof sovereignty': the international administration compromises aspects of Bosnia's sovereignty to enable BiH to fulfil its obligations as a sovereign. The tensions this creates have important implications for liberal thinking about the subject of international relations, and for the policymaking of international administrations.
Brussels: ICG 2004) p.28. 29. NATO Secretary General A de Hoop Scheffer, quoted in ibid. 30. A broader analysis of the causes and dynamics of the
- See
- Eu
- Nato
See EU and NATO officials quoted in International Crisis Group, Collapse in Kosovo, Report No.155 (Brussels: ICG 2004) p.28. 29. NATO Secretary General A de Hoop Scheffer, quoted in ibid. 30. A broader analysis of the causes and dynamics of the March 2004 crisis can be found in the ICG Report (note 28).
KFOR Peacekeeping in Kosovo Internationale Politik
- See
- Klaus Reinhardt Example
See, for example, Klaus Reinhardt, 'KFOR Peacekeeping in Kosovo,' Internationale Politik (Transatlantic Edition), 2/2 (2001) p.48.
UN envoy says Kosovo's Assembly's resolution divisive
- Steiner
Steiner, quoted in 'UN envoy says Kosovo's Assembly's resolution divisive,' UN News Service, 15 May 2003.
On the Kosovars' pressure on the international community, see also Surroi
- Ibid
Ibid. 49. On the Kosovars' pressure on the international community, see also Surroi (note 20) p.44.
Kosovo Civil Society Actors and Politicians Meet Ahead of the 17
- See
See 'Kosovo Civil Society Actors and Politicians Meet Ahead of the 17 November Election', 7 November 2001 (emphasis added), available at <http://osce.org/kosovo>.
Building Local Democracy under Conditions of Uncertainty in Kosovo', East European Studies Meeting Report no
- See Mark
- Baskin
See Mark Baskin, 'Building Local Democracy under Conditions of Uncertainty in Kosovo', East European Studies Meeting Report no. 291, January 21, 2004, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C. p.2 and ICG, Two to Tango (note 54) p.4.
Ways of War and Peace
- On
- Democratic
- Michael Doyle Instance
On the democratic peace thesis, see, for instance, Michael Doyle, Ways of War and Peace (New York: Norton, 1997), and Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
The EU Coddles the Serbs
- See Viktor
- Meier
See Viktor Meier, 'The EU Coddles the Serbs', in Internationale, Politiks Vol. 2, Summer Issue, 2001, pp.28–36;
Kosovo mission at its most difficult and delicate phase Intervention by the SRSG to the OSCE Permanent Council
- Michael Steiner
Michael Steiner, 'Kosovo mission at its most difficult and delicate phase,' Intervention by the SRSG to the OSCE Permanent Council, 8 May 2003. UNMIK Press Release 961, available on the web (http://www.unmikonline.org/press/2003/pressr/pr961.htm).
NATO Condemns Kosovo Extremists', 22 March 2004, all on the BBC's website (<http://news.bbc.co.uk>). See also 'Kosovo: Field of Sorrows', The Economist For an empirical analysis of the breakdown of trust in Kosovo, affecting both UNMIK and all the main ethnic groups in Kosovo, see ICG
- See
See, for example, 'UN pulls out of Kosovo at Flashpoint', 18 March 2004; 'Kosovo Residents Still on Edge', 23 March 2004; and 'NATO Condemns Kosovo Extremists', 22 March 2004, all on the BBC's website (<http://news.bbc.co.uk>). See also 'Kosovo: Field of Sorrows', The Economist, 27 March– 2 April 2004, p.45. For an empirical analysis of the breakdown of trust in Kosovo, affecting both UNMIK and all the main ethnic groups in Kosovo, see ICG, Collapse in Kosovo (note 28) esp. pp.19–30.
Human Rights Monitoring
- Ibid
- Osce
Ibid. 41. OSCE Report, 'Human Rights Monitoring,' November 2001, available at <www.osce.org/ kosovo/democratization>.
See Risse (note 1) on Habermasian dialogues in international politics. 67. See Baskin (note 62) p.2. 68. See also Alexandros Yannis, 'The UN as Government in Kosovo', Global Governance
- See Baskin
See Baskin (note 62) p.2. 66. See Risse (note 1) on Habermasian dialogues in international politics. 67. See Baskin (note 62) p.2. 68. See also Alexandros Yannis, 'The UN as Government in Kosovo', Global Governance, 10/1 (2004) pp.67–91, and ICG, Two to Tango (note 54).
On the Establishment of the Customs and Other Related Services in Kosovo; and UNMIK Regulation No
- See
See also UNMIK Regulation No.1999/5, 4 September 1999; UNMIK Regulation No.1999/3, 31 August 1999, On the Establishment of the Customs and Other Related Services in Kosovo; and UNMIK Regulation No.1999/24, 12 December 1999, On the Law Applicable in Kosovo.
On practices of inclusion of graduates of training programmes organized by the international administrators, see also the reports issued by the OSCE (<www.osce.org
- See
See, again, the International Crisis Group Report, 2003. On practices of inclusion of graduates of training programmes organized by the international administrators, see also the reports issued by the OSCE (<www.osce.org/kosovo/democratization>).