Fuzzy Governance: State-Building in Kosovo Since 1999 as Interaction Between International and Local Actors

Abstract

State-building in Kosovo is a negotiation process between “internationals” and “locals.” Its logic is more political than technical, the outcome contingent on the intentions of the international actors. The goals of “internationals” and “locals” differ, which results in fuzzy governance. In time the balance of power tilts toward the local actors. With the start of the status process, the relation between internationals and locals is depoliticized. The “peacebuilding” process excludes the warring parties and imposes a predefined settlement. This historical approach offers an alternative to the dominant literature, which often overlooks what really happens when state-builders are in action.

Keywords:

• “Going Local,”
• Kosovo Narrative
• Peacebuilding
• State-building
• “Target Society”

Notes

1. Iain King and Whit Mason, Peace at any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo (London: Hurst, 2006), 52–55, 233. The reasons for this passivity were (a) unpreparedness to fight ethnic revenge (KFOR's task was first of all to prevent a reconquering of Kosovo by VJ, the Yugoslav Army), (b) a high priority on “force protection,” and (c) an influx of manpower that was too slow.

2. See International Court of Justice, Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo, Advisory Opinion, July 22, 2010, 43, par. 122. In 2008, the UN General Assembly had requested, on Serbia's initiative, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to produce an answer to the “request for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on whether the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo is in accordance with international law.” UNGA A/RES/63/3, October 8, 2008. Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, observed that the ICJ opinion “would provide politically neutral, yet judicially authoritative, guidance”; the US and several other governments that recognize Kosovo said they would not change policy in response to the opinion. See UN General Assembly, 63rd Session, 22nd Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly, A/63/PV.22, October 8, 2008.

3. ICG, Kosovo and Serbia After the ICJ Opinion, Europe Report No. 206, August 26, 2010, 1.

4. The north of Kosovo, bordering Serbia, is home to about 45,000 people, mostly Serbs, and comprises about 9% of the territory of Kosovo.

5. See, for instance, the statement of Bojan Stojanovic, the Mayor of Gracanica, a Serbian-dominated municipality southeast of Pristina: “I am of the opinion that status is not an urgent issue. It is more important to create systematic conditions for survival and a better life for Serbs in Kosovo,” KIM Radio, September 7, 2010.

6. Oliver Jens Schmitt, Kosovo: Kurze Geschichte einer zentralbalkanischen Landschaft (Wien: Böhlau, 2008), 336; Helmut Kramer und Vedran Dzihic, Die Kosovo-Bilanz: Scheitert die internationale Gemeinschaft? (Wien: LIT-Verlag, 2005), 235; Blerim Reka, Unmik as an International Governance in Post-War Kosova: Nato's Intervention, UN Administration and Kosovar Aspirations (Skopje: LogosA, 2003), 317; Jean-Arnault Dérens, Le piège du Kosovo. Kosovo, année zéro (Paris: Éditions Non Lieu, 2008), 247; Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 105.

7. King and Mason, Peace at any Price, 160.

8. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Early Warning Report Kosovo, no. 28, April–June 2010.

9. Björn von Sydow, The Situation in Kosovo and the Role of the Council of Europe, Report of the Political Affairs Committee, Doc. 12281, June 7, 2010.

10. Ibid.

11. Lucia Montanaro, “The Kosovo Statebuilding Conundrum: Addressing Fragility in a Contested State,” Working Paper 91 (Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior [FRIDE], Madrid, October 2009), 5.

12. According to a report in Koha Ditore, a respected daily in Kosovo, two NGOs, the “Foreign Policy Club” of Koha Ditore’s editor Veton Surroi, and “Forum 2010,” conducted a survey regarding political preferences in Kosovo's population. Koha Ditore states that they are changing in favor of Albin Kurti, leader of the radical Vetëvendosje movement. Albin Kurti appears to be the most preferred leader for Kosovo-Albanians (Koha Ditore, September 17, 2010).

13. David Chandler, International Statebuilding: The Rise of Post-Liberal Governance (London: Routledge, 2010), 2; Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

14. King and Mason, Peace at any Price, 258–259.

15. Paris, At War's End, 189–190.

16. Simon Chesterman, You the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration and State-Building (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004), 7.

17. Sonja Grimm and Solveig Richter, “Challenges of Democracy Promotion: Do ‘All Good Things Go Together’?” (section proposal, the 7th Pan-European Conference of the ECPR Standing Group on International Relations, Stockholm, September 9–11, 2010).

18. Interview with ex-Unmik official, Berlin, May 28, 2010.

19. King and Mason, Peace at any Price, 19.

20. Serving for Unmik did not turn out to be a career advantage for most former Special Representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs). Only Kouchner, the first SRSG, continued on to a high-end position as a Minister of Health and later became Minister of Foreign Affairs of France. Hakkerup went to a research institute of the Danish Ministry of Defence, Steiner became German Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, later in Italy, and is now Special Representative for the German Government for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holkeri went into retirement. Jessen-Petersen is lecturing in the US. Rücker is German Ambassador in Sweden.

21. King and Mason, Peace at any Price, 251.

22. Interview with European Stability Initiative official, Pristina, February 18, 2010; Interview with ex-ICTY official, Pristina, March 5, 2010; King and Mason, Peace at any Price, 134, 175, 292.

23. Reka, Unmik as an International Governance, 194.

24. Jens Narten, “Assessing Kosovo's Postwar Democratization: Between External Imposition and Local Self-Government,” Taiwan Journal of Democracy 1 (2009): 127–62.

25. Andreas Ernst, “‘Standards vor Status’—Die Doktrin der Uno-Mission in Kosovo führt in die Sackgasse,” Südosteuropa – Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsforschung 51, nos. 7–9 (2002): 361.

26. Interview with European Stability Initiative official, Pristina, February 18, 2010.

27. Kai Eide, A Comprehensive Review of the Situation in Kosovo, Report to the UN Secretary General, October 7, 2005, iv.

28. The OSCE mission published two reports about the handling of the riots by the judiciary, one in 2005 and one in 2008. This quotation is from the 2008 report: “Thus, since March 2004, police and prosecutors have brought charges against only approximately 400 persons. More than 50,000 people reportedly participated in the riots, and the Kosovo Police Service received approximately 1,400 complaints in relation to alleged crimes committed during the events. Thus, many perpetrators may never face punishment. Criminal trials not only shed light on past events, but also ensure that criminals face justice and the rights of victims are protected. The low number of prosecutions fails to adequately fight impunity and send a clear message that ethnic violence such as that of March 2004 will not be tolerated. It also erodes public confidence and weakens the rule of law when those who commit crimes do not face justice.” OSCE Mission in Kosovo, Four Years Later: Follow up of March 2004 Riots Cases before the Kosovo Criminal Justice System, July 2008, 3.

29. UNMIK press release 1325, March 8, 2005.

30. Interview with ICTY official, Pristina, March 10, 2010.

31. In the meantime, it seems that Jessen-Petersen has had some second thoughts. In a recent interview, he complains that UNMIK did not do enough against organized crime and corruption among high-ranking politicians. His reproach, however, is directed toward unnamed capitals that stopped investigations with telephone calls. See Artjan Haraqija, “I Was Stopped from Investigating Corruption,” Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, Pristina, June 8, 2010.

32. Marc Weller, Contested Statehood: Kosovo’s Struggle for Independence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 199.

33. On February 20, 2006, the first day of negotiations, the German magazine, Der Spiegel, and the daily Frankfurter, Allgemeinen Zeitung (FAZ), published an interview with Marti Ahtisaari and his deputy Albert Rohan, respectively. In Der Spiegel, Ahtisaari was quoted as saying that “at the end Kosovo's population has to decide over the province's future of which 90% are Albanians. How possibly will they decide?” FAZ asked Rohan about Belgrade's plans to organize a referendum in Serbia about Kosovo’s independence. Rohan replied this would be one more of the “bizarre propositions” coming lately from Belgrade. He added, “[Y]ou cannot vote to give away something which anyway doesn't belong to you.”

34. Weller, Contested Statehood, 221.

35. Slavoj Zizek, The Universal Exception (London: Continuum, 2007), 148.

36. King and Mason, Peace at any Price, 248.

37. Die Zeit, January 27, 2005.

38. Tony Blair, “Statement on the Suspension of NATO Air Strikes against Yugoslavia,” June 10, 1999, quoted in Tariq Ali, ed., Masters of the Universe? NATO's Balkan Crusade (London: Verso, 2000), 175.

39. Zizek, Universal Exception, 147; Peter Goff, ed., The Kosovo News and Propaganda War (Vienna: International Press Institute, 1999), 16.

40. Schmitt, Kosovo. Schmitt shows the diametrically opposite conception of history, which depicts the other nation as an intruder. But interestingly, he shows convincingly that these perceptions are relatively new. Ethnonational self-identification, he argues, dates back in Kosovo to the turn of the 19th century for the Christian Orthodox (Serb) population. In the case of the Muslims (Albanians), he dates it as late as the period after 1945.

41. Interview with ex-Unmik official, Berlin, May 28, 2010.

42. Interview with British diplomat, Pristina, October 20, 2005. The Kosovo-Albanian side soon found out that being a victim brought much more support than being a freedom fighter. Consequently, the discourse was split. For local consumption, the war was about a heroic fight against Serbian suppression to liberate Kosovo. For the international public, it was the ruthless persecution of Albanian citizens by Serbian/Yugoslav armed forces. After the war, some radicals criticized the “self-victimization” of the Kosovo-Albanians. For Albin Kurti, this was the first step to be trapped by “well-meaning” Westerners who saw the Albanians as politically immature victims not ready for self-determination (Interview with Albin Kurti, Pristina, February 14, 2008).

43. King and Mason, Peace at any Price, 169.

44. The EU-sponsored “dialogue” between Pristina and Belgrade, a result of the request by the UN Assembly to the International Court of Justice regarding the declaration of independence of Kosovo, is the next chance to make a decisive step in peacebuilding. It should start by the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011.