Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Local Ownership: Dynamics of External–Local Interaction in Kosovo under United Nations Administration

Abstract

From the beginning of United Nations peacebuilding in Kosovo in mid-1999, until today's transition to the institutions of self-government under European Union oversight, the interaction between external and local actors has been an extremely dynamic process; one significantly influenced by external peacebuilders’ promises and policies of greater local ownership. Against this background, the paper aims to reconstruct classic problem-solving approaches for the analysis of post-war peacebuilding. Rather than concentrate primarily on the technical delivery of postwar reconstruction measures, the paper emphasizes interaction processes and dynamics between external and local actors and shows that local actors are far from powerless in the peacebuilding process. In so doing, the paper links the concept of local ownership to questions of the disputed legitimacy of peacebuilding in Kosovo. It is this drawing of boundaries between the local and the international which contributes to significant shifts in external–local peacebuilding interaction. The paper hypothesizes that the later significant local ownership is achieved and external authority transferred to local representatives, the more local actors tend to challenge the legitimacy of the peacebuilding agenda and engage in confrontation with international actors. It is the opening up of space for local politics which allows peacebuilding to continue to be considered legitimate.

Keywords:

• peacebuilding
• local ownership
• United Nations
• transitional administration
• Kosovo
• former-Yugoslavia

Notes

1. Barnett and Zürcher differentiate further between diverging local interests of central state elites and rural elites at the periphery, engaging in power struggles and mutually challenging each other's positions (forthcoming 2008, p. 11–13, 16–17).

2. Shifts in political decision-making by relevant actors must not be confused here with a changing relationship among them. Only by transforming legitimacy perceptions are policy shifts able to influence peacebuilding interactions.

3. With his concept, Steffek refers to international organizations. However, his findings on legitimacy perceptions towards international governance in the absence of democratic control are relevant to international interim administrations as a special form of peacebuilding operations.

4. Knoll differentiates further between international and domestic legitimacy, a dimension largely excluded in our case study below for reasons of better comprehension.

5. Such a source of domestic peacebuilding legitimacy could, therefore, be labelled as deliberative-discursive legitimation, which is only possible if external peacebuilders are willing to engage themselves in an open dialogue with the local constituency in a ‘rational exchange of arguments’ (Steffek 2003, p. 263). Other sources of legitimacy can underpin the communicative notion in this process of claiming or disclaiming domestic legitimacy: i.e. in the form of an initial bonus of peacebuilders being seen as ‘liberators’ or ‘pacifiers’, material output of humanitarian or reconstruction aid, establishing a functioning socio-political system, etc. Such a simultaneity of differing sources of legitimacy relates to what Trutz von Trotha described as basic legitimacy or Basislegitimität, by which he combined Weberian types of legitimacy validity, i.e. rational-legal legitimacy, with the individual will to abide by a rule on the basis of custom, satisfied needs or interests, or emotional bonds (Trotha 2000, p. 260).

6. From the perspective of the Kosovo-Serb community, Kosovo is considered an integral part of Serbia. The government in Belgrade is thus perceived as a legitimate internal actor for Kosovo affairs; a view vehemently opposed by Kosovo-Albanians. The UN, in turn, applies a rather hybrid view by its non-acceptance of Belgrade-run parallel institutions in Kosovo and Belgrade's simultaneous inclusion in the status talks.

7. Albert Rohan, Deputy Special Envoy on Kosovo, interview with the author, Venice, 11 Dec. 2006.

8. Following the UDI, UNMIK's handover to the Prishtina government and the EU-led International Civilian Office (ICO) and Rule-of-Law Mission (EULEX), as foreseen in the Ahtisaari proposal, remains inclear: the UN secretariat in New York accepts cooperation with EULEX under the UN umbrella and resolution 1244, but does not do so with respect to independent oversight powers of the ICO and its representative as called for by Ahtisaari and Kosovo's new constitution (cf. International Crisis Group 2008).