Ending the impasse in Kosovo: partition, decentralization, or consociationalism?

Abstract

This paper argues that current Western-backed approaches to conflict resolution in Kosovo have failed to alter Serbia's policy toward the region and have contributed to the exacerbation of political tensions between Belgrade and Brussels, while deepening ethnic cleavages between Serb and Albanian communities. While there is no possibility of Kosovo returning to Serbia's control, there is an equal unlikelihood that Serbian-populated regions of Kosovo, especially the north, will submit to Pristina's authority. Most importantly, there is little hope that Kosovo can gain full international recognition and membership in international organizations without a compromise settlement with Serbia. While territorial partition has long been a suggested option, I conclude that the best possible solution for Kosovo, given the positions of all parties involved, is a process of significant decentralization beyond the internationally supported measures in the Ahtisaari Plan. A model of consociational power sharing is one in which Serbian and Albanian municipalities are granted high levels of autonomy similar to arrangements made for Bosnia. While this solution may not be ideal and further weakens central authority, I argue that consociationalism reduces the problems of ethnic conflict, encourages local self-government, and preserves the overall territorial integrity of Kosovo.

Keywords:

• Serbia
• Kosovo
• consociationalism
• power sharing
• conflict resolution

Acknowledgements

This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) conference, hosted at Columbia University, April 19, 2012. I would like to thank my fellow ASN panelists and especially the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and editorial suggestions throughout the past year that helped me clarify many of the theoretical aspects of this manuscript.

Notes

1. For sources on partition, see Tullberg and Tullberg (1997), Kaufmann (1998), and Toft (2002/2003). For sources on power sharing and autonomy, see Lijphart (1977), Horowitz (2000, 563–600), Lapidoth (1996), and Sambanis (2000).

2. For sources on Bosnia, see Chivvis (2010), Bieber (2006), and Hayden (2005). For works on Macedonia, see ICG (2011a), Brunnbauer (2002), Engström (2003), and Risteka (2013). For studies on Lebanon, see Salloukh (2006) and Salamey (2009).

3. Northern Kosovo comprises three municipalities and the northern part of the city of Kosovska Mitrovica of which the Ibar River bisects, has never come under Pristina's control, is populated by a majority of Serbs that overwhelmingly identify as citizens of Serbia, and is a region where Belgrade has retained significant political, economic, and infrastructural influence. For studies on the political utility of partition and secession, see Fearon and Laitin (2003). On the situation in northern Kosovo, see ICG (2011b).

4. To be fair, this critique of Kosovo Albanian leadership acknowledges the rudimentary and immature foundations of a political society that is little more than 20 years old and largely forged as resistance movements to the Milošević regime. The two most prominent political parties in Kosovo are the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK). While the former was established in 1990 from the previous Communist Party and represents the more intellectual side of Kosovar Albanian society, the PDK was founded in 1999 as the political wing of the Kosovo Liberation Army, represents a political culture focused on resistance and liberation, and is currently Kosovo's governing party. A major challenge for PDK's leadership, especially Hachim Thaçi Kosovo's current Prime Minister, both in accepting the internationally sponsored framework for Kosovo's independence and in negotiating an agreement with Serbia over normalizing relations, has been finding a middle ground between pragmatic concessions to Belgrade and maintaining the premise that it is doing so in the name of Kosovo's sovereignty and stability.

5. In this, I differ from previous arguments cited above cautioning against the creation of autonomous, federal, or otherwise decentralized institutions of self-government on the grounds of renewed conflict and erosion of state unity. Whereas existing studies focus on weak states in Africa, Asia, or the Middle East, all states and statelets in the Balkans enjoy external guarantees of security (NATO) and, arguably, stability (the EU) that make discussions of internal power arrangements advocated in this article viable and plausible.

6. This work will consider Kosovo as part of Serbia prior to its unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008, and a semi-sovereign parastate under international administration afterward. I cannot regard Kosovo as an independent state because numerous conditions at the time of this writing impede it from meeting basic requisites for any sovereign authority on par with its European neighbors. It does not have complete control over its borders, it primarily relies on external organizations to provide administrative audit, and it is unable to obtain membership in most international organizations, such as the UN and the European Union (EU). I understand a “parastate” to be a partially independent territorial entity whose sovereignty is both functionally incomplete and internationally disputed. On the usage of the word “parastate,” see Liotta (2001, 187–216). For a critical study of Kosovo's limited sovereignty, see Džihić and Kramer (2009). For a general study on unrecognized “quasi-states,” see Kolstø (2006).

7. For sources on each of the mentioned cases, see Conversi (2000), Wolff (2005, 2010), McGarry and O'Leary (2007), and Bieber (2013). For a comparative study in favor of autonomy for Kosovo Serbs, see Economides, Ker-Lindsay, and Papadimitroiu (2010).

8. The Vienna conferences were largely responsible for providing much of the ideas that would eventually be codified in Ahtisaari's Comprehensive Proposal. Ironically, most of the provisions for empowering the Kosovo Serb minority through decentralization and protection of religious and cultural heritage came from members of the Contact Group that mediated between the Serb and Albanian contingents. While Belgrade was mainly interested in ensuring territorial integrity and argued that ethnic Serbs would only be safe under Serbian control, it offered no specific proposals for the protection and maintenance of local community life. For an excellent review of the Vienna conferences and its relation to the Ahtisaari Proposal, see Weller (2009, 191–219).

9. In addition, see King and Mason (2006) who argue that neither Serbs nor Albanians were ever interested in governing Kosovo as a multiethnic region with minority rights, but rather sought to maximize their own authority and privilege while controlling the other. Plans for an institutionally functioning multiethnic system of government in Kosovo were almost entirely an internationally brokered endeavor, and became a goal in shaping and determining Kosovo's future in the wake of the outburst of ethnic violence in March 2004 in which partially coordinated Albanian mobs attacked Serb civilians, property, and churches. The Vienna conferences and subsequent Ahtisaari Plan were direct responses by the international community to these riots in taking a more pro-active policy in finding a solution to a highly volatile region.

10. On this second issue, see Fearon (2004) who argues that international responses to wars of separatism should not reward territorial partition to instigators of violence unless there is either a consensual agreement between the conflicting groups, or unless there is extensive evidence to prove a state's unwillingness to observe and uphold some degree of internationally recognized standards of human and minority rights.

11. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (UNSCR 1244) (1999) reaffirmed the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” while simultaneously “promoting the establishment, pending final settlement, of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo” through the establishment of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). “Serbia” is recognized as the legal inheritor of Yugoslavia and argues it is represented in UNSCR 1244 through all references to “Yugoslavia,” which after 2003 was designated the Union of Serbia and Montenegro. With Montenegro's negotiated secession in 2006, the Serbian parliament voted to inherit all rights and claims to both the Union and the earlier Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Serbia argues that Kosovo existed as an autonomous province of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, and a region of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Serbia. Therefore, the dissolution of Yugoslavia has no bearing on the status of Kosovo since it is part of the Serbian entity.

12. On literature supporting the theoretical advantages of territorial partition as a solution to protracted ethnic conflict, see Posen (1993), Kaufmann (1996, 1998), and Downes (2001). On specific arguments in favor of partition of Kosovo and other former Yugoslav territories, see Mearscheimer and Van Evera (1999), Carpenter (2011), Ker-Lindsay (2011), Parish (2011), and Hamilton (2012).

13. On the potential security dilemmas related to territorial partition, see Kumar (1997) and Sambanis (2000). On the potentiality of Kosovo creating momentum for other separatist movements, see Buchanan (1992) and Berg (2009).

14. See in particular Ker-Lindsay (2009) who argues that the lack of consensus on Kosovo's sovereignty stems directly from conflicting and divergent positions of various international governments and interests in reaching a final agreement on its status.

15. Whereas Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Croatia have ethnic-based minority parties operating without constitutionally defined status, Bosnia, Spain, and Italy have a constitutional framework that either recognizes at least one ethnic minority as a constituent group, or establishes regional autonomy for areas said group predominates. Similar arrangements exist for Lebanon and Iraq.

16. See Ahtisaari, “Attachment to Annex III: Delineation of New Municipalities,” in “Report.” The new Serbian municipalities would be Gračanica, Ranilug, Parteš, and Klokot/Vrbovac. The existing municipality of Novo Brdo would be expanded to include a number of cadastral zones in Gnjilane. An additional new municipality would be created out of the area of the city of Kosovska Mitrovica north of the Ibar, but would be under a Joint Board to facilitate functional cooperation with southern Mitrovica. See Annex III Article 13.

17. The Ahtisaari Plan specifically cited the village of Velika Hoča in Orahovac and the Historic Center of Prizren that fell under the jurisdiction of Protective Zones. See Annex V: Religious and Cultural Heritage, Article 4.1.7 and Article 4.2. While accepted by Kosovo's Albanian leadership, its implementation has not been without controversy as debates surrounding the actual extent of Serbian Orthodox protective zones, including unresolved disputes over property claims with local Albanian tenants and businesses since the 1990s, have sparked opposition and in some cases organized protest against rulings that have decided in favor of the Church, either in the form of property restitution, or in giving it authority of executive decision in local urban planning (see Aliu 2012; Peci 2013).

18. This affirms earlier suggestions for decentralization in Kosovo by Kai Eide who emphasized Serb municipalities “should not endanger central institutions in Kosovo or weaken Pristina's authority.” Not only would they “be under the authority of Pristina,” but such arrangements would “facilitate the absorption of parallel structures into legitimate entities” (2012, 17).

19. In Štrpce, where Serb–Albanian relations have traditionally remained good, outside encroachment from Pristina has threatened to upset this cooperation first by neglecting to revitalize the Brezovica ski resort, which could serve as a major economic resource, and second in the illegal construction of houses and villas of key Pristina elites in the so-called Weekend Zone. The Brezovica ski resort is tied to a number of other issues too, one of which is Belgrade's efforts to retain ownership of as many enterprises in Kosovo as possible. The legal ambiguities of Brezovica, as well as other industries like the Trepča mines, have all been instrumental in preventing any meaningful foreign investment in Kosovo. As in other areas of Kosovo, Belgrade-based institutions operate alongside Pristina-based; both of which carry self-interested agendas. For a while, both local governments of Štrpce operated out of the same municipal building! See ICG (2009, 8–12).

20. I am specifically referring to autonomy, as opposed to “self-governance.” Whereas self-governance is understood to allow for “local administration of daily communal or regional affairs and offer more freedom for creativity to adapt local institutions, organs, laws, and regulations to the specific needs of the community” (Danspeckgruber 2005, 37), autonomy is a more definitive set of legally entrenched power with the ability to “exercise public policy functions (legislative, executive and adjudicative) independently of other sources of the state, but [still] subject to the legal order of that state” (Wolff and Weller 2005, 13).

21. To date, the most comprehensive model for an autonomous northern Kosovo is outlined by former UNMIK Regional Representative in Kosovska Mitrovica Gerard Gallucci, who suggests expanding the Ahtisaari Plan's provisions on the north to include issues relating to the function and regulation of customs, telecoms, energy, and the Trepča mining complex as a package deal of joint maintenance between Belgrade and, via international intermediaries, Pristina. While remaining a part of Kosovo, institutional and economic autonomy would be nearly absolute, and the north would operate under Serbian law via UNSCR 1244. Municipal budgets would be reported to Pristina, but the latter would have neither the authority for review nor audit and revenue generated in the north would be reinvested into the region for future economic development (see Gallucci 2011).

22. It is likely the proposal would also include the recently established Serbian municipalities of Ranilug, Klokot, and Parteš. The Gorani are a Slavic Muslim population living in an area in the extreme southern tip of Kosovo and neighboring areas of Albania. While their relationship with Serbs and the Serbian government has historically not been completely cooperative, they have been subjected to discrimination and insensitive administration by the Kosovo Albanian authorities since 1999. Representatives of the Gorani community have announced interest in provisions of local self-administration similar to those given to Serbs and have expressed an interest in participating in a future Assembly of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo (see B92 2013c).

23. While it is mostly overshadowed by more immediate concerns of executive political authority, a major fear in Pristina is that the assembly could assume political and economic control over key resources in the north such as the Trepča mining complex, and the Gazivoda Lake, which is both a major source of water for the territory and provider of energy through its dam and hydroelectric power station.

24. For a good review of initial reactions to Belgrade's Platform, see Bieber (2012). For current concerns in Kosovo, see Bajrami (2013). See also Jenne (2009) on the parallels with Bosnia.

25. A public referendum in 2012 which asked for a “yes” or “no” response to the question “do you accept the institutions of the so-called Republic of Kosovo?” resulted in an overwhelming 99.74% of voters voting “no” (B92 2012e). While the outcome was hardly a surprise and carried no legal implications, it was a clear refutation of the long-held assumption among Kosovo's supporters that opposition to the supposed “benefits” of rule from Pristina comes from a small but powerful group of Serbian “criminals” and “extremists” that “hold hostage” the rest of a population who would otherwise accept Pristina's rule (Gallucci 2012). Additionally, the referendum makes undeniably clear that an introduction of Pristina-based institutions can only be forcibly imposed upon the people, which in itself would generate further violence and undermine the entire process of establishing Kosovo as a multiethnic state; notwithstanding the additional problem of applying a double standard of rewarding Albanian self-determination in 1999 against aggression while ignoring efforts at Serbian self-determination afterward.

26. Kosovo customs officials are present at the administrative crossings, as per previous agreements reached between Belgrade and Pristina, but have little to no formal duties as they would at more officially recognized “borders” with Macedonia, Montenegro, and Albania. Due to special situations at the two official crossings in northern Kosovo, they are flown by helicopter to and from the crossings every day on account of land passage being blocked by local Serbs.

27. This has not, however, reduced tension, as the planned municipal elections for 3 November 2013 met with severe resistance in northern Kosovo from Serb hardliners and other nationalist agitators who not only intimidated local Serbs from voting, but shut down a number of polling stations and destroyed ballots. The second round of elections on 1 December passed peacefully in the north but only after involvement from Belgrade officials who actively campaigned in the north for the Srpska Party.

28. Velika Hoča is designated as part of a Protected Zone in the Ahtisaari Plan, though it is unclear whether this contains the same set of provisions of self-government as would a formal Kosovo Serb municipality.

29. On the relationship of national identity and state federalism, see Ramet (1992, especially 187–201).

30. A survey conducted by the ICO (2012) with over 100 Serbs of northern Kosovo in late 2011 revealed many of the respondents were amenable to provisions for self-government encapsulated in the Ahtisaari Plan and would accept its policies if concrete guarantees were ensured that kept Pristina at a distance (ICO). The primary issue among all Kosovo Serbs continues to be low levels of trust in the Kosovo Albanian government, particularly in terms of institutional transparency and judicial objectivity.