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Abstract
Since the late 1990s international state builders have paid increasing attention to fighting corruption in both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. On the surface this effort has brought significant results, since both countries have adopted legal frameworks modelled on the best practices of Western democracies. In practice, however, corruption remains rampant. This disappointing outcome has several explanations: in reviewing the empirical evidence we consider the two countries as cases involving heavily assisted transition from both socialism and war, highlighting how collusive practices between political and criminal interests have played a role in establishing formally liberal but substantively ‘hybrid’ institutions. We argue that the spread of corruption has been implicitly legitimised by international actors, who have pressured local parties to accept the formal architecture of good governance, including anti-corruption legislation, while turning a blind eye to those extra-legal structures and practices perceived as functional to political stability.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the editors of this special issue, two anonymous reviewers, the participants in the Gothenburg workshop, as well as Mateja Peter, for their useful comments. Needless to say, the authors are solely responsible for any remaining error of fact or interpretation.
Notes
1. Bosnia was recognised as an independent state in spring 1992; Kosovo proclaimed its independence on 18 February 2008.
2. Center for the Study of Democracy, Examining the Links.
3. Transparency International, National Integrity System Assessment.
4. Xenakis, “Pride and Prejudice,” 41.
5. Bojicic-Dzelilovic and Kostovicova, “Europeanisation and Conflict Networks,” 31.
6. Jayasuriya, “Beyond Institutional Fetishism,” 382.
7. European Stability Initiative, Reshaping International Priorities.
8. Cheng, “Private and Public Interests.”
9. Helmke and Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics.”
10. Belloni and Jarstad, “Hybrid Peace Governance.”
11. Strazzari and Kamphuis, “Hybrid Economies and Statebuilding.”
12. Here we understand the latter as not only what people do, but also what they know how to do within a culturally sanctioned and empirically limited set of options. See Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution, 151.
13. Zabyelina and Arsovska, “Rediscovering Corruption’s Other Side.”
14. Le Billon, “Buying Peace or Fuelling War.”
15. Cheng and Zaum, Corruption and Post-conflict Peacebuilding.
16. Transparency International, National Integrity System Assessment.
17. Strazzari and Kamphuis, “Hybrid Economies and Statebuilding.”
18. Zaum and Knaus, “The Political Economy of Statebuilding in Kosovo.”
19. Chandler, “Anti-corruption Strategies and Democratization in Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
20. During the 1980s fiscal transfers from the federal government authorities amounted to some 20% of Kosovo’s gdp.
21. Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian.
22. Mungiu-Pippidi, “Perpetual Transitions.”
23. Knudsen, “Privatization in Kosovo.”
24. Medjad, “The Fate of the Yugoslav Model,” 317.
25. Strazzari, “The Decade Horribilis.”
26. Transparency International, National Integrity System Assessment, 23.
27. Authors’ interview with Avni Zogiani, Pristina, April 3, 2010.
28. Council of Europe, Inhuman Treatment of People.
29. Nenadovic, “An Uneasy Symbiosis.”
30. Danielsson, On the Power of Informal Economies.
31. Capussela, “Road to Ruin.”
32. Hajredini and Ponzio, Combating Corruption in Kosovo Citizens Survey.
33. Transparency International, National Integrity System Assessment, 70.
34. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
35. United Nations Development Programme, The Ties that Bind.
36. Center for the Study of Democracy, Explaining the Links, 26–27.
37. Persson et al., “Why Anticorruption Reforms Fail.”
38. Private conversations with osce officials in Sarajevo and Zenica, July 1996.
39. Knudsen, “Privatisation in Kosovo,” 46.
40. Pugh, “Postwar Political Economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
41. Hedges, “Leaders in Bosnia are said to Steal up to $1 Billion.”
42. Transparency International, crinis Study.
43. Briscoe and Price, Kosovo New Map of Power.
44. Gerring and Thacker, “Do Neoliberal Policies Deter Corruption?”
45. Pugh and Divjak, “The Political Economy of Corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
46. Transparency International, National Integrity Assessment System, 183.
47. European Stability Initiative, The Ottoman Dilemma, 6.
48. Knudsen, Privatization in Kosovo, 298–299.
49. Center for Investigative Reporting, “Non-profits Collect Millions from Government Budgets.”
50. Belloni, “Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?”
51. Center for the Study of Democracy and Center for Investigative Reporting, Countering Corruption, 9.
52. Transparency International, National Integrity System Assessment, 35, 40.
53. Ibid., 27.
54. Center for Investigative Reporting, “Camping around Fire instead of Going to Prison.”
55. Karadaku, “High-level Corruption Still a Problem in Kosovo.”
56. European Commission, Kosovo under unscr 1244/99: 2009 Progress Report, 11.
57. Igric, “Lack of Political Will Thwarts Anti-corruption Efforts.”
58. European Commission, Commission Communication on a Feasibility Study for a sap between the EU and Kosovo.
59. Transparency International, National Integrity System Assessment, 190–191.
60. Belloni, “Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution?”; and Strazzari and Selenica, “Nationalism and Civil Society Organizations.”
61. Zaum and Knaus, “The Political Economy of Statebuilding.”