State-building and patronage networks: how political parties embezzled the bureaucracy in post-war Kosovo

ABSTRACT

Why has the internationally promoted Weberian-style bureaucracy failed to replace patronage as the dominant principle of state organization in post-war Kosovo? This article explores how international actors’ rule-promotion activities and local actors’ strategies of resistance play out and interact to explain the failure. The empirical analysis focuses on rules of recruitment in the civil service system in the period 2000–2016. The analysis juxtaposes two consecutive stages of the state-building process, which are marked by different degrees and forms of international involvement: the pre-independence period, 1999–2008; and post-independence period, 2008–2016. Evidence from the case suggests that during the pre-independence period, legal inconsistencies embedded in the internationally promulgated legislation enabled local actors’ formal and informal strategies to recruit political cronies in the newly created civil service system. The transfer of authority from international administrators to elected local authorities, especially after Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, did not solve the problem of legal inconsistencies, and instead, served to consolidate governing parties’ strategies of control over recruitment in the state bureaucracy. More often than not, patron–client relationships that thrive at the borderline between formality and informality of political behaviour, continued to undermine external rule transfers.     

Beyond regional radars: Security from below and the rule of law in the Sahel

ABSTRACT

Political crises, terrorism, porous international boundaries, coups d’état, and socio-political upheavals all underline the need to rethink what security means in the Sahel region. While international and regional approaches to security still take predominantly military and macro-political perspectives, there is a need to ethnographically describe and analyse security from below. To this end, citizens’ own initiatives should be central to contemporary analyses of African peacemaking interventions. This article takes the growing and diverse movements of self-defence groups in Burkina Faso and Mali as a starting point for analysing how security can be ‘seen from below’, often in interaction with and sometimes even in outright contradiction with the rule of law. While local self-defence groups constitute a challenge to the rule of law, ethnographic fieldwork in Mali and Burkina Faso reveals a high degree of adaptability and flexibility of these movements. This article furthermore discusses methodological challenges when doing ethnographic research in dangerous terrains, drawing on fieldwork in the Sahel, and considers implications of the study of ‘security from below’ for the wider study of international affairs.     

Statehood without an army: the question of the Kosovo Armed Force

ABSTRACT

Almost a decade after its declaration of independence, Kosovo continues to depend on NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) for its protection. This article explores why Kosovo has not developed its own armed forces and how it could complete the process of security institution building through the establishment of a Kosovo Armed Force (KAF) in the future. Conceptually, the article highlights the role of different agents with diverging positions on the development of a KAF and the unfolding politicization of the issue, under conditions of legal uncertainty. The empirical analysis traces the stalemate regarding the creation of a KAF to legal restraints and the diverging positions of different parties on the issue. More specifically, the government’s inability to balance between the high expectations of Kosovo Albanians and the adamant objections of Kosovo Serbs has exacerbated the politicization of the debate.     

Education for whom? Engineering multiculturalism and liberal peace in post-conflict Kosovo

ABSTRACT

This paper traces the changing relationship between the state and its education system at the intersection of diverging visions and agendas of local and international actors in post-war Kosovo in the period 1999–2014. Specifically, it explores why and how externally driven reforms that carry the ideals of an inclusive multi-ethnic polity clashed with domestic actors’ visions of education as a locus of national resistance and independent statehood. To critically inquire into the direction of education reforms in the post-war context, the empirical part of the analysis identifies critical historical junctures through which these competing ideas and relevant actors changed and/or gained traction. Accordingly, the paper focuses mainly on the post-war period, but also considers the pre-war period in order to highlight the predominant vision of local actors on the roles of education, its intertwinement with unfolding conflicts, and its central role in processes of state formation and nation-building, in particular in a post-war context. The analysis is based on genealogical historical narrative, textual analysis of key official documents related to the education sector in Kosovo, and semi-structured interviews conducted in Pristina in November 2013 and October 2016. The analysis demonstrates that the role of education in post-war Kosovo reflects tension between multicultural ideals promoted by international actors, on the one hand, and nationalist, often exclusive concerns of local actors embedded in an unfinished and contested process of state- and nation-building, on the other hand. The paper finds that by over-emphasizing equal collective rights, extensive autonomy for the different communities and ethnic-based decentralized governance, international actors have unwillingly contributed to further education separation along ethnic lines.     

Navigating a Highly Protected Market: China’s Chery Automobile in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

The economies of Malaysia and China have become increasingly integrated through trading and investment linkages. This article focuses on one aspect of this relationship, examining Chery, a Chinese car maker, and its internationalisation strategy and its localisation efforts in Malaysia. It does this by analysing Chery’s interaction with the host government, local partners and suppliers. Using an in-depth case study, it was found that Chery’s experience in navigating a set of complex state–society relations in Malaysia resulted from an adaptation of its business strategy to address protectionist and institutional constraints found in Malaysia. However, while relations between Chery, the local partner and government agencies have grown strongly, few interactions have evolved between Chery and local suppliers and national research and development facilities, limiting collective learning processes and production collaboration in Malaysia. The evidence also suggests that Chery’s present conundrum of low sales in the country could be solved through negotiations with the Malaysian government so as to evolve mutually beneficial partnerships with national automotive makers. The Malaysian government may also consider easing its protectionist measures to allow more foreign participation into the auto sector to stimulate growth and competitiveness.     

Imagining Islam in Kosovo - The social construction of the Kosovar Muslim subject among European political actors

ABSTRACT

Despite being a Muslim-majority society, Kosovo increasingly securitizes practising Muslims by politicizing the ostentatiously pious among them as a threat to Europe’s security and Kosovar identity. Given the EU’s significant discursive and political power in Kosovo, this article pursues the question of how European representatives conceive of pious Kosovar Muslims, and whether this image might explain their securitization. On the basis of 24 semi-structured interviews with various European officials conducted in 2018, I argue that they predominantly imagine pious Kosovar Muslims as influenced by foreign powers through indoctrination, material incentives or appeals to identity, which does condone their securitization. However, this image is in fact shaped by local Kosovar elites who instil such conceptions in European officials because such an image helps them in the pursuit of their own political agendas. The article exposes the intricate mechanism and power relations that underlie this process of policy-relevant knowledge production.     

Soft competitive authoritarianism and negative stability in Kosovo: statebuilding from UNMIK to EULEX and beyond

ABSTRACT

After 1999, democratization, normalization and Europeanization were the key processes through which Kosovo’s final political status was expected to take shape. All three processes, however, were guided by the stability paradigm. Though Kosovo cannot be categorized as a typical authoritarian state, its political leaders have openly displayed illiberal tendencies, governing in an unaccountable manner and utilizing public assets for their private gain. In the period from 1999 to 2008, while UNMIK’s approach was based on maintaining stability instead of democratization, a soft competitive authoritarianism began to emerge incrementally. In its first decade of independence, Kosovo’s statehood remained internationally disputed, whereas its governance culture was characterized by a lack of internal accountability, which is a key component of the soft competitive authoritarianism in the country. Thus, the negative trajectory of political developments did not change even after the deployment of EULEX and the 2008 declaration of independence. This article analyses the development of authoritarian and illiberal tendencies in Kosovo and suggests that the democratization and Europeanization discourses served to conceal soft competitive authoritarian practices in Kosovo.     

Continuity and change in instrumentalizing ‘The Precedent’. How Russia uses Kosovo to legitimize the annexation of Crimea

The article contributes to the efforts of understanding Russia’s legitimization endeavours by looking at the policy narratives centred around the so-called Kosovo precedent and the way they were perceived by different actors from Ukraine, Russia, and international experts. The aim of the paper is to scrutinize the process of politicization of contested international norms (in particular, territorial sovereignty and the right to self-determination) in the case of Russia’s legitimacy claims in Ukraine. In assessing the instrumentalization of the ‘Kosovo precedent’ in the Crimea crisis, we focused on three main elements identified in the selected policy narratives: the reinterpretation of history, the humanitarian and ethnic factor and the reinterpretation of Western actions in the Balkans.     

State-building or state-capture? Institutional exports,local reception and hybridity of reforms in post-war Kosovo

ABSTRACT

Post-war Kosovo has been the subject of a highly intrusive international state-building project, including an unprecedented influx of international administrators, assistance and funds. However, it increasingly bears the hallmark of a weak and captured state. This special issue contributes theoretical and empirical insights that shed light on possible explanations, difficulties and prospects of the state-building project in Kosovo. Theoretically, we investigate how international and local explanations play out, interact and gain dominance over each other; highlight the local factors that shape the experience of state-building; and focus on the hybridity of institution- and state-building on the ground. Empirically, we take stock of two decades of international state-building activities and one decade of independent statehood by providing long-term and in-depth analysis of specific areas of reform – municipal governance, state bureaucracy, normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, education, creation of armed forces, security sector reforms and reception of Salafi ideologies. Such time-sensitive, case-nuanced and empirically heavy analysis enables the authors to go back and forth between the role of international activities, domestic strategies of resistance and evidence of hybrid reforms in order to test the role of competing explanations.     

Issues of local ownership in Kosovo’s security sector

Local ownership represents an overarching concept in international development. However, its core principles have been occasionally neglected in the practice of state-building such as in the case of Kosovo. This paper explores relations between the international community and local actors in the process of Kosovo security sector development after 2008, when the country declared its independence. This article finds that externally-driven models were imposed in some phases of security sector development. The actions of the international community disregarded the local context and created distrust by the local actors. The study relies on extensive face-to-face interviews with relevant national and international stakeholders, a public opinion survey with a sample of 1102 respondents, focus group and personal observation.     

Multi-level Games: The Serbian Government’s Strategy towards Kosovo and the EU under the Progressive Party

ABSTRACT

Since the signing of the historic ‘Brussels Agreement’ on 19 April 2013 on the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, Serbian President Aleksandar Vu?i? and the Progressive Party have oscillated between competing tensions emanating from seeking membership in the European Union and those stemming from the retention of Kosovo, including the party’s uncompromising position on non-recognition. Following two-level game theory, this paper offers a comparative analysis of the Progressive Party’s multi-level game strategy vis-à-vis Kosovo and the EU, arguing that while the initial success of the Brussels Agreement can predominantly be attributed to the rise in popular support for EU accession, Serbian policy towards Kosovo appears to be far less clear and often contradictory and therefore, Serbian government strategy cannot have been influenced by public opinion.     

‘The association that dissociates’ – narratives of local political resistance in Kosovo and the delayed implementation of the Brussels Agreement

ABSTRACT

The existing literature on the EU’s transformative role in the Balkans looks at EU conditionality as a unidirectional system of rewards that is expected to motivate local elites to comply with EU rules. This article raises a different question: how do local actors bypass the implementation phase of EU conditionality and what kind of political resistance narratives do they use for this purpose? The analysis attempts to tackle these inter-related questions by focusing on the delayed implementation of the Brussels Agreement between Belgrade and Pristina as a case study, using the interpretive method of narrative analysis. The article aims to link fieldwork empirics with theoretical discussions in the field of EU compliance literature by stressing the importance of local actors’ resistance to EU incentives. Three levels of analysis will be conducted in order to address the research question: (1) mapping different types of actors at the local level and stressing their heterogeneity; (2) understanding how local resistance to EU pressure evolved in the period 2013–2016; and (3) showing how their policy narratives influenced the implementation phase and the maintenance of the status quo. In conclusion, the analysis shows that the EU’s mediation strategy of ‘constructive ambiguity’ favours local actors’ political resistance, particularly in the implementation phase. The main findings show that ‘dividers’ outnumber ‘connectors’ in local actors’ narratives, thus strengthening political resistance to EU pressure.     

Gender and ethnicity in the Soviet Muslim peripheries: a feminist postcolonial geography of women’s work in the Tajik SSR (1950–1991)

ABSTRACT

This article explores the articulation and experience of Soviet gendered ideology regarding work in the Tajik SSR, one of the Muslim Soviet peripheries, during the post-war period ending with Perestroika. Central Asian women’s work was used for economic purposes, as well as being a key driver for fulfilling the ideological objective of emancipating Central Asian women from religion and tradition. Through a feminist postcolonial geography approach, attentive to questions of discourse and material lived experiences, this article explores the ways in which gender and ethnicity were co-produced by Soviet ideology. Analysis of scientific publications produced by Tajikistani female researchers, and of women’s magazines from the 1950s, is contrasted with ethnographic data on workers from various collective farms and semi-urban places, including ‘work heroines’ (peshqadam). Our findings illustrate the hybrid nature of the Soviet regime, advancing theoretical debates on the use of postcolonial theory in Soviet Central Asia.     

The green and the cool: Hybridity,relationality and ethnographic-biographical responses to intervention

Policy debates on conflict research, which are mostly directly used to develop practices of soft intervention (including conflict resolution, peacebuilding and statebuilding), emanate from common epistemic and ontological frameworks. Most have been produced and perpetuated by key institutions in the global North through their encounter with historical direct and structural violence, both North and South. Power has followed Enlightenment knowledge, along with its various biases and exclusions. Its progressive normative, political, economic and social assumptions about a ‘good society’ and an ‘international community’ have been fed through social science into the building of international institutions, IFIs and the donor system. Using a method called ethnographic biography (in which biography is broadly defined to include the bibliography produced by the subject, as well as interviews and discussions), this article illustrates how peace thinking is mutually constructed as both positive and hybrid, confirming earlier critical work. However, the research methods deployed to engage with the contextual production of knowledge by local scholar-practitioners are sorely underdeveloped. This is illustrated through an analysis of the work of ‘local’ conflict scholars on their own peacebuilding and statebuilding processes in Cyprus, Kosovo and Timor Leste.     

The North Korea Problem: Perspectives on the Nuclear Debate,Economic Reforms and Beyond

ABSTRACT

Despite a plethora of research on North Korea, understanding and managing the challenges posed by the country have long been complicated with no simple solution to put an end to this decades-long security and economic predicament on the Korean Peninsula. With the potential for international conflict, attention must be given to the converging messages emerging from the scholarly works reviewed in this article: Glyn Ford, Talking to North Korea: Ending the Nuclear Standoff, Van Jackson, On the Brink: Trump, Kim, and the Threat of Nuclear War and William Overholt’s collection North Korea: Peace? Nuclear War? These works speak to the need to: take seriously the risk of nuclear war; consider the connectedness of the North’s decades-long security and economic reform dilemmas; and to acknowledge that the mistrust that is deeply rooted on all sides must be mitigated to bring peace. These books are published at a critical juncture of increased tensions following a highly publicised but remarkably short-lived effort at a breakthrough on the Korean nuclear issue, Pyongyang’s rapidly evolving security posture and its perennial domestic challenges. Each of these volumes provides valuable insights on these challenges for North Korea and internationally.     

The limits of agency: Emily Hobhouse’s international activism and the politics of suffering

Abstract

This article pieces together the activism of the British welfare worker and feminist-pacifist Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926) during two largely unrecorded episodes of transnational activism: firstly, her ministry of Cornish miners in Virginia, Minnesota, in the United States; and secondly, her interventions during the period of reconstruction following the South African War (1899–1902). The article endeavors to contextualize Hobhouse’s activism and offer a broader understanding of the limitations and restraints on her actions. Ultimately, her activism required a platform that was in the gift of political actors and establishment figures, and dependent on fluctuations within specific political and bureaucratic situations. Based on close inspection of undocumented material in both South African and British archives, the article investigates Hobhouse’s repertoire of missionary and philanthropic roles within a wider context of humanitarian politics. It demonstrates how women’s activism and their behind-the-scenes politicking informed political decision-making in modern imperial and international affairs.     

The (Il)legitimacy of EU state building: local support and contention in Kosovo

This article investigates legitimacy of EU state building and conflict resolution as a continuous and collective process through which local stakeholders, as the direct bearers of EU policies, ascribe meaning and support for the EU actors and actions on the ground. Contrary to the static and narrow understanding of legitimacy in the EU literature, the article offers a dynamic framework of legitimacy based on two main aspects: (i) sources of legitimacy (input and output) and (ii) objects of legitimacy (diffuse and specific support) in order to trace the complicated relationship between the EU and different local groups (the government, parliamentary opposition, local NGOs and public opinion) in Kosovo. The main argument is that the EU fails to generate local consent and faces a worsening erosion of support in Kosovo due to the limited participation of local stakeholders into the EU-promoted political decision-making structures and the contested ability of the EU to foster outcomes that have salience for local actors.     

Explaining municipal governance in Kosovo: local agency,credibility and party patronage

ABSTRACT

What can explain the varied effectiveness of internationally led attempts at statebuilding? This article seeks to answer this question by comparing the contrasting trajectories of governance in two municipalities in Kosovo: Hani i Elezit/Elez Han and Kamenica. In Hani i Elezit, evidence suggests that effective and accountable governance is embedded. However, in Kamenica informal and clientelist practices persist and residents are less satisfied with the municipality’s performance. As the nature and extent of internationally led statebuilding has been similar in both municipalities, explaining variation requires an analytical shift to how local leadership interacts with, receives and ultimately shapes statebuilding processes. The data are based on fieldwork from 2012 to 2015. The article focuses on two critical dimensions of statebuilding: capacity building and social accountability. It argues that the impact of externally led statebuilding strategies depends on the orientation of the political leadership of the municipalities. The article identifies features of the political environment, namely credibility and the organization of political parties, which constrain the kind of public-oriented leadership necessary for effective and accountable governance.     

Opposition to Israel’s first Qadiya

ABSTRACT

In 2017, following a fraught 22-year struggle, Israel appointed the first female judge (sing. qadiya, pl. qadiyat) to its Islamic (shari’a) courts. This contrasts with the earlier appointments of qadiyat around the world, most notably in the Palestinian Authority in 2009. The Israeli shari’a courts’ jurisdiction over family law, a field of law which engages in women’s issues, makes the introduction of qadiyat particularly salient. This article is among the first to focus academic research on the issue of qadiyat within Israel and is based on field interviews with practitioners and academic experts, as well as documentary primary and secondary sources. This article finds that the obstacles that delayed the appointment of Israel’s first qadiya were a manifestation of the political impact Muslim minority status had on the country’s Muslim and Jewish establishments.     

Commonwealth Small States,Education and Environmental Uncertainty: Learning from the Sharp End

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the Commonwealth’s inclusive role in engaging with the distinctive challenges of education provision in small states, an agenda that is often neglected elsewhere. We examine the origins of Commonwealth work on education in small states, the nature of its comparative advantage, its role in facilitating small states’ engagement with international education dialogue and regional co-operation, and the demand and potential for ongoing Commonwealth support for education. Particular attention is given to experience within the Caribbean region and to the potential for the Commonwealth and the wider international community to learn from small states in the light of their distinctive educational challenges, achievements and priorities – and, most notably, their experience at the ‘sharp end’ of environmental uncertainty and climate change.