The Partnership–Conditionality Binary in the Western Balkans: Promoting Local Ownership for Sustainable Democratic Transition

This article addresses themes relating to the principles of conditionality and partnership, together with the principle of local ownership in the Western Balkans, notably in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo. Specifically assessing the emotive territorial questions facing these Western Balkan countries, the article posits that the international community should aim to promote local ownership in the will to sustainable political transition. Given the EU's focus on the Western Balkans as set out in the European Security Strategy and Thessaloniki summit (2003) and developed through the process of Stabilisation and Association, the author advocates a partnership approach that instils local ownership. It is argued that such an approach has a better chance of responding imaginatively and functionally to unresolved territorial questions. In the second section of this article the author applies the concept of partnership to the territorial challenges facing Bosnia, Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo. Partnership, as based on the concepts of local ownership and needs-based responsiveness, as opposed to strictly codified conditionality set by Dayton, UN Resolution 1244 and the EU Stabilisation and Association process, is more likely to resolve the ongoing principal territorial political tensions in the Western Balkans.