Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:46:00.352Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Consociational Democracy and Political Engineering in Postwar Kosovo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2019

Adem Beha
Adem Beha*
Affiliation:
University of Prishtina, Prishtina, Kosovo
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the consociational democracy installed in Kosovo after the war. Starting from the premise that the electoral system is considered one of the key instruments for the engineering of post-conflict societies with deep ethnic divisions, the article analyzes the preferences of local and international actors for the type of electoral system. In particular, the United Nations Interim Administration Mission’s reluctance to organize elections without a prior creation of an institutional base, as well as grand governing coalitions. The mechanisms of consociational democracy aim at addressing elite cooperation between different ethnic communities for building peace and stability in post-conflict societies. But focusing on the intra- and inter-community dynamics of cooperation and confrontation between elites, I conclude that the main obstacle to building a democratic multi-ethnic society in Kosovo and implementing the power-sharing arrangements was the uncertainty over the status of Kosovo.

Keywords

Consociational democracyinstitutionsstabilityelectionsKosovo
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , July 2019 , pp. 674 - 689
Copyright
© Association for the Study of Nationalities 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brancati, Dawn, and Snyder, Jack. 2012. “Time to Kill: The Impact of Election Timing on Postconflict Stability.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 57 (5): 882–953.Google Scholar
Bieber, Florian, and Keil, Soeren. 2009. “Power-Sharing Revisited—Lessons Learned in the Balkans?” Review of Central and East European Law 34 (4): 337–360.Google Scholar
Bogaard, Matthijs. 2006. “Democracy and Power-Sharing in Multinational States: Thematic Introduction.” International Journal on Multicultural Societies (IJMS) 8 (2): 119–126.Google Scholar
Caplan, Richard. 2002. “A New Trustsheep? The International Administration of War-torn Territories.” London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper 341.Google Scholar
Cocozzelli, Fred. 2009. “Critical Junctures and Local Agency: How Kosovo Became Independent.” Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 9 (2): 191–208.Google Scholar
Chesterman, Simon. 2001. “Elections Are What We Do.” The World Today 57 (11): 20–22.Google Scholar
Chesterman, Simon. 2004. “Imposed Constitutions, Imposed Constitutionalism, and Ownership.” Connecticut Law Review 37 (4): 947–954.Google Scholar
Chesterman, Simon. 2004. You , The People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-building. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Choedon, Yeshi. 2010. “The United Nations Peacebuilding in Kosovo: The Issue of Coordination.” International Studies 47 (1): 41–57.Google Scholar
Distler, Werner. 2017. “Authority in Statebuilding as Communicative Practice. The Joint Working Group on the Constitutional Framework in Kosovo.” Democratization 24 (3): 463–480.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 2006. “Promoting Democracy in Post-conflict and Failed States.” Taiwan Journal of Democracy 2 (2): 93–116.Google Scholar
Ernst, Andreas. 2013. “Fuzzy governance: State-Building in Kosovo Since 1999 as Interaction Between International and Local Actors.” Democracy and Security 7 (2): 123–139.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald. 1993. “Democracy in Divided Societies.” Journal of Democracy 4 (4): 18–38.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald. 2002. “Constitutional Design: Proposals Versus Processes.” In The Architecture of Democracy: Constitutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy, edited by Andrew Reynolds. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ingimundarson, Valur. 2007. “The Politics of Memoryand the Reconstruction of Albanian National Identity in Postwar Kosovo.” History & Memory 19 (1): 95–123.Google Scholar
International Crisis Group/ICG. 2001. “Kosovo: Landmark Elections.” Pristina.Google Scholar
International Crisis Group/ICG. 2002. “Kosovo Roadmap (I): Addressing Final Status.” Balkans Report 125. Pristina/Brussels.Google Scholar
International Crisis Group. 2003. “Two to Tango: An Agenda for the SRSG in Kosovo.” Europe Report 148. Pristina/Brussels.Google Scholar
Jarstad, Anna. 2007. “To Share or to Divide? Negotiating the Future of Kosovo.” Civil Wars 9 (3): 227–242.Google Scholar
Ker-Lindsay, James. 2009. “From Autonomy to Independence: The Evolution of International Thinking on Kosovo, 1998–2005.” Journal of Balkans and Near Eastern Studies 11 (2): 141–156.Google Scholar
Kymlikca, Will. 2002. “Multiculturalism and Minority Rights: West and East.” Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe 4 (7): 1–27.Google Scholar
King, Ian, and Mason, Whit. 2006. Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kostovicova, Denisa. 2008. “Legitimacy and International Administration: The Ahtisaari Settlement for Kosovo from a Human Security Perspective.” International Peacekeeping 15 (5): 631–647.Google Scholar
Lemay-Hébert, Nicolas. 2009. “State-building From Outside-In: UNMIK and its Paradox.” Journal of Public and International Affairs (20): 65–86.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 1969. “Consociational Democracy.” World Politics 22 (2): 207–225.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan, and Stepan, Alfred. 1992. “Political Identities and Electoral Sequences: Spain, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.” Daedalus (121): 123–139.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 2002. “The Wave of Power-Sharing Democracy.” In The Architecture of Democracy: Constitutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy, edited by Andrew Reynolds, 37–54. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 2008. Thinking About Democracy- Majority Rule and Power-sharing in Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Down, and Snyder, Jack. 2005. Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies go to War. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Muharremi, Robert, Lulzim Peci, Leon Malazogu, Verena Knaus, and Teuta Murati. 2003. Administration and Governance in Kosovo: Lessons Learned and Lessons to be Learned. Edited by Isa Blumi. Geneva, Switzerland: Center for Applied Studies in International Negotiations (CASIN).Google Scholar
Mitchell, Ian R. 2000. “The Ambiguities of Elections in Kosovo: Democratisation Versus Human Rights?” The International Journal of Human Rights 4 (3): 246–262.Google Scholar
Narten, Jens. 2009. “Assessing Kosovo’s Postwar Democratization: Between External Imposition and Local Self-Government.” Taiwan Journal of Democracy 5(1): 127–162. Pristina/Geneva, January 2003.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa. 2008. Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work? Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
OSCE/Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. 2003. “Parallel Structures in Kosovo.” Pristina.Google Scholar
O’Flynn, Ian. 2005. “Democratic Values and Power Sharing.” In Power-sharing: New challenges for Divided Societies, edited by Ian. O’Flynn and David Russell, 15–29. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Paris, Roland. 2004. At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pula, Besnik. 2003. “The UN in Kosova: Administering Democratization?” In Understanding the War in Kosovo, edited by Florian Bieber and Zidas Daskalovski, 199–216. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Pettifer, James. 2007. “The Ahtisaari Report - Totem & Taboo.” Conflict Studies Research Center, Balkan Series 07/08.Google Scholar
Reilly, Benjamin. 2002. “Post-conflict Elections: Constraints and Dangers.” International Peacekeeping 9 (2): 118–139.Google Scholar
Reilly, Benjamin. 2006. “Political Engineering and Party Politics in Conflict-Prone Societies.” Democratization 13 (5): 811–827.Google Scholar
Reilly, Benjamin. 2008. “Post-war Elections: Uncertain Turning Points of Transition.” In From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding, edited by Anna K. Jarstad and Timothy D. Sisk, 157–181. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Simonsen, Sven Gunnar. 2004. “Nationbuilding as Peacebuilding: Racing to Define the Kosovar.” International Peacekeeping 11 (2): 289–311.Google Scholar
Sisk, Timothy. 1999. Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflict. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.Google Scholar
Sriram, Chandra. 2008. Peace as Governance; Power-Sharing, Armed Groups and Contemporary Peace Negotiations. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Surroi, Veton. 2000. “Kosovo Political Life: Past as Prologue?” The International Spectator 35 (1): 27–33.Google Scholar
Stahn, Carsten. 2001. “Constitution Without a State? Kosovo Under the United Nations Constitutional Framework for Self-Government.” Leiden Journal of International Law 14 (3): 531–561.Google Scholar
Tansey, Oisin. 2007. “Democratization Without a State: Democratic Regime-building in Kosovo.” Democratization 14 (1): 129–150.Google Scholar
Tansey, Oisin. 2009. Regime-building: Democratization and International Administration. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tansey, Oisin. 2011. “Does Democracy Need Sovereignty?” Review of International Studies 37 (4): 1515–1536.Google Scholar
Taylor, Andrew. 2002. “This Election Was Never Going to Be Perfect: The Kosovo Municipal Election of October 2000 as Post-conflict Election.” Civil Wars 5 (3): 56–118.Google Scholar
Taylor, Andrew. 2005. “Electoral Systems and the Promotion of ‘Consociationalism’ in a Multi-ethnic Society. The Kosovo Assembly Elections of November 2001.” Electoral Studies 24 (3): 435–463.Google Scholar
UNDP. 2005. “Early Warning Reports, Kosovo.” Pristina.Google Scholar
UNMIK REG/2001/9. 2001. “Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in Kosovo.”Google Scholar
UNMIK/Reg/2000/16. 2000. “On the Registration and Operation of Political Parties in Kosovo.”Google Scholar
UNMIK/Reg/2000/39. 2000. “On Municipal Elections in Kosovo.”Google Scholar
Williams, R. Paul and Pecci, Francesca Jannotti. 2004. “Earned Sovereignty: Bridging the Gap Between Sovereignty and Self-Determination.” Stanford Journal of International Law 40 (1): 1–40.Google Scholar
Weller, Marc. 2008. “Kosovo’s final status.” International Affairs 84 (6): 1223–1243.Google Scholar
Wolff, Stefan. 2003. “The Ethnopolitical Dynamics of Elections”, ECMI Working Paper #17.Google Scholar
Wolff, Stefan. 2011. “Post-Conflict State Building: The Debate on Institutional Choice.” Third World Quarterly 32 (10): 1777–1802.Google Scholar
Yannis, Alexander. 2001. “Kosovo Under International Administration.” Survival 43 (2): 31–48.Google Scholar
Van der Borgh, Chris. 2012. “Resisting International State Building in Kosovo.” Problems of Post-Communism 59 (2): 31–42.Google Scholar
Visoka, Gëzim. 2017. Shaping Peace in Kosovo: The Politics of Peacebuilding and Statehood. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Zaum, Dominik. 2009. “States of Conflict: A Case Study on Statebuilding in Kosovo.” Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar