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

Bibliographic Data

ID21156610
AuthorsArolda Elbasani (0000-0003-0225-3549, New York University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume18
Issue2
Pages149-164
Publication date2018-04-03
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-3857 • E-ISSN: 1743-9639
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14683857.2018.1475901
OpenAlexW2849223021
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited30

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

Bureaucracy · Corporate governance · Economic system · Economics · Hybridity · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Security Sector Reform · Social science · Sociology · State formation · State-building · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Political Conflict and Governance · Public Administration

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