State collapse and reconstruction in the periphery : political economy, ethnicity and development in Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo

Abstract

In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-conflict reconstruction. As a result, the country became the locus for new policies to be developed and tested. These policies are in need of scrutiny and should be examined within the social and political realities that have emerged in the region, one left with two international protectorates (Bosnia and Kosovo), unresolved state formation issues, minority concerns, ethnic, social and political polarization. The author argues that both the process of state collapse and the recent changes in aid and reconstruction policy must be interpreted within the framework of a wider transformation of the international political economy and world order. Through an in-depth analysis and critical examination of post-conflict reconstruction in Kosovo, he argues that western governments and donor agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. This discrepancy has provided further complications which are likely to remain for years to come, as recent developments in Kosovo show.