Civic nation building as a tool for conflict transformation: an analysis of the Ahtisaari plan and the independence process in Kosovo

Official URL: http://192.168.1.20/record=b1295924 (Table of Contents)

This study investigates the civic nation building (CNB) process initiated by Ahtisaari Plan in Kosovo from a Conflict Resolution perspective. I treat nation building efforts of external actors as a form of structural third party intervention in post conflict and multi-ethnic divided societies, and I observe whether this process contributes to the transformation of the conflict. Special focus is placed on the Decentralization Laws and Special Protective Zones Law of Ahtisaari's Package and their impact on the relationships between Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo Serbs. Concretely, I examine whether the mechanisms provided by these laws contributed to transform the interethnic relations based on competing nationalistic projects. For this purpose I study conflict transformations at structure, issue, actor and personal level. For the analysis of structure and issue level a conflict mapping technique has been used in time-series. In-depth structured interviews have been implemented for the analysis of actor level and a survey among individual adults in Kosovo (Prishtina, Prizren, Mitrovica, Gracanica, and Peja) was conducted for measuring personal level transformations. This research argues that civic nation building has chances to impact on the transformation of the conflict as long as, the third party intervening in the conflict considers and addresses different limitations found in the empirical case analyzed here. These limitations are: a risk of institutionalizing ethnicity, 'a left-out dyad problem' of the intervention, lack of involvement of actors in the macro-micro transfers, lack of bottom-up approach. Despite the positive relationships found between conflict transformations and civic nation building (CNB), whether this kind intervention have been the promoter of these changes or not, is a question which remains open and demands further research and exploration.