Kosovo and transitional justice: how do post-conflict measures affect the intergroup relations across the country?

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1857558 (Table of Contents)

This study is a work focused on the post-conflict situation in Kosovo, its reconciliation process and the state of the intergroup relations between its two biggest ethnic groups, the Albanian majority and Serb minority. It offers an extended literature review on ethnic conflict resolution and reconciliation paired with a strong consideration of social psychology focusing on identity and intergroup relations. By offering an interlaced view of these separate bodies of work, it seeks to bring a new perspective to observe the Kosovo case. It presents a discussion of the events that shaped Kosovo for what is it today, keeping the focus on society and perceptions. To strengthen the hold of the situation, it presents results from direct fieldwork conducted with the subjects of the discussed case. The study emphasizes the role and impact reconciliatory measures have on divided societies yet as its findings suggest, it brings into consideration that in such conditions, reconciliatory processes might be incomplete thus leading into a dysfunctional relationship between such measures and the society they are supposed to improve. This study on Kosovo emphasizes that the country has failed to conduct a properly structured reconciliation process centrally, which has closed the way to any improvement of the intergroup relations on its societal levels.