Ethnic peace in the east: Transnational networks and the CSCE/OSCE

Abstract

While a great deal is made of the international community's inability to prevent ethnic violence in Yugoslavia, little attention has been paid to international efforts to manage ethnic conflicts in the years since. With an emphasis on the spearheading initiatives of the CSCE/OSCE, this article fleshes out the meaning of the so-called ‘Bosnia effect’. It contends that, by the middle of the 1990s, a transnational network of governmental and non-governmental organizations had adopted overlapping, reinforcing strategies and principles to encourage ethnic cooperation in Eastern Europe. While this transnational network focused on ethnic conflict management did not prevent violence everywhere, this article explains the unique networking behaviour of transnational actors and demonstrates its effect on the transformation of ethnic politics in a case study of Latvia.