How Conflict Spreads: Opportunity Structures and the Diffusion of Conflict in the Republic of Macedonia

Abstract

This article examines the escalation of protest mobilization into armed conflict in the Republic of Macedonia (2001). The analysis argues that violence occurred because of a timely collusion between proximate causes and permissive conditions (causes). The state's inherent fragility and the perpetuation of unresolved grievances provided ground for the utilization of opportunity structures by dissident contestants. The study looks into the influence of spillover effects through the lens of contagion and diffusion effects including political radicalization, disputed borderlands refugee flows, and rebel capacity, and provides an assessment of the conditions shaping the decision of the Albanian rebels to use violence. Drawing from a series of elite interviews and documents, the article offers a critical insight into how ethno-regional interdependencies render a largely non-violent conflict susceptible to escalation. The study finds that contagion, disputed borderlands, and the availability of existing operational networks have played a crucial, if not decisive, role in the decision of politically active Albanians in the Republic of Macedonia to use violence.