Making peace prevail: preventing violent conflict in Macedonia

Abstract

The urgency to tell the story of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the only republic in the former Yugoslavia to secede without bloodshed, is made more compelling by the conflict in Kosovo and NATO's military intervention. In this volume, Alice Ackerman offers an in-depth account of how Macedonia held onto peace during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Faced with ethnic tensions and the threat of the Bosnian war, this republic was spared the fate of Croatia and Bosnia because of successful preventive diplomacy. Throughout her discussion, Ackerman provides a framework of analysis that underscores the art of conflict prevention. She notes the activity of the major players such as the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) but maintains that groups such as the Working Group of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia - although not in the public eye - accomplishes much through an interactive workshop approach to conflict management. Other organizations directed effort towards building sustainable peace through long-term projects on the social level. The crisis in Kosovo is still an unresolved piece of the Yugoslav puzzle, one that has led to the destabilization of Macedonia. With this book, however, Ackerman furthers our understanding of the challenge in conflict prevention in multi-ethnic and newly democratized societies.