Promoting Democracy in Post-Conflict Societies: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo

Abstract

For more than a decade, the European Union (EU) has been involved in the Western Balkans. It has played various roles in the region. In some countries, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter, Bosnia or BiH) and Kosovo, it has acted as a kind of ‘international protector’, without excluding the use of its conditionality mechanism. In other cases, including Albania, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Montenegro and Serbia, the EU has merely used the ‘carrot and stick’ of conditionality to stabilize and put these states on their EU integration pathways. Moreover, the EU also played the role of ‘facilitator’ in the peaceful disintegration of the union between Serbia and Montenegro, and of ‘conflict preventer’ and ‘interlocutor’ in the case of FYROM during the conflict there in 2001. The EU and other international actors have invested a lot of energy and money in the region. A certain degree of progress has been achieved, at least in terms of establishing negative peace (the absence of war; see Donais 2005: 32) in the region, but this stability remains fragile, while its future is to some degree contested. The major positive developments appear to be Croatia’s accession to the EU and the deal between Kosovo and Serbia on principles for the normalization of relations, both of which were achieved in 2013.