The Shadow of Violence and Intervention: Balkan Wars as an Extralegal Deal

Abstract

A growing body of literature addressing the question of war economies, state formation, and transformation focuses on the role of illicit and criminal activities in the global era. While a significant strand of literature focuses on the role that bandits and outlaws have historically played during the making of Balkan states, fewer studies have attempted to look into how different forms of organised crime interact with changing forms of foreign assistance and international intervention. This chapter reflects on the geopolitical reconfiguration of the Balkan region over a decade of crisis (1981–1991), a decade of war (1991–2001), and a decade of reconstruction (2001–2011). It holds that the argument about the existence of a nexus between war making, state making, and organised crime, first put forward by Charles Tilly, while remaining important, needs to be reconsidered in light of the effect of globalisation that alters the cost of central control over the means of coercion and finance. As Anna Leander demonstrates, taking Tilly seriously in the globalisation age means understanding the growing salience of external factors in providing resources and legitimacy for state formation, resulting in less monopolisation and more strongmen-led privatisation and decentralisation.