Transnational veto players in conflict negotiations: Cross-border coalitions and constraints

The paper aims to analyse the state of inter-ethnic relations in Kosovo between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs, with special focus on the period after unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo in 2008. Inter-ethnic conflict in Kosovo has exclusively been over its territory since both Serbs and Albanians have made claims about history and ethno-demography to justify their alleged exclusive right to this ethnically mixed region. Consequently, inter-ethnic relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo have been rather problematic throughout the most of the 20th century. During this period Albanians in Kosovo have been subjected to discrimination, intimidation and even mass expulsion by Yugoslav/Serb authorities. In late 1990s, these relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo have progressively worsened and finally escalated in an armed warfare in 1999. Immediately after the war, Serbs in Kosovo were occasionally exposed to acts of inter-ethnic and retaliatory violence. Inter-ethnic relations between the two major ethnicities continued to be tense and fragile after independence of Kosovo in 2008. Dramatic changes of ethnic composition structure, atrocities and huge number of refugees due to the war, have left a legacy of deep mistrust and animosities between Albanians and Serbs in the newly created state. Consequently, Serbs in Kosovo have from the beginning refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence and have rigorously refused any governance by Kosovo authorities. Serbian community, especially in the North, claims stronger territorial autonomy, even separatism and unification with Serbia. The paper claims that in Kosovo inter-ethnic and interstate relations are basically the components of the same equation. Therefore, paper concludes that only overall improvement of relations between Kosovo and Serbia could contribute to overall relaxation of inter-ethnic relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo. Unfortunately, the latest incidents between Kosovo and Serbia have increased the tensions between the two sides to alarming levels.

This study considers how ethnic trust and minority status can impact the ability of ethnic groups to pursue cooperative public goods, focusing on groups with a history of conflict and lingering hostility. A public good experiment between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in postwar Kosovo reveals that subjects contribute far more to a mutually beneficial public good when they are part of an experimentally induced coethnic majority. However, when in the minority, subjects not only underinvest, but many actively divest entirely, privatizing the public good. Majority/minority status also has wide-ranging implications for how individuals relate to real-world public goods and the institutions of government that provide them. Compared to majority Albanians, survey data indicate how minority Serbs in Kosovo express greater safety and security concerns, feel more politically, socially, and economically excluded, are more dissatisfied with civil liberties and human rights protections, and are less likely to participate politically or pay taxes to support public goods. Conflict-related victimization and distrust of out-groups are strong predictors of these minority group attitudes and behaviors. This suggests a mechanism for how conflict amplifies out-group distrust, increasing parochial bias in public good commitments, especially among minorities who are wary of exploitation at the hands of an out-group majority. To restore trust, this study finds that institutional trust and intergroup contact are important to bridging ethnic divides that inhibit public good cooperation.

After the 1999 Kosovo conflict, from approximately 200,000 ethnic Serbs that were living in Kosovo only half of them remained, concentrated primarily in several enclaves throughout Kosovo. According to the Office of Community Affairs in Kosovo, the unemployment rate within the Serbian community ranges between 40% and 100%, depending on the on their representation in municipalities. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to provide an empirical insight on the motives of the Serb minority living in Kosovo towards informal ethnic entrepreneurship. Considering that the number of companies operated by Serbs in Kosovo is limited, as well as geographically disbursed a qualitative methodology, therefore, was utilized as the best suited approach to conduct this study. The research was conducted during January 2018, where five ethnic Serb minority entrepreneurs were interviewed using in depth semi-structured, face to face, interviews. The cases were identified and selected using the snowball sampling method. The study has analyzed their motives towards self-employment, challenges faced as ethnic minority entrepreneurs, as well as their attitudes towards informality.

This contribution investigates the factors behind political group membership in the European Parliament. In June 2009, more than 150 national parties, from the 27 member countries, joined one of the seven transnational groupings. Two main explanations for group membership are advanced. A first, traditional argument is based on the ideological or policy compatibility of the member parties. National parties will join the political group that best matches their programmatic position. A second argument focuses, instead, on the structure of incentives in the Parliament, positing that the pragmatic goals of national parties are better advanced by joining the largest and most influential groups. These arguments are tested by fitting a multinomial logit model for political group ‘choice’ based on the 2009 Euromanifestos data. The findings suggest that ideological compatibility is the most important factor behind transnational affiliation, even if some caution is needed for the ‘new’, post-communist members.

In 2006, the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage Committee inscribed four Serbian medieval shrines from Kosovo and Metohija on the World Heritage List, in danger due to difficulties in their preservation and management, as well as the damage they suffered during ethnic conflicts, namely: the Church of Bogorodica Ljeviška in Prizren and the Peć Patriarchate, Dečani and Gračanica monasteries. In accordance with United Nations Resolution 1244, they are currently under the control of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo and Metohija. However, in addition to these monuments, the cultural and demographic identity of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija is illustrated by over 1,500 established cultural assets (monasteries, churches, cemeteries, etc.) that testify to the centuries-old presence of the Serbian people and Orthodox faith in this area and their material and spiritual culture, as works of the overall European cultural heritage created in the intertwining of the influences of Eastern and Western Christianity and culture. The inclusion of these four cultural assets of great importance for Serbia in the international system of protection and monitoring has led to initiating the consideration of a comprehensive and long-term view of cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija at the international level as a key element in establishing better cultural and overall relations between Serbs and the Albanian population. The paper discusses the problems and possibilities of improving the protection and presentation of World Cultural and Natural Heritage in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as the expansion of the list, through the integration of international, national and local protection, and understanding of this area as a specific cultural landscape. Presenting the value of the heritage as a comprehensive cultural landscape which combines natural tangible and intangible aspects, as well as the organization of cultural, educational and other activities, would encourage respect for the diversity, integrity and identity of others, which is an unavoidable condition in the process of European integration currently opposed by ethnic groups.

The abstraction of soft power is based on the idea or the ability to set political priorities in a way that shapes the desires of others, by connecting with invisible forms of power such as culture, ideology and institutions. Regional cooperation is part of the evaluation of the Western Balkans'countries on their way to integration into the EU and the regional economy. The aim of cooperation is harmonizing with the programs and policies of EU rapprochement through the "four freedoms"; trade, investment, mobility and digital integration require appropriate financial resources, regulations and institutions, in order to achieve fundamental political and economic changes. Changes in this "capillary spread of power" are not visible until the very end, until the moment of complete conquest of power and power, both "soft" and classic. The implementation of these programs is carried out through various non-governmental organizations, organizations for the fight for democracy and the protection of human rights, which often act in sync with each other and are promoted in the media. Through this process, space is given to the realization of cultural hegemony through which Serbia can act with its "oft power" through the preservation of identity and religion as an element that strengthens and emphasizes the national identity of the Serbs in Kosovo. In the article, in the case study of Kosovo states that the international community, led by the USA, is shown that "soft power" is used by implementing its influence through the regional cooperation of the six Balkan countries. Under this accord, this is an opportunity for Serbia to use "soft power" to influence the maintenance of the identity of the Serbian people on Kosovo.

This paper examines the conditions under which warring parties will accept an outside party's offer to mediate. Specifically, we explore variation in the incentives for accepting third-party offers in interstate conflicts as compared to civil wars. We argue that since mediation in civil wars transfers legitimacy to the non-state actor and can generate a precedent of exceptions to the norm of sovereignty, the political cost associated with accepting international mediation will be substantially higher in civil wars compared to international conflicts. States should therefore only accept mediation in the most serious disputes, or when the costs of legitimizing an opponent are outweighed by the benefits of conflict resolution. Building on this theoretical reasoning, the paper analyzes the implications of differences in incentive structures between inter- and intrastate conflicts for offer and acceptance of mediation. We find an empirical discrepancy between interstate and civil wars in regard to demand-side (acceptance) of mediation, and to a somewhat lesser extent the supply-side (offer) of international mediation. In line with our argument, we find that the historical ties between the potential intermediary and at least one of the disputants play different roles in regard to acceptance of mediation in interstate compared to civil wars. This is important to take into consideration in the emerging debate on mediation bias.

The study of international mediation has long been dominated by single case studies or experimental approaches. This article argues for a more systematic approach and advocates a cross-national, longitudinal and empirical analysis of mediation based on actual historical data. The kind of information this approach can yield is invaluable in disentangling the structural aspects of mediation. This article presents the logic, rationale, and theory behind the most extensive data set on international mediation: the Correlates of Mediation Project. Data on all formal mediation events were collected for the period 1945– 1995. The structure of the data and some important findings are presented here. The advantages of data analysis are discussed and future challenges and developments are noted.

This chapter starts with a short historic overview of Kosovo’s troubled past, with a special emphasis on actions during the 1990s and relationship between Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians. It explains the methodology and data collection for this chapter and gives detailed information about the interlocutors that cooperated in the discussions. It emphasizes also the limits to the chapter, namely the small number of respondents from political representatives in the EU in Kosovo and lack of Kosovo Serbians’ cooperation. Furthermore, this chapter explains the background of the EU’s approach to the troubled past in Kosovo, the process of EU integration and Europeanization and gives an assessment of the status quo. In a similar way as other chapters it gives a non-exclusive list of policy recommendations for Kosovo in four areas – history, media, politics, and arts and culture.

An enduring question for the social sciences is whether increasing contact and exposure between in-groups and out-groups enhances prospects for social tolerance and cooperation. Using dictator experiments with ethnic Serbs in post-war Kosovo, our research explores how norms of altruism are impacted by proximity to former rivals. In the aftermath of violence, proximity appears to amplify solidarity with the in-group but also increases empathy toward former adversaries. Based on a March 2011 study of 158 ethnic Serbs from regions across Kosovo with varying degrees of contact and separation from ethnic Albanians, we find that both out-group bridging and in-group bonding norms increase with exposure to the out-group. The inclusion of extended controls and matching for displacement by violence and other forms of victimization helps alleviate concerns about sorting and selection driving our results.

An enduring question for the social sciences is whether increasing contact and exposure between in-groups and out-groups enhances prospects for social tolerance and cooperation. Using dictator experiments with ethnic Serbs in post-war Kosovo, our research explores how norms of altruism are impacted by proximity to former rivals. In the aftermath of violence, proximity appears to amplify solidarity with the in-group but also increases empathy toward former adversaries. Based on a March 2011 study of 158 ethnic Serbs from regions across Kosovo with varying degrees of contact and separation from ethnic Albanians, we find that both out-group bridging and in-group bonding norms increase with exposure to the out-group. The inclusion of extended controls and matching for displacement by violence and other forms of victimization helps alleviate concerns about sorting and selection driving our results.

When law enforcement agencies arrest abalone poachers on the Western Coast of South Africa, they may not be aware that the drying and processing of the delicacy takes place in Gauteng and that the buyers are organised crime networks in China. It will not be evident that the criminals use the profits (at about R1 400 per kilogram) to buy drugs for the local Southern African market. The syndicate or loose network of crime groups may have a distribution chain of dispensable individuals of different nationalities encompassing several countries, specialising in particular aspects of the trade and dealing in a wide variety of illegal goods. Indeed, the arrest of the poachers is unlikely to reveal that the profits are being used to barter for drugs and that a large number of illegal and apparently legal companies are being used to transfer money across the globe. Catching these kinds of transnational, cross-border, multi-ethnic and flexible criminal groups is difficult unless law enforcement agencies have a multi-faceted strategy, use the skills of a wide range of personnel and have the time and resources to investigate and prosecute them effectively. Traditional law enforcement is geared towards arresting the criminal ‘runners’ rather than the ‘kingpins’. The DSO and the SCCU acquired a reputation as the ‘untouchables’ – units that are admired, revered and feared – and it seems unlikely that their replacement will enjoy the same success and reputation.

Conflict management scholars study mixed-motive negotiation situations with cooperative and competitive incentives predominantly through multi-issue negotiation tasks in experimental studies. Intriguingly, experimenters currently lack an objective, generalizable, and continuous measure that precisely quantifies the incentives underlying these negotiation tasks. We present the conflict strength coefficient, which enables scholars to systematically quantify the incentive structures in these multi-issue negotiation tasks. By making the incentive structures accessible and numerically comparable, the conflict strength coefficient provides new insights into the central element of the experimental study of negotiation and conflict management, unmasks differences across existing tasks, facilitates research transparency, knowledge sharing, and open science practices. We demonstrate the coefficient’s benefits by providing a hands-on example from past research, by reviewing and quantitatively assessing the current literature, and by mapping conflict strength coefficients for the negotiation and conflict management research landscape and its subareas. Our analysis suggests that the conflict strength coefficient can enrich the understanding of cooperative and competitive incentives in the established tasks and directly guide and support an individual scholar’s process of knowledge creation. The conflict strength coefficient provides a methodological contribution to the experimental study of conflict management and negotiation with immediate benefits for the production of scientific knowledge, the experimental study of real-world phenomena, and theory development.

The author’s focus in this study is on the establishment of the Vienna System of International Relations and the search for peace, security and justice in Europe in the period following the Napoleonic Wars. The sense of fear and the quest for peace, tranquillity and order were expressed through political metaphors, thereby establishing new concepts and ways of thinking about international relations as a basis. The Napoleonic Wars were a period of great uncertainty and instability, in stark contrast to the security, order and tranquillity sought by the European peoples in this new era of peace. The participants involved in the negotiations in Vienna were not seeking to restore the old order, but rather to establish new forms of security and reasonable — including monarchical — rule within the framework of the future new order. This objective was most clearly manifested in the revived rhetoric associated with the “balance of power”, or juste équilibre, as the French referred to it during this period. Following the Congress of Vienna, the European powers established the foundations for safeguarding the status quo and the management of inter-state disputes by means of “political equilibrium”. This assertion, which is frequently endorsed in historiographic discourse, overlooks the broader implications of the Congress. In addition to fostering conditions conducive to the maintenance of the status quo, the European powers also contributed to the emergence of the Pax Europaea and the development of a pan-European security framework, thus reshaping the political landscape on the continent and establishing foundations for enduring European security. The quest for a novel security system was intertwined with a strategic imperative to legitimise the struggle against domestic opposition as well as popular movements within European states. The author concludes that the architects of the Vienna System were able to achieve a consensus approach, relinquishing the “winner-take-all” principle. Thus, they developed a sensible, multilateral mode of diplomacy consistent with the prevailing mood in post-Napoleonic Europe, in the format of conferences and international mediation.

This paper employs computational approaches to model and explore the efficacy of different incentive structures on the decision making behavior of dispatchers in complex queueing networks, and the subsequent effects of these decisions on teams working within the network and on network performance itself. Computational models that express network structure and function, as well as the decision making process of dispatchers operating within the network and the effect these decisions have on team performance, are presented. Performance of the network under status quo and other incentive structures and decision making processes is illustrated via simulation, validated against data from a large-scale debris removal mission that followed a series of tornadoes in the U.S. state of Alabama in 2011. Results of the simulation experiments suggest that the optimal incentive structure assuming a rational decision maker remains optimal under lower levels of rationality. Furthermore, a simple uniform reward structure is likely to produce performance improvements over the status quo incentive structure under most scenarios.