Abstract
This paper examines the emergence, consolidation, and transformation of North Kosovo as an alternative political order from 1999 to 2023. Following the collapse of Yugoslav state structures and the contested establishment of new institutions under UNMIK and the Kosovo state, the northern Kosovo municipalities developed a set of parallel institutions that assumed core state functions while operating outside the authority of Pristina. The paper argues that these institutions constituted a coherent non-state political order that enabled local actors to channel resistance to unfavorable political settlements into institutionalized governance. In this sense, North Kosovo challenges dominant assumptions in the state-building literature that alternative political orders necessarily undermine stability; instead, I show that this order stabilized the post-conflict environment by transforming violent resistance into institutionalized, rule-bound forms of contestation. The paper situates North Kosovo’s institutional evolution within a broader framework of competitive state formation following state collapse. It traces how unresolved claims over political authority created the conditions under which non-state actors constructed durable governance arrangements. Rather than viewing these arrangements as obstacles to Kosovo’s consolidation, the paper interprets them as mechanisms for stabilizing conflict under conditions of unresolved sovereignty claims and ongoing competitive state-building.
Presenters
Sandra DavidovicPhD Candidate, Lecturer, Political Science Department, City University of New York, New York, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Non-state political orders, Conflict resolution, Kosovo, Self-governance, International state-building
