War and Social Welfare: Reconstruction After Conflict

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War and Social Welfare

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War and Social Welfare Reconstruction after Conflict

Fred Pompeo Cocozzelli

war and social welfare Copyright © Fred Pompeo Cocozzelli, 2009. All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States – a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978-0-230-62078-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cocozzelli, Fred Pompeo. War and social welfare : reconstruction after conflict / Fred Pompeo Cocozzelli. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-230-62078-0 (alk. paper) 1. Postwar reconstruction—Social aspects—Case studies. 2. Public welfare—International cooperation—Case studies. 3. Postwar reconstruction—Kosovo (Republic) 4. Public welfare—Kosovo (Republic) 5. Kosovo (Republic)—Social policy. I. Title. HV639.C6 2010 363.34⬘988—dc22 2009020039 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Macmillan Publishing Solutions First edition: January 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Dedicated to my parents for all of their love and support. Thanks Mom and Dad. And to Emily and Pompeo, with love.

And Bruno, “qen i mirë, shum mirë.”


Contents

List of Maps, Figures, and Tables

ix

Acknowledgments

xiii

List of Acronyms

xv

Introduction

1

1

The Role of Social Policy in Post-Conflict Reconstruction

11

2

The Kosovo Conflict (1981–1999) and the Creation of Ethnicized Institutions

33

3

Formation of Social Policy in Post-Conflict Kosovo

61

4

The Importance of Political Competition: Skenderaj and Malishevë

91

5 6

Local Governance and the Development of Social Welfare Institutions: Prizren and Kamenicë

129

Conclusion

165

Appendix

191

Notes

193

References

199

Index

209


List of Maps, Figures, and Tables

Maps Map 0.1 Map 0.2

Kosovo in the Central Balkans Kosovo Administrative Divisions

Figures Figure 4.1 Municipal election results in Malishevë / Malisevo, 2000, 2002, and 2007 Figure 4.2 Municipal election results in Skenderaj / Srbica, 2000, 2002, and 2007 Tables Table 3.1 Kosovo post-conflict human development in regional context Table 3.2 The Kosovo post-conflict pension system in regional context Table 4.1 Basic comparative data on Skenderaj and Malishevë Table 4.2 Social assistance beneficiaries in Malishevë and Skenderaj in 2001 and 2002 Table 5.1 Basic Comparative social and economic data on Kamenicë and Prizren Table 5.2 Social assistance beneficiaries in Kamenicë and Prizren in 2001 and 2002 Table 5.3 Population figures for Kamenicë and Prizren Table A.1 DLSW data on Category I and Category II social assistance beneficiaries, April 2001 and 2002, by municipality

x xi

109 118

64 88 104 121 145 150 153

191

Map 0.1

Kosovo in the Central Balkans

10.1057/9780230104945 - War and Social Welfare, Fred Pompeo Cocozzelli

1. Deçan / Decani 2. Dragash / Dragas 3. Gjakovë / Dakovica 4. Gllogovc / Glogovac 5. Gjilan / Gnjilane 6. Istog / Istok 7. Kaçanik / Kacanik 8. Kamenicë / Kamenica 9. Klinë / Klina 10. Fushë Kosovë / Kosovo Polje 11. Leposavic / Leposaviq 12. Lipjan / Lipljan 13. Malishevë / Malisevo 14. Mitrovicë / Mitrovica 15. Novobërdë / Novo Brdo 16. Obiliq / Obilic 17. Rahovec / Orahovac 18. Pejë / Pec 19. Podujevë / Podujevo 20. Prishtinë / Priština 21. Prizren 22. Skenderaj / Srbica 23. Shtërpcë / Strpce 24. Shtime / Stimlje 25. Suharekë / Suva Reka 26. Ferizaj / Urosevac 27. Viti / Vitina 28. Vushtrri / Vucitrn 29. Zubin Potok 30. Zveçan / Zvecan Map 0.2

Kosovo Administrative Divisions


Acknowledgments

Over the years of researching and writing of this book I have received a tremendous amount of help from people in New York City, in Kosovo, across the Balkans and beyond. In Kosovo, the staff of a variety of NGOs, international organizations, government ministries and departments, and civil society organizations provided time, access, and insight. A number of these organizations and agencies went so far as to make data that they had gathered available to me, much of which would otherwise have been unavailable. I am very grateful to have been given a chance to incorporate their insights, advice, and data into my analysis of the Kosovo social welfare regime. The Kosovo Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare was exceptionally accommodating of my many requests for interviews and information. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of the first minister of Labour and Social Welfare of the post-conflict Provisional Institutions for Self-Government, Ahmet Isufi, and other members of the ministry, including Lajos Héthy, Agnes Simonyi, Matthew Waterfield, Mahamet Gjocaj, and Mehdi Bertyci. I am also indebted to the Kosovo and Serbia programs of Mercy Corps International, Action Against Hunger, and CARE International, as well as the headquarters and local branches of the Mother Teresa Society in Kosovo for their assistance. Zef Shala in particular was always accommodating and welcoming of my many requests for information. Extra thanks goes to the men and women of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Kosovo program, particularly those who were a part of the Humanitarian Assistance Team during summer 1999, and especially Din Gegollaj, “Duke” Bokshi, Jak Delhysa, and Gjoni Lumezi. Nick MacDonald, Maureen Capps, Edita Kiseri, Jonathan Campbell, Brendan MacDonald, Sandra Caufield and Scott Campbell deserve very special thanks as friends and colleagues. Throughout my field research, I was aided by a number of individuals across the Balkans. The most valuable translation assistance I received was from Shpetim Bylykbashi who had worked with CARE International on the implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme. With his deep experience in the social sector, Shpetim was more of a research field

xiv

Acknowledgments

assistant than a translator. Paul Stubbs, Bob Deacon, and my colleagues involved in the volume Social Policy and International Interventions in South Eastern Europe also deserve great thanks for teaching me so much about contemporary social policy in Europe. To name all of the other individuals in the region who went out of their way to offer help and insight during the research of the dissertation would require an extra volume. To the many who offered their help throughout my visits to the Balkans, you have my sincere gratitude. I would also like to thank the people here in New York who have been so helpful through the long process of researching and writing this book. In particular, my dissertation committee at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research was outstanding in their support. Aristide Zolberg offered help and guidance from the day I arrived at the New School. His insight into the variety of questions that arose from the research was always especially sharp. David Plotke showed extraordinary leadership in guiding the dissertation to its completion. For that I am especially grateful. I offer my deep thanks to Susan L. Woodward of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for her tremendous patience in helping decode the intricacies of Yugoslavia and what came after. And of course, appreciation goes to my colleagues in the Department of Government and Politics at St. John’s University. On a personal note, my deepest thanks and appreciation go to my parents, my family, my wife, and son. My mom and dad, along with my sisters, Stephanie and Kristine and their families, have been continual sources of support and encouragement. My wife, Emily, has been both an indispensable help and an inspiration. And my son, Pompeo, who arrived between the research and the publication, is an unbelievable gift. Whatever useful insights that are within the dissertation are thanks to the assistance of these and others too numerous to mention. Whatever mistakes and errors within are mine alone. Although all of the material included is the original work of the author, earlier and edited versions of chapters 1 and 3 appeared in the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development vol. 2, no. 3, 2006, and Social Policy and International Intervention in South Eastern Europe, edited by Deacon and Stubbs and published by Edward Elgar Press, respectively.

List of Acronyms

AAK AKR ADRA CRS CSW DSS HDI IP JIAS JUL KFOR KLA KP LDD LDK LDP LKÇK LPK M/DLSW MTS NATO PDK PISG RAE SFRY SOK SPO SRS SRSG UNHCR UNMIK WFP

Alliance for the Future of Kosovo Alliance for a New Kosovo Adventist Development and Relief Agency Catholic Relief Services Center for Social Work Democratic Party of Serbia Human Development Index Implementing Partner Joint Interim Administrative Structures Yugoslav Left Kosovo Force Kosovo Liberation Army (also UÇK) Koalition Povratak (Coalition Return) Democratic League of Dardania Democratic League of Kosovo Local Distribution Partner National Movement for the Liberation of Kosova Popular Movement for the Liberation of Kosova Ministry / Department of Labour and Social Welfare Mother Teresa Charitable and Humanitarian Society North Atlantic Treaty Organization Democratic Party of Kosovo Provisional Institutions for Self-Government Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Statistics Office of Kosovo Serbian Renewal Movement Serbian Radical Party Special Representative of the Secretary-General United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo World Food Programme


Introduction

Once a nearly forgotten corner of southeastern Europe, Kosovo has become a touchstone of the transformation of international politics at the turn of the twenty-first century. In spring 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) waged a 78-day campaign of airstrikes against the Republic of Serbia over the province. Ostensibly aimed at ending the ethnic violence that the Milošević regime was directing toward the province’s majority Albanian population, the action was the most aggressive instance of humanitarian intervention up to that time. For liberal idealists like Vaclav Havel, the NATO intervention was the first war waged “in the name of principles and values (1999).” For others, the NATO action was an especially dangerous example of Western ideological overreach (Chomsky 2000). From either perspective, Kosovo set a precedent. For those who supported the intervention, the NATO airstrikes were the first step toward dismantling sovereignty as a shield behind which perpetrators of massive human rights violations could hide. On the opposite side, the intervention was perceived as the triumph of military force over international law. In either case, Kosovo became shorthand for a transformation in international relations. In early 2008, nine years after it had reached a crisis point and the massive and controversial international intervention was launched, the challenge of Kosovo returned, despite dramatic transformations in the global and regional context. Still a site that embodied fundamental contradictions within a changing international system, the question now focused on the issue of Kosovo’s political independence from Serbia. After failing to achieve a negotiated settlement between the Albanian dominated government in Prishtinë and the Serbian government in Belgrade, the international community was forced to contend with the unfinished business of its earlier intervention. On February 17, 2008, the provincial government declared independence. It was immediately recognized by the United States, France, Great Britain, and a number of other states. Russia, China, and many other states refused recognition,

2

Wa r a n d S o c i a l W e l f a r e

arguing that the creation of a new, independent Kosovo was a violation of international law. Once again its potential to set a precedent for change made Kosovo important for the study of international politics. The longterm impact of these new precedents remain unclear, although Russian intervention in Georgia in summer 2008 indicates that the effects will be felt in a variety of unsettling ways. Thanks to the international intervention, United Nations (UN), through the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), governed the province from 1999 to 2008. Within the mandate of UNMIK there was a paradox that remains at the heart of the debates over Kosovo’s political status. The sovereignty of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and now Serbia, was officially preserved in UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which created the UN mission. The resolution established UNMIK as a “transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions (UNSC 1999).” According to the first special representative of the secretary general for UNMIK, Bernard Kouchner, during his tenure in Kosovo he took to reading the resolution each morning, and never managed to decode exactly how to resolve the contradictions of sovereignty and self-government (Chesterman 2004, 132). With Kosovo formally independent, the paradox continues as Realpolitik power analyses of Russian and American interests compete against liberal interpretations that argue for an incorporation of Kosovo into an enlarged European institutional network. Issues of sovereignty, self-determination, the protection of minorities, and the proper role of multilateral institutions all come to a fore as the province moves through another moment of historical contingency. For Kosovo to emerge from international multilateral administration as an independent state represents a victory for humanitarian intervention, a supreme example of the arbitrary use of power by the West, the realization of national self-determination for an oppressed people, and a violation of the most basic foundations of sovereignty. Kosovo encompasses all of these contradictory definitions. In this sense, it lies at the intersection of multiple competing theories and interpretations of international politics at the turn of the century, making it a compelling subject for study. These interlocking and contradictory theories overlay a more concrete Kosovo populated by real people living their daily lives. Rather than focusing on the theoretical implications of what Kosovo represents as an abstraction in the arena of international relations, this book addresses Kosovo as it was at the moment of post-conflict reconstruction, and examines how it has been rebuilt. Emerging from a brutal and intense conflict, deeply damaged, the people of Kosovo expected a different

Introduction

3

future. For Kosovo Albanians, that future seemed potentially brighter. For Kosovo Serbs, it was more fearful. For the other communities, who are so often left out of the analysis, the Turks, Bosniaks, Goranci, Roma, Egyptian, and Ashkali, the future was even more difficult to discern. The one certainty was that the future was to be brought into reality under the guidance of the international community. The province became the subject of the most extensive UN reconstruction and transitional administration mission of its type to date. The UN, international and local NGOs, donor agencies, and civil society organizations were engaged in rebuilding a functioning social structure and simultaneously creating a new democratic order. My central argument is that a core part of this process was the establishment of a new social welfare regime that would provide content for the social component of citizenship. How Kosovo society chose to extend the benefits of social inclusion would help define the parameters of a new post-conflict citizenship. The social dimension is only one facet of citizenship, but it is one that has arguably received the least attention in the study of post-conflict reconstruction. Other aspects such as the rebuilding of the judicial system, the creation of a civil police force, the establishment of a security environment, or the design of a democratic electoral mechanism often garnered more attention (see Holm and Eide 2000, Caplan 2005, Noel 2005, Call 2007 among others). With the exception of a set of literature that is centered on the innovative work of Bob Deacon and Paul Stubbs, few analysts have focused on the role of social policy in post-conflict transitions (see Deacon and Stubbs 2007; Deacon 1996). Through this study I have attempted to use the Kosovo case to bring analytical attention to the many questions of post-conflict reconstruction in the social welfare sector. The genesis of this book comes from my experiences in Kosovo in the summer of 2000, when I worked on the initial implementation of the post-conflict Social Assistance Scheme. The plan was meant to facilitate a transition away from the humanitarian assistance programs launched in the immediate aftermath of the entry of NATO and the UN into the province. I describe the details of the plan and its implementation in Chapter 3. My particular role in the process at the time was as a consultant to the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) humanitarian assistance field teams in the Prizren region, primarily helping to coordinate operations with local NGOs and community emergency councils and the recently reestablished Centers for Social Work (CSWs). The NGOs and community emergency councils had played an active role distributing aid during the crisis, while the CSWs were just beginning to take responsibility for delivering long-term assistance. I had first arrived in Kosovo in July 1999

4


as part of the CRS humanitarian assistance team so I already had a close working relationship with most of the team members, the local NGOs and emergency council leadership, and the CSW staff. Even in the early stages of implementation it was clear that managing the transition from humanitarian operations to a full-fledged social assistance system was an imposing challenge and that the lessons learned in the process could prove important for future post-conflict reconstruction missions. In the first stages, the implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme was a high-stakes affair involving a very rapid and complex deployment of people and resources across Kosovo. In many ways it continued the emergency humanitarian response programs out of which the program had emerged. Humanitarian assistance programs are, at their root, logistical exercises involving the movement and redistribution of commodities. CRS and the other NGOs distributed items deemed useful for survival in the aftermath of an emergency. These included flour, beans, salt, and sugar, as well as plastic sheeting (usually bright blue with the distinctive UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] logo), “hygiene kits”, blankets, and mattresses. Sometimes a donor would send along special items such as toys for children, cooking and heating stoves, mattresses, or, on one memorable occasion, bright pink and blue snow suits donated by an American ski lodge that was cleaning out its old rental supplies. Simply put, container ships arrived at either Bar, Montenegro, or Thessaloníki, Greece, and unloaded commodities that were then trucked to warehouses run by international NGOs in Kosovo. The NGOs forwarded these items in smaller loads to local NGOs for immediate distribution. Because of certain characteristics of the postconflict environment such as damaged roads (more often as a result of too much tank traffic than actual combat), poor communications, unregulated traffic, unexploded ordinance and land mines, and general confusion, this straightforward logistics exercise became a complex affair. It was further complicated by the sheer volume of the distribution requirements. At that stage in the operations, the international agencies were blanketing Kosovo with post-conflict aid. Every family or individual who was registered with one of the local NGOs was receiving aid without any qualifications. At its height, the CRS humanitarian assistance program, only one of the various programs working in the province at the time, was moving 300 metric tons of food and other goods out per day. The same amount was expected to arrive at the warehouse daily in order to maintain stocks. Similar operations were being run by Mercy Corps, CARE, the International Rescue Committee, Action Against Hunger, World Vision, and other international NGOs, not only in food relief, but also in housing materials. Massive humanitarian assistance was delivered

Introduction

5

in Kosovo in summer 1999 in an extraordinarily fast-paced operation. It was from this environment that the social welfare program emerged. The process that became known as the social welfare transition was a multifaceted transformation of the humanitarian assistance network. The World Food Programme (WFP) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were both determined to end their post-conflict food aid programs in Kosovo as rapidly as possible. There was no indication that there would be a long-term need for food aid so all of the international NGOs supported this decision at least in theory. The larger risk of continuing the aid operations was that it would permanently damage food markets and creating an aid dependency dynamic. However, it was clear to most involved that even though the immediate conflict-related need for food could be accommodated by market forces, a residual number of families would be still be in need. Many of these families faced some sort of challenge that made their food security particularly precarious. Often this situation was not related to the conflict whatsoever. In the terminology of the ex-Yugoslav social workers and NGO volunteers, these were “social cases.” Many of them had been receiving government assistance prior to the conflict and the ethnic polarization of the province. During the course of the conflict most of the traditional social case from the Kosovo Albanian community had been receiving aid from the Mother Teresa Charitable and Humanitarian Society (MTS), a pervasive grassroots community organization with branches and subbranches in nearly every village and neighborhood, rather than the Yugoslav state agency. Although MTS did deliver to some members of the other communities, most non-Albanians had continued to receive assistance from the weakened Yugoslav state system or from the Yugoslav Red Cross. Other families, who had not been in need before the conflict, such as those that had lost the major breadwinner during the war, would now also be in longterm need. In the immediate post-conflict emergency period all of these families were simply absorbed into the blanket food aid program run by the local and international NGOs. As the emergency food aid program was ending, it became clear that there would be a need to transform the NGO humanitarian assistance system to a public social welfare program. Essentially, the transition process was to involve transferring responsibility for social assistance from the private, ethnicized civil society-based NGO network to a public state-based institutional program. Simultaneously, that public program would have to be reconstructed from the remnants of the Yugoslav system. Ideally, the private, civil society aspect would continue to function as an adjunct to the state social welfare system.

6


My professional experience ran parallel to the transition process. In July 1999 I was posted in the CRS humanitarian assistance program. As the program moved from humanitarian assistance to the social assistance program in summer 2000, my position changed from field officer to consultant on the social assistance transition. These two positions provided an unusual opportunity to observe the development of the new social welfare program. The perspectives that I gleaned in doing these roles were the foundation for the research that informs this book. I was both participant and observer in the transition process. It should be noted that throughout the process my positions were very locally based. In the humanitarian assistance team I worked in the municipalities in the Prizren region, primarily Suva Reka, Dragash, and Prizren itself. As a consultant for the social welfare transition, I worked almost exclusively with the CRS teams in the Prizren region. I was never high enough in the administrative hierarchy to make substantive decisions about either the humanitarian assistance policies or the design of the social welfare program. Of the four municipalities that form the core of the empirical analysis that follows in chapters 4 and 5, I worked directly in two, Malishevë and Prizren, during my professional tenure in Kosovo from July 1999 to August 2000. I came to know Skenderaj and Kamenicë through my later field research. As a humanitarian assistance field officer I had the privilege of immediate access to international and local NGOs as they went about the distribution process. I was able to directly observe the interaction of a variety of civil society and popular organizations as they navigated the intricacies of the international humanitarian aid system. As the international donor agencies began to reduce the food aid available, I was with local CRS field teams, organizing and hosting public focus group meetings to discuss the implications of the reductions with community members. When it became clear that there was a need to transition away from humanitarian assistance to a more sustainable social welfare system, my own position changed. No longer a field officer, I found myself moderating negotiations between local NGOs, the reorganized CSWs, and municipal officials. In the final stage of the initial implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme, we took to the field again, troubleshooting problems with beneficiary lists, qualification criteria, databases, and distribution centers. All of these roles provided a practitioner’s insight into the process of moving from emergency humanitarian assistance to a more established social welfare system. These experiences illuminated some of the tensions that were developing around the emerging social welfare sector. On the whole, my time working professionally in Kosovo gave me a perspective on the province

Introduction

7

I could never have obtained in any other way. Within the wide variety of experience I gained during this time, two particular processes were especially useful in learning about the popular and political dynamic around the transition from humanitarian aid to social assistance. The first were the community focus group meetings organized during the reductions of food aid early in the transition process. These meetings proved to be the only time we were able to get direct feedback from the communities and beneficiaries about the workings of the food aid system, and their expectations of what was to come. What would emerge from my later research as a core problem of the design and implementation of the social welfare program, namely, the lack of popular input through mechanisms of political representation, was first glimpsed in the frustration and anger of these meetings. I analyze these meetings, along with the larger transition process in greater detail in Chapter 3. The second process that was part of my professional work that provided particularly useful insight was a series of discussions that occurred in the four months immediately before the implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme. At that point in the transition process we organized what were known as Field Level Transition Meetings (FLTM), municipal level meetings that brought together representatives of the municipal government, UN community liaisons, and administrators and the directors of the local CSW with the president of the local NGO that had been completing the commodity distributions in the community, most often a branch of MTS. It was in these meetings that the division of labor that would spell out the local public and private partnership for meeting community social needs were worked out. I attended meetings in municipalities across southwest Kosovo, not only in the Prizren region, but also on occasion in the Gjakovë / Dakovica region. Depending on the local political and social context, these meetings varied tremendously in terms of contentiousness, expectations of responsibilities, and understanding of capabilities and capacities. It was the diversity of the Field Level meetings that initially indicated the potential divergence in social welfare policy implementation at the municipal level, a factor that comes to the fore in case study analyses in chapters 4 and 5. A Note on Methodology As important as my experiences in working professionally in post-conflict Kosovo were, the vast majority of the data for this book was gathered during field research trips completed in summer 2001, 2003, and 2004. The most substantial was a 12-week research fellowship in summer 2003 under

8


the auspices of the Social Science Research Council’s Global Security and Cooperation Program, funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Further research was completed in summer 2004 as a Mellon Fellow in Security and Humanitarian Affairs with the Inter-University Consortium on Security and Humanitarian Action based in the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. My prior work in Kosovo facilitated these research trips in that I was able to tap into a network of people across the province for assistance. Although I use some quantitative data obtained through the Statistical Office of Kosovo, the international agencies working locally such as UNDP (United Nations Development Program), OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), international NGOs, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare (MLSW) itself, most of the original data in this work is qualitative and based on in-depth interviews. Interviews were completed within the Ministry / Department of Labour and Social Welfare (M/DLSW) with both Kosovars and international staff. At the CSWs, directors and social workers were interviewed whenever possible. Municipal Health and Social Welfare directors and staff were interviewed when available, as were UNMIK regional and municipal administrators and liaison officers. Representatives of local and international NGOs and civil society organizations provided information in Prishtinë and in the municipalities. In addition to the four municipalities that were included in the book as comparative cases, interviews were completed in Prishtinë, Suva Reka / Suharekë, Deçan / Decani, Mitrovica / Mitrovicë (North and South), and Strpce / Shtërpcë. In part through contacts made in Kosovo earlier, I was able to gain excellent access across the province and at a variety of levels. The language situation in Kosovo throughout the period that I was working in the field was surprisingly well suited for research. Due to the international administration, all of the documents, reports, internal memos and publications of the various Ministries and Departments, both at the provincial and municipal levels, had to be produced in English as well as the local languages. Translations and summaries of local media were distributed daily via e-mail by UNMIK public information officers. Thanks to a very helpful former colleague, I was put on the UNMIK e-mail list and consequently received daily news from Kosovo even while completing the research in New York. The many international NGOs working in partnership with both local NGOs and the emerging social welfare institutions all used English as their primary language. Finally, the extensive international mission has given rise to a very large number of young Kosovars who posses excellent English skills and were

Introduction

9

available as translators. The Kosovo Albanian community has the most translators, but they are readily available across the different ethnic and linguistic communities in the province. Additionally, many of them have sharpened their English skills working for international NGOs on social welfare projects and have direct relevant experience. It is necessary to make another point that has become almost boilerplate in post-Yugoslav scholarship. The use of particular place names throughout the book should in no way be taken as an indication of political leanings or bias of any sort toward one or the other of Kosovo’s communities. I have chosen to use the name “Kosovo” rather than the Albanian Kosova, the inelegant Kosovo/a, or the Serbian Kosovo and Metohija or Kosmet. I chose Kosovo over Kosova for two reasons. First, because the former is dominant in international usage. Second, because the latter, as the Albanian translation, is often taken as a signal in favor of the Albanian community. The only place that Kosova is used in the book is to designate the “Republic of Kosova” period of the Kosovo Albanian parallel regime. As a particular political phenomenon the Republic of Kosova was a highly ethnicized expression of Albanian national ideology. I do not use Kosovo/a because of its inelegance. The traditional Serbian terminology of Kosovo and Metohia is considered overly formal even in most Serbian conversation. The contracted form Kosmet is a remnant of the old Socialist Federal Yugoslavia, and rarely used. I chose the term Kosovar over Kosovan strictly out of aesthetic preference. As far as I know neither has gone into standard usage, and neither signals a bias. For municipal names, I have stated both names initially and thereafter used the name most commonly used among the international community in Kosovo from 1999 to 2007. Generally that name reflects the numerically dominant ethnic group. The spelling of municipal names for both languages comes from the names in usage by the OSCE. Finally, throughout the book I often refer to Kosovo as a province, or refer to Kosovo-wide politics as happening on the “provincial” level. This should not be read to infer any sort of judgment regarding the status of Kosovo as an independent state. This book primarily addresses the post-conflict period when Kosovo was subject to international administration and was, at that time, still technically a province of Serbia.


Chapter 1

The Role Of Social Policy in Post-Conflict Reconstruction With the imperative of the political dimension of peace making, international mediators do not often pay attention to social rights. During the failed Rambouillet negotiations to end the Kosovo conflict, which took place in southern France in February 1999, the U.S. and European diplomats sought strong protections of political and civil rights. The Rambouillet Accords that emerged from those mediation sessions, and which was ultimately rejected by the Yugoslav authorities in Belgrade, addressed political rights through powerful autonomous local representative political institutions such as a Provincial Assembly, a Presidency of the Assembly, and a “President of Kosovo.” Civil rights were addressed with proposals for reforms of judiciary and legal institutions detailed enough to specify even the standard police uniform. Social rights, however, were relegated to the sidelines. The accords only provided that residents of Kosovo would be able to freely call upon the “institutions of the Republic of Serbia” to express their social rights through “participation in social benefits programs, such as care for war veterans, pensioners, and disabled persons”. Left off the table during negotiations, social rights rarely rise to the top of the agenda for post-conflict reconstruction. Despite this neglect, social policy reform is as vital for successful reconstruction as political, economic, and judicial reform. The integrative mechanisms of social welfare programs are one of the functional bases for incorporating citizens into economic life, providing a constraining framework for the labor market and wages. Through social policy and

12


redistributive programs, the state provides access to resources necessary for survival, promotes employment, and helps generate economic growth. On a more theoretical level, social policy is one of the variables that validates or disqualifies a society’s claims toward justice. The importance of the relationship between social policy, social justice, and post-conflict reconstruction cannot be overstated. Postwar reconstruction is a normative political enterprise that aims to create new political, economic, and social contexts to address issues at the core of the conflict. Social policy—the manner in which the state defines and meets its responsibilities toward its citizens in areas such as assistance for the needy, unemployment and disability insurance, social services, and old-age pensions—was often an element of contention in the preceding conflict (Woodward 1995b). It also serves as a foundation for successful reconstruction and, potentially, reconciliation. In broad theoretical terms, social policy is an articulation of the rights and duties of social citizenship. A state that defines its responsibilities in inclusive terms, and meets those responsibilities, embodies a strong citizenship regime that generates stability and cohesion. A highly focused definition of social policy offers a strong foundation for incorporating attention to social welfare issues into reconstruction efforts. One of the founding deans of the study of social policy, Richard Titmuss argued that social policy aims at being “beneficent, redistributive and concerned with economic as well as non-economic objectives” (1974, 30). More recently, Harold Wilensky, whose vast volume of work also sits at the foundations of the study of social policy, identified “pensions, death benefits, and disability insurance; health insurance; education; family policies; job injury insurance; unemployment and related labor-market policies; war victims’ benefits; and miscellaneous aid to the poor” as the eight core areas of social policy (2002, 61). Addressing these policy sectors in post-conflict reconstruction can affect change throughout society by distributing risk or insecurity across social groups, reducing the potential suffering of any given individual at the expense of shared but widely dispersed costs. Some studies of social policy (Wilensky 2002, Hacker 2004) have used the terminology of risk rather than insecurity, but the concepts are closely parallel, and addressing them as a single idea helps to bring together the literature of development and humanitarian assistance where attention has been drawn to the concerns of human security and insecurity, with more general studies of social policy. A specific and well-articulated definition for social policy helps clarify priorities for post-conflict reconstruction. Too often, post-conflict social policy has been misunderstood as either a narrow, project-centered focus or an overly broad conception of loosely connected social, economic, and cultural conditions, neither of which

The Role of Social Policy

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addresses the issue of how to create the necessary institutions for social citizenship. The destructive force of war is tremendous, and the post-conflict reconstruction challenge is always immense. Picking up the pieces left behind by war and reconstructing a functioning society have become central concerns for the international community, falling under a variety of related headings such as peace building, nation-building, or postconflict reconstruction. Each involves implementing policies to address the immediate results of the conflict, promote conflict mitigation, and build institutions for governance. The academic literature on such operations has grown substantially over the years, particularly during the 1990s. This literature complements an increasing number of international organizations, agencies and institutions that provide operational post-conflict assistance. Thomas Weiss neatly sums up the demands these organizations face: “A task list would include transforming the security environment, strengthening local administrative capacities, reconstructing the political processes, and re-knitting the local social fabric” (2001, 230). These are all daunting tasks, but re-knitting the social fabric stands out as especially nebulous. How does one repair the fabric of a society torn by war? And in cases of seemingly intractable conflict, where violent contention seems woven into this very social fabric, repair is hardly even the goal; what is needed is a more challenging and fundamental reconfiguration of relationships. At the foundation of this book is an argument for the importance of addressing social welfare issues in post-conflict reconstruction comprehensively, factoring in not just the immediate needs, but also long-term political, economic, and social development. This first chapter highlights social policy as central to the repair and reconfiguration of the social fabric; it argues that social policy lays a normative and economic foundation for post-conflict reconstruction. On the normative level, social policy provides a tool for evaluating the character of a society in relation to justice as social inclusion. This evaluation rests on the inclusiveness of the emerging post-conflict citizenship regime. Economically, social policy functions as a mechanism for human security, which in turn supports reengagement with the economic system. In this chapter I critique the operational emphasis on social projects as opposed to broader efforts at social policy reform, arguing that social policy formation in the projectoriented context is dominated by a limited number of elites, often led by expatriate advisers. The process specifically excludes traditional determinants of social policy such as popular movements, organized labor, and progressive political parties. As a result, it has little local input and may be at odds with efforts to build democratic mechanisms for social inclusion.

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Ultimately, I argue that international actors such as the UN and large national donor agencies such as USAID or the UK’s DFID (Department for International Development), as well as local organizations and political leaders who are engaged in post-conflict reconstruction need to pay careful attention to social policy in order to design programs that contribute to long-term success. This attention must move beyond the creation of specific social projects, and address the need to create local institutions of policy formation and implementation. These institutions must provide space for local political forces that represent valid constituencies to express policy preferences that reflect appropriate interests. In Kosovo, institutions for social welfare and social policy were successfully created after the conflict, but few, if any, agents of local political interest took part in the process. As a result these institutions have contributed to the broader social reconstruction efforts in only a limited and constrained manner. Just Social Policy and Its Relationship to Political Stability and Social Solidarity Social policy plays an important normative role by defining the parameters of justice in a society. Political theorists have argued that social justice in turn undergirds stability and fosters solidarity. Concerns of post-conflict justice have consistently been central to reconstruction and reconciliation; however, these concerns often focus on claims related to addressing human rights violations. Gary Bass in his work on post-conflict trials and tribunals argues, for example, that legal prosecutions of war criminals can “make the difference between war and peace” (2000, 6). For the wars of the former Yugoslavia, the emphasis on achieving post-conflict justice in the legal realm has been placed in the hands of the UN-sanctioned International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Efforts by the ICTY to capture and prosecute suspected war criminals have occasionally dominated local politics in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo. Despite this emphasis on retributive justice, nearly all international and local actors also focus on restorative justice, working toward (re)building democratic, multiethnic, or tolerant societies— essentially “just societies.” These concerns for social justice are less often explicitly articulated in relation to broader reconstruction programs than are legal standards of retributive justice. Incorporating justice claims such as demands for social inclusion, economic opportunity, and rights for social security into reconstruction programs strengthen social systems by contributing to overall political stability. This stabilizing effect derives from its quality of inclusion and integration. As the liberal political theorist John Rawls argued,


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because included participants recognize themselves as beneficiaries of a just system of social regulation, such a system is self-reinforcing (1971, 490–491). Furthermore, “a society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable” (1971, 498). This suggests an inclusive system that incorporates members of the polity as citizens. Anything less means the exclusion of a segment or segments of the polity as lesser or second-class citizens. This type of segmented social citizenship is especially relevant in post-conflict environments like Kosovo where parallel arrangements defined by ethnic identity have repeatedly played an important role in the polarization of the local conflict. Creating the conditions for a selfstabilizing society while avoiding the pitfalls of stratification has clear implications for post-conflict reconstruction. Violent civil conflict can be seen as a dramatic manifestation of social, political, and economic exclusion. Building up to a deadly conflict in many cases corresponds with a parallel process of popular commitments to polarized identities articulated through social, political, economic, and cultural institutions. Membership in conflicting communities—in the case of Kosovo, ethnic identity communities—defines strict boundaries of exclusion and overrides broader conceptions of citizenship. From 1989 to 1999 the interaction between the rise of Serbian and Albanian nationalisms led to increasing levels of exclusion between the two communities. The groups engaged in a process of separation that was mutually reinforcing. At the same time, these processes generated high levels of internal social solidarity. This social solidarity was supported by political action and institutionalized self-help organizations. The legal maneuvers of the Belgrade regime to restrict the political autonomy of the province, and the waves of dismissals of Albanian state employees, made access to public services increasingly contentious and denied Kosovo Albanians their full rights of participation. This exclusion was reinforced by the Kosovo Albanian system of parallel, autonomous, quasi-state institutions in the most important social sectors—health, education, and social welfare. This ethnicized self-help network, which rose to prominence before and during the conflict, sat in opposition to the state, which in turn had become dominated by the Serbian community. Overcoming this institutionalized social exclusion requires providing access to the resources needed to participate in the economic, political, social, and cultural life of the polity. The extension of social rights by the state as a protective measure against commodification is a core component of inclusion and successful post-conflict reconstruction. Access to social rights marks the inclusive/exclusive boundaries of citizenship itself and is often at the center of the political struggle of a violent conflict. Effective post-conflict reconstruction addresses this

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cleavage and reconstructs an inclusive citizenship. In economic terms, social rights are the right to maintain one’s existence as human person outside the commodified system of the market (Esping-Anderson 1990, 23). Exclusion from social citizenship is a denial of the social rights that protects citizens from deprivation caused by unemployment, illness, old age, or ill fortune. Rebuilding the programs of social policy—the public guarantees against these deprivations—creates the practical methods for addressing this problem of exclusion. Further, in a post-conflict context, these programs must be structured so as to provide security across the conflict cleavages. A citizen denied social rights is deprived of his or her full rights and is subject to “gradations of citizenship” (Heater 2004, 103). Prior to the international intervention in 1999, Albanians in Yugoslav Kosovo saw their form of citizenship degraded as compared to their Serbian neighbors. Since the intervention, Kosovo Serbs argue that their citizenship has been similarly degraded. Exclusion from the full rights of citizenship is not only the denial of rights of political participation such as the right to vote or stand for public office, but also the denial of economic and social opportunities. Attention to social exclusion expands concern with the condition of poverty and “refers not only to low consumption due to material deprivation, but to the inability of the poor to participate fully through exercising their social, cultural and political rights as citizens” (Powell 2001, 91). Powell further elaborates that “social exclusion is a counter-concept to citizenship” (2001, 91). Such exclusions relate directly to a divided polity such as Kosovo. Citizenship cleavages based on economic exclusion translate into, and reinforce, other forms of exclusion, such as those based on religious, racial, cultural, or, as in Kosovo, ethnic identity. Nancy Fraser (1997, 17–18) and Charles Taylor (1994, 36) separately argue that cultural misrecognition constitutes a basic injustice. Powell (2001, 92) cites Fraser’s representation of “cultural and symbolic injustice”—cultural domination, nonrecognition and cultural disrespect—as delimiting the “new paradigm of injustice” which is focused on misrecognition (1997, 14). With economic concerns always high on the list of post-conflict concerns, attention to social policy is a natural corollary for guaranteeing that economic disparities are not transformed into cultural, ethnic, racial, or religious cleavages. In Kosovo, parallel governing structures persisted after the conflict, and in the social welfare sector became the foundation for the postconflict aid distribution network. This was especially true of food aid. From June to October 1999 the vast majority of the more than 1.3 million food aid beneficiaries (Development Researchers Network


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2002, 9) were Kosovo Albanians. They received aid through a system that was based on the same network that had functioned as a parallel social welfare system during the conflict. Similarly, in the postwar environment, the Kosovo Serb community benefited from its own parallel social welfare system that existed outside the official system. This system was based on the former Serbian state structures, and sat in opposition to the UN-administered system. In both the Albanian and Serbian cases, the beneficiaries fiercely defended the justness of the system. In a perverse manner, this follows Rawls’ process of creating social solidarity through the public sense of justice. In these cases what was generated was a limited and exclusive sense of solidarity. Building a unified social welfare system that is perceived as just on both sides of the ethnic divide is central to overcoming these boundaries of exclusion in the post-conflict period. By fulfilling an important aspect of citizenship rights, social policy functions as an integrative mechanism that furthers social solidarity. This integrative function of social policy is a core part of the work of many of the most established social policy scholars including Richard Titmuss (1971; 1974) Harold Wilensky (2002), Gøsta Esping-Anderson (1990), and T. H. Marshall (1964). In more contemporary scholarship Paul Pierson (1994) and Deborah Yashar (2005), among others, address similar issues on how social policy sets the parameters of the citizen-state relationship in regard to social rights. Returning to Wilensky (2002, 211), “The essence of the welfare state is government-protected minimum standards of income, nutrition, health and safety, education and housing assured to every citizen as a social right and not as a charity.” Gøsta Esping-Anderson (1990, 21) attributes this “proposition that social citizenship constitutes the core idea of a welfare state” to T. H. Marshall (1964, 10), who characterized the development of citizenship as the progressive expansion of a basket of rights and obligations. In Marshall’s schema these rights and obligations fall under the consecutive development of civil, political, and social rights. Each set of rights and obligations is supported by institutions for legal recourse, political representation, and social welfare. Marshall’s citizenship develops temporally, with civil rights prominent in the eighteenth century, political rights in the nineteenth century, and social rights in the twentieth century. Inquiring into the equalizing potential of social rights, Marshall (1964, 45) concludes that the “preservation of economic inequalities has been made more difficult by the enrichment of the status of citizenship.” The extension of social rights erodes the practical differences of class. Despite recurrent arguments against the welfare state, these

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programs have remained at the center of modern democracies. As Yashar argued, social rights are an important part of the “content of citizenship” (2005, 47). The potential positive role of social welfare policies have not gone unquestioned. In the developed industrial democracies, criticism of social welfare programs has been a part of conservative electoral strategy going back as far as the mid-1960s (Wilensky 2002, 363). These critiques of social welfare programs within domestic politics eventually translated into constraints on international assistance for social spending among the international financial institutions. Within the industrialized democracies critiques of social welfare spending resulted in electoral victories for conservative politicians throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s. These political leaders, such as President Ronald Reagan in the United States and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom launched sustained efforts at retrenchment. Despite their electoral victories, many social welfare functions have remained politically popular and, for the most part, intact (Pierson 1994, 2, 164; Wilensky 2002, 223–224). Within this, however, there is room for more particular disaggregation as some types of programs have remained more popular than others over time. Programs that bring broad benefits to coherent and large collective actors generate constituencies of political support. Assistance programs targeted toward segments of the population that are hard to organize politically are less likely to remain popular. The most politically successful programs target middle class citizens that are well integrated into the larger political system. Social security and pensions have retained strong political support, while social assistance to poor families and individuals has had a more difficult time finding political backers (Hacker 2004, 247; Wilensky 2002, 222).1 This differentiation of support for various types of social welfare programs relates directly to the question of their post-conflict reconstruction. If the long-run goal is to build programs that will endure over time and become core features of the local political economy, then programs that generate strong, mobilized constituencies will be appealing policy options. Conversely, if policy planners aim to design programs that will be short-lived, or that can be easily transformed through relatively minor bureaucratic or administrative adjustments, the final policy outcomes will reflect those aims. In the post-conflict context much of the infrastructure of the governing institutions is open for negotiation, including the determination of the type of social welfare regime and the programs that will compose it. The outcome in terms of the social content of citizenship is determined in both the design and implementation of the social welfare policies and programs.


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Although not often applied to post-conflict contexts, social policy and, in particular, the programs identified with the welfare state are key components of an integrated society. Titmuss (1971, 224) pointed out this relationship between social policy and integration: Thus, in terms of policies, what unites [social policy] with ethical considerations is its focus on integrative systems: on processes, transactions and institutions which promote an individual’s sense of identity, participation and community and allow him more freedom of choice for the expression of altruism and which, simultaneously, discourage a sense of individual alienation.

In a society like Kosovo, where distinct communities sit in opposition to one another, the freedom to transcend these separate collective identities for a larger polity is vital for effective reconstruction. Following Titmuss, George and Wilding later argued that social policy contributed to political stability on a number of grounds, including the displacement of conflict from the central social cleavage, which, like Marshall, they had identified as class, to more manageable cleavages (1984, 215–217). Wilensky articulates how the welfare state builds solidarity through the distribution of risk across “generations, localities, classes, ethnic and racial groups, and educational levels” describing it as a “major source of social integration in modern society” (2002, 211). The distribution of risk underpins social solidarity through two methods. The first is to provide the necessary protections for full participation in market economies. With risk spread across society, citizens are better able to take advantage of entrepreneurial, educational, or professional opportunities. The second is to link the citizen to the source of this protection, be it the state or some other collective organization. The conclusion that can be drawn is that when social rights are considered a component of full citizenship and are guaranteed by the state, they draw the loyalty of citizens. The stabilizing effect of social policy is determined by the actual social programs. If the devil is in the details, then the details of social policy are the specific content of the social programs that are determined by the policy. Scholars have identified specific policy configurations that particularly encourage social solidarity. Most notably, Esping-Anderson (1990, 27–28) argued that highly decommodifying and universalist social welfare institutions promote a broad sense of solidarity. As defined by EspingAnderson, decommodification indicates the provision of “a service as a matter of right, and when a person can maintain a livelihood without reliance on the market” (1990, 22). Social welfare programs can promote social solidarity and stability, provided they are universal, decommodifying, and

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designed and implemented with these aims in mind. But they can also create or reinforce economic and social stratification. Poorly designed welfare programs can create social stigma or dependency if they are tightly targeted toward economic or social status (Esping-Anderson 1990, 55). Similarly, if they are strictly differentiated, either in design or practice, toward a particular collective group—an ethnic or religious community— they can exacerbate the cleavages between one group and the rest of the polity. Titmuss drew attention to the differing effects of welfare models with his three-part typology. Esping-Anderson later followed a similar model as Titmuss. Both disaggregate general social policy systems into three, roughly parallel models, and similarly argue that one type holds more potential for social integration. Titmuss’s models were “residual welfare,” “industrial achievement-performance,” and “institutional redistributive” (1974, 30–31). Esping-Anderson presented a schema of “liberal,” “corporatist,” and “social-democratic” (1990, 26–27). The residual welfare and the liberal welfare state are both minimalist constructions, with a welfare system that is a safety net of last resort for those unable to provide for themselves through the market. The industrial achievementperformance and the corporatist models both see welfare institutions as adjuncts of the economic system. These systems provide benefits based on traditional class or status hierarchies. The final categories, the industrial redistributive and social-democratic models, are built on universalist conceptions of social rights. These typological models, though limited, are useful for post-conflict policy makers in providing a framework for designing and evaluating social programs. As Lendvai and Stubbs point out the use of traditional social welfare regime types can be problematic because they constrain the emerging systems into paradigms that may not be applicable (2009, 3–4). Instead of the more traditional frameworks, they argue for conceptualizing emerging social welfare regimes as “assemblages,” which allows for greater flexibility and variation. This represents an innovative and incisive way to think about the configurations of social policy programs in emerging, and particularly post-conflict contexts. It also presents a challenge at the nexus where methodology of research and analysis meets practical politics. Traditional social welfare regime types have proven useful not only for what they tell us about the characteristics of the system that is in place, but also about the politics that constructed that system. Collective actors engage in political action to establish welfare regimes that reflect their interests. Liberal regimes, for example, reflect the results of political contestation that feature powerful collective actors such as large well-financed private industrial capitalists, who identify such a regime as strongly protective of their interests. Corporatist or social


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democratic regimes, conversely reflect outcomes of political struggle in places where collective actors such as organized labor have succeeded in defending their interests in the process of policy making. This is especially illuminating for the post-conflict context, where outcomes are shaped by radically different actors such as international NGOs or intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Regime types can help us identify who has successfully engaged in the political and social struggles that result in social policy formation, and who has been excluded. With the social assistance and pension programs in place, the social welfare regime that has emerged in Kosovo has taken on a more concrete and traditionally analyzable form. In short, the Kosovo regime leans heavily toward a liberal, or even neoliberal model. The Social Assistance Scheme is characterized by strict qualification criteria, means-testing, and modest benefits (UNMIK REG 2003/28). All three of these characterizations—the qualification criteria, practice of means-testing, and the level of benefits— emerged from specific policy choices during the design phase. The weak structural universalism of the criteria is further limited by implementation that is bifurcated along the dominant ethnic lines. The parallel shadow administrative system in the Serb areas undermines claims toward creating a nonethnicized system. Failure to incorporate the parallel administration into the emerging state institutions was a major policy failure for the international administration. The new, formally independent state government in Prishtinë continued to struggle with establishing its authority over the parallel structures throughout its first year of existence. As it stood at independence, one can expect the Social Assistance Scheme to encourage the development of overlapping ethnic and economic dualism and to relegate welfare to a safety net rather than a social right. The basic pension, as a citizens’ pension, is more universalistic; however, it is likely that it will be overwhelmed by the contributory schemes that are also written into the Kosovo pension law (UNMIK REG 2001/35). Those schemes are not universal, although they can reasonably be expected to pay better benefits in the future. The extreme modesty of the benefits, as indicated by a very low replacement rate, suggests that the basic pension will not emerge as the dominant form of old-age support in Kosovo. Instead, this program will become the safety net of last resort for the indigent elderly. Over time, a stratified system will likely emerge, with basic pensioners at the bottom. The market promotion inherent in the design of the contributory pension programs will divert the emerging pension regime from a corporatist model to an even more pronounced liberal model than the Social Assistance Scheme. Overall, the social welfare system that has emerged in Kosovo is not likely to realize its full potential to contribute to social solidarity and stability.

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There are two key areas where the welfare regime faces particular strain in relation to solidarity and stability. The first is connected to the question of the ethnicization of the social welfare system itself. In the design of the social welfare regime there was a consistent effort to prevent any sort of formal ethnicization, but because of the importance of avoiding potential communal clashes around implementation, an informal ethnic division between the Kosovo Albanian and Serbian communities was allowed to become part of the system. This is seen in the use of the satellite office within minority communities. In other words, buried under the liberal social citizenship of the official program is an unofficial and powerful communal social citizenship. Although in some contexts people may hold multiple citizenships without undue contestation, in the case of Kosovo, division between ethnicized communal citizenship and liberal citizenship is particularly contentious. The second point of strain lies within the liberal conception of citizenship implicit in the official social welfare regime. Post-conflict Kosovo can been seen as a political arena where a number of communal identities have long competed. Much of this book tells a narrative of the social welfare institutions that have supported those competing identities through the conflict. As the competition continues into the post-conflict context, new state social welfare institutions have been constructed to support an official “Kosovar” identity. The liberal characteristics of these institutions leave them inherently weak in their potential power to create a new Kosovar community. Theories of liberal citizenship have traditionally emphasized individual rights, and have been challenged to construct a suitable balance in terms of responsibilities and duties (Yashar 2005, 45; Kymlicka and Norman 1995, 297). Liberal citizenship and its social citizenship counterpart promote a minimalist social structure designed to protect the individual from extreme risks of modern life, but not to interfere with their own choices or sense of autonomy. Contemporary debates have focused on the interaction between ethnic, linguistic, religious or gender communities, and liberal political systems, highlighting the interactions of communal identities and powerful forces of atomization. (Yashar 2005, Okin et al. 1999, Beiner 1995) In Kosovo, the communal identities have been able to dominate the political arena, while the construction of a liberal, civic identity has been difficult to establish. If the social welfare regime is to contribute to building a Kosovar identity, it will need to be an especially strong system in order to gain ground vis-à-vis these stronger communal identities. Yashar’s discussion on the importance of identifying the content of citizenship is instructive on these issues (2005, 45–47). In post-conflict Kosovo the international community attempted to assiduously avoid the


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ethnicization of public institutions. The idea of a multiethnic Kosovo was a key part of the international project in the province. The liberal qualities of the social welfare regime are akin to an effort to promote a liberal citizenship regime that prioritizes individual rights and duties over communal identities and obligations. Despite these efforts, a close examination of the actual content of social citizenship, as manifested in the details of the design and implementation of Kosovo social policy, reveals the potential pitfalls of this type of social citizenship regime. Social Policy, Integration, and Post-Conflict Economic Engagement Reactions against activist social policies have argued that they are an expensive luxury, rather than an integral component to a growing economy. Countering this is a body of well-established scholarship that strongly argues for social policy as integral to economic growth. Most fundamentally, Keynes argued for a social policy that promotes state intervention for employment and economic growth (Shaw 1988, 21–23). Keynesianism advocated interventionist policies to increase employment, boost economic production, and promote political stability after World War II. The lessons of post–World War II Europe for the reconstruction of other post-conflict social welfare regimes, including that in Kosovo, are significant. In the words of Tony Judt “the Second World War transformed both the role of the modern state and the expectations placed upon it” (2005, 73). Much of the postwar recovery of western Europe rested on its adoption of social policies that became the foundations of the modern welfare state. Coming out of the extreme insecurity of total war, Europeans sought stability and as much guaranteed security as possible. The failures of prewar liberalism, as well as the total defeat of fascism, challenged postwar policy planners. In order to revive democracy in Europe, a reordering of state responsibility to it citizens would be necessary (Mazower 1998, 186). Public commitments to full employment, national programs for health care support, and guaranteed pensions were all promoted, as both part of an economic recovery and the moral foundation for the democratic postwar states. Both Judt and Mazower attest to the high costs of these social welfare innovations, pointing out increased rates of public spending across postwar western Europe (Judt 2005, 76; Mazower 1998, 300). Judt goes further, showing the foundations of popular support for these high levels of spending and the taxation that it engendered. In the first place, “the post-war welfare systems were a guarantee of a certain minimum of justice, or fairness” (Judt 2005, 76).

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Secondly, postwar social policy was politically successful because they provided broad benefits across the population. Besides delivering relief to the very poor, these policies also provided access to appropriate benefits for the middle class. As Mazower put it, “It was just a further instance of the way post-war west European democracy had been stabilized by the middle classes turning radical agendas to their own ends” (301). Democratic stabilization through welfare holds direct lessons for the more recent post-conflict situations such as in Kosovo. Although somewhat denigrated through the 1980s and 1990s Keynesian ideas have been reintroduced into the larger economic discourse, in part due to the financial crisis of 2008 (see, e.g., Leijonhufvud 2008; Buiter 2008; Bogle 2008). Even earlier, social welfare theorists were renewing their interest in Keynes’ ideas (Townsend 2002, 5). One of the strengths of Keynesianism is its attention to employment generation. Promoting growth in employment has become almost an article of faith in postconflict reconstruction. As Susan L. Woodward points out, “The critical role of active employment in redirecting behavior and commitments toward peace is so obvious that no one disputes its importance” (2002, 201). Part of a functioning labor market—and successful efforts at employment generation—is social policy. Wilensky shows the success of democratic corporatism in serving as a foundation Keynesian economic policy (2002, 435). Wilensky’s findings are especially important for post-conflict reconstruction because he argued that, specifically in the postwar period of reconstruction (1950–1974), countries that invested heavily in social security had correspondingly high annual growth per capita, low inflation, and—most importantly in the post-conflict context—low unemployment. Five of the top nine economic performers—Germany, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Austria—during this period spent generously on social security (Wilensky 2002, 433–434). These countries were among the most heavily damaged in World War II. Wilensky sees this relationship become increasingly less pronounced after 1974, but adds that “in no period and for no measure of economic performance is social security spending a drag” (2002, 483). Effective social policies created the conditions for better productivity, employment, and economic performance in postwar Western Europe. In a post-conflict situation, laying the institutional foundation for an effective labor market management is a key to reviving employment generation. Social welfare systems, as the combined programs of social policy, intercede as mediating agents to reduce the potential impact of negative outcomes in the labor market through the redistributing material goods and extending insurance to guard against risk. There are numerous methods of redistribution, from subsidized private markets for loans that


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provide low-cost capital to state-administered grants to the indigent; from microcredit schemes to food stamps. No type of redistribution sits exclusively at one end or the other of the private-public mix: public and private agencies both make efforts at redistribution, at times separately and at others in cooperation. In Kosovo, as in many other post-conflict areas, the most active redistribution programs have been organized by international and local relief and development NGOs. Insurance programs also take multiple forms, such as unemployment or disability payments, and similarly are not necessarily either public or private. Private insurance markets coexist with state programs. Public social welfare programs grant access to resources (redistribution) or protection from risk (insurance) as rights commensurate with citizenship status. Private programs function through a market purchase, private charity, or as a right derived from membership in a mutual-aid association. Although the market for private social insurance protection is currently underdeveloped in Kosovo, the structure of the new pension regime can be expected to encourage growth in this sector. The public pension program, as a relatively limited program, will most likely be marginalized over time unless there is a transformation in its scope and breadth. These two types of social insurance programs will establish either market-based relationships to old-age protection, or citizenship-based protection. The impact of social welfare programs varies depending on implementation and program details. Social welfare institutions have variable effects at the economic as well as social levels. As policy tools, social welfare programs cannot be generalized in terms of outcomes. Redistribution programs that support the unemployed interact directly with the labor market, but the outcomes of this interaction is dependent on a wide array of design, implementation, and contextual variables. Using Esping-Anderson’s terminology, unemployment programs may be highly decommodifying, giving workers greater flexibility and market power as they negotiate, explicitly or implicitly, for higher wages. Alternatively, by making benefits conditional, as they currently are in Kosovo, they may undermine labor’s negotiating power by prohibiting its full market engagement. Other redistribution networks engage other market sectors such as food, housing, or capital. These programs have similarly contingent effects, depending on program design and implementation (Esping-Anderson 1990, 47, 79).Stated explicitly, the specific content of the social programs reflect the social policy and ultimately determine their practical effect. Although very different in terms of program goals, humanitarian aid as a resource distribution program functions much like a social welfare program. This functional similarity can lead to unexpected linkages

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between humanitarian aid programs and emerging post-conflict social welfare programming. In Kosovo the combined World Food Programme (WFP) and U.S. Agency for International Development-Food for Peace (USAID-FFP) humanitarian distributions provided food aid as a protective measure for war-affected and vulnerable populations (Development Researchers Network 2002, 8). The distributions counteracted the postconflict scarcity of commodities and prevented dramatic price inflation. In the food commodity sector—the most important sector for social policy in Kosovo because it was the distribution system that led directly to the first major post-conflict welfare program, the Social Assistance Scheme— the market intervention was largely successful. Food prices for staples such as flour and cooking oil did not rise steeply from July 1999, when postconflict humanitarian aid began, to March 2002 when the WFP closed its operations (WFP 2002). Interactions between food aid and commodities markets are well studied, and the effects of distributions on market prices are often monitored. Aid agencies commonly gather data on commodity prices in the course of operations, looking for market distortions. In Kosovo, the larger and more important impact of the transition from humanitarian aid to social assistance was on the design and institutionalization of the social welfare system. This impact is a much less observed phenomenon. Food aid beneficiary criteria strongly influenced the social assistance criteria. Since targeting is such a strong component of food aid, the social assistance program ultimately included a strong element of needs-testing. The determination of benefit levels largely followed budgetary constraints that was more similar to NGO-based grant and project management mechanism, rather than building on expectations of taxation or contributions as would be more traditional in a public social welfare program. In practical terms, this resulted in relatively meager benefits and strict beneficiary criteria. Both program characteristics lower the potential decommodification quality of the social welfare program, potentially depressing local wages and reducing incentives to return to the legitimate labor market. In political terms, relying on international humanitarian NGOs as the core policy makers for the original post-conflict social policy removed traditional political sources of social policy—popular and social movements, organized labor and capital, and political parties—from the policy-making process. Humanitarian and relief organizations are not necessarily conscious of their role in laying the groundwork for social policy formation. In Kosovo the movement from humanitarian aid programs, first established in the late 1980s, to the post-conflict social assistance programming paralleled the course of the conflict. Humanitarian aid policy ultimately informed the formation of the social policy. The institutions that were developed to meet


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the social welfare needs of the ethnic communities promoted mutually exclusive economic and social life. Responsibility for social welfare needs in the post-conflict period was a struggle between the potentially emerging state of Kosovo, backed by the UN, Albanian civil society organizations, and the Serbian parallel system. Humanitarian NGOs were the strongest institutional actors within this contentious dynamic, although they were not clearly conscious of the stakes of the struggle. Within five years, the original NGO-driven social welfare program, based largely on the humanitarian distribution network of the immediate post-conflict period, had been institutionalized through the UN-sanctioned local legislative body, the Kosovo Assembly. This program became the basis of Kosovo’s social welfare system and the most important programmatic component of the province’s social policy. The Need for a Comprehensive Approach: Social Policy, Not Social Projects Despite their importance, social policy and the social welfare institutions are not often addressed in a comprehensive manner in post-conflict reconstruction. Social policy is either seen as an issue better addressed once other policy considerations has been made, or is relegated to smallscale interventions. Rather than being central to the debates surrounding reconstruction, social policy often drifts from public discourse, leaving decision making to devolve to interested elites or expatriate experts. This locks out local participation and reduces public discussion of policy options. The postsocialist transitions of Eastern and Central Europe are analogous examples. In the region “international organizations paid little attention to social policy in the first years of transition, instead focusing on macroeconomics and privatization” (Orenstein and Haas 2002, 13). According to Orenstein and Haas, lack of attention led to social policy formation being left to “small groups of politically connected social policy experts” rather than being part of a more transparent, public process. Macroeconomic adjustment was the dominant paradigm for transition assistance. International loans were offered with conditions that required cuts in social spending, many of which resulted in increases in poverty across the region (Townsend 2002, 5). Social policy was subsumed into and overwhelmed by macroeconomic policy. Kosovo followed a variation of this model. Instead of being overwhelmed by economic policy, however, social policy in post-conflict Kosovo was subsumed into humanitarian policy. Early attention was largely the by-product of efforts by the WFP and USAID-FFP to coordinate an exit strategy (Development Researchers Network 2002, 8).

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The initial efforts for social assistance were organized by a Transition Task Force comprised of representatives from large international NGOs, a few local Albanian NGOs, a small number of intergovernmental organizations and major donor countries, all those who had been involved in the distribution of food aid. The Task Force was under the direction of the UN-led Joint Interim Administration Structures and was responsible for establishing the Social Assistance Scheme in summer 2000. Although the Task Force successfully launched this limited social welfare program, social policy itself did not shift to the uppermost levels of the international agenda. For example, the UN Development Group’s January 2001 Kosovo Common Assessment, a document designed to “provide the UN system with a unified and agreed upon set of common objectives,” devoted less than two of 60 pages to a chapter titled “Social Welfare and Protection,” mostly describing the Social Assistance Scheme that had already been put in place by the Task Force. Missing from the policy-making arena were the social, political, and economic organizations, such as political parties, state agencies, social movements, and organized labor and capital, that are historically the moving forces behind social policy. In short, the political agency of local actors to design and implement their own social policy was constrained. Incorporating these more traditional political actors into the process represents a move beyond even what are known in the aid literature as participatory approaches to post-conflict policy making. Instead, it is a return of the political dimension to the formation of policy. For the international actors involved, allowing the revival of political debate over policy choices is an obvious risk; these are after all contentious issues to be faced by former combatants. On the practical level this may require the identification of new and unorthodox partners for the international relief and development community. Social policy innovations are historically linked to “working class parties and trade unions” (Alber and Flora 1984, 43), and international interventionists may need look to these groups as potential collaborators. International relief and development organizations have been reluctant to become directly associated with such overtly politicized groups due to the risk of becoming embroiled in local political conflicts. Despite the risks, the potential rewards are very high. Social policy formulation provides an excellent opportunity for a post-conflict policy-formation exercise that holds the prospect of concrete results. Effective social policy formulated by local political actors can demonstrate the workability of emerging post-conflict political institutions. Additionally, institutions and policies formulated through local politics benefit from greater legitimacy and are more sustainable. Given the immediate history of conflict, external mediation is a necessary and potentially challenging component to


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such policy making, but the difficulty of the process does not negate its value. If social policy is not addressed at a high policy level in a comprehensive fashion, it is often instead relegated to a “micro” approach that rests on small, localized projects designed to address the welfare needs of a limited population, for example a town, village, or neighborhood. Discrete amounts of money are directed toward solving discrete problems, and less attention is directed toward broad policy initiatives. Even with large-scale international funding, the focus is often on supporting particular projects, or providing the resources for beneficiary governments to establish their own project funding mechanisms (Tendler 2002, 2). For example, in Kosovo, projects to facilitate the return of displaced Kosovo Serbs have been strongly emphasized. These projects neglect both the empirical reality of the Kosovo Serb presence and the core dynamic of the long-term viability of these communities. The European Stability Initiative has presented strong evidence that as many as two-thirds of the Kosovo Serb population present before the international intervention remain in the province, primarily in dispersed rural communities (ESI 2004). Although these communities are likely to remain so long as they have a minimum level of security and reasonable access to state services, it is unlikely that they will be sustainable over time since future generations will seek education and work in urban centers (ESI 2004, 10). Without broad social policies that guarantee a minimum of economic security through social services, education grants or loans, minimum wages, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and pensions, jobs in Kosovo are unlikely to be attractive enough for young Kosovo Serbs to outweigh the pull from such locales as Belgrade or Niš in Serbia, never mind Berlin, London, or Paris, should either Kosovo or Serbia find itself in the European Union (EU) in the near future. Similarly, the social exclusion of Kosovo Serbs undermines their sense of the justness of the emerging local Kosovo polity, reducing their incentive to stay. In the longer term without social policies that act to slow or reduce the long-term trends toward ethnicized social exclusion, this dynamic will lead to ethnic homogenization, or slow-motion “ethnic cleansing.” Conclusion: Social Policy for Post-Conflict Reconstruction Building social welfare systems is rarely at the top of the agenda in postconflict policy. Responses to violent conflict are often perceived as a continuum that runs from the provision of humanitarian assistance to full-scale reconstruction (Ferris 2001, 324; Woodward 2002, 189). An

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idealized version of the relief-to-reconstruction continuum starts with humanitarian relief to war-affected populations, such as the construction of refugee camps and the provision of food, shelter, health care, and other essential items to both refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The continuum progresses to stabilization programs that alleviate immediate security risks, such as mine clearance and the deployment of outside human rights monitors. This stage also includes “quick impact projects” that are targeted toward the recovery and rehabilitation of resources that have been damaged during the course of the war, such as school or hospital repair (UNHCR 2000, 142–143). The reconstruction end of the continuum involves projects for long-term economic and social development. Despite the usefulness of this continuum as a bureaucratic tool for ordering post-conflict priorities, its linearity belies the complicated nature of conflict dynamics and the need to appreciate the political contestations so often at the heart of the conflicts. Disagreements about social policy are often part of these core political contestations because they are so important for the nature and quality of the governing regime and its interaction with the citizenry. These political debates make up the ongoing global, regional, or local history in which the conflict and post-conflict situation is so deeply embedded and from which it cannot be disengaged. Conflicts appear to have beginnings and ends—the day the first shots were fired, the week the old regime was overthrown, or the signing of the peace accords, for example. These markers signify moments of dramatic political change, but they do not happen in a historical vacuum. The first shots may signify not only the “beginning” of the conflict, but also the maturation of long-present violent opposition, or a radicalization of nonviolent opposition. The week the old regime falls marks the turning point of the regime’s ability to enforce its will, not the destruction of all of the social, economic, and political forces, which had kept it in place. Peace accords are the beginning of a long and contentious implementation period rather than the definitive end of the conflict. In any post-conflict environment it is necessary to recognize the historical context and the medium- and long-term impact of any policy choice. The historical embeddedness of conflicts highlights the importance of social policy formulation. In an historical context the post-conflict transition from humanitarian assistance to social policy is inseparable from the conflict itself. The communities and groups supported through assistance may not have been the primary participants in the conflict, but nor are they bystanders. In the case of Kosovo for example, rural Albanian families that make up the majority of the social assistance rolls were not only the


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pool from which the most militant fighters were pulled, but also one of the core groups of the symbolic Albanian nation that was being fought over (Judah 2000, 99–101,118). Similarly, elderly rural Serbs who make up that community’s largest social welfare recipient group were often the very group that Milošević and the Serbian nationalist movement claimed to speak for and to protect (Dragović-Soso 2002, 141). The fight was not over welfare benefits per se, but it was a struggle over the boundaries of citizenship and the extension of rights in Yugoslavia and Kosovo. Social rights were as much a part of the original contention as civil or political rights. In the post-conflict political environment, agents of reconstruction such as the international NGOs, the UN, and the local post-conflict government do not start from scratch. They build on earlier struggles, including political struggles over social rights. Social welfare is a powerful tool for creating a foundation for social solidarity on both normative and economic grounds. Universalistic, decommodifying and just social policy can create a broad sense of solidarity that can cut across the cleavages that led to conflict. Social policies identified as just by the larger population support political stability and a sense of positive identification with the larger society. Social welfare institutions can provide an economic basis for multiethnic incorporation by providing the minimum level of human security needed for legitimate labor market engagement. Social policy, however, also carries risks. Social programs that strongly differentiate on the basis of either ethnicity or on factors that correlate with ethnicity may reinforce the divisions. To ignore the potential positive role of effective social policy is to ignore one of the most powerful integrative tools available in the post-conflict context. Similarly, to ignore the divisive potential of badly designed or poorly implemented social policy can lay the foundation for failed interventions and recurring violence.


chapter 2

The Kosovo Conflict (1981–1999) And The Creation Of Ethnicized Institutions Ostensibly a confrontation between the Albanian and Serbian communities over control of the province, the pattern of the conflict in Kosovo between 1981 and 1999, set up a constellation of institutions that determined the context of the post-conflict period. This chapter sets out how these institutions were formed through the interplay between divergent Albanian and Serbian social and economic development, internal Kosovar and larger Yugoslav political dynamics, and the contingent responses of already existing institutions to the recurring crises in the province. The chapter highlights the progressive differentiation and ethnicization of the social and political institutions that represented the actualization of citizenship. Particular attention is devoted to the creation of a Kosovo Albanian NGO-based social welfare regime. This social welfare regime, which operated in a private and ethnicized sphere, constrained later post-conflict efforts at reconstructing local social assistance and services institutions. Because the social welfare regime is so important for guaranteeing citizenship rights, these constraints in turn limited the creation of a nonethnicized citizenship in post-conflict Kosovo. This development of the parallel sets of institutions is part of the larger argument concerning the role of social welfare institutions in creating social cohesion. Although social welfare institutions can promote integration, they can also reinforce cleavages. The parallel social welfare

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institutions in Kosovo were very highly developed. Since the institutions on the Serbian side were continuations of the Yugoslav state institutions, there was no question of their official legitimacy and extensiveness. Only as they became increasingly ethnicized by the rise of nationalism as the dominant discourse in Serbia was their legitimacy called into question. The Albanian institutions, however, were rooted in the nationalist resistance to the Yugoslav state and always stood outside official legal legitimacy. Their effectiveness at delivering social assistance to Kosovo Albanians enabled them to claim an unofficial legitimacy. For the overall narrative of the development of social welfare institutions in post-conflict Kosovo, the two parallel institutional structures represented the prior context into which the international community sought to intervene. A central characteristic of the constellation of institutions created during this period of heightened conflict was that it was bifurcated. In addition to the more traditional confrontation between the ethnic rivals in a closed territory, the competing groups in Kosovo constructed mutually exclusive institutions that operated in the same territory and time period. These institutions responded to the changing political landscape in ever more divergent manners. By the time the conflict reached a crisis in 1999, two completely separate sets of institutions existed, serving ethnically distinct groups. The strategies and tactics of the political actors in Kosovo established the parameters within which they operated not only throughout the conflict, but also into the period of post-conflict reconstruction. Both Kosovo Albanians and Serbs came to see that the resolution to their conflict was no longer possible within the framework of the 1974 Yugoslav federal constitution. Under the federal constitution, Kosovo, along with Vojvodina, was designated as a Socialist Autonomous Province, and a constituent part of the Republic of Serbia (Part I, Articles 2 and 4). Kosovo Serbs came to believe that they were being discriminated against under the rules of the province’s autonomy. They sought to address this discrimination by recruiting the authorities of the Republic of Serbia to play a more active part in the province. The Albanian community, faced with the Serbian authorities reasserting control over the province, first sought a greater federal role in the province. With conflict spreading throughout the Yugoslav federation, Kosovo Albanians eventually came to believe that an opportunity was presenting itself for the removal of the province from the authority of the Republic of Serbia, and potentially Yugoslavia itself. These perceptions led the two communities to focus their mobilization efforts in different directions. In Rogers Brubaker’s terminology, the competing mobilizations reflect the assumption of differing “dynamic

The Kosovo Conflict (1981–1999)

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political stances” by the two communities (1996, 60). The situation in Kosovo complicates Brubaker’s triadic analysis, but highlights his emphasis on the relational and contingent quality of nations and national identity (1996, 17–20). For Brubaker the central dynamic is a tripartite relationship between national minorities, nationalizing states, and external national “homelands” (1996, 55). Kosovo Serbs mobilized toward gaining Belgrade’s attention in order to reinforce Serbian control over Kosovo by returning to a Yugoslav constitutional ideal that firmly embedded the autonomous provinces within the Republic of Serbia. In this the Kosovo Serb community, although part of the “nationalizing state” of Serbia, performed as the “national minority,” treating Serbia proper as the “external national homeland” (Brubaker 1996, 60–67). Kosovo Albanians mobilized toward creating separate social and political institutions, extrapolating provincial sovereignty from Yugoslavia’s prior constitutional development. The Kosovo Albanian community, without a state to speak of, but locally dominant, performed, in this context, as a “nationalizing state,” putting the local Serbian community under pressure. The political relationship between the communities was extremely dynamic, and throughout the course of the conflict, the different groups rapidly and repeatedly changed roles within Brubaker’s model.1 The social movements that each ethnic community generated toward achieving their goals were mutually exclusive in their membership structures. Through these movements, one could express membership in either community, but not both.2 In turn, these movements created exclusive and ethnicized institutions that reinforced the trajectories of the two communities away from one another. This was most clearly illustrated by the “parallel” regime of the Republic of Kosova. Although usually read as a purely Albanian phenomenon, the parallel regime was deeply related to the Serbianization of the official public institutions. The parallel regime could only exist in relation to the official public regime that, although originally idealized as Yugoslav, became increasingly Serbian. In effect, the parallel regime was a reflection of the official regime. The official system had all the typical characteristics of the state. The Yugoslav political, educational, social, and health systems of Kosovo all still existed, although in practice both those employed in the system and their clients became almost completely Serbs. The Kosovo Albanian system, equally ethnically homogeneous, had its own political apparatus complete with a shadow government. Underground Albanian educational, health, and social welfare networks were established. Despite occasional anecdotal accounts of cross-ethnic participation, such as reports that Serbs frequented Albanian clinics because of the lack of medicines in the official health centers, the two systems were for practical and symbolic purposes deeply segregated.

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The Kosovo Albanian parallel institutions were distinct from the Serbian institutions in their inability to fully claim the position of a state. Although the Kosovo Albanian community did everything it could to present its institutions as “real” state institutions, ultimately these institutions lacked the special quality of the state as classically presented by Weber (1964, 56). Internally, they never met the basic assumptions of a state, and externally, they were never received as such by other states. Within Kosovo, Albanian governing decisions were only enforceable in the margins where official state institutions were unable to penetrate. At the most basic Weberian level, the official Yugoslav institutions still commanded the monopoly of violence. The Kosovo Albanian institutions could only exist with the tacit tolerance of the Yugoslav officials. At any point the police could, and often did, break up unofficial classrooms, assemblies, or clinics. The parallel institutions represented a challenge to the legitimacy and authority of the Yugoslav state in Kosovo. Despite their challenging stance however, the Republic of Kosova could not displace the authority of the Belgrade regime. On the international level, the Albanian institutions also struggled with efforts to gain recognition as a state. Official state-to-state recognition of the Albanian regime was halting and incomplete. Albanian leaders were received as guests in national capitals and at multilateral organizations, but official recognition of the Republic of Kosova remained elusive. Although the Kosovo Albanian institutions never matched their Yugoslav counterparts and achieved the status of “state,” the system of parallel structures left a deep imprint on the provincial political scene. Once the paradigm that the two communities would address the mounting crises in ethnically defined separation was established, common solutions were rarely pursued. The Kosovo Albanian and Serb communities came to the limit of the federal structure’s ability to resolve their conflict. Their pursuit of separate strategies marks the beginning of a process of institutional “ethnic unmixing” in the province (Zolberg 1997). Serbs and Albanians no longer related to common institutions. Rights of citizenship, including political rights such as electoral participation and voting, and social rights such as education, health, and social welfare were tied to participation in separate regimes defined by the parallel sets of institutions. Overcoming the cleavages signified by these separate institutions was the core challenge of the post-conflict reconstruction. Contingency in the Narrative of the Conflict The historical narrative of the ratcheting up of ethnic confrontation in Kosovo highlights the high degree of contingency that was present


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throughout the conflict. Pierson defines contingency as the “large and enduring consequences” of “relatively small events, if they occur at the right moment” (Pierson 2000, 263). Throughout the Kosovo conflict, distinct events generated responses that had long-term impacts. In the collective and individual memories of residents of Kosovo these moments of decision loom large, acting as markers for shifts in ideology, strategies, or tactics. Taken out of the context of the larger social and political transformations, these moments of contingency often form powerful historical narratives in their own rights. Winston Churchill’s famous observation that the “Balkans have more history than they can consume” reflects this tendency to elevate contingency to narrative. It is necessary to disaggregate the contingent nature of “small events” which change the direction of an already unfolding political process from the larger social, economic, or cultural causes of the process itself. Contingencies transform the options available for political action. The harsh response from federal and republican party and state authorities to early Albanian activism, for example, had the eventual consequence of driving the two ethnic communities further apart. Mass arrests and later migration of activist Albanians created an embittered diaspora eager to foment radical change in its homeland. Albanian activists radicalized and began seeking a solution outside of the framework of multiethnic Yugoslavia. Similarly, in the 1980s, the Serbs of Kosovo addressed complaints of exclusion and oppression by the majority Albanians to authorities of the Republic of Serbia in Belgrade. The timing of their pleas dovetailed with larger ongoing ideological struggles occurring on the federal level. With the entire federation facing multiple challenges from Ljubljana to Prishtinë, local confrontation between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo was drawn into the larger contentious dynamic. Albanian political activism within Kosovo became more internally focused, with most resources going toward building an elaborate ethnic self-help network. When the Kosovo Albanian community did direct their demands outward, it was not toward Belgrade, but rather toward the international community that had become increasingly involved in Yugoslavia. None of these contingencies fundamentally altered the social, economic, and political divisions within the province. Each, however, more deeply entrenched the two communities on divergent political and social paths. The Kosovo Conflict in Yugoslavia: 1981 to 1989 Under the 1974 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Kosovo had enjoyed substantial autonomy. Both Kosovo and Vojvodina

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as Socialist Autonomous Provinces had statuses nearly, but not quite equal to those of the various Yugoslav republics that made up the federal state. The provinces had representation in federal institutions and increased powers for local government, but the ethnic majorities that made up the provinces, Albanian and Hungarian, respectively, were not recognized as “nations” as it was defined in the Yugoslav system but rather as “nationalities.” In Yugoslavia, a nationality was an ethnic community geographically separated from its eponymous nation-state. Hence, the Albanian community in Yugoslavia, despite its large size, did not constitute a nation of the federation (Woodward 1995a, 215). Though denied the status of a nation, the Albanian community had majority status within the province, which gave it autonomy within the Yugoslav framework. Kosovo became essentially Albanian dominated. The Republic of Serbia could no longer intervene in provincial affairs without the approval of the local assembly based in Prishtinë. Autonomous institutions such as a provincial central bank, a supreme court, and a self-governing administration were formed. The ability to read, write, and speak Albanian, as well as Serbo-Croatian, became a requirement for employment across the province. In the words of Miranda Vickers (1998, 178–180), “Thus began the virtual Albanization of public life in Kosovo.” Kosovo Serbs, increasingly outnumbered, felt threatened under the 1974 constitutional regime. Although ethnic conflict in Kosovo had been a persistent feature of the region, it intensified in 1981, when a string of student protests kicked off widespread and violent rioting. The impact of the riots and the repression that followed was substantial on Yugoslavia in general, and Kosovo in particular. These were the largest incidents of popular protest in the country since its refounding in the wake of World War II. In the early post–World War II period of national consolidation there had been intense local conflict as the province was “pacified” in the 1940s and 1950s, but these confrontations had been part of the process of postwar national consolidation. Smaller protests had occurred in Kosovo in 1968 and 1975, but not on the scale or with the intensity of those in 1981. The riots came at a time of mounting instability. The country had been facing serious economic difficulties since 1979 (Lydall 1989, 40). Politically Yugoslavia was also entering a period of uncertainty and crisis. In May 1980, long-time Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito died, leaving the country without the powerful political leader who had led the country since its founding. The Kosovo riots contributed to this overall sense of instability, leaving Yugoslavia “shaken” and fearful, in the words of a New York Times report that April. The protests began March 11, 1981, initially triggered by poor conditions at the University of Prishtinë. According to legend the incident


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that actually sparked the rioting was the discovery by a student of a cockroach swimming in a bowl of soup served in the university cafeteria (Clark 2000, 41). The riots soon escalated to large demonstrations concerning deteriorating economic conditions and the political status of the province. Disturbances continued from late March to early June in cities across Kosovo, involving at first mainly students, and later a wider spectrum of the population. Most protesters voiced demands for a separate republic within the Yugoslav federation, but some pushed for secession and union with Albania. Many of the protests degenerated into rioting, and the police and army responded harshly. Some 30,000 Yugoslav troops were sent to deal with the disturbances. The most serious confrontation occurred on April 2 in Prishtinë when the Yugoslav army sealed off the city. Through the autumn, police rounded up thousands, eventually sentencing 3,000 to shorter jail terms up to three months and 1,200 to longer prison terms (Malcolm 1998, 334–335; Mertus 1999, 29–32; Vickers 1998, 198; Clark 2000, 41–43; Judah 2000, 38–42). The riots of 1981 and the political response to them should not be analyzed within the strict dichotomy of the later, more intensely ethnicized Albanian-Serbian confrontation. Rather, these events were part of the process of that ethnic polarization and need to be seen as a contributing factor to that evolution of confrontation. At the time of the riots the conflict concerning legitimate state authority in Kosovo was still wrapped up in the internal debates of Yugoslavia as a whole. Opposing positions were not yet as entrenched as they later would be and the dynamics of the conflict allowed for a variety of configurations of ethnic and political identities. In fact, Kosovo at the time was run by political elites from the League of Communists, most of whom were ethnic Albanians. The young Kosovo Albanians who were mobilized in 1981 were not confronting Serbs, but Albanian representatives of the communist regime. Dragović-Soso points out that despite the prevalence of demands for the status of a republic, as opposed to independence, the riots made the granting of republican designation by federal Belgrade all the less likely because they put pressure on the Albanian leadership to forcefully confront local opposition (2002, 117). Albanian political leaders became suspect in the eyes of their superiors. They would need to regain the upper hand over student and opposition groups in order to reestablish their credentials. This explains why, as Clark reports, “the repression was primarily administered by Albanians” (2000, 43). More telling than the violent response of the state and party institutions was the lack of a critical response by the Belgrade-based intellectual opposition. Despite the indiscriminate use of police, military, and paramilitary forces to quell the unrest, and excessively punitive prison

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sentences, there was very little protest from the Yugoslav intellectual community. The only organized dissent was a petition by the students of the Universities of Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana in October 1981 demanding amnesty for those arrested in Kosovo (Magaš 1993, 3). This quietude was all the more noticeable because Yugoslavia, and particularly Belgrade, had an intellectual community that was known for its critical stance. For Branka Magaš, “their silence was deafening.” The lack of a critical response to the events in Kosovo in the first half of the 1980s reflects the difficulty of dealing with the contradictions that the province presented for the political and cultural elite of Serbia. DragovićSoso argues that “[t]he way the intellectual opposition came to define the ‘Kosovo question’, however, turned it away from its liberal, universalist aspirations towards a more narrow nationalist agenda” (2002, 115). This process came to a head with the January 21, 1986, petition signed by 200 Belgrade intellectuals, addressed to the Assemblies of Yugoslavia and Serbia, decrying the conditions for Serbs in Kosovo. (Dragović-Soso 2002, 138–139). Support for the petition covered the broad spectrum of elite opposition in Serbia, indicating a momentary consensus around concern for Kosovo and Kosovo Serbs (Dragović-Soso 2003, 139; Miller 1997, 308). This consensus was not stable and some of the signatories eventually became antiwar activists, arguing strongly against the nationalist ideology that came to dominate the political discourse of Yugoslavia. An exchange between Magaš, writing under the pseudonym Michele Lee, and the former editors of the journal Praxis, who had signed the 1986 petition, was a poignant example of how extreme the emotional and intellectual complications of the issue were (1993, 55–72). In the September 1986 issue of the leftist journal Labour Focus on Eastern Europe Magaš, as Lee, published a critique of the Belgrade petition that drew particular attention to the signatures of the Praxis editors, Zaga Golubović, Mihailo Marković, Ljuba Tadić, and Milan Kangrga (52). Magaš later wrote that the article was motivated by “a fear produced by [her] realization that such a rallying to nationalism of Serbia’s progressive intelligentsia meant that civil war was now on the cards (1993, 4)”. The response by Golubović, Marković, and Tadić was a lengthy and passionate letter to Labour Focus that defended the petition largely on the basis of the “century old history of national conflict in Kosovo” (1993, 58). Magaš replied with a lengthy rebuttal, not just of the accusations against her personally, but also the claims made in the petition itself. In her conclusion she indicated her concern that the movement of the Belgrade intelligentsia toward the nationalist camp meant that the chances of a “democratic alternative” to the crisis in Yugoslavia were fading (1993, 72). Her fears proved prescient.


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After the riots, interethnic relations within Kosovo deteriorated dramatically. The waves of arrests affected the structure of political mobilization among Albanians in Kosovo. For many of the Kosovo Albanians arrested in the sweeps and purges, the events of 1981 motivated an ingrained resistance against the idea of Kosovo as a part of Serbia. Most of these Albanians returned to Kosovo upon completing their prison sentences, but some left Yugoslavia and became radicalized members of immigrant Albanian communities abroad (Judah 2000, 107–108). Within Kosovo the state responded to the riots and demonstrations by increasing already pervasive efforts to control political life. According to Clark, over half a million Kosovars were arrested or detained between 1981 and 1988 (2000, 43). Vickers describes a heavy police and military presence in Kosovo in by the middle of the 1980s, prone to arresting anyone engaged in Albanian nationalist activities (1998, 224). The Scholars’ Initiative echoes this, citing an Amnesty International report stating that “by the mid-1980s, plainclothesmen and military checkpoints proliferated across the province” (2005, 25). Long series of political trials dragged on from 1981 to 1986, with over a thousand defendants (Udovički and Torov 1997, 85). DragovićSoso places the number of Albanian political prisoners in Yugoslavia during the 1980s at about 80 percent of the total (2002, 117). Because of this continuing repression in Kosovo, the radical émigrés had more opportunities to organize than their compatriots who remained in Yugoslavia. In contrast to the diaspora activism, Albanian activism in Kosovo through the 1980s remained somewhat dormant and lacked effective leadership. Within Kosovo, Serb activism stepped up markedly. This increased activism was characterized by a growing closeness between local activists in Kosovo and segments of the Belgrade-based political and intellectual elite. Two events illuminate the Kosovo Serb popular movement’s relationship to the Belgrade intelligentsia and the rise of nationalism in the larger Serbian political scene. The first occurred on September 24, 1986, when the Belgrade newspaper Vecernje Novosti published excerpts from a draft of a Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art. The Memorandum was to be an assessment of the state of the nation by the Serbian intellectual community in response to the ongoing constitutional debate spurred by pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to strengthen federal administration (Woodward 1995a, 74). The second event was the speech by then-president of the Serbian Communist Party, Slobodan Milošević, at Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987. Neither event was decisive in linking the Kosovo Serb activists and the Belgrade political scene. Rather both events highlight a relationship that had developed over time and was closely connected to the larger transformations of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s.

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How the state and the party establishment reacted to the publication of the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art and what it represented foreshadowed the crisis over Kosovo. By the mid-1980s, in order to stabilize the economy, the IMF was making its assistance conditional on greater federal economic control. Centralizing federal politicians were coming up against republican political forces resisting these efforts, and increasingly mobilizing local support with appeals to nationalism (Woodward 1995a, 73). In Serbia the problems were felt especially acutely because of the republic’s poor economic condition and its deeply strained relationship with its autonomous provinces, particularly Kosovo. The Memorandum provided insight into a strand of thinking within the intellectual elite of Serbia that prioritized national concerns in the debate and articulated a variety of positions on the many economic and political challenges that the country was facing. In particular, it espoused a nationalist perspective on one of the important political questions of the day in Yugoslavia—that of the relationships among the republics, the autonomous provinces, national communities, and the central state (Dragović-Soso 2002, 179–182). Although the original article in which the excerpts appeared was critical of the nationalism of the Memorandum, it generated tremendous public interest that resulted in an even wider dissemination of the document’s core ideas (Dragović-Soso 2002, 189). The Memorandum was a direct break from the Titoist ideals of “brotherhood and unity.” In it, the theoretical basis of a multinational federal Yugoslavia was replaced with a strong communitarian concern for the fate of Serbs in Kosovo, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although the Memorandum was a particular response from the Serbian intellectual elite to the mounting constitutional crisis, similar nationalist theorizing was occurring across Yugoslavia’s republics, especially in Croatia and Slovenia. Slobodan Milošević’s presence at Kosovo Polje on April 24, 1987, was a response to the political mobilization by rural Kosovo Serbs and the urban Belgrade-based intellectual Serbian elite. Milošević, the Serbian Communist Party president in 1987, was dispatched to Kosovo Polje by the then president of Serbia, Ivan Stambolic, to pacify the increasingly restless local Serb community. The turnout for the meeting between Milošević and the community was much larger than originally anticipated. It was also much more widely seen than would have been expected of such an event. Rather than just the local coverage that would have been normal, Dusan Mitevic, the deputy director of Television Belgrade and Milošević ally, arranged for the speech to be shown on television throughout Serbia (Woodward 1995a, 90; Malcolm 1998, 341; Silber and Little, 1997, 39; Udovički and Torov 1997, 88–89). Milošević gave a powerful performance, and the event became a rallying point


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for Serb nationalism both within Kosovo and across Yugoslavia. With encouragement from the media, Serbian popular opinion was becoming more and more vehement on the issue of perceived threats to Serbs in Kosovo and the other republics. By the end of 1987, Milošević had effectively taken over the Serbian communist party and government by manipulating nationalist ideas concerning Kosovo (Woodward 1995a, 90). Having come to power by appealing to Serbian concerns over territorial control, Milošević pursued this agenda and moved to curtail the autonomy of both Kosovo and Vojvodina. Popular protests in October 1988 ended in forcing Vojvodina Party leadership, which had opposed Milošević, to resign. At the Yugoslav level, Milošević’s moves on the autonomy in Kosovo and Vojvodina were part of a larger effort to build a coalition across Serbia’s many political cleavages in order to advance the interests of the nation and nationality over those of the Yugoslav state (Woodward 1995a, 93). Serbia’s relation to Kosovo had been pulled into the growing antagonism between the republics. The Transformation of Kosovo’s Autonomy Dovetailing with larger struggles over federal arrangements in Yugoslavia, the Serbian activist movement aimed to transform Kosovo’s status as a Socialist Autonomous Province in order to constrain the Albanian political leadership, who were seen to be taking advantage of their position at the expense of local Serbs. The formula for provincial autonomy was changed, first through the Kosovo Constitution, and then the Serbian Constitution. This required legislative action by both Assemblies. Approval of the constitutional changes undermined the Kosovo Assembly’s extensive legislative power. The new Constitution sought to guarantee Serbia as “a single State” in its territory (Markovic 1990, 4–5). This concern with the idea of Serbia as a single state was a response to the perception that, under the prior Constitution, Serbia had been constrained by the imposed divisions of the autonomous provinces. The new Constitution was explicit in declaring that the “Republic of Serbia is a single whole” (Article 4). The legislative power of the Republic superseded that of the provinces, and statutes approved by the autonomous provinces were “subject to approval of the National Assembly” (Article 110). Under intense political pressure, and with Yugoslav and Serbian police and military on the streets, the Kosovo Assembly approved the changes on March 23, 1989 (Clark 2000, 49–52). The Serbian Assembly then passed a set of laws meant to reinforce republican control over the

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province. As a result, Albanian language newspapers were closed; some municipalities were redefined so to make them more Serb-dominated; and thousands of Albanians lost their jobs (Independent International Commission on Kosovo 2000, 41; Malcolm 1998, 341–346; Clark 2000, 74–77; Judah 2000, 62). These political transformations in Kosovo further entrenched the ethnic divisions in the province, and ratcheted up the local conflict. As tensions escalated between the Albanian and Serbian communities in Kosovo, war raged in other parts of Yugoslavia. The first republics of Yugoslavia to declare independence were Slovenia and Croatia in June 1991. Slovenia successfully fought the shortest of the wars of Yugoslav secession, which lasted barely ten days. Croatia fought a much longer battle, starting in spring 1991 with irregular combat in the Krajina area of the republic. War began in Bosnia-Herzegovina in spring 1992. The Bosnian war, the most ferocious of the conflicts in Yugoslavia, raged until November 1995 when U.S.-led mediation established a shaky peace through the Dayton Accords. Politically, restricting Kosovo’s autonomy intensified the sense of separation of the Albanian community from official Yugoslav governing institutions. Through both official and quasi-official constitutional and legislative actions, that estrangement took on concrete forms. In spring 1990, most of the remaining Albanians in the provincial institutions resigned. On July 2, 1990, 114 of the 123 Albanian members of the Kosovo Assembly congregated on the street outside the provincial parliament building to vote to declare Kosovo a sovereign republic within Yugoslavia (Judah 2000, 65; Clark 2000, 73). In addition to changing the province’s status, the resolution claimed the status of nation for the Albanian population of Kosovo (Kekezi and Hida 1991, 6). A similar declaration of sovereignty had been passed by the Slovene Assembly on the same day, preceding their formal declaration of independence by about a year (Woodward 1995a, 119–120). The Serbian government responded to the Kosovo Assembly by dissolving the provincial parliament. In September 1990, the Albanian Members of the Assembly, defying the dissolution order, met in the town of Kacanik near the border with Macedonia, and approved a new constitution that declared the province independent. Shortly after, Serbia officially passed a new constitution of its own (Clark 2000, 73). In these moves, Serbia and Albanian Kosovo opted for different legalistic strategies. Serbia followed the letter of a constitutional law that was rapidly disintegrating and was unenforceable in the province, while Kosovo followed its own interpretation of legal self-determination, creating a new, equally unenforceable, quasi-constitutional regime.


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Albanian Mobilization and the Creation of the Parallel Regime Popular mobilization among the Kosovo Albanian community began in earnest at the end of the 1980s and increased through the 1990s. Over the course of the 1990s, mobilization moved from a broad, popular, strategically nonviolent opposition movement to one that was fractured over the value of a more violent strategy. The most significant development during the phase of broad-based opposition was the formation of the Republic of Kosova, a quasi-state that operated parallel to the official governing institutions. The dominant party of the Republic of Kosova period—the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK)—was the primary political opposition to the Belgrade regime during this phase. The later period saw the creation of the much more militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as a strong competitor to the LDK in leading Kosovo Albanian resistance to Belgrade. The political dynamic in Kosovo continued to bifurcate along the Albanian-Serb cleavage. On September 22, 1991, Kosovo’s parliamentary deputies convened once again in Kacanik. The former assembly members formally called for a referendum on Kosovo’s sovereignty and independence. The referendum, held from September 26–30, was organized by the Coordinating Council on Political Parties, a consortium of Albanian opposition organizations that had been founded in 1990. Through the Coordinating Council the Kosovo Albanian opposition maintained a “united front” against Belgrade (March and Sil 1999; Clark 2000, 80–82). Although the recorded turnout for the referendum was exceptionally high—87 percent of those considered eligible voted— the results reflected the political desires of the Albanian community, and not the whole of Kosovo. The referendum highlighted the Kosovo Albanian’s strategy of using democratic methods to promote an ethnicized political agenda. Although the referendum itself was “democratic” in the technical sense, it failed to take account of any of the minority communities in Kosovo, most especially the Serb population, but also other communities such as the Goranci, Bosniak, Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian, and Turkish. Taken in tandem with the Serbian parliamentary votes regarding provincial autonomy, the tit-for-tat of the political dynamic was clear. The results of the referendum did provide insight into the political preferences of the Kosovo Albanian community. Overwhelmingly, Kosovo Albanians voiced a desire for independence. The preference reflected and reinforced the continued movement away from a political solution within the Yugoslav framework. The vote had been organized

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semi-clandestinely, and was not recognized by the Belgrade government. Having declared their independence and ratified it through an electoral process, Kosovo Albanians came to the limits of their legal strategy. They had no political or military means to make an independent Kosovo a reality, so they simply went about their business as if they were independent, operating within the limits of what was politically possible. On October 19, 1991 a government-in-exile was formed, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In May 1992 another round of clandestine elections was held, this time for a new parliament and a president. Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of the Republic of Kosova. At the same time, the government-in-exile, headed by Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi, moved to Bad Godesberg, Germany. A voluntary tax of 3 percent on personal income and 10 percent on business profits was imposed on Kosovo Albanian emigrants (Clark 2000, 83; Judah 2000, 69). Considering the situation, tax collection was remarkably successful. Over the approximately seven years of its existence, the fund administered by the exile government collected US$125 million (Hockenos 2003, 178). Although as many as 24 parties participated in the elections, the LDK dominated. The LDK won 76 percent of the vote (March and Sil 1999, 5; Clark 2000, 83). Founded in December 1989, the LDK represented a very wide cross-section of the Kosovo Albanian population and had become more of a mass movement than a political party. Although originally only one of many opposition Albanian political parties in Kosovo to be formed in 1989 and 1990, the LDK effectively took on the political and social role that had been occupied by the League of Communists in Kosovo (Maliqi 1998, 31). The LDK was dominated for the most part by urban elite intellectuals. Many of the founders had been members of the League of Communists, or Yugoslav state-sanctioned organizations (Judah 2000, 67). These included Rugova, who had been the president of the Writers’ Society of Kosovo before becoming president of the Republic of Kosova. Dr. Bukoshi was a surgeon and medical professor at the University of Prishtinë prior to becoming the secretary-general of the LDK and prime minister of the parallel government (Hockenos 2003, 180–182). Another party leader was Dr. Fehmi Agani, a prominent sociologist also at the University of Prishtinë (Bougarel 1999, 3; Maliqi 1998, 27). Agani was considered by many to be the most important thinker and political strategist in the LDK. He was murdered in May 1999 while trying to leave Kosovo during the NATO airstrikes. With their dominating victory in both the presidential and parliamentary polls, the LDK effectively had complete political control over the parallel regime. Dominance over the phantom government gave the party immense influence over the Albanian political scene in Kosovo. Although


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the parallel institutions had no official standing, they commanded significant financial resources and tremendous mobilization potential. Popular support for the parallel institutions among Albanians was extraordinarily high. Financially, in addition to the revenues that were generated through taxation on the diaspora community, taxes were also collected from Albanians within Kosovo. Even though there were complications and risks in collecting funds and bringing them into the province, there was sufficient money to run the parallel administration, particularly in the areas of education, health care and social services. Despite the strength of the LDK and the parallel government, however, there were also difficulties. Leadership was divided, with Rugova and his advisers in Prishtinë, and Bukoshi and the government ministers in Germany. This made communication, coordination and oversight difficult. The division between Rugova and Bukoshi deepened over time, with suspicion growing over Bukoshi’s management of diaspora funds combining with disillusionment and frustration over Rugova’s non-violent strategy. In Kosovo, the LDK and the parallel government committed themselves to the policy of functioning as if they had already achieved independence and, for the most part, refrained from attempts to organize a violent uprising. The strategy was internationally commended for its restraint, but it was also largely a strategy of necessity. The Albanian community in Kosovo had very few, if any military resources. Compounding this, despite the international support for the LDK and their policy of nonviolent resistance, no international power was willing to put force behind championing the Kosovo Albanian cause. Rugova and the LDK opted to work within their limitations and not force the hand of either the Yugoslav authorities or the international community. They focused on strengthening the parallel institutions and fostering good will among the international community. LDK leadership held to the theory that as the situation in the rest of Yugoslavia worsened and the federal state was re-configured, most likely with international mediation, the nascent institutions of the Republic of Kosova would fall into place as the appropriate governing structures for Kosovo. The LDK did have internal problems concerning the divergence between their rhetoric of democratization and the reality of the party’s organization. Although the leadership publicly espoused a pluralist governing philosophy, the party was not a democratic opposition, but rather an ethnic opposition. The priority for the LDK was Albanian national liberation. Calls for democratization in Yugoslavia were essentially a proposal for Albanian control over Kosovo because of the overwhelming demographic majority. As Bukoshi later recounted in an interview concerning the founding of the LDK, “Democracy wasn’t a priority at

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the time” (Hockenos 2003, 184). Shkelzen Maliqi, a prominent Kosovo Albanian political analyst, observed in 1996 that “Kosova Albanian political organizations are not real political parties, but merely pluralized elements of a national liberation movement whose overriding goal is the establishment of an independent Kosova” (1996, 151). All of this left the LDK in a commanding but precarious position. It had control over the Albanian political scene, but without substantial progress toward achieving independence that control would dissipate. At the same time there was no democratic political opposition within the Kosovo Albanian community to take advantage of any weakening of the LDK. Instead, the internal challenge to the LDK would come from armed militants who were frustrated with the lack for progress toward independence. Already by 1993, more violent nationalist Albanian organizations were being formed. These organizations would eventually become the major challengers the LDK’s political hegemony. In the meantime, the leadership of the LDK did not see how they could successfully achieve Kosovo’s split from Yugoslavia violently. Instead, the leaders of the “Republic of Kosova” set about organizing the parallel quasi-state. The parallel regime had two goals. First, they hoped to build an international profile for the situation of the Albanians in Kosovo. By presenting the Kosovo Albanian community as victims of Serbian human rights abuses, and as being led by a nonviolent, almost Gandhian resistance, they sought to garner international sympathy. This required a public commitment to the LDK’s nonviolent strategy. The adept use of the human rights discourse by Albanian organizations was vital for building international support. Second, the parallel regime sought to build institutions within Kosovo for the Albanian community. The parallel institutions were designed to deliver services to Kosovo Albanians in a state-like manner. Considering the restraints on their operation that were imposed by the Yugoslav state, these institutions could rarely be expected to deliver more than the minimum. Their actual organizational success was impressive. Outside of Yugoslavia, the Albanian parallel government built upon a network of international branches and sections that the LDK had successfully set up at its founding (Hockenos 2003, 184–185, 189). With the parallel ministries located outside of Kosovo, these international bases were extremely important because they gave the parallel institutions access to the large Albanian diaspora community. Many diaspora Albanians had emigrated permanently, built lives abroad and taken up citizenship. Links with these individuals provided further access to political power, finances, or network resources. Relationships were forged with U.S. Congressional representatives, religious organizations, international NGOs, powerful business leaders, and occasionally criminal networks.3


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Social Policy in the Parallel System Within Kosovo, the parallel institutions focused on social policy, health, and education. Although the education system was the most comprehensive program of the parallel Albanian regime, the social assistance and welfare programs were in some ways more coherent and centralized. The education and health programs quickly reverted to the public sector after the conflict. The social welfare sector was more prone to organizational conflicts between the Albanian activist community and the emerging public administration. The education system was the largest component of the parallel regime. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2001, 8), there were 266,400 primary, 58,700 secondary, and 16,000 university students in the parallel system by 1998. Classroom arrangements illuminate the degree to which the Belgrade authorities were willing to tolerate the parallel system. For many primary school students classes continued to be held in public school buildings. Albanian pupils attended classes either at different times than Serb children, or in separate areas of the school buildings. At the secondary and university levels, classes were held in private facilities (OECD 2001, 8). Albanian teachers were paid by the parallel regime and not by the official education ministry. According to Maliqi (1996, 115), the governmentin-exile provided 30 percent of the money to run the parallel schools, with the rest coming from funds raised in Kosovo itself. In regards to direct social welfare rights, the parallel health and social service networks were the most important and extensive projects. The parallel health care and social services system operated outside of the official parallel institutions. An important part of this system was the Mother Teresa Society (MTS), a Kosovo Albanian NGO that was established in 1989. MTS was not a religious organization, and considering that the vast majority of Kosovo Albanians are Muslim, there has been some confusion over the choice of the name. There were multiple factors behind naming the organization after Mother Teresa. Foremost, Mother Teresa herself was an ethnic Albanian from Skopje, and is held in extremely high regard as a favored daughter. Naming the organization after Mother Teresa also had the effect of countering Serbian nationalist claims that Albanians in Kosovo were seeking to Islamicize the province. Additionally, invoking the name of Mother Teresa was seen as a strategic move in appealing to Western support. It was a way to link the Kosovo Albanian cause with ideas of justice, charity, and mercy. In the parallel system, MTS was the primary delivery agency for a basket of health and social services. It rapidly emerged as an important

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and extensive part of the Kosovo Albanian civil society scene. By 1993 the organization claimed to be supplying food to 50,000 families in the province. In a later report, MTS was said to have organized a network of 86 voluntary clinics, staffed with 239 general practitioners, 140 specialists, and 423 nurses, during the course of the conflict (Malcolm 1998, 351). Additionally, at that time the organization claimed to be providing food, medicine, and hygiene supplies to approximately 350,000 people (Judah 200, 72). In an interview with the MTS leadership after the conflict, the organization reported 96 clinics involving 1,800 volunteers (Shala 2002). All of this was far surpassed by the scale of MTS operations in the period immediately after the conclusion of the NATO led airstrikes and the return of the Albanian refugees. At that time, MTS, as the only local NGO with a Kosovo-wide network, became the preeminent Kosovo humanitarian agency in the province, and the most common local partner of the international aid community. Beyond its humanitarian role, MTS had an important place in Kosovo Albanian mobilization. The organization emerged from the same political and social milieu as the LDK. From its beginnings however, MTS was conceived of as a distinct organization from either political parties such as the LDK, the parallel government, or even advocacy groups such as the Council for the Defense of Human Rights. But, like the LDK and the Council for the Defense of Human Rights, MTS was an organization of the Albanian educated elite based in Prishtinë. Through its activists, the organization claimed direct ties to the former state social welfare system. According to one MTS official, former employees of the Prishtinë Institute for Social Policy (ISP), a Yugoslav government institution that functioned like a state-sponsored research institute on social policy, were among the early founders of the organization (Shala 2002). Despite the official separation between MTS and the LDK, the two organizations have always been closely linked. Since the LDK had such extensive control of the parallel government, MTS’s cooperation with the LDK resulted in a close working relationship with the parallel government itself. Although the parallel government assisted MTS financially, the organization claims there were no direct transfers of funds. Doctors and medical personnel volunteered at the MTS clinics and were paid a stipend by the parallel government. At one point, the parallel government signed a memorandum of understanding with MTS. This apparently mainly covered the use of warehouses to store humanitarian goods (Shala 2002). The relationship continued to be close enough that later post-conflict work by MTS was seen by many Albanians and international staff as part of the LDK’s political maneuvering. There


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were a number of advantages to maintaining distance between MTS as a humanitarian NGO and the more explicitly political Albanian organizations. International aid agencies and NGOs, which were often funded by donor governments, could not offer material support to the parallel political institutions without the risk of provoking Belgrade. They could, however, support MTS on an NGO-to-NGO basis. The first president of MTS was a professor of folklore at the Albanological Institute in Prishtinë, Anton Cetta, who was known for his leadership of a Kosovo-wide campaign from 1990 to 1992 to end what was then the still-common practice of the blood feud among Albanians (Clark 2000, 61–62). Under Cetta’s leadership, MTS began its work by coordinating self-help efforts within the Albanian community. In Kosovo, the organization had a strictly defined hierarchical structure. Each municipality had at least one branch, usually located in its largest town or city. Smaller towns would have subbranches related to their respective branch. Subbranches in turn would have their own sub-branches in the surrounding villages. In some cases, the pattern was repeated at the level of neighborhoods, or clusters of settlements around larger villages. By 1997 there were 44 branches and 636 sub-branches (Shala 2002). The structure proved to be extraordinarily conducive to aid distribution, helping the organization to develop its strong position among the international aid agencies throughout the crisis. International support for MTS began in a large way in 1993. In that year U.S.-based relief and development agencies Mercy Corps International (MCI) and CRS began working directly with MTS. MCI initially worked with MTS on an agricultural assistance program for communities in the Drenica region. Mother Teresa activists in Skenderaj recount MCI agricultural programs as having introduced the use of plastic greenhouses in the municipality shortly after that time (MTS Activist, Durimishi, 2004). From 1993 onward, MTS developed further ties with international NGOs. World Vision, Doctors of the World, Médicins sans Frontières, and Caritas were all reported to have had projects in cooperation with MTS during the 1990s (Salla 1995). MTS had two major assistance programs during the 1990s. The first was the network of local health clinics. The second was the commodity distribution program. The health clinics garnered more attention outside Kosovo, but the commodity distribution program was larger and ultimately more important for the organizational development of MTS. According to Shala (2002), the distribution network had 7,200 volunteers as compared to the 1,800 in the clinic program. Although nearly all the Albanian medical professionals in Kosovo volunteered in MTS clinics during the war, few were involved in the management

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of the organization. At the conclusion of the conflict, doctors, nurses, and medical technicians were eager to return to the official hospitals and clinics that had been reopened under the auspices of the UN mission (Mujkoniman 2002). International donors no longer needed to go through MTS to support the clinics. Instead they could work directly with the UN mission’s health ministry. The parallel health care network rapidly disappeared and the public system of local abulantas (public clinics) reemerged. Unlike the health clinics, the commodity distribution, which is essentially a logistics exercise, did not require a specialized field of knowledge. The most relevant skills are general management capacities. In contrast with the health clinics, the international donor community not only resumed their cooperation with MTS on commodity distribution after the UN took responsibility for the province, but massively expanded their programs. During the conflict, in 1998 and 1999, but before the NATO intervention, MTS was instrumental in making distributions of humanitarian relief to Albanian IDPs within Kosovo. By 1998, the violence in Kosovo was intensifying and generating significant internal displacement. In response, the international community began to deliver large-scale humanitarian assistance. Both the WFP and the U.S. government began humanitarian relief operations, and MTS became involved in the bulk distribution of commodities. In early December 1998, the WFP agreed to coordinate food distribution with the NGO administrators of the U.S. food aid pipeline, MCI, and CRS. MTS was named in an agreement between the aid agencies as the primary local partner (USAID/OFDA 1998). This effectively consolidated the primary role of MTS in the humanitarian relief and reconstruction effort that would accompany the international intervention in 1999. The violence worsened as the conflict intensified. By late winter 1999, threats of large-scale military intervention by the Western powers became increasingly vocal and specific. International organizations evacuated their expatriate staff from the province, suspending all programs immediately before the NATO airstrikes began on March 24, 1999. At the time, the international NGOs discontinued working directly with MTS and shifted their focus to managing refugee camps and dealing with dispersed refugees in Albania and Macedonia. MTS was not a presence in the refugee camps in either country. There were a number of reasons that the organization did not become a major actor in the camps. On one level, the initial refugee waves coming out of Kosovo were simply too large and chaotic for the international organizations to cope with in an organized fashion.4 Additionally, many international NGOs had only just arrived in the region as part of the emergency response, and were unfamiliar with


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MTS. Those groups that were familiar with MTS—namely CRS and MCI—did not coordinate with it, in part because the leadership of MTS was in too much disarray for successful cooperation. International relief workers who had worked directly with MTS within Kosovo found that many of the activists who had fled were too busy trying to organize their own accommodations to start up operations in the refugee camps. Some MTS activists remained in Kosovo; others went to Albania, Macedonia, or other countries. Finally, the international NGOs were uncertain about the legality of working with MTS during the refugee emergency phase in Albania and Macedonia. Questions about the receptiveness of the host government to MTS were never answered satisfactorily enough for the agencies to renew their formal relationship in the camp context (Capps 2005). Although the refugee crisis was intense in Albania and Macedonia, it lasted less than three months. The camps themselves had such a short duration that management was never transferred to local organizations. By the second week of July 1999, the vast majority of refugees in Albania and Macedonia had either returned to Kosovo or were in the process of returning. Once its activists were back in Kosovo after Yugoslav forces had withdrawn, MTS was able to reorganize and renew its partnership with the NGOs. At the conclusion of the NATO-led air strikes in June 1999, the international relief NGOs resumed operations in the province. At this time there was an effort to diversify local partners, in part due to concern over the potential for MTS and its political allies to capitalize on their control over food relief.5 This largely failed because of the dominance of MTS within Albanian civil society and the need for distribution partners with sufficient organizational capacity that could be put to use immediately. As already noted, no other organizations had the extensive network of local activists and branches to be useful partners to the international NGOs. By the summer of 1999 the international community was responsible for food aid distributions to the majority of Kosovo residents, and there was simply too much work to be done to rely on partners that would need to be brought up to speed. The prior agreement between the U.S. government, the WFP, MCI, and CRS was reestablished. MCI and CRS jointly managed the U.S. AID Food for Peace pipeline. MTS was once again the primary local distribution partner. The organization worked with all of WFP’s international partners and was most often responsible for final distribution in Albanian communities. In addition to MCI and CRS, the international partners now included CARE International, Action Against Hunger, World Vision, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), and others. Local ad hoc Community Emergency Councils did operate as local distribution partners (LDP) in some places,

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but these arrangements were not common. They were most likely in Serb communities, where they were often affiliated with the Orthodox Church. The Yugoslav Red Cross (Serb) and the Red Cross of Kosova (Albanian) also served as local partners in a very limited number of communities, but never together and never in cooperation. The humanitarian operations in Kosovo after the NATO airstrikes were extraordinarily comprehensive and complicated. Although directed mostly by the UN, the actual distribution of the material assistance was done through networks of NGOs. As the final distribution agent for the majority of the commodities distributed in Kosovo, MTS almost immediately became the largest single Albanian institution in the province. It is difficult to underestimate this aspect of MTS’s organizational history. In the space of less than ten years it had gone from being a fiercely oppositional and highly politicized dissident organization to a massive local NGO with operational partnerships with some of the world’s largest international NGOs and IGOs. MTS maintained a de facto monopoly on the provision of social services and humanitarian assistance among the Albanian community. Other institutions existed, but none with either the scope of operations or the political links of MTS. In real terms that meant that at the height of the return of Albanian refugees, when the overwhelming majority of the population was receiving humanitarian assistance, nearly all of it was passing through the MTS organization. Despite the fact that the items being distributed were provided by international donors, and MTS was only the last link in a complicated chain, the organization gathered significant political capital through its role in humanitarian assistance. The value of this role was demonstrated in the fierceness with which MTS opposed the inclusion of other local organizations in the distribution network. The nature of MTS as an organization became increasingly important as Kosovo transitioned from war to peace under the auspices of the UN. But in a similar vein to Maliqi’s observation that the Albanian political organizations that emerged in Kosovo were not “real” political parties, MTS was not a “real” NGO but an extension of the Albanian liberation movement. Although there was some limited participation by nonAlbanians in MTS before the height of the conflict, the organization was overwhelmingly Albanian. The organization blurred the line between an ethnic self-help organization and a typical humanitarian NGO. For many activists, the post-conflict expectation was that MTS would simply step into the role of public social welfare agency in an Albanian dominated independent Kosovo. Not only would this be seen as a legitimation of their work during the conflict, it would also place the activists


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in valuable, stable, publicly supported social welfare jobs. Throughout, and even after, the transition to the public social welfare institutions took place, MTS repeatedly saw itself in competition with the emerging MLSW. The international organizations involved sought to depoliticize the delivery of social welfare benefits by transferring the distribution responsibilities to the public agency. MTS felt that the internationals were attempting to deny them their rightful position in the post-conflict governing structures. In addition to the contention between the international agencies and MTS over the particulars of the social welfare delivery system, MTS saw the role that it had played during the conflict being overshadowed by other actors, especially the militants from the KLA. After the conflict, MTS activists were proud of their part in setting up the parallel institutions in the face of the repression by the Milošević regime. At the same time, there was often animosity and tension between the MTS activists, who were generally older and more conservative, and the younger, more radical fighters from the KLA. Among the Albanian population at large, this tension found resonance. In general, people were extraordinarily grateful to the MTS activists who steadfastly persisted in providing material assistance throughout the conflict. However, there was also a sense of disillusionment with MTS and their political patrons, the LDK, over their inability to secure independence. The KLA fighters were glorified as the homegrown liberators of Kosovo. Often, however, just beneath the surface of public expressions of respect for the KLA was resentment toward many former fighters who were perceived as arrogant, self-promoting, and dangerous. Challenges to LDK Hegemony The KLA, in fact, had its foundations in a much older tradition of popular resistance in Kosovo than the LDK. Throughout the period of LDK dominance, other Albanian parties and organizations continued to operate, if at a much lower profile. Many of the alternative parties were highly critical of the LDK. There were two persistent strains of criticism. The first concerned the LDK leadership, which was characterized as autocratic and elite based. The second was that the LDK’s policy of nonviolence was too dependent on the good will of the international community. When the 1995 U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords to resolve the Bosnian war failed to include a resolution for the Kosovo conflict, criticism of the LDK leadership gained ground (O’Neill 2002, 22; Clark 2000, 123; Vickers 1998, 290). This criticism had deep political roots. In 1993, two parties were formed from a split in the Popular Movement

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for the Republic of Kosovo (LPRK)—an underground party originally formed in Stuttgart, Germany in 1982. The LPRK had its ideological roots in Marxist-Leninist activists who were allied with, and occasionally supported by, Enver Hoxha’s Albania (Hockenos 2003, 193). The support offered by Albania was always limited, and conversely, the commitment to the political ideology of Hoxha’s particular form of communism was never at the fore. Instead, these groups were more nationalist than communist. Tim Judah cites the Kosovo Albanian journalist Duat Duati’s assessment of the Enverists from the time: “They had no idea what Enverism was—they just wanted to get rid of the Serbs” (2000, 106).6 In 1993 the LPRK split into the National Movement for the Liberation of Kosovo (LKÇK) and the Popular Movement for Kosova (LPK) (Judah 2000, 115). At the time, the LKÇK and the LPK were both small, essentially fringe groups, that espoused a militant strategy for gaining independence for Kosovo (Hockenos 2003, 245). While the LKÇK remained relatively small, the LPK developed the KLA as its armed wing. As the LDK leadership and strategy came under greater criticism for their lack of progress toward independence, the KLA increased its profile. The LPK and the KLA were initially based in the rural and less developed areas of Kosovo. The greatest support for the KLA was in the Drenica region of central Kosovo, at the core of which are the municipalities of Skenderaj / Srbica and Gllogovc / Glogovac. Drenica also extends to the adjacent parts of the surrounding municipalities of Klinë / Klina, Istog / Istok, and Malishevë / Malisevo The other area of especially strong support was in the Dukagjini region in southwest Kosovo, including the municipalities of Pejë / Pec, Deçan / Decani, Gjakovë / Dakovica, and the northwest part of Prizren. Nearly all the other predominantly Albanian municipalities also had a KLA presence, although it was less pronounced and less active. What set Drenica apart as a foundation for KLA organizing in Kosovo was its combination of rural poverty and the prominence of traditional social structures in the region. Poverty in the region is extraordinarily high. Drenica is widely considered to have been the poorest place in Kosovo, and possibly in all of the former Yugoslavia. As in many underdeveloped rural areas, families here are large and extended, and tend to live extremely traditional lives. Extended families very often live in large walled compounds, dominated by a patriarch (Hockenos 2003, 246).7 The social context of Drenica, dominated by local patriarchs, stood in contrast to urban areas such as Prishtinë where the intellectual elite, working in state institutions such as the university, the ISP, or the Albanological Institute, dominated the political scene through the LDK.


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Crisis and International Intervention, 1999 Despite the lack of major fighting in the province, throughout the period of the parallel institutions, the recurring refrain was that “[t]he Yugoslav crisis began in Kosovo [with the Kosovo riots of 1981], and it will end in Kosovo” (Malcolm 1998, xliii). Kosovo was widely considered to be a powder keg waiting to explode. Worst-case scenarios envisioned a far-reaching war that would pull in not only newly independent, and precariously multiethnic Macedonia, but also NATO members, Greece and Turkey, each theoretically supporting a different side. When neighboring Albania tumbled into anarchy in 1997 due to the collapse of a countrywide pyramid scheme, and its national armories were looted, it seemed certain that Kosovo Albanians would explode into rebellion (Hockenos 2003, 246). Instead, the policy of noncompliance and de facto autonomy persisted, if only for a brief while longer. In speaking of the LDK’s “unique experiment” of nonviolent resistance to the Belgrade regime, Tim Judah notes that “[w]hen it failed the warriors came back into fashion” (2000, 64). Despite the appearance of creating a virtually independent Kosovo, complete with an Albanian “president” in Ibrahim Rugova, the Albanian population, like its Serbian neighbors, was increasingly dependent on the ideologies of nationalism and ethnic division that were dominating and destroying the larger Yugoslavia. The creation of an Albanian “Republic of Kosova” within Kosovo had deepened the divisions within the province. The tensions around these divisions were moving toward a stalemate. As frustration built to break the deadlock, more radical and violent options moved to the fore. The LPK gained influence politically and its armed branch, the KLA, increased in size and operations. By 1998 the flood of small arms generated by the collapse of Albania was being put to use in Kosovo by the KLA, and a full insurgency was being waged. The remnants of the Yugoslav army, as well as local police and paramilitary organizations, employed harsh counterinsurgency tactics to defeat the guerrilla forces in places like Skenderaj and Malishevë (Human Rights Watch 1999). The fighting had the effect of displacing thousands of Albanians within Kosovo. By summer 1998, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated there were 200,000 Albanian IDPs in Kosovo. The crisis within Kosovo, increasingly drawing media attention, demanded an international response. On the humanitarian side, greater levels of food aid were delivered to the province through international and local NGOs, primarily MTS. Throughout 1998 there was also a major diplomatic offensive, backed by the threat of force by NATO, to

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resolve the Kosovo crisis. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke reached an agreement with Milošević on October 12 for a drawing down of Yugoslav forces in Kosovo and renewed negotiations with the Albanian leadership. As part of this agreement, the Kosovo Verification Mission—2,000 unarmed observers sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were deployed across to the province to monitor the situation (Judah 2000, 186–187). These efforts failed to reduce tensions, and the violence continued. The situation came to a head with an incident in the village of Racak in January 1999 that left 45 Albanians dead. Although some were KLA fighters, evidence indicated that most were civilians, killed at close range (Human Rights Watch 1999, Appendix A, 76–83).8 Following the Racak killings, with tensions extremely high, Western governments decided on a negotiating plan. Albanian and Serbian delegations were brought to Rambouillet, France, where peace talks were held. At Rambouillet a proposed peace agreement was hashed out in February. After two weeks of negotiations, a shaky consensus appeared to have been formed. After some hesitation, and under political pressure from the United States, the accords were signed by the Albanian delegates in Paris on March 18. Ultimately, the Serbian side rejected the agreement and refused to sign (Judah 2000, 223). On March 24, 1999, NATO began a campaign of airstrikes in order to drive the Serbian and Yugoslav forces out of the province. The air offensive lasted for 78 days. During the course of the combat, more than 850,000 Albanians fled Kosovo to Albania and Macedonia, creating a massive refugee crisis. On June 3, Yugoslavia capitulated and agreed to withdraw its forces from Kosovo. On June 10 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1244, which established the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, effectively taking over the administration of the province. The Kosovo Albanian refugees in Macedonia and Albania rapidly returned home. An exodus of Kosovo Serbs began as the Kosovo Albanians returned. At the time, estimates were that more than a hundred-fifty thousand Kosovo Serbs fled, mostly into Serbia-proper, creating a second refugee crisis. Conclusion: Laying the Groundwork for Social Welfare Conflicts The political history of Kosovo set the province and Serbia on different paths of political development. Both the Albanian and Serbian political actors made tactical and strategic decisions that pushed the two communities


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in divergent directions. By simultaneously pursuing strategies that relied on competing versions of legitimation—constitutional revisions, popular self-determination and delivery of citizenship rights—the Albanian and Serbian communities developed mutually exclusive political and social systems. The parallel system in effect was not just about creating Albanian institutions in Kosovo. On the Albanian side it was also about denying legitimacy to Serbian or Yugoslav institutions. On the Serb side, with Albanians removed from the official institutions, these governing institutions could reflect a Serbian national ideal. In neither case could the two sets of institutions actually function fully. For the Albanians, no matter how effective they were in building their parallel system, the Yugoslav state remained officially in control. For Serbia, with the demographic tide so deeply against them, more and more, violence appeared to be the only available option for maintaining sovereignty over Kosovo. In relation to the development of a social welfare regime in Kosovo, the parallel structures set up an unusual problem for future development. Albanian parallel structures created a social welfare system centered on MTS’s network of health clinics and humanitarian commodity distribution. This social welfare network was effective at delivering assistance to Kosovo Albanians in need throughout the conflict. The network, however, existed almost entirely in an ethnonationalized, private sphere. The Albanian political actors made a conscious decision to keep MTS outside of the political arena. This gave the organization a certain amount of freedom of operations during the conflict and in fact probably provided for its institutional survival. As an openly political actor, MTS would not have won the international support that ultimately proved so important for its growth. However, once the conflict was over, moving the social welfare system back to the public sphere became an imperative. The tactical decision to keep MTS outside of the political arena during the conflict set up the primary social welfare conflict in the postwar period, namely, competition between MTS and the emerging public social welfare agencies over control of distribution and determining beneficiary criteria. The competition between the emerging public social welfare regime and the private system of MTS was complicated by the political struggles of Kosovo. Not coincidentally, the centers of power of the LDK correlated with the areas of the most effective MTS branches. In these areas, MTS was in a stronger position to force a compromise with the public agencies, and the international organizations that were their champions. In the areas where the LDK was supplanted by the LPK / KLA, capabilities and capacities for social welfare programming were especially weak. The

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dominant organizational model was militant and ethnicized. The final arena of complications was in the Serb dominated areas. There, the divergence between the Serbian and Albanian perceptions of the legitimate state provided the greatest challenge to the successful implementation of a unified social welfare regime.

Chapter 3

FORMATION OF SOCIAL POLICY IN POST-CONFLICT KOSOVO This chapter has two objectives: the first expository, the second analytical. The first is simply to detail the process of social policy formation in Kosovo in the wake of the international intervention in 1999, identifying major actors and their roles. The experience of Kosovo was extraordinary in this sector because of the central role that international relief NGOs played. The specific operations of these NGOs established an institutional foundation for the infrastructure of the later Kosovo public and private social welfare regimes. The second objective is to analyze the social protection regime that emerged. Concerning the relationship between the type of social protection regime that has been developed in Kosovo, and the manner in which that regime was developed, I argue that the regime that was established relied heavily on the practices of the international humanitarian NGO community, and mostly excluded the traditional actors of social policy formation. Following Esping-Anderson’s (1990) typology, I argue that the post-conflict social protection regime in Kosovo best fits into the “liberal” category. In particular the Social Assistance Scheme and the Pension Scheme are premised on an individualist, rather than universalistic, interpretation of social rights. Both these major social programs feature very modest benefits, and guarantee only the bare minimum of social protections. The two programs fail to offer citizens significant protection from market commodification. The Social Assistance Scheme, in particular, is distinct in its tight adherence to formal means-testing. The Pension Scheme is notable for its use of individual private accounts. Because liberal social welfare regimes have a history of promoting increased stratification of beneficiaries over time and

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heightening social cleavages, this analysis of the Kosovo system points to significant potential problems in the future. These liberal characteristics of Kosovo’s post-conflict social protection regime can largely be traced to the process by which the programs themselves were formed. In the prior historical cases of developed social welfare regimes, coalitions between political parties, working-class organizations, and political elites were often strong determinants in defining the contours of social policy and the social protection regime. (Luebbert 1991, 114–115; Alber and Flora 1984, 43) The development of the regime in Kosovo departs dramatically from this pattern. The programs and institutions that make up the social welfare regime emerged less out of the province’s internal political dynamic, and more out of the post-conflict emergency relief and reconstruction process, which was dominated by international actors. Many of the traditional forces that guide domestic social policy formation were either absent or excluded. Social policy making in post-conflict Kosovo, particularly in the immediate period after the NATO airstrikes of spring 1999, relied heavily on a combination of two external forces. The first was international aid agencies whose primary strategic priority was the initial emergency response and subsequent disengagement. The second force was foreign donor agencies that focused primarily on economic development issues and viewed social policy warily as a potential interference in the post-socialist transition to a market economy. Kosovar manifestations of organized labor or capital, as well as political parties and advocacy groups were not part of the initial social policy formation process in the wake of the conflict, and only later took on a limited role. This chapter begins with an outline of the economic landscape of Kosovo, highlighting some of its historic weaknesses and limitations. With its underdeveloped economy, the province suffered from broad poverty across ethnic boundaries. Poverty was exacerbated by the conflict, but in different ways across the ethnic divides. Having established the economic context, I take the development of the specific post-conflict social welfare programs from the emergency response of the late 1990s to the institutionalization of the UN administered system. I conclude with an analysis of the emerging Kosovo-wide social welfare regime, with a particular emphasis on the Social Assistance Scheme, placing it within the ideal typologies of the welfare state literature. A Brief Overview of the Post-conflict Kosovo Economy By most measurements Kosovo was persistently the poorest and least developed political entity in Yugoslavia. The local economy continued to

Formation of Social Policy

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under-perform, despite a history of direct federal development assistance to the province going back to 1957 (OECD 1968, 19–20; Lydall 1984, 289–290; Magaš 1993, 19). When the general Yugoslav economy declined precipitously in the 1980s, the situation in Kosovo worsened. A sample of the statistics over time attests to the grim economic outlook. In 1960 the GDP (gross domestic product) of Kosovo was one-fifth of that of the wealthiest republic, Slovenia (Allcock 2000, 84). In 1979, Kosovo’s per capita output was less than one-third of the national average (Lydall 1984, 175). Unemployment figures rose from a dismal 18.6 percent in 1971 to a staggering 27.5 percent in 1981 (Tomc 1988, 71). In addition to a generally weak economy, persistent ethnic inequalities compounded local tensions. One study from 1984 found that, although Serbs and Montenegrins made up 15 percent of the population, they held 30 percent of all state jobs in the province (Malcolm 1999, 337). A 2000 IMF assessment of the economic background of the province stated, “Although prewar statistics on the economy are incomplete and unreliable, they paint a picture of an economy that was already in serious decline” (Corker et al. 2001, 3). Industrial investment in Kosovo during the Yugoslav federal period was hampered by development decisions that directed more labor-intensive export-oriented production toward the northern and western areas of the country (Woodward 1995b, 284). The large, federally directed investments in Kosovo rarely resulted in economic growth because they were focused mainly on heavy industry enterprises and resource extraction, which was largely capital-intensive and generated few jobs. Woodward highlights the manner in which Yugoslav federal investment, industrialization and employment policies combined to create growing disparities among the different republics and regions (1995b, 282–285). Foreign investment was used primarily for export-oriented manufacturing and processing, which were located in more developed republics with better access to external markets. In the case of Kosovo, this resulted in uneven investment that was concentrated in very large, capital-intensive projects that did not generate hard-currency income, or many jobs. By the late 1980s, enterprise losses in Kosovo were greater than savings and the province was on the edge of bankruptcy (Lydall 1989, 68). This imbalanced industrialization left Kosovo with socially owned enterprises that had little real value as the province attempted to privatize its economy after the international intervention. Partly as a result, the post-conflict privatization process has been halting and confused, and has done little to reinvigorate the economy (European Stability Initiative 2002). The bleak economic legacy is compounded by the destruction caused by the conflict itself, which left the province in economic turmoil by

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Table 3.1

Kosovo post-conflict human development in regional context Life Adult expectancy literacy rate GDP per Human at birth (% age 15 capita Education Development (years) and above) (PPP US$) index Index (HDI) 2002 2002 2002 2002 value 2002

HDIranks 27

Slovenia

76.1

99.7

18,540

0.96

0.895

48 56 60

Croatia Bulgaria Macedonia Bosnia and Herzegovina Albania Turkey Kosovo

74.1 70.9 73.5

98.1 98.6 96.0

10,240 7,130 6,470

0.90 0.91 0.83

0.830 0.796 0.793

74.0

94.6

5,970

0.84

0.781

73.6 70.4 68.8

98.7 86.5 94.2

4,830 6,390 2,660

0.89 0.80 0.81

0.781 0.751 0.734

66 65 88 109.5

Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2004 for all numbers except Kosovo; Kosovo numbers are from UNDP Kosovo Human Development Report 2004.; Serbia and Montenegro are not included in the UNDP HDR for 2004.

the time the UN assumed responsibility in 1999. Extraordinarily high unemployment, dependence on remittance incomes, poverty, and lack of economic resources all placed the province in a precarious economic state. Theoretically taking Kosovo as an independent state in 2003, it would be the poorest country in the Balkans, with a per capita GDP of €950 (UNDP 2004, 15). Table 3.1, positions Kosovo within UN Development Program’s Human Development Report for 2004. Kosovo would have had a Human Development Index (HDI) value of 0.734, placing it at the bottom of the rankings for the region. It would also have had the lowest national GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, as well as the lowest life expectancy in the Balkans (see Table 3.1). The continued heavy reliance on remittances after the intervention in 1999 further skewed the economy, causing consumption to exceed production and making efforts to track economic development difficult. Informal estimates in 2004 put remittance income at approximately €500,000,000 annually. Despite this extraordinary influx of income, poverty remained a central fact of life, with approximately 37 percent of the population in poverty, and 15.2 percent in extreme poverty (World Bank 2005, 17).1 This marked a decrease in the overall poverty level from about 50 percent, but an increase in the extreme poverty from 11.9 percent according to 2001 numbers (World Bank 2001, 10). In more concrete terms, approximately 300,000 people in Kosovo suffered from extreme poverty in 2004.


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Poverty in Kosovo in the post-conflict period was consistently described by the World Bank as broad, but not deep (World Bank 2001, 9; World Bank 2005, 17). This reflected the large percentage of the population in general poverty, but the significantly smaller percentage in extreme poverty. This condition indicated that relatively small resource transfers could raise many Kosovars out of poverty. The World Bank found a number of correlations for families who were in extreme poverty, including the presence of children, the elderly, or individuals with disabilities. Female-headed families also had a higher chance of being in poverty, as did families from communities other than Serb or Albanian (World Bank 2005, 18). Bhaumik, Gang, and Yun have looked more closely at the ethnic component in the correlation of poverty with children and the elderly in terms of the two major communities and have identified “youth dependency to be an important determinant of poverty among Albanian households, and old age dependency to be an important determinant of poverty among Serb households” (2005, 5). In total this profile painted a portrait of poverty in Kosovo as a potentially manageable problem. This was especially true for Kosovo Serbs and Albanians. For other ethnic minorities in particular, Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian, Goranci and Bosniak, the obstacles to alleviating poverty were more likely to be structural and more difficult to overcome. There was cause to believe that the Kosovo economy would recover and improve over time. In the long term, there is tremendous potential in the human capital of the province. The population is young and relatively well educated. Over half of the population in 2004 was under 25 years of age. Kosovo did not compare exceptionally poorly to its neighbors in terms of literacy and education. Primary and secondary school enrollment rates in 2003 were 95.4 percent and 75.2 percent, respectively—within a reasonable range of Albanian (97 percent and 74 percent) and Macedonia (93 percent and 82 percent) (UNDP 2004). Significantly, university enrollment has declined dramatically since the conflict from a peak of more than 20 percent of the overall student population in 1980 / 1981 to 5 percent in 2002 / 2003 (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 16). Considering the role that tertiary education had played in displacing unemployment throughout Yugoslavia (Woodward 1995b, 338), this drop in university enrollment may have more positive than negative implications. Unemployment looms large in public perceptions of economic problems. According to a survey done in January 2003, funded by the UNDP in Kosovo and conducted by a Kosovo affiliate of BBSS Gallup International, unemployment was most often identified by Kosovo Albanians as the single biggest problem facing the province

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(UNDP 2003, 62). This was reinforced by a separate, smaller survey done in March 2003, also funded by UNDP but conducted by the RIINVEST Institute, a Prishtinë-based economic research center, which also identified unemployment as the biggest problem facing Kosovo (RIINVEST 2003). Overall unemployment was estimated at 49 percent in 2003; taking into consideration informal labor, the rate dropped to 38 percent. Unemployment among women and young people (16–24) was considerably higher at 63.6 percent and 71.6 percent respectively. Rural unemployment was estimated at 54.5 percent and urban unemployment at 43.6 percent (RIINVEST 2003). All told, the data paints a picture of a remarkably underdeveloped and poverty stricken region of Europe. Yet is also a region with a significant and underutilized pool of human capital that may hold within it the potential for future economic growth. Social Policy Formation in Kosovo Social policy in Kosovo from the late 1990s to just before the province declared independence in 2008 moved through three distinct phases. The first coincided with the intensification of the conflict and immediate post-conflict humanitarian crisis. This phase was largely an emergency response, dominated by local and international NGOs, and lasted from 1998 to August 2000. The second phase was the transition from the emergency distribution of humanitarian aid to the formation of a temporary social assistance program. The transition was led by the WFP, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNMIK, and an ad hoc consortium of international NGOs, relief agencies and donor governments that had been involved in the distribution of food to the war-affected population. Local humanitarian NGO participation in the design and implementation of the early social assistance program was limited to those organizations that had been involved in food distribution. The planning for this phase overlapped with the reduction of emergency food distribution during spring and summer 2000. Social policy formation entered a third phase when local institutions assumed responsibilities from the UN administration with the establishment of the Kosovo Provisional Institutes for Self-Government (PISG), and the first provincial government in 2002. This period has been dominated by the normalization and institutionalization of provincial social policy programming such as social assistance, old-age pensions, disability and unemployment insurance, and social services. Policy formation in this last phase continued to rely heavily on international input, although increasingly in the form of outside consultants who worked directly with


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the local provincial government. Even in this last phase of “normal social policy” formation, traditional actors such as organized labor, capital, and political parties were only intermittently involved. The Emergency Phase With the Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 1244 on June 10, 1999, the UN took responsibility for the administration of Kosovo. Following the resolution, there was a massive population movement as approximately 850,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees who had fled the province during the conflict returned. Additionally, thousands of Kosovo Serbs, fearing ethnic persecution, left the province for Serbia-proper. The immediate post-conflict operations can be characterized as an escalation of the humanitarian relief programs operating in the province since late 1998. Originally begun as limited responses to internal violence in Kosovo, the 1998 programs consisted mainly in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to IDPs and others affected by the conflict. At the start of the NATO airstrikes in spring of 1999, the massive flow of Albanian refugees fleeing the province triggered a reorientation of these programs into refugee relief operations in the neighboring countries of Albania and Macedonia. This large-scale response continued during the returns to Kosovo after the NATO-led airstrikes ended. During this period the majority of NGO and international agencies active in the province carried out standard reconstruction and relief operations. Reconstruction entailed exactly that; agencies working at either the municipal or village level were distributing construction materials for the rehabilitation of homes and community buildings including clinics and schools. Relief operations were characterized as the distribution of basic commodities, including nonfood items such as blankets, mattresses, plastic sheeting, clothing, and personal hygiene kits, as well as a food ration. Although UNMIK was not yet operational on the ground, the UN, through the UNHCR, had established a systematic approach for overall relief operations in Kosovo. For each operational sector, such as food, nonfood, and reconstruction, the province was divided into Areas of Responsibility (AOR). Depending on the sector, UNHCR worked with an appropriate partner UN agency. In the food sector, UNHCR worked primarily with the WFP, which maintained a commodity pipeline to supply the operation with items for distribution. Commodities were brought into Kosovo by truck after arriving at ports either in Thessaloníki, Greece or Bar, Montenegro. CRS and MCI maintained a separate relationship with the USAID-administered FFP program. The FFP pipeline had been established during the preconflict crisis. It was managed by CRS and

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operated until April 2001. The WFP pipeline continued to operate at steadily reduced levels until March 2002. The WFP and FFP pipelines were integrated and managed in coordination. This was the distribution network that became the organizational foundation for the later social assistance programs. The initial food distributions in Kosovo were blanket distributions that covered as much of the population as possible. At the most basic level, humanitarian assistance programs, like the one in post-conflict Kosovo, are extraordinarily complex logistical exercises. Such commodity distributions require close coordination at a variety of levels. The complexity of the distribution networks creates localized nodes of power. Each point on the distribution chain can hold up the delivery process and claim to be the key to the whole operation. At the local level, where the actual population is receiving necessities for survival, the network interfaces with the political structures most dramatically. By providing food, the local distribution agents fulfill a basic welfare need and assume a high level of social and political importance in the community. The network that was built in the immediate post-conflict period was not part of either the prior state social welfare network or the later UNMIK established network, but instead remained mostly in the sphere of the prior parallel system. The distribution chain ran from the primary ports of delivery down to the local villages. Commodities that came in through Thessaloníki, Greece had to pass through Macedonia in order to enter Kosovo. Shipments from Bar, Montenegro went directly into Kosovo. In either case borders were prone to being closed by the local governments, as well as by NATO, resulting in significant and frequent delays in delivery. In Kosovo, commodities were sent to warehouses staffed and managed by large international NGOs. From these warehouses, the international NGOs would arrange for further delivery to local NGOs, known as LDPs, for final community distributions. The LDPs were responsible for determining how many people were present in the community, and thus how many beneficiaries there would be in that village. Commodities were delivered to the LDPs based on their numbers. Commodity aid distributions represent opportunities for mobilization because they are labor intensive and require very high levels of interaction between civil society organizations and the community. Both the international NGOs and the LDPs need large numbers of people in order to operate. On the international NGO side this took the form of paid employment, but the LDPs relied mostly on volunteers. In the immediate aftermath of the airstrikes, international NGO field teams were used to make initial forays into the communities to determine


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who the LDP would be in that particular community, complete a needs assessment and get a population estimate. At the very beginning of the operation, this first visit always involved expatriate staff as well as locals, and might also be accompanied by an emergency delivery of commodities. For both the delivery and the distribution, the LDP was expected to gather community members to volunteer in unloading and moving the commodities. Afterward, the international NGO would send another field team to monitor the distribution. Monitoring was completed by randomly visiting households in the distribution area. During these visits the field team would confirm that the appropriate ration amount had been distributed and that there were no signs of corruption, such as LDP members demanding payment for rations or refusing to distribute to a community member for political, ethnic, or religious reasons. The entire process granted the LDP an increased profile and sense of authority in the community, and built up large teams of field workers with tremendous amounts of experience and contacts in the communities for the international NGOs. In nearly all cases the LDP was a chapter of MTS. As detailed in Chapter 2, by the time of the post-conflict intervention, MTS already had an established relationship with the international NGO community. Occasionally, an “emergency committee” was formed for the express purpose of aid distribution, but this was relatively unusual. In no case was the LDP a representative of any sort of municipal structure, or of the prior state social welfare system, such as the local CSW. With the UNMIK municipal administrations not yet established, the only municipal authorities were members of the KLA-led provisional government, to whom the international NGO community was reluctant to offer any kind of recognition. As for the CSWs, few of the international relief NGOs had any experience working with these institutions previously, so they mostly remained unknown and underutilized by the field teams. Only later would the CSWs and the municipal social welfare departments emerge to take leading roles in the social welfare regime. Once the initial emergency period had passed, international donors decided to reduce the amount of commodities to be distributed. The food aid reduction process had a direct impact on the organization of the Social Assistance Scheme. The reductions began in October 1999 with monthly distributions dropping from 1,300,000 to 900,000 beneficiaries per month (Development Researchers’ Network 2002, 9). In regions that had suffered the most severe destruction, reductions were as small as 15 percent to 20 percent; in regions that had little or no war damage, reductions were larger, approaching 40 percent. In order to more effectively target the reduced food aid, a system of beneficiary categorization

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was adopted. The targeting categorizations were effectively a very basic form of means-testing. There was a long-term impact to the system, because it later became the model for formal means-testing and differentiated social assistance benefits. The basic rules for categorization were even incorporated into the eventual Social Assistance Scheme itself. Although the reductions in food aid were not extreme, food aid beneficiaries, local NGOs responsible for final distribution, and community authorities reacted strongly to both the reductions and the categorizations. The popular resistance to the reductions in commodity distributions relate to Pierson’s (1994) argument about the creation of interest groups in welfare states. Pierson observed that in established welfare states, social programs proved resistant to retrenchment, in part because, over time, the programs themselves had developed constituencies that provided political support. These constituencies were distinct from those that had originally been instrumental in forming the programs of the welfare state. He identifies three constituencies in particular—the “recipients of the various benefits,” “the providers of the public services,” and “public interest organizations seeking to protect the position of the unorganized (1994, 30).” The process of creating welfare constituencies was less developed in Kosovo than in Pierson’s cases, but significant nonetheless. During the wholesale emergency distributions the category of recipients or beneficiaries was extremely wide. As a group, beneficiaries were coherent and unified in their resistance to the initial reductions, but their level of activism in later cuts dropped dramatically. Ultimately they had very little role in later social policy formation. The major social welfare provider at the local level was MTS, who put up fierce organizational resistance to all of the reductions, the criteria that were used to enforce them and the later transfer of responsibilities to the CSWs. MTS clearly recognized that their institutional survival was at stake. The expectation among many in the international NGO community was that ideally MTS would transition its position to the third leg of Pierson’s model—namely, becoming a “public interest organization seeking to protect the position of the unorganized.” This did not happen. In Kosovo, the resistance among beneficiaries was focused largely on the question of timing. Although it was clear to the international NGOs and UNMIK that the need for food aid was declining, the October date for beneficiary reductions generated anxiety especially in rural parts of Kosovo, because it was one of the normal harvest periods. Since the crisis had peaked during the spring planting season, and the airstrikes had continued through the summer growing season, there was no crop for 1999. Beneficiaries repeatedly stressed their concern that food stocks would not


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get them through the winter. The international community was reluctant to respond to these concerns by lessening the reductions. Internationals working in the agriculture sector were already concerned that the food aid being distributed was a going to have a damaging effect on the commodity market. Because the focus of the deeper reductions was on the less severely damaged areas, many of the beneficiaries’ concerns were ultimately unfounded. There were no reports of food shortages during the winter of 1999–2000. Beneficiary resistance did, however, make implementing the reductions more difficult. Resistance to the food aid reductions and the categorization among Kosovo NGOs and local authorities was also deep. This resistance crossed ethnic boundaries—it was as pronounced in Albanian and Serb communities as it was in other minority areas. It also crossed institutional boundaries. Emergency councils, MTS branches, Albanian and Serbian Red Cross offices all expressed resistance to implementing the cuts. Activists from all of these organizations shared concerns that cutting anyone from the beneficiary list, regardless of need, would be construed as selective and arbitrary. Some activists refused to distribute aid based on the reductions, and either warehoused the aid while attempting to negotiate with their partner international NGO, or distributed aid to the same number of beneficiaries at reduced ration rates. The reductions and categorizations made these organizations acutely aware of their political vulnerability. So long as they were making the wholesale distributions they were unanimously popular in their communities. Reductions were certain to anger some of the population and open their operations to criticism. Activists stressed that they had built their organizations on the ideal of equitable distribution throughout their communities. Food aid distribution had made them the most visible and extensive service provider in the locality. The blanket distributions had made the organizations almost invulnerable to political criticism, since nearly every member of the community was receiving assistance. Even more problematic than the reductions was the categorization system because it introduced means-testing and beneficiary evaluations to the system. Activists were called upon to evaluate beneficiaries and determine where they fit into the categorization scheme. The room for manipulation, as well as for accusations of corruption was much greater. The situation was problematic because once the context shifted from broad emergency response to more targeted need-based assistance, the role of local NGOs and Emergency Councils began to resemble that of social welfare agencies. These organizations were not public agencies, but they were the most important providers of the public welfare. Their legitimacy rested largely on their effectiveness

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in addressing the humanitarian situation. If this effectiveness was called into question, so was their public position. This situation was most acute in areas that were served by MTS, where the NGO had served such a pronounced role in the parallel administration. It was less acute in Serb majority enclaves where there was already an institutional hierarchy between the Serbian state welfare office and the Yugoslav Red Cross. Despite the resistance, the international community insisted on more substantial reductions, which were implemented in April 2000. These reductions reflected a fact that was becoming increasingly evident as the operations continued: despite the destruction caused by the conflict, the population of Kosovo maintained significant resources and was not in need of long-term food aid assistance. On the contrary, the risk of negatively interfering in the development of agricultural and commodity markets was becoming a greater concern. By the beginning of 2000, the international donor agencies involved in the relief operations began to prioritize the development of exit strategies over other aspects of programming. This second round of reductions was actually met with less resistance by the beneficiary population. This probably reflected their earlier concern with the timings of the reductions. With this round of reductions coming in midspring, it had become clear that there would be a sufficient planting season and that food would be available. The local NGOs and authorities continued to resist the reductions, but under less pressure from the general population. By this time MTS and, to a lesser degree the other LDPs were being drawn into the transition away from humanitarian aid and toward a social welfare regime.

The Transition from Emergency Relief to Social Assistance Complementary to the reductions in the humanitarian food aid programs, the international administrative structures of the province were increasingly formalized during winter 1999–2000. UN Security Council Resolution 1244, passed in the wake of the intervention in 1999, which had created UNMIK, spelled out the main responsibilities of the mission, including: (a) Promoting the establishment, pending a final settlement, of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo . . . ; (b) Performing basic civilian administrative functions where and as long as required; and (c) Organizing and overseeing the development of provisional institutions for democratic and autonomous self-government.


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At the outset UNMIK had been organized around four “pillars”: Pillar I, Humanitarian Assistance; Pillar II, Civil Administration; Pillar III, Democratization and Institution Building; and Pillar IV, Economic Development. Pillar I, which had been led by UNHCR, was in the process of being dissolved as the need for humanitarian assistance was reduced. Continuing operations in this sector were subsumed under either Economic Development or Civil Administration. The administrative arrangement of UNMIK at the time, known as the Joint Interim Administration Structure (JIAS), was also undergoing increasing formalization, with more and more of its constituent departments being operationalized. This included the Department of Health and Social Welfare (DHSW), which became responsible for reorganizing the social assistance network in Kosovo. The DHSW assumed responsibility for prior state social welfare institutions, including the network of CSW, which was present in nearly all municipalities, and the ISP in Prishtinë. In the beginning of 2000, the DHSW also assumed responsibility for the formation of a new Social Assistance Scheme. These first efforts at formal post-conflict social policy in Kosovo were largely driven by a multiagency Transition Task Force led by a representative of the DHSW and composed of representatives from WFP, UNHCR, USAID FFP, international NGOs active in food distribution, and local Albanian NGOs. From February to June 2000, the Transition Task Force designed the social assistance program and planned how to implement it. The idea of using the international NGO food distribution network as the foundation for the reconstruction of a social welfare network was first discussed informally with representatives of the NGO community in February 2000. As UNHCR began to contemplate phasing down its humanitarian assistance operations, and UNMIK began to consider its options for addressing the problem of providing a livelihood to those who were dependent on assistance, more formal discussions were organized among the international NGOs to explore strategic alternatives. The Transition Task Force was formally organized in late March 2000, with UNMIK as the chairing organization. The first concrete project of the Transition Task Force was the creation of an Operating Framework to govern the interaction between the different organizations. The Operating Framework defined the roles and responsibilities of the different institutional actors involved. Since the social welfare scheme was an UNMIK program, the DHSW, working with closely with WFP and UNHCR, was the primary agency responsible for the transition. The international NGOs, referred to by UNHCR as Implementing

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Partners (IP) and LDPs, such as MTS, were to offer support throughout the process, providing critical participation in planning and design and using their resources in the field to facilitate implementation. At the same time, WFP continued its efforts to reduce the scale of the humanitarian food aid program. With the amount of food due to arrive for distribution being reduced, the agencies responsible organized a public awareness campaign in order to bring down the numbers of food beneficiaries. Since this round of reductions would be substantially deeper than the earlier round, WFP had decided that the cuts would be tempered through media and public relations. The IPs organized “focused group discussions” throughout the province. These were essentially town hall-style meetings in which issues of aid distribution were discussed with community representatives. Although the meetings were ostensibly designed to gather information concerning food need from the communities, they were also intended to help beneficiaries understand their own needs as relative to those of others who might be worse off in some way. Representatives of the IPs were instructed to present the idea of food aid in Kosovo in a more global context, stressing other needs in the international community and the risks of aid dependency. It was hoped that as winter ended, many of those who were not the most needy would voluntarily remove themselves from the beneficiary lists. These meetings between the IPs, LDPs, and community may have been one of the most significant missed opportunities in the formation of the post-conflict social welfare regime in Kosovo. Had the LDPs been able to convert these meetings into a constituency-building exercise, they might have been able to articulate social welfare demands at this early stage of the policy-making process. Often the communities perceived these meetings instead as negotiating sessions with the IPs, causing them to devolve into extremely contentious bargaining sessions. The struggles over the prospects of aid reductions overpowered all other aspects of the interaction between the local and international NGOs and the community. Having prioritized the exit strategy for the aid agencies as the highest goal drove the focus groups meetings toward an antagonistic dynamic. This eventually had an impact on both the method of social policy formation and the contours of the welfare regime. Policy formation, which was already distant from the beneficiaries as a constituency, moved even further out of reach. The policies that were developed were more than ever directed toward extricating the agencies. Simultaneously, UNMIK began to request information from the IPs concerning the logistics of the distribution network, and the feasibility of a transition from humanitarian assistance to a social welfare system.


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The emerging plan came to be referred to as the Social Assistance Scheme. Initially, the Social Assistance Scheme was to be an entirely cashed-based program. Beneficiaries would receive vouchers redeemable for cash from a branch of the Banking and Payments Authority of Kosovo (BPK). The Task Force quickly decided that the social assistance to be provided would include a food basket. Although this complicated the logistics of the program, it increased the impact of the assistance package. By providing food commodities, the system guaranteed that the beneficiaries would receive at least a basic level of nourishment, regardless of economic fortunes. The inclusion of a food basket also had an organizational impact in that it enabled the NGOs that had been involved in emergency food distribution program to continue to participate in the social welfare transition. This meant that the substantial resources of the international NGOs that made up the IP network would be directed toward assisting the transition from humanitarian assistance to social welfare. This was significant because, over the course of responding to the humanitarian emergency, IPs had expanded their staff and distribution infrastructure tremendously. The larger IPs, like CRS, MCI, and CARE, had up to a dozen international, and over a hundred local personnel. In addition they had accumulated resources including vehicles, communications equipment, and sophisticated computerized distribution databases. By linking the social assistance program to the humanitarian assistance programs of these NGOs, all of these resources could be put at the disposal of the Task Force. For the IPs, participating in the social assistance project was not necessarily an easy decision. There was concern among some of the NGO leadership that they were forfeiting too much control over their programming, but since WFP and USAID FFP saw the project as facilitating their exit from Kosovo, there was significant external pressure to participate. Including the food basket also meant that the LDPs would play at least some continued distributional role in the new program. Again, this was a way for the Task Force to gain access to resources that they would not have had otherwise. Most importantly, the LDPs had detailed and current knowledge of the needs at the community level, including detailed beneficiary lists. On a political level, the LDPs had amassed a great deal of local legitimacy through their work and were seen as a force to be reckoned with. This was especially true of MTS, which was the most extensive LDP. Including a food basket made cooperation with the UNMIK Social Assistance Scheme implementation a logical extension of the prior work of the LDPs. The LDPs, in particular MTS, were concerned that they were being squeezed out of an official social welfare role. This concern was well founded and largely came to be borne out as a more statist system was developed around the CSWs.

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The new program broke down beneficiaries into two categories. It also provided assistance to a family unit, rather than the individual. A family was described as no more than three vertical generations, or parent, children, and grandparents. A Category I family was one in which all members of the family were incapable of work. In order for a family to be eligible for Category I, every member of the family was to fit into one of four subcategories (JIAS 2001, 9): i. under 15 or under 18 and still in full-time education ii. over 65 (male and female) iii. disabled and incapable of work (with a certificate from your doctor—this can be a physical or mental handicap) iv. the only able-bodied adult in the household looking after at least one child under the age of 10. Category II was originally to be composed of “[h]ouseholds where there are people who are able to work but at the moment are not able to find paid work.” (Department of Health and Social Welfare 2000) More specific criteria were to be defined at a later date. With the implementation of Category I in summer 2000, the beneficiary numbers exceeded expectations, and Category II was not implemented. When Category II was eventually put into operation a strict rule was added that limited the benefits to families in which there was at least one child under five years old and/or an orphan under the age of 15. This was done to prevent Category II from becoming a type of unemployment insurance, which was not considered financially tenable at the time. The initial household benefits had a maximum of 120 Deutsche Marks (DM) per month (approximately US$60). The benefit were calculated as follows (Department of Health and Social Welfare 2000): 15 DM per family 50 DM for the first person or applicant 25 DM per second member 10 DM per additional family member

In addition to the cash benefit, Category I households received a basic food ration consisting on 12 kilograms of flour, 1 liter of oil, and 1 kilogram of beans per person per month. Beneficiaries received the disbursements through their municipal CSW. At the CSW, the beneficiary received two vouchers. Once would be for the cash benefit, redeemable at the municipal branch of the BPK. The second voucher would be for the


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food ration, redeemable at the LDP. The food ration was not included in the Category II benefit. The Social Assistance Scheme was successful enough that the international donors could begin to achieve their goal of ending food aid. The USAID Food for Peace pipeline was shut down in March 2001. The following month, food benefits ended for families on Social Assistance. The food basket had been a complicating factor in the Social Assistance Scheme. It was a necessary component to guarantee that the benefit would provide a base level of food security. It also served as a mechanism to include the logistical infrastructure of the international humanitarian NGOs and their local counterparts, the LDPs. Once both the social welfare infrastructure, in the form of the CSWs and the DHSW, was functioning, the food basket was not seen as necessary. Although the food basket was ended as a component of the Social Assistance Scheme, in April 2001 WFP launched a “Safety Net” program for vulnerable families that did not qualify for social assistance. This program was organized primarily by WFP and CARE International, and implemented by local NGOs. A very limited program, the operation had the additional goal of fostering greater diversity among the local NGO community. It also served as a final cooperative project between WFP, a representative of the major international relief NGOs that had been so active in the province during the emergency phase, and the local organizations that participated in the relief operations. The project brought together MTS, the Red Cross of Kosovo and Metohija (Serbian), the Red Cross of Kosova (Albanian), Dora e Ndihmes (a multiethnic NGO based in the Dragash region), Simonida (an NGO serving Serbian communities in urban Prishtinë), and Sveti Nikola (an NGO affiliated with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo). The program operated alongside the official social assistance program. The Safety Net project was shut down when WFP concluded its operations in Kosovo in March 2002 (Development Researchers’ Network 2002, 8). As a workable exit strategy for the international aid agencies, the Social Assistance Scheme of the DHSW was very successful. As social policy it had a number of problems. Most pressingly, the CSW network, which was responsible for implementation at the municipal level, suffered from severe limitations of capacity. CSW staff were either newly hired, or were returning to positions that they had been dismissed from nearly ten years earlier. Those who were newly hired were often chosen for political reasons by local authorities and had little or no practical knowledge of social work. Those who were returning to work after having been dismissed by the Belgrade authorities had not practiced their profession in almost a

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decade. This problem was not constrained by the dominant ethnicity of the municipality. Political appointment of CSW Directors occurred in Serb as well as Albanian municipalities immediately before the DHSW could establish centralized administrative control. These capacity limitations varied dramatically from municipality to municipality, and were most acute when it came to verifying the qualifications of beneficiaries for the social assistance program. The verification process was important because it was one of the first ways in which local social workers were introduced to Western social work methods. Under the Yugoslav socialist system, the CSWs were structured around clearly defined, but restrictive and outdated, professional roles. In general, there was a director, and sometimes a deputy director; these positions were usually filled by individuals trained in Sociology. There would also be at least one “advocate” who was a legal professional, although not necessarily a lawyer. There would also be at least one “pedagogue” who would work primarily with students on education-related issues. The organizational structure of the CSW was not conducive to modern casework methodology in which each social worker would be responsible for particular cases, rather than areas of expertise. Traditionally, CSW staff tended to stay in the office nearly all of the time. Clients would be referred to individual staff member by either another staff member, or an outside legal or medical authority. The beneficiary verification process as a fieldwork exercise forced the social workers at the CSWs to take a more active and general approach. In evaluating whether or not beneficiaries qualified for social assistance, the social workers made home visits and were called on to interact with a variety of social welfare actors and agents including local and international NGOs and the municipal offices. The social assistance verification process became the operational foundation for later introducing a more dynamic social work model. The verification process also made the system vulnerable to misjudgments, pressure, and manipulation. Although there were specific criteria for qualification for social assistance, there was still quite a bit of room for discretion. In particular, evaluating assets such as property that could potentially be income-generating was especially subjective. The CSW staff had not been called on to make these kinds of discretionary decisions previously, and few had developed the appropriate skills. More problematic, discretion in the verification process provided the opportunity for CSW staff to be pressured by beneficiaries who were determined to stay on the social assistance list. In some cases this pressure was exerted politically through municipal leaders, while in other cases it was exerted directly, occasionally with threats of personal violence. Even in these cases of a direct threat against the CSW staff, the beneficiary could


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usually count on support from municipal authorities to back up their claim, or at least escape the possibility of legal prosecution. The vulnerability to outside pressure so early in the formation of the system proved to be more of an issue in particular municipalities with underdeveloped political competition. The second major limitation was a result of the manner in which the policies were developed. Despite the Transition Task Force’s success in designing an effective program that could be rapidly implemented, its method of policy formation lacked significant local input, particularly from broad-based political and social actors. Policy formation was driven by international humanitarian workers and NGO personnel, not by political actors answering to constituencies. Kosovar actors who could potentially have participated in the process were excluded for a variety of reasons. For example, although Kosovo had an official ISP, it was not a participant in the process of organizing the new social assistance program. The ISP was the local Kosovo agency that had formerly been the nexus of public knowledge of social policy. It had originally been founded as part of the public social welfare system under the socialist regime and was designed as a resource for social policy information in the province. By excluding the ISP, local experience and knowledge was not utilized. The exclusion of the ISP was generally based on lack of knowledge of the institution rather than any willful effort on the part of those involved with the process. Nevertheless, the ultimate effect was that the ISP was not involved in the early stages of social policy formation. As a side effect of not having participated in the early post-conflict social policy formation, the ISP lost a major opportunity for capacity development. This was especially damaging since the institute had been deeply politicized during the long course of the social conflict in Kosovo and was in desperate need of organizational assistance. Involvement in the Transition Task Force would have brought with it greater attention from the international agencies and donors involved. This pattern was repeated with other political and social actors such political parties, the dominant labor union in Kosovo, advocacy groups, and community organizations. In practice the Transition Task Force essentially ignored all of the social policy experience of Kosovo that predated the international presence, as well as any of the local political actors. The most important pattern that was established at the central level was the dominance of external actors in social policy making. The local participation at the Prishtinë level was limited and usually subordinated to the larger international actors who had greater access to staff, financial resources, and outside expert consultants. The few local organizations who were members of the Task Force were selected by the international

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agencies. No members of the group that actually formed the original policy could make any claim of popular representation. The social policy that was developed was effectively implemented by decree without any recourse to a supportive constituency. This process contributed to later popular misunderstandings of the public social welfare program as an “UNMIK project,” even after it was passed by the Kosovo Assembly as one of the first self-administered provincial laws. The dominance of outsiders with little or no political support in social policy making continued long after the transition phase (Héthy 2005, 68). In May 2001 the Constitutional Framework for Provisional SelfGovernment in Kosovo established the legal basis for the formation of a provincial government under UNMIK. Approving the Constitutional Framework set in motion the administrative task of reorganizing the various JIAS Administrative Departments into Ministries and Transitional Departments that would correspond to the new Provisional Institutions. Two legal instruments were used to achieve this. The first was UNMIK Regulation 2001/19, “On the Executive Branch of the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government in Kosovo”, promulgated on September 13, 2001. Regulation 2001/19 gave form to the Office of Prime Minister as well as the other ministries. Regarding social policy, the regulation created the MLSW to develop and implement relevant legislation, and direct and supervise labor and social welfare institutions, among others. The second legal instrument was UNMIK Administrative Direction 2001/14 of 4 October 2001, which actually reorganized the JIAS Administrative Departments into the Transitional Departments, including the Department of Labor and Social Welfare (DLSW). Notably, social welfare was detached from the Department of Health where it had been placed in the JIAS, and merged with the Department of Labor and Employment. Once the Provisional Government was elected, the Transitional Departments would become the respective ministries, and the social policy-making process effectively moved to the next phase. Social Policy under the PISG Rather than an actual constitution, which would have potentially implied statehood, the document negotiated between UNMIK and the Kosovo Albanian political actors was given the unwieldy title of “Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in Kosovo.” The institutions that the Constitutional Framework created were then denoted by the equally awkward title of the “Provisional Institutions for Self-Government,” and were commonly referred to as the PISG. Provincial elections based on the Constitutional Framework were held in November 2001.


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After a protracted round of postelection negotiations, a first provisional government was formed in February 2002. This first government was essentially a unity coalition taking in all three of the major Kosovo Albanian political parties at the time. Ibrahim Rugova, who had lead the LDK during the nonviolent resistance, was named as president, and Bajram Rexhepi of the PDK was designated as the prime minister. The Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, a cabinet level official in the PISG, became the first local political official responsible for social policy in postconflict Kosovo. The post was given to Ahmet Isufi, a member of the third-ranking Kosovo Albanian political party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK). Isufi was a former KLA leader from the municipality of Kamenicë in eastern Kosovo. The AAK was noted as a relatively moderate Albanian nationalist party. Under Isufi, the MLSW became one of the first governmental responsibilities to be transferred from UNMIK to the PISG. In March 2002, WFP phased out the last of the food distribution and ended its programming in Kosovo. The MLSW Social Assistance Scheme became the primary public assistance program in the province. Despite the elections and the formation of a government, the pattern of international dominance over social policy making continued. The creation of a pension program provides a stark example of this dynamic. Between spring and winter 2001, a regulation on pensions was drafted, primarily under the direction of the World Bank and a consultant from USAID. The new pension system was promulgated in December 2001 as UNMIK Regulation 2001/35, after the November elections, but before the February 2002 formation of the first government. The Pension Scheme was a three-tiered system, the first tier being a basic pension to be implemented in summer 2002. The second tier was a mandatory individual savings plan based on employee and employer contributions. The third was an additional contributory program that was voluntary and could be arranged either through an employer or individually (Héthy 2005, 1647). The choice of promulgating the pension program prior to the agreement on a new government was meant to ensure a workable scheme free of local political involvement and bargaining. As Lajos Héthy, who was then the international director of the DLSW, points out, the timing of the program was “an expression of a lack of confidence on the part of the UN administration as to the province’s forthcoming Provisional Institutions of Self-Government—the Government and the Assembly (2005, 164).” Only a few program details such as the date of introduction and the benefit rate were left to the newly elected local politicians. Following the assumption of responsibility by the PISG, the first significant piece of social legislation to pass the Kosovo Assembly was a revised Social Assistance Scheme (UNMIK Regulation 2003/15,

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promulgated with Regulation 2003/28). The Social Assistance Scheme, passed in August 2003, revised and provided a legal foundation for the system that had been put in place in August 2000 by the Transition Task Force. Although somewhat more inclusively prepared than the law on pensions, the drafting of the law on the Social Assistance Scheme was largely directed by international UN staff working in the MLSW. Kosovar bureaucrats within the system, both in the ministry itself and in the ISP, which had been reestablished and reorganized, were too overwhelmed by the assumption of administrative authority to take a lead role in the formation of policy. Public social policy under the PISG fell into two categories: legislative and administrative. Administrative policies were decided internally by the DLSW. The minister had the authority to make decisions within the scope of the law and was increasingly seen as politically accountable for running the social welfare program. Much internal policy making still resided with international personnel who were no longer considered department staff, but rather consultants. As of 2004, internal practices of policy formation still relied heavily on non-Kosovo personnel and consultants, but were significantly more inclusive of local actors than the practice during the transition phase. Future policy formation in regards to pensions became more regularized with the passage of the pension law. The law (UNMIK Regulation 2001/35) stipulated that a Pension Policy Working Group was to be established, comprised of “the Head of the DLSW, the Managing Director of the BPK (Banking and Payment Authority of Kosovo), the Head of the CFA (Central Fiscal Authority), other relevant members of the Economic and Fiscal Council, their designees, and other appointed by the SRSG.” This arrangement was designed to promote greater accountability in pension policy formation by clarifying which government officials were most directly responsible for the policies. The final aspect to social policy formation under the PISG involved the decentralization of authority in the province. The decentralization process in Kosovo was seen as important to bringing governance in the province “in line with modern European practice (Council of Europe 2003, 40).” Decentralization in the social welfare sector is complicated because it occurs both within the DLSW, as well as within the larger governing structures. The relevant UNMIK regulation (2000/45) stated that municipalities were responsible for “social services and housing.” Acting on this, responsibility for some aspects of social welfare programming was shifted to the municipalities. The relationship between municipal authorities and the local CSWs was often contentious, however, so that aspect of decentralization was fraught with competition over competencies.


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Separate from this institutional process, Kosovo itself was undergoing a reform of local government that was also popularly referred to as decentralization. Initial efforts at local government reform involved the creation of “pilot projects,” which were submunicipal units within municipalities (RIINVEST 2005, 3–4). This project was meant to achieve a greater level of local involvement in governance and was distinct from the process that was occurring within the social welfare institutions. The Social Assistance Scheme

The post-conflict Kosovo social welfare sector was dominated by the social assistance program both in terms of budgetary costs and number of beneficiaries. The Social Assistance Scheme at the time that the province declared independence in 2008 was effectively the same program that had been developed during the transition, with minor changes in application criteria, the maximum size of beneficiary families, and the appeals process. Rates of payment were also increased slightly and legally codified. In regards to nonfinancial criteria, the upper and lower age limit on dependent children was broadened, and disabled and elderly dependents were recognized for Category I families. Single parent families with children up to age 15 were made eligible; and the definition of a full-time caregiver was widened to include adults caring for children under five, family members with permanent disabilities and persons over 65 who require full-time care. Financial criteria were reformed to recognize the increasing formalization of the Kosovo economy. Reckonable (“property, business activities, bank deposits, cash holdings, income from all sources, remittances or pensions from abroad, rent and income in-kind”) and nonreckonable (“Basic Pension, future Disability Pension, other official welfare payments, grants, certain loans and home produce for consumption”) assets were distinguished in the qualification process. The maximum number of family members to be factored into payment was expanded from five to seven. The appeals process was more clearly codified, and a separate independent Commission for appeals was authorized. Finally, by 2005 the highest rate of payment was increased to €75, and a mechanism for future adjustments in line with changes in the Consumer Price Index was established (MLSW 2003). In all, the changes to the Social Assistance Scheme under the PISG were more a matter of clarifying and codifying the original temporary program than a full program of reforms. The PISG inherited a social assistance program that was largely a success for the international administration under the JIAS. Payments were consistent across time and throughout the different ethnic communities.

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Although there were steady complaints that the criteria were too strict and that the financial award was insufficient, there were relatively few complaints that the system was discriminatory. The strongest criticisms regarding the treatment of minorities claimed that the system did not adequately address the concerns of discreet minorities living in enclaves, but rather promoted a generalized Kosovo-wide perspective that dismissed but did not resolve these localized problems. Overall, the post-conflict program under UN authority served approximately 190,000 beneficiaries, or about 51,000 families. This number has held steady throughout 2001, 2002, and 2003 (SOK 2004c). Using data from the DLSW, the estimated average yearly social assistance payment was approximately €672. This average payment had a wage replacement rate of 26 percent of the estimated average yearly wage. Regarding minority coverage, internal DLSW estimates suggested that 17.5 percent or about 8,900 families were from minority communities.2 Taking the total of 190,000 beneficiaries, and assuming, unrealistically but for the sake of argument, a 100 percent effective targeting of the extremely poor, the social assistance program at the maximum addressed the needs of about 63 percent of the estimated extremely poor. In comparison, about 9 percent of the total Kosovo population was on the welfare rolls (Statistical Office of Kosovo, 2004c). The effectiveness of the targeting relied on local monitoring and verification of proper implementation, and as such varied by municipality. Factors that affected the abilities of the local CSW to monitor and verify the system included the political characteristics of the municipality, as well as its demographic and ethnic composition. Each of the four municipalities that are more closely analyzed in the following chapters demonstrated the various impacts of these factors. The political factor that had the most demonstrably negative affect on the local CSW’s ability to monitor and verify the social assistance system was the dominance of a single political party within the municipality. In Skenderaj, where one political party controlled the local political process, a highly clientelistic local party structure dominated an ethnically homogeneous and economically underdeveloped municipality. The Skenderaj CSW had an extremely difficult time verifying the eligibility of beneficiaries. The director of the CSW reported that nearly a quarter of the municipal population was collecting social assistance at the time (Hamza 2003). The social welfare authorities in Skenderaj were unwilling and often unable to fully enforce the criteria. Additionally, the local population relied heavily on elected municipal officials to maintain their place on the beneficiary list. There was little civic activity in the municipality outside of the dominant party and its associated organizations. In the municipality one political party was able to maintain a nearly


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unchallenged dominance because its claim to represent those who have sacrificed the most for the war effort was backed up by the provision of social services and assistance to the poor and the war affected. The inability of the Skenderaj CSW to monitor and verify the social assistance program, at first glance, may seem overdetermined. The municipality also suffered from extreme poverty and high rates of violence, two other factors that complicated monitoring and verification. However, in Malishevë, which has similar rates of poverty and history of violence, the CSW claims much greater success at monitoring and verifying the system. Malishevë has a much more contentious political environment. The two main political parties were nearly evenly matched and the municipality was one of the few to see a change in the majority party of the municipal assembly in the 2002 elections. The similarities and differences between Malishevë and Skenderaj support the conclusion that greater political contestation at the municipal level contributes to the professionalization and effectiveness of the social welfare system. This dynamic is taken up in much more detail in Chapter 4. Demographic change also played a role in social welfare provision at the municipal level. Of the four municipalities under consideration, Prizren saw the most dramatic demographic change. The town itself, always an important regional hub, grew tremendously during and after the conflict, with large influxes of new residents. This process of urbanization contributed to a heightened level of political contention within the municipal institutions. The Prizren CSW, with its longer organizational history, was largely rooted in the traditional urban elites and educated town residents. The municipal health and social welfare office, however was part of the post-conflict municipal structures that were built up by UNMIK. Its staff were recent transplants from local rural villages with personal histories of greater political mobilization and nationalist militancy. The Prizren CSW faced both the social problems generated by the rapid conflict-driven urbanization, and the institutional competition that was its political by-product. In Kamenicë, however, the municipality’s location on the border with Serbia-proper, and a large Kosovo Serb presence, complicate the implementation of local social welfare programming. Municipalities that are either entirely or nearly entirely Serbian posed a special problem for the monitoring and verification of the social assistance system. The primary problem was that the recourse to the normal secondary verification conducted by the ISP in Prishtinë was especially difficult due to ethnic tensions. The ethnic composition of the municipality affected the ability of the CSW to monitor and verify the implementation of the social assistance system. For the most part, the MLSW dealt with minority enclaves

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through using local “sub-branch” offices. This strategy was criticized, both within and outside the MLSW, as tacitly permitting ethnic identity to dominate in the implementation of the social welfare system in its entirety. Others, who were less critical of this approach, emphasized the importance of delivering social welfare services to those in need over strict adherence to principles of nonethnic definitions. This points to the greater problem of the fact that the CSW in the Serbian-dominated areas, especially in the north, engaged with the Prishtinë-centered UNMIK / PISG social welfare institutions on their own terms. More often than not, in the Serbian communities, instructions and guidance from Belgrade were given a higher priority than those from Prishtinë. Similar to the creation of the prior Kosovo Albanian parallel regime, while Kosovo was under UN authority, a Serb parallel system emerged, with former state institutions of Serbia remaining under the de facto authority of Belgrade. For both the social workers and the recipients of these services and benefits, this system created a prioritization and hierarchy of citizenship. This problem was reinforced by the prior success of the Albanian parallel regime, as well as the lack of significant early input in the early process of social policy formation in post-conflict Kosovo. The Pension Systems

The post-conflict Kosovo pension was established with the passage of UNMIK Regulation 2001/35 in December 2001. The official pension in Kosovo is a three-tier system. Two of the tiers are mandatory and one is optional. The mandatory programs are a Basic Pension and Individual Savings Pensions. The third tier is an optional Supplementary Pension that can be organized either as an employer-based benefit, known as a Supplementary Employer Pension Fund, or on an individual basis, known as a Supplementary Individual Pension. The two mandatory pensions—the Basic Pension and the Individual Savings Pension—were significantly different. The Basic Pension was “paid by the Pension Administration to all persons habitually residing in Kosovo and who have reached Pension Age” (UNMIK Regulation 2001/35, Sec. 2.4). The Basic Pension was originally budgeted in July 2002 at €28 per month per pensioner, and was ostensibly based on the value of the minimum-calorie Food Basket of 2,100 calorie needs per day per adult. The Basic Pension was raised to €35 per month in January 2003. At that rate, the Basic Pension achieved a wage replacement rate of roughly 16 percent. The Basic Pension was a universal benefit paid out at the same level to all permanent residents of Kosovo regardless of


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work history. Kosovo has a history of highly ethnicized labor contention that results in large employment gaps for many individuals from all ethnic communities. These gaps would have complicated a pension system based on work history. The universality of the Basic Pension solves the problem by simply ignoring prior work history. The Individual Savings Pension was a contributory system where the both the employer and the employee were each required to contribute a minimum of 5 percent of the total annual wages to an Individual Account. Both employers and employees could voluntarily each contribute up to an additional 10 percent of annual wages (see Sec. 2.7 of the Pension Law). Upon reaching pension age (65 years of age), the Individual Account is to be used to purchase an approved Saving Pension Annuity from a private insurance company (Sec. 12.1). There is no minimum total amount of contribution period required for the pension; however, if there are €2,000 or less in the Individual Account, the beneficiary will receive the amount as a lump sum rather than being obligated to purchase an annuity (Sec. 12.15). The Individual Savings Pension is a new system, applicable only from the time of its implementation. It implies no claim on previous contributions made to the prior Yugoslav pension system. It is not universal and applies only to Kosovo citizens in the formal work sector. Benefits will be differentiated by contributions and work history. The optional pensions were the Supplementary Employer Pension Funds and the Supplementary Individual Pensions. Supplementary Employer Pension Funds could be set up by employers as a benefit for employees. They were licensed and regulated by the Pensions Department of the BPK (Sec. 13.2). These pension funds had to be open to all employees of an enterprise, although they may be restricted to certain occupational categories (Sec. 14.7). A set number of years of employment may be required for participation in the Pension Fund, but this requirement may not exceed five years (Sec. 14.10). Supplementary Individual Pensions are also licensed and regulated by the Pensions Department of the BPK. These pensions were to be established directly between individuals and their financial institution. During the period that Kosovo was under international supervision, the only pension program that could be considered active was the Basic Pension, which, as of 2004, paid out €35 per month. In June 2003 there were 100,981 Basic Pension beneficiaries (Social Welfare Payments Division 2003). The Kosovo Basic Pension compared unfavorably to pension programs in the region in terms of level of benefits when it came to the replacement rate of average annual wages. All average pension payments in the region were higher. The Kosovo Basic Pension was

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Table 3.2 The Kosovo post-conflict pension system in regional context Estimated Age replacement to qualify Years of rates Employer Own participation Average contribution contribution (pension) (%) (%) (%) pension Men Women to qualify Kosovo Basic Indiv. Saving Pension Bosnia and Herzegovina Federation of BiH Republika Srpska Macedonia Albania Montenegro Serbia

420

0

0

5–15

5–15

na

na

1,024

na

na

591

11.5

1,344 2,060

na na

16

65

65

0

65

65

5

39

62

57

28

65

60

15

44

64

62

15

35

62

60

55

35

na na

85 93

65 60

60 55

10 20

859 1,209 675

Note: All data is from 2004.

distinguished in the region, however, as a universal system that does not require employee or employer contribution, or prior work history. Conclusion: Kosovo’s “Liberal” Social Welfare Regime With the social assistance and pension programs in place, the nature of the social welfare regime in Kosovo under the UN became more recognizable. The data leads to the conclusion that the social welfare regime in Kosovo would most closely resemble what would be characterized as “liberal” according to Esping-Anderson’s categorizations (1990, 26–27). The Social Assistance Scheme was characterized by strict qualification criteria, means-testing, and modest benefits. The weak structural universalism of the strict criteria was even further limited by the actual implementation, which was bifurcated along the dominant ethnic lines. The parallel shadow administrative system that developed in the Serb areas of Kosovo undermined claims toward creating a nonethnicized system. The Social Assistance Scheme could be expected to encourage the development of overlapping ethnic and economic dualism, and regulate welfare to a safety net rather than a social right. In short, this program leaned heavily toward the liberal, or even neoliberal model.


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The Basic Pension, as a citizen’s pension, was much more universalistic. However, it is likely that, over the long term, this program will be overwhelmed by the contributory schemes that were also written into the Pension Law. Those schemes were not universal, and can reasonably be expected to pay better benefits in the future. The extreme modesty of the benefits, as indicated by the very low replacement rate, suggests that the Basic Pension will not emerge as the dominant form of old-age support in Kosovo. Instead, this program is likely to become the safety net of last resort for the indigent elderly. Over time, a stratified system will likely emerge, with Basic Pensioners at the bottom. The market promotion that is inherent in the design of all three of the other Kosovo pension programs will drive the emerging pension regime away from a corporatist model and toward an even more pronounced liberal or neoliberal model than the Social Assistance Scheme. In this chapter I have focused on the formation of specific policies related to the provision of social welfare in Kosovo. These programs were largely formed with the guidance and consultation of the international community in Kosovo. Only since 2003 have the emerging political institutions of Kosovo—the MLSW, the Kosovo Assembly’s Committee on Health and Social Welfare, the Banking and Payment Authority, and the Assembly of Kosovo—been called on to take responsibility for these policies. Even taking into consideration the increasing local accountability for social policy in Kosovo, the international community still bears a major responsibility for the type of social welfare regime that is emerging. In The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Esping-Anderson (1990) argued that welfare state regimes break down to three distinct clusters. Esping-Anderson’s welfare state regime clusters are distinguished by their levels of decommodification and stratification, and the nature of the relationship between the state and the market. Liberal social welfare regimes provide the least decommodification. Such regimes also promote “an order of stratification that is a blend of relative equality of poverty among state welfare recipients, market differentiated welfare among the majorities, and a class-political dualism between the two” (Esping-Anderson 1990, 27). The market predominates over the state in welfare provisions for the majority, providing more attractive benefits than the weaker state system. Corporatist social welfare regimes provide a middle level decommodification, but strongly promote hierarchical stratification. The corporatist regime type relies heavily on the state to promote particular social welfare outcomes, which are dependent on status. Finally, social democratic social welfare regimes provide for strong decommodification with a universalist emphasis that undermines stratification. “This model crowds

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out the market, and consequently constructs an essentially universal solidarity in favor of the welfare state” (Esping-Anderson 1990, 28). The data and analysis of this chapter indicate that the social welfare regime that has emerged in post-conflict Kosovo appeared to most closely resemble the liberal model. If this analysis proves correct over the long term, such a development may have serious consequences for the province. These types of social welfare regimes discourage the recognition of social rights. It is also not necessarily the type of regime that Kosovars would have chosen of their own accord. In a 2003 interview, the thenminister of Labor and Social Welfare, Ahmet Isufi, when asked what type of system would be best for Kosovo, replied enthusiastically that he preferred, “a Swedish system (Isufi 2003).” Instead a much more AngloAmerican model was created, largely due to international pressures. The liberal model is the least likely to promote levels of social solidarity across traditional cleavages. In fact, it is the regime type most likely to create or reinforce these cleavages.

Chapter 4

THE IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL COMPETITION: SKENDERAJ AND MALISHEVË This chapter examines the specifics of local social policy formation and implementation in two municipalities in Kosovo—Skenderaj / Srbica and Malishevë / Malisevo.1 The implementation of the social welfare programs at the local level refines the larger argument concerning the character of the social welfare regime in Kosovo. The analysis of the overall Kosovo social welfare regime in Chapter 3 concluded with an evaluation that the system was best described as falling within Esping-Anderson’s Liberal type. That analysis can be applied to the general design of the social welfare regime, but needs to be qualified at the local level because that is where the social policy is actually implemented in Kosovo. At a level of analysis that focuses on municipalities, evidence indicates implementation is directly effected by the local political dynamic. This chapter, along with the next concerning Prizren and Kamenicë / Kamenica municipalities, evaluates the characteristics of the social welfare programs in practice. The central argument of the chapter points to a difficult paradox. Evidence from Skenderaj and Malishevë indicates that increased political competition at the local level has led to more professionally run and less corrupt local social welfare institutions, while at the same time dampening the impact of these institutions on local poverty reduction. In Malishevë, where political competition has been strong, a local social welfare office that began operations after the conflict with a marked lack of experience and capacity has become a bureaucratic and rule-based

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institution. The official social welfare institution in the municipality is largely independent from the political process and shows increasing competence. In this context, social welfare benefits are decreasingly seen as spoils of the political competition. Paradoxically, social welfare programs in Malishevë are struggling to make headway against persistent local poverty. Effectively constrained by policy rules and a professional commitment to implementing the programs as presented in Prishtinë, social policy in Malishevë has had little affect on the lives of the majority of its poor citizens. Conversely, in the neighboring municipality of Skenderaj, a lack of political competition has led to the social welfare institutions being coopted by the locally dominant political force. In Skenderaj, where one political party dominates the process, both centralized social assistance programs and localized social services programs are driven by political demands. Beneficiaries are often identified and selected through coercive tactics by the local politicians. These beneficiaries often have a history of prior allegiance to local political groups that persisted and were strengthened through the conflict period. The beneficiary rolls in Skenderaj are bloated, monitoring and regulatory enforcement is weak, and the social welfare professionals are hamstrung by political commitments. In short the social welfare system in Skenderaj is corrupt. And yet, to a degree, this corruption has had some positive effects. Local levels of general poverty in the municipality have been reduced, at least in part because of the manipulations of the beneficiary selection process. These differences in program implementation have led to lower levels of public satisfaction with the CSW in Malishevë. Local satisfaction with the CSW in Skenderaj is significantly higher (UNDP Kosovo 2003, 53). In Malishevë more consistent adherence to beneficiary criteria and needbased targeting has kept the social welfare rolls limited. Dissatisfaction with the system reflects the smaller number of local beneficiaries. It is more difficult to estimate the impact of the social welfare transfers on the actual quality of life in either municipality. Both municipalities suffer higher levels of poverty than most of the rest of Kosovo. Skenderaj ranked twenty-sixth and Malishevë ranked twenty-ninth out of the 30 municipalities on the UNDP’s HDI in 2004 (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 110). There is some indication that the wider beneficiary coverage in Skenderaj is having an effect on income levels in the municipality. Per capita income in Skenderaj (€1135.50—ranked twelfth) is significantly higher than in Malishevë (€723.94—ranked twenty-seventh). The central social welfare program in post-conflict Kosovo was the Social Assistance Scheme. Having been implemented immediately after the conflict, the Social Assistance Scheme was arguably the only program

The Importance of Political Competition

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that had generated sufficient data for systematic analysis. By design, this program remained constrained in terms of maximum beneficiary expenditures since it was originally implemented in August 2000. Over time, the PISG Department of Labor and Social Welfare continually made efforts to reduce the number of social assistance recipients by improving its capacity to monitor beneficiaries and verify that they meet the relevant criteria. These efforts were successful in reducing about ten thousand families, or nearly 20 percent, from the social assistance rolls between 2000 and 2004. According to the DLSW data, there were 54,018 families receiving social assistance across Kosovo in April 2000. The Statistical Office of Kosovo, which does not disaggregate the data below the regional level, claimed that a total of 55,155 families received social assistance in April 2001, 53,266 in April 2002, and 51,024 in April 2003 (SOK March 2003; SOK 2004a). The downward trend has continued, with 47,301 families on the rolls in April 2004. By December of that year the total number of families receiving social assistance was 44,911 (SOK 2004b). By December 2005 the number had been reduced to 42,052, and by December 2006 it was further reduced to 40,569 (SOK 2007, 21). Because the role of local political organizations is central to the argument that the dynamics of municipal politics determined much of the implementation of the centrally designed social welfare regime, this chapter begins with a discussion of the Kosovo-wide political party system. Although only the two largest Albanian political parties, the LDK and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), had significant presences in Skenderaj and Malishevë, all of the main parties of the period are analyzed in order to place the local scene in the larger context of the overall Kosovo political dynamic. Particularly important for both the Skenderaj and Malishevë cases was the relationship between the political parties and local NGOs. Having described the internal politics of post-conflict Kosovo, this chapter then takes a closer look at the particularities of the two municipalities. Skenderaj and Malishevë are both poor, rural municipalities with overwhelming Albanian majorities. On the surface, the eponymous main towns of the municipalities are very similar—small, dusty towns, only a bit larger than the surrounding villages. Both municipalities were highly mobilized during the conflict and were the scenes of violent confrontations between Serb and Albanian combatants. In the post-conflict setting, both municipalities continued to struggle with underdevelopment and poverty. Skenderaj, however, had one of the most extreme examples of single-party dominance in the province, while Malishevë was a rare example of political competition that was close enough to effect a change in local governance.

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In examining the local dimension of social policy, this chapter looks primarily at the local implementation of the Kosovo-wide policies that originated in Prishtinë. On the local level, policy implementation occurred primarily through the local CSWs, the municipal government’s office for social welfare or services, and the local social welfare NGOs. International actors such as large NGOs, donor governments, and UNMIK also participated in the process to varying degrees depending on their local resources. In neither Malishevë nor Skenderaj was there a large international presence. The analysis takes into account the specific capacities of the CSW in the two municipalities, their institutional histories and their post-conflict development with the aim of identifying the variables that affect their ability to implement policy. Local perceptions of the social welfare efforts and their effectiveness are compared between both locations in order to measure the degree to which the social programs enjoy public support. Local organizations that have an impact on municipal level policy formulation and implementation are identified and evaluated across the two municipalities. The focus is most direct, however, on differences between the political environments and the effects of these differences on the execution of the social assistance program and social services. In terms of the larger argument of the creation of a citizenship regime in post-conflict Kosovo, this chapter (and the one that follows) examines the content of social citizenship rights as they are actualized on the municipal level. If, following Marshall, social rights make up one of the core aspects of citizenship, then the ways in which those rights are realized becomes the subject for analyzing the variety of dimensions of citizenship. In particular, the specific program details, both in their design and implementation, highlight who is included within the sphere of the social citizen, and to what extent they enjoy or are denied their rights of citizenship. In the two cases at hand, the local social welfare agencies have implemented their programs in divergent manners, effectively creating two very different sets of social rights in neighboring municipalities. Political Parties in Post-Conflict Kosovo As of Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008, the political parties in the province were still largely underdeveloped in terms of policy proposals, governance, and ideological commitments. Through the period of UN administration, provincial party system remained ethnically bifurcated, with two distinct systems that relied heavily on historical arguments concerning the course of the conflict to determine their political legitimacy. The dominant party system was the Albanian


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system, which has three major parties. The Kosovo Serb political party system is divided between locally organized coalitions and branches of parties based in Serbia-proper. The parties in both systems were not clearly differentiated by their ideological stances in economic, political, or civil development, but rather by their roles in the Albanian-Serb struggle, leading up to the international intervention in 1999 and in the ethno-nationalist politics since the intervention. Political parties in Kosovo in the post-conflict period tended to be poorly organized and dominated by their Prishtinë-based headquarters. An OSCE internal report describes “policy development as top-down, with the headquarters formulating policy and the branches implementing it” (2003, 5). According to the OSCE, this hierarchical structure persisted despite dissatisfaction among local party activists. Although reliant on the parties’ central offices, political activity at the local level was important for the parties’ relationships to the larger Kosovo political scene. For example, the dominance of the PDK in Skenderaj, a site of extreme contention during the years of conflict, was both derived from, and furthered the party’s overall Albanian nationalist credentials. In terms of the social welfare programs under consideration here, the PDK in Skenderaj burnished its nationalist credentials, in part through its manipulation of the social welfare regime. Similarly intense, but regulated and mostly nonviolent, party competition in Malishevë helped to drive the parties toward increased policy differentiation. In Malishevë, contrary to Skenderaj, political demand drove reassessments and critiques of public policy. In both cases, the practice of politics at the municipal level contributed to how the party functioned at the provincial level. In one case the contribution was part of its ideological legitimation; in the other it was part of the process of developing local constituency-driven policy positions. The Albanian political scene in post-conflict Kosovo featured three major parties. As was discussed in Chapter 2, Albanian politics before the international intervention had been organized around a parallel system that was dominated by a single political party, the LDK. In the post-conflict period, Albanian politics diversified, with three major parties coming to the fore. The two parties that offered the most serious challenge to the LDK—the PDK and the AAK—had their roots in the armed Kosovo Albanian organization, the KLA. The LDK’s deep involvement in the nonviolent resistance to the Belgrade regime, and the more militant history of the other two parties, created an important cleavage in Albanian politics in Kosovo that was centered on historical roles during the conflict. Throughout the post-conflict period, parties and politicians struggled to define and redefine their place in the “liberation” struggle against the Belgrade regime.

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In contrast to the LDK’s leadership of the largely nonviolent parallel regime, the KLA espoused a violent strategy of guerrilla war against Serbian and Yugoslav dominance. The KLA was never a large or wellorganized military organization. Recognizing their limitations, the militants engaged in a strategy of provocation. A core element of the KLA military strategy was launching small attacks against superior Serb and Yugoslav forces, who could be counted on to retaliate with overwhelming force and, often, excessive brutality. KLA attacks were often assassinations of local Serb policemen or officials, as well as Kosovo Albanians they accused of collaboration. The tactics earned them the designation of a terrorist group by the special envoy of the United States to the region (Judah 2000, 138). The result of the KLA tactics of provocation and Serbian response was increasing anger among Kosovo Albanians, both in the province and in the diaspora, and increasing concern in the international community. The KLA was taking the extraordinary risk of provoking all-out war with Serbia, with the expectation that international actors, especially the United States and NATO, would intervene on their behalf. It was a prescient strategy. Relations between the KLA and the LDK were strained from the beginning. In the mid 1990s, before the KLA emerged as a more coherent military and political force, the LDK had publicly denied the existence of the organization, claiming it was a creation of the Serbian secret police meant to provoke Albanians into a military conflict that they would lose (Judah 2000, 103). Despite these denunciations, the KLA gained support among the population for their confrontational tactics. They further challenged the LDK and the parallel regime by successfully building an international fundraising network among the Albanian diaspora, many of whom were disillusioned and impatient with the LDK strategy. In the end, the KLA succeeded in becoming a high profile armed opposition to the Belgrade regime. By the time the international community stepped up its intervention into the Kosovo crisis, the KLA was recognized as a significant combatant. In 1999 it participated in the Rambouillet negotiations, and Hashim Thaçi, a senior KLA commander, was seen as one of the most important leaders of the Albanian delegation. Differences in strategies between the LDK and the KLA were compounded by the different experiences of the leadership of the two organizations. The leadership of the LDK, and parallel institutions that it supported, largely came from the established political elite of Kosovo. Members of the party and the affiliated organizations such as MTS came from similar backgrounds. They were most often professional such as schoolteachers, local municipal administrators, or “intellectuals.” The leadership of the KLA was drawn mostly from either rural militants


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or former student activists who had been jailed after the crackdown in Kosovo following the 1981 and 1989 riots. The poor, rural countryside, with its large and traditional Albanian families, was a major source of recruitment for the organization. Geographically, the core of the KLA was located in western Kosovo, primarily in the Drenica valley and the Dukagini Plain. The post-conflict political parties derived from the KLA— the PDK and the AAK—continue to reflect these geographic origins. Post-conflict Serb politics inside Kosovo has largely taken place with reference to the political process in Serbia-proper rather than responding to local dynamics. Most of the major political parties from Serbia were active in Kosovo, including the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), the Democratic Party (DS), the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), and the Yugoslav Left (JUL). Some local, Kosovo-based, Serbian parties formed after the international intervention, but these did not have much influence. Although both the Kosovo Albanian and Serbian parties had similar legitimation claims—support of a nationalist ideology with a focus on the questions of historical ethnic communal roles and Kosovo’s independence or reintegration into Serbia—Serb parties operated within a more complicated dynamic under UNMIK. The foundations of legitimacy for Serb parties in the province straddled the division between the politics of Kosovo and of Serbia-proper, leading to more varied arguments as to where their legitimacy lies. For the political parties that were rooted in Serbia-proper, legitimacy was based in the party’s position in larger Serbian politics. Positions vis-à-vis economic and political reforms in Serbia, European integration, or constitutional questions often trumped local debates. For these parties, Kosovo was often a symbolic and important aspect of the larger debate within Serbia. These parties stood to gain very little from participation in the provincial governing structures that UNMIK had established. Their focus was on preventing Kosovo independence, not necessarily because of issues endemic to Kosovo itself, but rather as part of their political position in Serbia. Kosovo-based Serb political activists had a stronger voice in coalitions and local ad hoc initiatives, such as Koalition Povratak (Coalition Return [KP]), the Citizens’ Initiative of Serbia, and the Serbian List for Kosovo and Metohija. Koalition Povratak was the first Kosovo Serb political structure to engage the UNMIK system, running a slate of candidates in the 2001 provincial elections. In that election they won more than 89,000 votes, or 11.34 percent of the total votes cast. This gave them 22 seats in the Kosovo Assembly—12 seats that were won outright, and all ten of the seats set aside for Kosovo Serbs. Koalition Povratak was a very diverse group, however, and did not maintain the same parties in subsequent

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municipal elections. In the 2004 provincial elections, Koalition Povratak, along with most of the Kosovo Serb community, sat out the elections. The two Serb political groups that did participate in the 2004 elections were the Citizens’ Initiative of Serbia and the Serb List for Kosovo and Metohija. Both organizations were late additions to the election and did not win any seats outside of the ten set aside for Kosovo Serbs. Among the expatriate community working in Kosovo there was an expectation that day-to-day economic concerns would start to supplant the ethnonationalism that had characterized local politics for so long. This expectation was reinforced by a 2003 survey by the UN Development Program in Kosovo. By a tremendous majority, Albanians in Kosovo identified unemployment as the most important issue facing the province, with questions of status coming in a distant second. For the Kosovo Serb community issues of personal security and freedom of movement persisted as the dominant concerns (UNDP Kosovo 2003, 18). Despite these increasing popular concerns for other economic and social issues, politics in Kosovo continued to be ethnocized and divisive. The political parties of both the Albanian and Serb communities defined their roles in the political arena through their position vis-à-vis the conflict between the two communities and in the contestation over Kosovo’s political status. Much to the frustration of the expatriate administrators and advisors, throughout the time that UNMIK was in charge of Kosovo, Albanian and Serb political leaders spent most of their energy on often irrelevant debates and arguments over political status. The parties of the non-Serb minorities were caught between the two competing blocs. Their legitimacy depended on protecting the rights of the communities they represented, which were more varied than the popular perception of a biethnic Kosovo would imply. These smaller minorities include Bosniaks, Muslim Slavs, Goranci, Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian (RAE),2 and Turkish communities. The political parties that represent these groups have a choice of identifying themselves as “minority” parties and forming a bloc with the Serb community, accepting the dominant Albanian structure and trying to find a niche within that bloc, or seeking a united organization of “other-minorities.” For the most part, this group stayed unified within the Kosovo Assembly as otherminorities, although usually voting with the Albanian majority. This unified stance has not always been consistent, especially in regards to the Roma community, whose representative has occasionally defected for an independent stance. Because both the Kosovo Albanian and Serbian parties, as well as UNMIK, remained focused on the debate over final status and the issues that surround it, the concerns of these parties and their communities rarely rose to the top of the agenda.3


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Despite this complicated picture, the most important aspect of the postconflict political party system in Kosovo were the three major Albanian political parties. Together these parties commanded the loyalties of about 85 percent of Kosovo Albanians. Until the Kosovo Serb community decides to fully participates in the Kosovo political process, the Kosovo Albanian parties will dominate the political scene without mediation. A united Kosovo Serb party would alter this dynamic significantly, since they would most likely have roughly the same support as the smallest of the three parties, the AAK. Because of the dynamic of the two dominant parties at the time—the LDK and the PDK—the AAK found itself in the position of being an attractive coalition partner in a plural system. If it were to broaden its appeal beyond Kosovo Serbs and into the Bosniak, Goranci, Torbesh, and RAE communities, a Kosovo Serb political party could challenge the AAK as a coalition partner. The LDK under UNMIK: From Moderation to Intransigence to Factionalism The LDK remained the largest political party in Kosovo after the international intervention. After the 2002 municipal elections, the LDK maintained outright majorities in 11 of the 30 municipalities and was the largest single party in a further seven municipalities. In these municipalities the LDK was either a member of the majority coalition, or faced a united opposition. Overall, the 2002 municipal elections represented a reduction in the LDK’s power from the 2000 municipal elections, when it captured absolute majorities in 21 of the 30 municipal assemblies. Despite this apparently strong position, the LDK could be characterized as a party in decline. Even where the LDK maintained its dominance, it lost votes in the 2002 municipal elections. The LDK saw a decrease in its share of votes from 2000 to 2002 in 26 municipalities. Of the remaining four municipalities, three were majority Serbian municipalities that did not participate in the 2000 municipal elections (Leposaviq, Zubin Potok, and Zvecan). Where the LDK saw a modest gain of 4.62 percentage points, in Kacanik, it was already the second party—a position that did not change. The largest losses can be discounted because they occurred in Strpce / Shtërpcë and Novo Brdo / Novobërdë, where the majority Serb population boycotted the 2000 vote, but turned out for the 2002 elections. In both municipalities Serb coalitions won. Losses for the LDK in majority Albanian municipalities were significant, however. The party lost absolute majorities in Deçan, Gjakovë, Klinë, Kamenicë, Lipjan, Rahovec, Pejë, Prizren, and Malishevë. In Gjakovë, Pejë, and Prizren, the LDK lost more than 19 percentage points.

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In Kamenicë the LDK lost 14.56 points. Losses were above 12 points in Mitrovicë, Rahovec, and Suharekë. In Mitrovicë, Serb voters had still not participated in the election process in any significant way, so the loss in support remained within the Albanian community. In Deçan, Gjilan, Istog, and Prishtinë the LDK lost more than 11 percentage points. In Dragash, Klinë, Fushë Kosovë, Lipjan, Podujevë, Ferizaj, Viti, Vushtrri, and Malishevë the losses were between five and ten points. More modest losses, below 5 percentage points, occurred in Gllogovc, Obiliq, Skenderaj, and Shtime. Although the LDK losses in Malishevë and Lipjan were relatively modest, 7.79 percent and 8.81 percent respectively, these were especially significant because in these two municipalities the LDK lost control over the local government. In Lipjan the losses for the LDK began in the 2001 election when the party took 41.96 percent of the vote as compared to the 2000 municipal election in which it took 50.80 percent. In Malishevë the switch in local party rankings could also be traced to the 2001 provincial elections where the PDK took 51.77 percent of the vote to the LDK’s 39.55 percent. In terms of political positions, the question of Albanian independence was particularly vexing for the LDK. Kosovo Albanians expressed nearly universal support for the LDK and its leader, the late Ibrahim Rugova, for their work during the period of the Republic of Kosova. Rugova’s victory as the first legal president of Kosovo under the UN-sponsored elections in 2001 was never seriously in doubt. The nonviolent resistance movement, however, could not be credited with delivering Kosovo’s independence. For many Kosovo Albanians, despite successes in organizing alternative education, health, and social services, as well as bringing the issue of Kosovo to the larger world, the limitations of the Republic of Kosova were ultimately frustrating. Despite the progress that was made, Kosovo remained part of Serbia, and under Serbian authorities. With Rugova’s death in January 2006, the LDK entered into a period of organizational confusion. The contest for a new party leader was especially contentious with two candidates, Fatmir Sejdiu and Nexhat Daci, closely competing for the post. Sejdiu’s narrow election victory for party president in the December 2006 party conference sparked a split by Daci and his supporters. The split was formalized by the time of the 2007 elections, as Daci went on to form the Democratic League of Dardania (LDD).4 In the 2007 municipal elections the LDK was the largest caucus in only four municipal assemblies and one of the Pilot Municipal Units.5 The LDD fared even worse. Only in Viti was it the largest delegation in the local assembly.


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Two aspects of its role in the earlier period of conflict hampered the LDK in post-conflict Kosovo. First, the LDK’s priority was always national liberation for Albanians, not democratization. The overwhelming demographic dominance of Albanians in the province made calls for democratization a handy foil, but there were few efforts to push for substantial democratic reforms. Rather, the push was to transfer control of the Yugoslav apparatus from Serb to Albanian control. This trepidation toward democratization persisted in the LDK’s internal practices under UNMIK and the PISG. According to the OSCE, as of 2003 the party’s internal statutes did not conform to the Kosovo party law, which was written under the guidance of the international community. The second residual factor from the LDK’s role in the conflict is that it did not succeed in its push for independence in the 1990s. Because of this, its credentials as the most effective party were always slightly in question. As long as the LDK remained the dominant party, it relentlessly pursued a strategy focused on achieving the independence that it did not gain through its earlier efforts. Given its noticeable decline of electoral support, the LDK’s increased intransigence and nationalist rhetoric in the later post-conflict period was indicative of increasing pressure on the party. The PDK and Its Bases of Support The PDK was the second Albanian party in Kosovo during most of the post-conflict period. In the 2002 municipal elections the PDK captured outright majorities in four municipalities, and was the largest single party in two other municipalities, giving the party majorities in six municipal assemblies. Overall, its actual percentage of the electorate only increased marginally that year from about 27 percent to 29 percent. Of the 15 municipalities that saw increases in the share of the PDK vote, only in Rahovec and Malishevë did the share increase by more than 10 percent. In the case of Malishevë, however, although most of the increase can be tracked to the 2001 province-wide election, it was sufficient to deliver the municipal assembly to the PDK. The PDK also took the municipal assembly in Lipjan, despite a gain of only 4.11 percent. These small increases in votes did not accurately reflect the rise in the popularity of the PDK, or its growing organizational strength. For most Kosovars, the PDK was effectively the party of the KLA. Most of the PDK’s political leadership had held high-ranking positions within the KLA during the conflict and party activists often had been members of the KLA, or associated Albanian militant groups. Thanks to this, there was a strong popular association of the party as being historically linked

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to the militant resistance to Belgrade in the 1990s. The party’s most powerful politician was Hashim Thaçi, who had effectively challenged Rugova and the traditional Kosovo Albanian political leadership during the height of the conflict. During the peace negotiations in Rambouillet in 1999, Thaçi was able to force Rugova to accept him as a partner representing the Kosovo Albanian side. Accusations of the KLA’s involvement in brutal anti-Serb retribution in the months that followed NATO's entry forced Thaçi to assume a much lower profile, ceding the position of prime minister in the first PISG government to fellow PDK member Bajram Rehxepi. Thaçi, however, remained the party president and an extremely powerful personality within both the party and the political arena. In January 2008 he became the prime minister of Kosovo when the PDK formed a governing coalition with the LDK. This left Thaçi positioned to become the first prime minister of the Republic of Kosovo when the country declared independence in February of that year. The strongest political support for the PDK is located in the Drenica valley, which contains the municipalities of Skenderaj and Gllogovc, as well as parts of Kline and Malishevë. After the conflict, the PDK in Drenica exhibited all the qualities of a traditional party machine. The PDK did not extend this kind of a political machine beyond Drenica because it relied so heavily on the particular history of violence in the area. Its relative and localized success did have an impact on the political process in Kosovo in general, as it provided the PDK with an exceptionally secure and symbolically significant base from which to operate. Being seen as the party of Drenica contributed to the nationalist credentials of the PDK, reinforcing their claim to be the party that spoke for those who were most willing to sacrifice for the Kosovo Albanian struggle for independence. In the immediate sense, the PDK saw electoral gains in the areas geographically surrounding this core, especially to the south and east. The AAK: A Regional Party or a Moderate Middle The final major Albanian party in the post-conflict period was the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK). The AAK was firmly based in the Dukagini region of southwest Kosovo, which includes the municipalities of Pejë, Deçan, and Gjakovë. Although the AAK was a major presence in all three of these municipalities, it only had a governing majority in Deçan. Where the AAK was strong it most often displaced the PDK rather than the LDK. Like the PDK, the AAK was led by former Kosovo Albanian militants in the armed struggle against the Belgrade regime. The party was originally founded for the 2000 municipal elections as a


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coalition of five disparate, though primarily nationalist, parties. By the 2001 Assembly Election two of the more conservative and nationalist parties had withdrawn from the coalition. For the 2002 municipal elections, what was left of the original coalition registered as an independent party under the same name. By this time the AAK had worked to establish a reputation as a moderate Kosovo-wide alternative to either the LDK or PDK, despite its mostly regional character. During this period, the party was considered to be a particular favorite of the United States, and was thought to have received assistance from American political consultants in their early campaigns. At the street level, AAK activists engaged in classically American-style electoral tactics ranging from doorto-door visits to producing colorful campaign T-shirts. The leader of the party was a former KLA commander, Ramush Haradinaj, who became Prime Minister in 2004. Considered by many to be one of the most talented and canny political leaders in Kosovo, Haradinaj, like Hashim Thaçi, tried to maneuver to keep clear of accusations of wartime and postwar crimes. He was ultimately unsuccessful, and in February 2005, the ICTY indicted Haradinaj for war crimes committed during the armed conflict. Haradinaj immediately surrendered to the international court in The Hague, publicly stating his confidence in the court and appealing for calm in Kosovo. His decision to surrender to the tribunal stood in stark contrast to the long resistance of the Serbian indictees Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both of whom remained fugitives for years.6 Haradinaj’s agreement to surrender and appear before the Tribunal without any resistance may have done more to contribute to the Albanian Kosovo argument for independence than any of his military exploits. His faith in the Tribunal proved well placed; in April 2008 he was acquitted by the ICTY of all counts and released. During the post-conflict period, the party had more political influence in Prishtinë than its electoral results would indicate. There were three main reasons for this. First, the AAK, more than many of the other parties including the LDK and PDK, had developed a respected political professionalism. International and local political observers credited the party with solid organization and clear, effective and largely democratic internal governance. Its internal policy development was characterized as ground-up, or mutually constructed between the center and the party branches. Second, the AAK had a significant youth and female membership, which was institutionally integrated into the party’s decisionmaking process. This gave the party a progressive and modern image that had great appeal, in particular to the international agencies and donor governments working in the province. Finally, the party’s work at establishing a reputation as a moderate alternative was largely successful.

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Although the AAK, not unlike any of the other major parties, did not have a clearly defined ideological stance, it did try to make a claim at a centrist position. In practical terms, rather than indicating any sort of economic or social policy position, this centrism simply meant that the party was more likely to employ reasonable, nonvitriolic rhetoric in pushing for Kosovo’s independence. This should not be taken to detract from its militancy. The AAK roots in the KLA remained strong. Agim Ceku, who replaced Ramush Haradinaj as prime minister, was, like Haradinaj himself, a former high-ranking commander of the KLA, and was deeply committed to the Kosovo Albanian cause. For most of its political life the AAK was limited in its geographical base. In the 2001 municipal election it topped 10 percent in only two municipalities outside of Dukagini. One was Klinë, which lies just east of Pejë and borders on the Dukagini plain, where it won 11.30 percent of the vote. The other was Kamenicë (11.23 percent), which, on the very eastern periphery of the province, bordering Serbia-proper, is as far as you can get from Dukagini while staying inside of the boundaries of Kosovo. The Municipal Cases—Malishevë and Skenderaj The main substantive argument of this chapter is that the local political context has the potential to dramatically alter the implementation of the social welfare regime, and therefore change its characteristics. In doing Table 4.1

Basic comparative data on Skenderaj and Malishevë

Demographic Data

Skenderaj

Malishevë

Population (estimated) Percentage Albanian (%) Per Capita Income 2004 (€) Estimated Unemployment (2004) (%) Human Development Index Gender Development Index Life expectancy (2004) (yrs) Live more than 5 kms from a health facility (%) Population 15 or older that has completed primary school (%) Completed secondary school (%) Population in poverty (2004) (%) Population in extreme poverty (2004) (%) Conflict related war damage Housing damaged (%) Of that, Cat II or IV housing damage (%)

63,668 98.50 1135.50 67.39 0.648 0.576 61.65 28 28.34

52,000–67,000 99 723.94 37.92 0.625 0.518 64.15 21 49.22

37.95 52.54 15.18

23.40 62.91 10.66

89.72 83.42

75.78 61.05


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this, the impact of the regime on the perceptions of social citizenship is altered within the locality. The cases that I use to examine this question are the municipalities of Malishevë and Skenderaj. On the surface the two places are remarkably similar. Their economic, social and cultural profiles are almost identical, but politically they differ significantly. Malishevë was a site of intense party competition between the LDK and the PDK, while Skenderaj was overwhelmingly dominated by the PDK. This variation in local politics had a direct impact on the implementation of the social welfare programs designed in Prishtinë. Malishevë

Malishevë is a rural, poor, majority Albanian municipality.7 Estimates of population about the time of the international intervention varied between about 52,000 and 67,000.8 According to the 1999 count, about 2,300 citizens were concentrated in the eponymous municipal capital, and about 57,000 were dispersed in some 42 surrounding villages. It was close to the estimated median size for Kosovo municipalities. Malishevë was more than 99 percent Albanian. Before the events of 1999 there had been a small Serb presence of less than five hundred individuals in the village of Kijevë / Kijevo in the northern part of the municipality. No Kosovo Serbs had resettled in Malishevë since the end of the armed conflict. There were, however, two Roma families each in Malishevë-town and the village of Banjë / Banja, for a total of about 30 individuals. Small enterprises and farming were the major economic activities. The unemployment rate in 2004 was 37.92 percent, which was slightly better than the provincial average of 44.42 (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 121). The major socially owned enterprise in the municipality was a wine producer known as “Mirusha,” which was operating at approximately 25 percent capacity in 2003. There were about two hundred and fifty workers at Mirusha, down from a pre-conflict high of one thousand. About half of Mirusha’s vineyards had died from neglect during the conflict and had not recovered by 2004. A significant amount of the land owned by Mirusha has since been privatized. Immediately after the conflict, Malishevë was a strikingly underdeveloped place. Looking something like a dusty scene from a spaghetti Western, Malishevë-town was little more than the intersection of two main roads. Each road features a row of cement block buildings containing a couple of stores selling basic farm equipment, a few kebabci stands selling traditional Balkan grilled meatballs with bread, and a café. An unfinished municipal building dominated one side of the main road. In the initial days of the NATO-led deployment, Russian forces, who

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were not popular with the local Albanians, were assigned to patrol the town. Their presence was grudgingly accepted, and a Russian military motorcycle, with a sidecar and machine-gun mount, became a fixture at the main crossroad in summer and fall 1999. The town lived up to its Wild West image at the time. It was a violent and occasionally dangerous place. For example, at one point early in the humanitarian operations, the local activist responsible for food distribution, who was widely suspected of corruption, was severely beaten and hospitalized. Though by 2004 the town had much improved. A small and neat park was built, adding a bit of green to the town center. The municipal building was finished. And a tidy new Center for Social Work had been built. All of this construction was done with international assistance. Malishevë continued to fare poorly according to most economic, health, and social indicators. The municipality ranked twenty-ninth out of 30 in the 2004 Kosovo Human Development Report (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 110) with a HDI score of 0.625. Kosovo’s average HDI was 0.682.9 The situation in Malishevë was worse for its female citizens. The municipality ranked last on the UNDP’s Gender Development Index with a score of 0.518 (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 115). In terms of health, the estimated the life expectancy in Malishevë was 64.15 years; the fourth lowest in Kosovo (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 110). Over 93 percent of the population did not have access to piped water (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 117). More than 21 percent of Malishevë citizens lived more than 5 kilometers from their nearest health center (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 111). Only about half the population aged 15 years old or more (49.22 percent) had completed primary school, and less than a quarter (23.40 percent) completed secondary. In total, 79.21 percent had finished primary school, attended some secondary schooling or completed secondary school (UNDP 2004, 120).10 In 1991 Malishevë was officially gerrymandered out of existence by the Serbian authorities. Most of the municipality was annexed to neighboring Klinë, Rahovec, and Suharekë, with a smaller portion annexed to Gllogovc. Despite this, the municipality continued to function in the parallel Albanian system. Immediately after the entry of NATO into the province, international aid organizations differed on whether or not to recognize the municipality, leading to some confusion in early conflict damage assessments and aid distribution. The Kosovo Albanian Provisional Government, which at the time was attempting to assert itself as the legitimate provincial government, appointed a municipal administration for Malishevë. Despite anxiety that recognition of the municipality would represent either a victory for the Provisional Government or a redrawing of internal borders, in July 2000 Malishevë was officially


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reconstituted by the promulgation of UNMIK Regulation 2000/43. Recognition was granted on the basis of the UN administration having identified the applicable law for the province as that which was in force on March 22, 1989, well before the dissolution of Malishevë.11 Geographically the municipality is about 45 kilometers west-southwest of Prishtinë, on the western edge of the Drenica region. Throughout the armed conflict Malishevë was fiercely contested both militarily and politically. The municipality saw significant and at times intense fighting during the 1990s. In 1995, Albanian activists were reporting numerous incidents of police harassment in the area (Kosova Information Center, 1995). From summer 1998, the municipality saw some of the most notable fighting of the conflict. On June 12, 1998, Malishevë was identified by Financial Times as a safe haven and important supply link for KLA militants. It fell under the area of operations of the KLA’s “Drenica Zone” commanded by Sami Lushtaku (HRW 2001, 100). The Times of London reported that Serbian forces had launched an offensive against the KLA in the area on July 28, 1998. In addition to pushing the KLA out of Malishevë-town, the offensive displaced many Kosovo Albanians from their homes contributing to the growing IDP problem at the time (HRW 2001, 143). The situation was dire enough that Malishevë came to the attention of the UN Security Council when the Secretary-General delivered his situation reports on the conflict of September 4 (UN Document S/1998/834) and December 24, 1998 (UN Document S/1998/1221). By the time the conflict ended, Malishevë was devastated. Despite the later official recognition of the municipality by UNMIK, the International Management Group (IMG) contracted by the European Commission to complete a Kosovo-wide post-conflict damage assessment, did not include Malishevë in its original lists of municipalities. This made it difficult to gather reliable data concerning local levels of destruction in the period immediately after the conflict. Disaggregating village data from the IMG assessment and recompiling it with Malishevë as a municipality gives some indication of the level of war damage that was suffered. Of 5,367 assessed houses in the villages that make up the municipality, 4,067 or 75.78 percent were damaged to some degree. Most of those damaged (61.05 percent) were listed as Category III or Category IV. A Category III house is 40 percent to 60 percent damaged; a Category IV house is more than 60 percent damaged (IMG 1999). Although this is a tremendous level of destruction, it is placed roughly in the middle ranks of Kosovo’s municipalities. In the post-conflict period, Malishevë continued to be a site of political contention, although mostly between the Albanian political parties. Despite Malishevë-town’s wartime role as KLA stronghold, neither

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the PDK nor the AAK dominated local politics, and the municipality was politically divided. It was one of only two municipalities that saw a transfer of political power in the early post-conflict elections. In the first municipal elections in 2000, the LDK took a small majority and won control of the Municipal Assembly. The breakdown between the three major parties that year was LDK 50.2 percent, PDK 41.0 percent, and AAK 2.1 percent. This LDK victory dislodged a PDK supported provisional municipal administration. In the 2001 provincial elections, the PDK first won a majority in the municipality, with 51.77 percent of the vote to the LDK’s 39.55 percent and the AAK’s 2.93 percent. Since those elections were for the Kosovo Assembly, however, they had no effect on the municipal government. The PDK increased its percentage in the 2002 municipal election and took over the local Assembly. That year it took 51.85 percent, the LDK 42.41 percent, and the AAK 2.77 percent (Council for the Defense of Human Rights 2002). In the provincial elections of 2004, the PDK saw a marginal loss of votes but continued to hold the political allegiance of a majority of Malishevë’s citizens. The LDK saw a slightly larger loss in votes, and the AAK saw a small increase. The final tally for the 2004 vote was: PDK 51.23 percent, LDK 40.71 percent, and AAK 3.14 percent. Another political entity, a nonparty independent coalition known as ORA led by Veton Surroi, a popular center-left Albanian newspaper publisher, finished fourth with 1.57 percent of the vote. There were some changes in the local political balance in 2007 when the LDK suffered from factionalism and split into two parties. With the LDK support divided and reduced, the PDK was able to build a slightly larger advantage. In the municipal elections that year the PDK took 49.46 percent, LDK 32.68 percent, AAK 4.34 percent, and ORA 1.64 percent. The LDD, which was the party that emerged from the split within the LDK, performed poorly in Malishevë, winning only 4.52 percent of the vote, but enough for one seat in the municipal assembly. A second new party the Alliance for a New Kosovo (AKR) took 4.62 percent, which was also enough for one seat. The assembly convened with the PDK holding a narrow majority of 16 seats to the LDK’s 11, and one each for the four smaller parties. See Figure 4.1 for data on Malishevë municipal election results. The Malishevë CSW did not operate from about 1988 to 1999. The post-conflict Malishevë CSW can trace its organizational roots to the Emergency Financial Assistance Program (EFAP) that UNMIK instituted in November 1999. EFAP was a short-term program to provide immediate cash aid to the war affected. Although the primary concern for EFAP was to get financial resources to those in need, UNMIK also wanted to


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Malishevë / Malisevo 60.00

50.00

40.00

LDK PDK AAK IC - Krasniqi AKR LDD ORA

30.00

20.00

10.00

0.00 2000 Municipal Elections

Figure 4.1

2002 Municipal Elections


Municipal election results in Malishevë / Malisevo, 2000, 2002 and 2007.

simply inject cash into the local economy as quickly and effectively as possible. The program ran from November 1999 to April 2000 (World Bank 2001, 139). EFAP was the first internationally directed program to try to utilize the CSW network for aid distribution. Because it involved cash transfers in the very volatile immediate post-conflict period, EFAP implementation was highly centralized by UNMIK, and few NGOs were directly involved. Provisional municipal administrations were quick to identify directors of their local CSW in order to participate in the program. In Malishevë, a low-ranking local KLA official who had worked in military and civilian logistics during the conflict but had no social welfare experience assisted with EFAP in the municipality (Morino 2003). He was later appointed the official director of the Malishevë CSW. This particular background was unusual for a CSW director in Kosovo. Of the eight CSW directors that were interviewed in 2003, the director of the Malishevë CSW was the only one who did not have professional experience in social work, or a university degree in a relevant field of study. His appointment was directly related to his experience during the conflict and position within the local branch of the KLA. These types of purely political appointments were more common with the municipal social workers who were independent of the CSW and worked directly within the municipal structures. When the Malishevë director took the position, he faced strong resistance from the international NGO

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workers in the area. The concern seemed reasonable since there was no indication that he had any of the skills or experience necessary to manage the Center. Despite his highly politicized background, by 2003 he had become a professional social worker with a remarkable commitment to delivering social services to the community, impressing many of the internationals with whom he had worked over the years. Among those interviewed, the CSW director in Malishevë demonstrated the clearest understanding of the programs and policies that were being formulated in Prishtinë (Morino 2003). He expressed some mild criticism that the central DLSW in Prishtinë had devoted too many of its resources to social assistance as opposed to social services in the post-conflict period, but noted that since late 2002 the improvement of social services programming had been increasingly emphasized. In regard to his own improvements in professional skills and abilities, he cited the variety of training sessions and workshops that had been organized over the years by the DLSW and a variety of international NGOs as instrumental. These trainings also clearly altered his conceptions of social work as he discussed such issues as “accountability to service users,” “codes of ethics” in regards to social services, and “proper relationships with clients.” In an observation that was distinctive among all of those interviewed, he categorized the role of the CSW as the “representation of service users to authority” (Morino 2003). No other CSW director perceived themselves as representing their client in this way. Most perceived the relationship in the reverse, with themselves representing public or state authority to their clients. Following the DLSW guidelines, the CSW was organized around two teams, one for Social Assistance and one for Social Services. The Social Assistance team was responsible for processing applications and verifying qualifications. At the time of the original implementation of the postconflict social assistance program, the Malishevë CSW estimated that approximately nine hundred families that would qualify for assistance. Between July 2000 and February 2001 over 1,200 applications were distributed in the municipality. Five hundred forty applications were rejected by the CSW.12 In April 2001, 702 families received social assistance—576 in Category I and 126 in Category II. In total, there were 3,380 individual beneficiaries—2,554 in Category I and 826 in Category II. This represented 6.5 percent of the estimated municipal population. By April 2002 the number had increased to 616 families in Category I and 253 in Category II. There were 2,326 individuals in Category I and 1,594 in Category II, for a total of 3,920 beneficiaries, or 7.54 percent of the local population.13 See Table 4.2 for a comparison of the beneficiary numbers in Malishevë and Skenderaj.


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According to the Malishevë CSW, social services were the most demanding aspects of the work in the municipality. At the time there were five workers in the center devoted to social services, whose work dealt with such issues as war-related trauma, child custody and guardianship, family counseling, and juvenile delinquency. Much of the work involved investigations that were used in making recommendations to legal authorities on particular cases. For instance, in cases of juvenile delinquency that appeared before the courts, the CSW would be contacted to investigate the family circumstances. The CSW would then report to the court on the juvenile’s social situation and make a recommendation to the judge regarding the case. The process was similar for other areas such as domestic violence or divorce. Juvenile delinquency was identified as the most significant part of the CSW caseload in Malishevë, accounting for an estimated 30 percent of social service work. The CSW reported that it works closely and cooperatively with both the courts and the police. Political influence in social welfare, and in particular in the area of social assistance, was a primary concern for the Malishevë CSW and its director. Having a heavily political background himself, he was surprisingly critical of efforts to manipulate the CSW, as well as the different parties’ approach to local social policy. From his perspective, the political parties had little interest in formulating social policy. His experience with the municipal political actors had convinced him that political interest was focused on distribution of aid, as opposed to social services. Having prioritized social services as the more important aspect of the CSW’s work, he expressed suspicion of municipal politicians’ interest in the distribution process. He countered this perceived potential manipulation by keeping the CSW, and in particular the running of the Social Assistance Scheme, “accountable to Prishtinë” (Morino 2003). The argument that the CSW and the social welfare program were accountable to the central bureaucratic hierarchy altered the manner in which social policies were implemented locally. In order to focus on satisfying the demands of the DLSW in Prishtinë, the CSW in Malishevë prioritized those aspects of the work that were viewed most favorably by the administrative center. Adherence to administrative rules and regulations received a higher priority than currying favor with local politicians. The benefits of this were depoliticized policy implementation, better control over the distribution of aid, and more coherent adherence to standard beneficiary criteria. In short, there was little evidence of local corruption of social welfare programming in Malishevë. This commitment to the centrally designed criteria made the character of these criteria the key variable in assessing the integrative potential of the social welfare program. This was especially important because in

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Malishevë the Social Assistance Scheme was being implemented almost exactly as it was designed. In this case the defining character of the scheme was its reliance on means-testing to target benefits to the most needy. In contexts outside of Kosovo, means-testing has pointed toward stratification and stigmatization of the indigent population (Twine 1994, 97). Beneficiaries of social welfare are judged to be the most needy, or the “deserving poor” in the community. Of all the characteristics of social welfare programs, Wilensky identifies “intensive means-tested benefits” as the most problematic in that they generate stigma, disincentives and low take-up rates (2002, 325–326). In Malishevë, the means-testing aspect of the Social Assistance Scheme resulted in a program that addresses extreme poverty while doing little to confront the much more prevalent problem of general poverty. By 2004, Malishevë ranked thirteenth when it came to the percentage of its population living on one U.S. dollar a day (13.52%). Similarly, it ranked seventeenth when it came to the percentage of its population living in extreme poverty (10.66%). At the same time, it ranked third when it came to the percentage of its population living on two U.S. dollars a day (64.81%), and fifth in percentage living in poverty (62.91%) (UNDP 2004, 112, 126). To a large degree this attention to extreme poverty, as opposed to general poverty, represented an effective application of the post-conflict Kosovo Social Assistance Scheme as originally designed. Having been essentially designed by humanitarian NGOs, the program absorbed much of the ethos of these organizations. Humanitarian NGOs tend to deal with particular issues—refugees or children’s rights, for example— and exceptional cases—the extremely vulnerable who have fallen through all of the more general safety nets. In designing what eventually became the state social welfare regime, however, this experience may not have served the larger society. A broader social policy that applied universalist principles would have resulted in a more comprehensive program that would most likely have generated more long term advances in overall poverty reduction. Such an approach, however, would more than likely have required a broader base of support at its period of formation, as well as additional funding. Constituent social movement organizations such as organized labor, political parties, or popular organizations would have to have been included in the policy formation process in order to create a different type of social welfare regime. Rigorous enforcement of the central authority of the DLSW had other costs as well. Social welfare distributions were not guided by local conditions. Instead they followed a set of rules that were determined outside of the community and originally created within an institutional arrangement dominated by outsiders, international NGOs, IGOs,


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expatriate consultants, and donor countries. In a context of high poverty and great need, the social welfare program appears to political actors and constituents as an underutilized resource. Although apparently efficient, uncorrupted, and professionally run, the social welfare office and its programs were remarkably unpopular in Malishevë. According to the raw data for UNDP’s report on public perceptions of local government, the municipality ranked last in “satisfaction with social services,” with an average score of −58, scaled from 100 to −100. Dissatisfaction was highest among Malishevë’s poorest citizens with an average score of −73.14 Finally, the depoliticization of the social welfare program itself must be called into question. Keeping the social welfare system independent of the political process is in many ways very advantageous. Political interference in social assistance can lend itself to clientelism and patronage. In examining the case of the municipality of Skenderaj, below, I will explore the risks of clientelism more fully. In Malishevë, political parties have largely been restrained from this kind of manipulation of the social welfare programs. At the same time, however, removing social policy from the political process has costs in terms of the kind of political positions and platforms that are available for local political entrepreneurs. One of the recurring issues in the larger political dynamic of Kosovo has been the effort to move politics away from ethnic and community issues and toward governance and policy issues. Social policy is one of the issue areas that is most applicable to this effort. At the provincial level, for a number of reasons, Kosovo political parties focused either on issues of past activities during the violent conflict, or on the internationally dominated arena of the determination of final status. At the local level, where social policy has most successfully been removed from political interference, it has also had a limited impact on the lives of most of the poor in the community. The DLSW’s ongoing transfers of responsibility for social services from the central authority to the municipalities may help reintroduce some local debate on social policy into municipal politics. Skenderaj

Like Malishevë, Skenderaj is a poor, rural municipality with an overwhelming Albanian majority.15 However, Skenderaj has a slightly more complicated ethnic composition. The 1991 census, which was considered unreliable but is useful as a benchmark, counted 63,668 residents; 98.5 percent Albanian. By 2003 the OSCE estimated the municipal population to be about 70,000, with about 8,000 in Skenderaj-town. The municipality has 51 other villages. The 1991 census included 812 Kosovo Serbs and 166 “others”—Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, and

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Bosniaks. The non-Serb minorities used to live in a variety of villages throughout the municipality. However, after the conflict only twelve Ashkali and three Bosniak families remained. The Kosovo Serbs were located in Skenderaj-town, two small villages in the northwest of the municipality and a Serbian Orthodox monastery. No Kosovo Serbs have returned to Skenderaj-town. The villages—Suva Grlo / Suhogërllë and Banja / Banjë—are located near the border with the neighboring majority Serbian municipality of Zubin Potok. As of 2005 there were 129 Kosovo Serbs in Suva Grlo and 197 in Banja. The Deviče Monastery was looted and burned in the March 2004 riots, and the fifteenth century church and related facilities, including the cemetery, were very badly damaged (UNHCR 2004). The nine nuns that had been living in the monastery were evacuated by KFOR. Eight returned and were living under KFOR protection in 2005. Economic activity in Skenderaj is extraordinarily weak. In 2004, the municipality suffered the highest rate of unemployment (67.39%) in Kosovo (UNDP 2004, 121). The major economic potential in the municipality is agriculture but it has not been realized. Heavy fighting throughout the region put most agricultural activity on hold throughout the second half of the 1990s. Livestock were killed, farming equipment was destroyed and production ground to a halt. Previously 3,000 hectares had been collectivized into a socially owned agricultural combine. As of 2004, that land was controlled by the UNMIK Kosovo Trust Agency (KTA), the agency responsible for privatization and was not being cultivated. Local community activists claim that even if the land were available, it was unlikely that it would be profitable considering the intense competition from lower cost Macedonian, Turkish, and Albanian produce (Durimishi 2003). In Skenderaj-town there were some small, most family-run enterprises, including shops, services, and restaurants. Public employment figured large in the Skenderaj economy with approximately 1,500 employees on the municipal payroll. International NGOs and agencies accounted for a significant local employment, particularly immediately after the conflict, but had declined precipitously by 2004. Skenderaj had a long history of economic underdevelopment. It did not experience a significant level of industrialization during the Yugoslav era. There were very few factories in the municipality— primarily a building materials factory and a munitions plant. Although the munitions plant was no longer operating, the building materials factory worked in a very limited fashion. The factory received a large donation of new equipment from Japan not long after the conflict that greatly increased the value of the factory when it was included in the


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first round of privatization under UNMIK in 2003. The tender that was accepted was, in fact, the largest of the five that were accepted across Kosovo in the first round of privatization. The privatization of the factory was met with considerable concern in Skenderaj, mostly based on fears of even further reduced employment. On the day of the announcement of the plans for privatization, a group of workers blocked management from entering the factory. The tender was ultimately accepted and the factory was expected to start operations in 2005 (OSCE 2005b). Statistically Skenderaj enjoyed marginally higher standards than Malishevë, but in many respects the two places are very similar. The municipality scores higher on the UNDP Human Development Index, with a score of 0.648. The improvement over Malishevë is largely due to the significantly higher income per capita in Skenderaj—€723.94 and €1,135.50, respectively (UNDP 2004, 110). As in Malishevë, the situation for women in the municipality is poor. Skenderaj ranks twenty-ninth in the UNDP Gender Development Index, with a score of 0.576 (UNDP 2004, 115). In a number of categories, Skenderaj is in particularly bad shape. Life expectancy in the municipality is the lowest in Kosovo, at 61.65 years (UNDP 2004, 110). The percentage of people expected to die before the age of 40 is nearly 11 percent, and more than 25 percent are expected to die before age 60 (UNDP 2004, 111, 112). Nearly 28 percent of the population lives more than 5 kilometers from a health center (UNDP 2004, 111). This is the highest percentage in Kosovo. Rates of primary school completion in Skenderaj are lower than those in Malishevë, at 28.34 percent, but secondary school completion, at 37.95 percent is somewhat higher (UNDP 2004, 120). Ultimately all of these statistics portray a municipality in deep economic and social crisis. Skenderaj lies in the very heart of the Drenica Valley region, about 45 kilometers west of Prishtinë. The region suffered some of the most intense violence of the conflict. The KLA itself had originally formed in Drenica in 1993 when the Popular Movement for the Republic of Kosovo split into two separate parties—the LKÇK and the LPK. The KLA was the armed wing of the LPK (Judah 2000, 115). The strong traditionalism of the Albanian community in Drenica provided a structural framework for violent resistance to Serbian authorities. In his volume on Kosovo, Noel Malcolm recounts the history of the antiYugoslav and anti-Serbian kacak movement in the period after World War I (1999, 264–287). This movement is strongly rooted in the familial clans that have remained a key social element among Albanians in the area. In the rural areas, extended families often lived together in compounds, organized around a paternal family hierarchy. Violence,

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articulated through the continued reliance on the blood feud, was a recognized and important part of the social order (Hockenos 2003, 246; Clark 2000, 33–34, 60). In these terms violent resistance to state authority can be seen as a venerable tradition in Drenica. Throughout the most intense years of violent resistance against the Belgrade regime, the Drenica Valley provided many of the Albanian fighters and saw much of the fiercest repression. The most spectacular confrontation occurred in March 1998 when Yugoslav police tried to arrest Adem Jashari, a local KLA militant and friend of Sami Lushtaku who eventually became the commander of the KLA’s “Drenica Zone.” Despite Jashari’s association with the KLA, he was closer to the traditional kacak than the organized resistance (Judah 2000, 111). He had received military training in Albania in 1990, and on his return had, along with his family and neighbors, effectively driven Yugoslav police out of their village (Judah 2000, 111). As the conflict with the Yugoslav and Serbian forces escalated to more and more violent attacks it was clear that Jashari and the Serbian police would eventually have a confrontation. On March 5, 1998, the police surrounded and attacked the family compound in Donje Prekaz. Jashari, along with nearly all of his extended family—58 people in all, were killed (Judah 2000, 140). The compound has since been converted into a museum. The well-paved streets, with curbs and sidewalks, rarities in the area, leading up to the museum stand out in contrast to the rural poverty and underdevelopment of their surroundings. The attack on the Jashari compound was later followed by a full offensive by the Yugoslav military and police. The harshness of the offensive was documented by Human Rights Watch, which published a volume called A Week of Terror in Drenica: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo in February 1999 (HRW 1999a). The violence and glorification of violent resistance remains the dominant discourse in Skenderaj. Nearly every business in the area features a framed photo of Jashari, most often with a full and unkempt beard, two crossed bandoleers of ammunition across his chest and his hands on his AK-47. Despite this image of heroic nationalism, there is a deeply tragic legacy to the high level of violence that the area experienced. Local authorities claim that over 1,780 children in Skenderaj lost at least one parent in the conflict (Berisha 2003). Notably, a local research institute cited an alarming rise in suicides in Drenica from 1999 to 2003 in a report meant to serve as an indicator for potential crises (RIINVEST 2003, 23). The war damage in Skenderaj extends beyond the destruction of homes and villages and deep into the lives of the community. Skenderaj suffered some of the worst destruction of the conflict. The post-conflict IMG damage assessment found that of 8,792 assessed


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houses, 7,888, or 89.72 percent, suffered some damage (IMG 1999). This was the fourth highest absolute number of damaged houses. The intensity of the destruction in Skenderaj was also remarkably high. Of those damaged, 83.42 percent suffered either Category III or Category IV destruction. Although not recorded in the IMG damage assessment, the destruction in Skenderaj was qualitatively different from damage in most of the rest of the province. Much of Kosovo suffered intense destruction from wanton arson—whole villages and neighborhoods were burned. Arriving in Kosovo in summer 1999 it was easy to identify damage that could be attributed to arson. Generally homes were constructed of brick or cement with wood structures to support the roofs. When the building was torched the shell would remain, but the roof would collapse once its support had been burned. Most of the houses in Kosovo were roofless shells. However, in Skenderaj the amount of destruction clearly attributable to actual combat as opposed to arson was noticeably high. In Skenderaj buildings had bullet and shell holes pocking the outer walls, and some buildings were reduced to rubble. Politically Skenderaj has been completely dominated by the PDK, which has won more than 80 percent of the vote in Skenderaj in every election in post-conflict Kosovo. The party first assumed power in the municipality in 1999, immediately after the international intervention, when PDK activists organized a Provisional Municipal Administration. The basic character of this administration was confirmed by the first municipal elections in 2000, in which the PDK took 84 percent to the LDK’s 13.5 percent, and the AAK’s 0.5 percent. In the 2001 provincial elections, the PDK majority was confirmed with 83.34 percent to the LDK’s 13.15 percent. The AAK fared even worse with only 0.35 percent. In the 2001 municipal elections the final results were PDK 81.63 percent, LDK 12.31 percent, AAK 1.02 percent, and a smaller party, the New Party of Kosovo (PReK), took 2.77 percent. In the 2004 provincial elections the PDK scored 84.94 percent of the vote. The LDK won 10.23 percent, the AAK .77 percent, and another new contender, ORA, took 1.06 percent. In 2007, the PDK continued its dominance with 86.2 percent of the vote. The AKR took 3.06 percent, giving it one seat in the municipal assembly. The LDD assumed most of the old LDK support in the municipality, taking 7.96 percent. The rump LDK took 1.01 percent, ORA took 0.57 percent, and the AAK took 0.42 percent. See Figure 4.2 for data on the Skenderaj municipal elections. Civic activity in Skenderaj could be described as sporadic and weak. Although a number of local NGOs were organized in the post-conflict period, few remained active over the years. As in other parts of Kosovo, MTS was active in Skenderaj during and immediately after the conflict.

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Skenderaj / Srbica 100.00 90.00 80.00 70.00 LDK PDK AAK PReK LDD AKR

60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00 2000 Municipal Elections

Figure 4.2



Municipal election results in Skenderaj / Srbica, 2000, 2002, and 2007.

As part of the support that the organization received from the international humanitarian and development community between 1998 and 2000, the U.S.-based NGO MCI managed an extensive capacity-building project for MTS throughout Kosovo, including in Skenderaj. The intention of the project was to establish MTS as a self-sustaining community service NGO. Although more successful in other municipalities, in Skenderaj this project had little long-term effect (Durimishi 2004). The local branch of the MTS provide a good insight into the state of local civic activity in Skenderaj. As of 2003 branch was located in a dusty back room around the corner from the municipal offices. There were a few old computers that had been given to the organization to manage the food distributions during the 1999 emergency response. The office, once the center of a massive local aid operation, had taken on the air of an old men’s club, where members sat about, drank strong tea, smoked cigarettes, and gossiped. The management of the organization reported that they had no current projects, nor did they have any plans for new projects. They indicated that there was still significant need in the community and people routinely came to the offices of MTS looking for assistance, but they had nothing to offer them. Under the direction from the central MTS leadership in Prishtinë, the Skenderaj branch submitted a project to the municipal government for distribution of aid packages, but were told that no funds were available to support the proposal, and the idea was dropped. Local MTS leadership claimed that they have a “good relationship


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with the municipal government” but that the government does not feel “obliged” to work with them (Durimishi 2003). This lack of activity from the largest local NGO in Kosovo is a good indicator of how limited civil society in Skenderaj had become. In its municipal profile the OSCE identified a large number of other local NGOs in Skenderaj. Despite this, in interviews neither the MTS activists, nor the local municipal authorities could cite any particular projects or activities organized by these groups. The only active professional organization to be identified was the Beekeepers’ Association, which was being assisted by MCI. One of the UNMIK advisers in the municipality was able to cite two organizations active in Skenderaj: the Association of KLA War Veterans, and the War Invalids Association. Both of these were identified as “social welfare branches of the party [PDK]” (Kawiche 2003). Because of the extraordinarily high number of former fighters among the Albanian population of Skenderaj, there is great support for programs that directly address the needs of veterans and their families. The director of the local CSW is more typical than his colleague in Malishevë. He studied economics at the University of Prishtinë, graduating in 1978. He became the director of the CSW in Skenderaj originally in 1987, two years after the municipal center was founded. In 1989, as part of the general dismissal of Kosovo Albanians from state jobs he was fired from his position at the CSW and took a job at the munitions factory. He returned to the CSW in June 1999 when the municipal provisional administration was organized. Despite his substantial professional background in social welfare, his appointment as director of the Skenderaj CSW was as politicized as in Malishevë. In Skenderaj, however, the process of politicization of the position is supported by two important aspects. First, the director’s prior experience actually contributed to the politicization of the position. Prior to the peak years of the conflict (1989–1999), the determination of directors of CSW was a highly political process that was controlled by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY). Directors were chosen by self-managing communities of interest, which were the social services equivalents to the self-management system that was used in Yugoslav socially owned enterprises. A board of representatives from the self-managing community of interest officially selected local CSW directors, but in practice the process was dominated by local human resource offices of the LCY (Bertyci 2003). Second, in Skenderaj there was effectively only one political party. The dynamics of one party rule, which were very familiar to the director and staff of the CSW from the old days of Yugoslav socialism, were recreated in the post-conflict period with the PDK assuming the role of the dominant party.

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In Skenderaj there was higher degree of tension between the programs and policies that were being formulated at the DLSW in Prishtinë and their local implementation (Durimishi 2003; Hamza 2003; Loshi 2003). In an interview, a CSW social worker in Skenderaj discussed the application of the beneficiary criteria for the Social Assistance Scheme. According to the social worker, when the criteria proved too strict, they were to be adjusted. The social worker felt that this practice was recognized and accepted by DLSW personnel in Prishtinë (Loshi 2003). To a large degree this was true and had been since early on in the implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme. As early as 2002, the expatriate head of the Social Assistance Division acknowledged that an inordinate amount of the local population in Skenderaj was receiving social assistance. Although the DLSW wanted to reduce the percentage, it also acknowledged that there were important reasons for the inflated figure. First, the DLSW saw that poverty in Skenderaj as a sufficiently serious problem to warrant temporarily accepting a higher number of beneficiaries in the municipality than seemed reasonably likely. Reductions could be made over time. Secondly, the DLSW had security concerns for the social assistance officers in the municipality whom had been threatened by beneficiaries who they had tried to remove from the list (Waterfield 2002). Policy implementation in Skenderaj suffers from wide and broad, although not deep, manipulation. It is likely that the social welfare authorities in Skenderaj are unwilling and often unable to fully enforce the criteria for social assistance. Social assistance officers and even the central DLSW authorities in Prishtinë are conscious of what is obviously a very high level of need leading to a more lax enforcement of the criteria. In addition, social assistance officers in Skenderaj have reported numerous incidents of violent intimidation by beneficiaries who refuse to be removed from the beneficiary list despite not qualifying. Although the proportion of Skenderaj’s citizens on social assistance is inordinately high, observers estimate that it is more than likely still underserving the poor of the community. Those included in the system, whether legitimately qualifying or not, as well as many others in the municipality, are in need. Despite the DLSW’s recognition of the special problems in Skenderaj, there was more tension between the central office in Prishtinë and the municipal CSW than in other locations. The director felt that the CSW was “under pressure” from the ministry and the department not to allow the social assistance program to expand. In the same interview he also claimed that the CSW received little guidance from the ministry. He felt that more supervision came from the OSCE mission in Kosovo. There was, however, a closer relationship between the CSW and the municipal authorities in Skenderaj than in other places. The CSW


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director described the relationship between the center and the municipal authorities as good. The municipality was responsible for human resource questions in the CSW. The director had been proposed by the municipal government for the position. Significantly, during an interview with the CSW director, the municipal director for Health and Social Welfare arrived. His participation in the discussion indicated that as the municipal official he played a very active role in social welfare in Skenderaj. In the course of interviews with CSW directors across Kosovo, he was the only municipal director for Health and Social Welfare to attend. The percentage of the local population receiving social assistance in Skenderaj drastically exceeded the Kosovo-wide figure. In April 2001, beneficiaries numbering 13,307 in Category I and 7,713 in Category II were receiving social assistance. The total number of beneficiaries was 21,020, or 37.54 percent of the population of Skenderaj. According to the DLSW, the numbers were reduced by April 2002, when there were 11,471 Category I and 4,918 Category II beneficiaries. This was approximately 29.27 percent of the local population. A year later the director of the Skenderaj CSW estimated that it had gone down to about 24 percent of the population (Hamza 2003; Goxhuli 2003). (See Table 4.2 for a comparison of beneficiary numbers in Skenderaj and Malishevë.) By comparison, in 2001, 2002, and 2003, about 9 percent of the total Kosovo population was receiving social assistance (SOK 2003).16 In addition to the standard social assistance package, the municipality also claimed to be running separate aid programs for the family members of those that were killed in the conflict, war invalids, and families without shelter. The municipality was not able to provide statistical details of these programs. Table 4.2 Social assistance beneficiaries in Malishevë and Skenderaj in 2001 and 2002 2002

2001 Beneficiaries Malishevë Category I Category II Total Skenderaj Category I Category II Total

Percentage of the municipal Beneficiaries population (%)

Percentage of the municipal population (%)

2,554 826 3,380

4.91 1.59 6.5

2,326 1,594 3,920

4.47 3.07 7.54

13,307 7,713 21,020

23.76 13.77 37.54

11,471 4,918 16,389

20.48 8.78 29.27

Note: Data comes from DLSW records. (Note that the DLSW maintained its own population estimates separate from the OSCE estimates.)

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The Skenderaj CSW was not effectively applying the social assistance criteria that had been designed in Prishtinë. Beneficiaries were not determined primarily by the centrally approved criteria, but rather by subjective and politicized assessment by the local CSW. There were three primary causes of this misimplementation of the system. First, the overwhelming poverty of the community made both the central DLSW authorities and local social workers reluctant to enforce the criteria as stringently as in other municipalities. Second, the desire of the dominant political party to reward local families and individuals identified with sacrifices made during the conflict period has led to systemic manipulation and corruption. Finally, the recourse to violence played a very strong role in traditional coping strategies in the community. When faced with possible exclusion from the social assistance program, locals turned to the traditional strategy and threatened the social workers with coercive violence. Because of these varied local dynamics, much of the social policy that was formulated in Prishtinë was not realized in Skenderaj. Having essentially nullified the central policy, the Skenderaj CSW implemented an ad hoc social policy that relies much less heavily on the means-testing mechanism of the DLSW social assistance program. Instead the system was implemented in a manner closer to what could be referred to as a corrupt corporatist model. Rather than relying on class or occupational distinctions, the corporatism of the CSW in Skenderaj rested on a characteristic particular to the post-conflict situation. Qualification for social assistance primarily rested on prior contribution to the war effort. Individuals and families who were seen to have suffered because of the conflict were more likely to receive assistance. Importantly, this system only applied to the local Albanian community. Because Skenderaj was nearly entirely Albanian, this corporatism functioned almost as a localized universalism, and on a limited scale, had some of the positive impact of such a system. Unlike in Malishevë, where targeting resulted in a greater effect on extreme poverty, in Skenderaj there appears to be a stronger effect on the general poverty of the municipality. In 2004, Skenderaj ranked tenth in percentage of the population living on US$1 per day (14.29 %), and tenth in percentage suffering from extreme poverty (15.18 %). At the same time, the municipality ranked sixteenth in percentage living on US$2 per day (46.91 %), and thirteenth in percentage in poverty (52.54 %) (UNDP 2004, 112, 126). The system also generated a high rate of local support for the social welfare system. Considering the large percentage of the population was receiving social assistance, it was not surprising that the rate of public satisfaction in Skenderaj was high. According to a UNDP report on


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perception of public services in Kosovo, Skenderaj ranked in the top five in three sectors: the ambulantas, or community clinics, that are the mainstay of the Kosovo health system; social services; and pensions. The raw scores for Skenderaj were respectively, 50, 11, and 4, based on a scale from −100 to 100. The ambulanta system was highly regarded throughout the province with an overall score of 40. Although Skenderaj ranked fifth, this was not an exceptional score. The high scores for social services and pensions, however, were extraordinary. The Kosovo-wide ranking for social services was low at −15. For pensions the overall Kosovo score was an even lower −31.17 Only the top five municipalities, in which Skenderaj is included, even ranked positively in either of these sectors (UNDP 2003, 53). Ultimately, despite the high level of public satisfaction, developments in the social welfare sector in Skenderaj must be approached with concern. The picture that comes through is one of a highly clientelistic party structure dominating an ethnically homogeneous and economically underdeveloped municipality. There was little civic activity in the municipality outside of the dominant party and its associated organizations. Additionally, the overall situation was deeply infused with nationalist rhetoric. The solidarity that was generated by the social welfare program mirrors the dynamics of the conflict system. Locally, the social welfare system was an exclusionary system that delivered assistance within a given community. As the party in power, PDK was able to maintain a nearly unchallenged local political dominance in part because its claim to represent those who had sacrificed the most for the war effort was backed up by the provision of social services and assistance, primarily to the legitimately poor, but also to the war affected. Conclusion: The Political Dynamic and Social Policy Implementation As was discussed in Chapter 3, the overall post-conflict social welfare regime in Kosovo appeared to fit closest with Esping-Anderson’s liberal regime. The Social Assistance Scheme in particular largely fell into this type. Financial benefits were relatively meager, qualifying criteria were strict, and beneficiaries generally came from the lowest income group. The implication of this type of social policy regime is a liberal conception of social citizenship. Kosovars would be expected to fend for themselves in the event of some sort of personal crisis. This effect of the social welfare regime, however, can only be anticipated in cases where the components of the regime are implemented in line with their design.

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Despite the characteristics of the Kosovo-wide Social Assistance Scheme, local implementation did not always match the policy design. In a post-conflict situation like Kosovo, where local state institutions have dramatically different capacities to implement policy formulated at the center, the chances that program implementation and policy design will diverge are even greater than in a more stable situation. Examining the cases of Skenderaj and Malishevë, two municipalities that in many ways were extremely similar, provides insight into the varieties of implementation and the potential effect of these variations. In Malishevë, the Social Assistance Scheme was implemented largely in a manner consistent with the policies formulated at the DLSW in Prishtinë. Close political competition between the local political parties allowed the CSW space to operate with more reference to Prishtinë than the municipal authorities. In terms of the local political scene, the Malishevë CSW maintained an extraordinary amount of administrative autonomy from the municipal government. This autonomy was somewhat illusory, however, since the CSW justified its aloofness from the local political forces through a kind of bureaucratic protection derived from its close association with the central authorities in Prishtinë. In Malishevë the official criteria and rules for beneficiary selection were followed more closely than in other municipalities. Efforts by the DLSW to constrain the reach of the Social Assistance Scheme were well heeded by the local CSW. This strategy of relying on close adherence to directives from Prishtinë proved effective in protecting the CSW from local political manipulations. As a side benefit, professionalization of the Malishevë CSW progressed dramatically during the post-conflict period. An additional advantage of Malishevë’s faithfulness to the social policy as designed in Prishtinë is that the local implementation of the scheme allowed a more accurate evaluation of the general impact of the scheme itself. To a very large degree, the liberal Social Assistance Scheme as designed by the international NGO community performed much as one would expect. It was effective at targeting the poorest citizens of the municipality and providing some degree of financial assistance. Although it is difficult to fully determine the causal relationship, effective implementation correlated to lower levels of extreme poverty in Malishevë than might be anticipated given the other data available concerning local levels of development. At the same time, as one would expect from such a program, social assistance in Malishevë did not correlate with much of a decrease in general poverty. The scheme, when implemented with the minimum of outside political interference, functioned as a safety net of last resort, much as predicted. Although extreme


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poverty may have been reduced, general poverty remained a significant problem for the majority of Malishevë’s citizens. In Skenderaj, local implementation diverged dramatically from the social policy that had been formulated at the central level. One political party, the PDK, maintained hegemony throughout the municipality. The local CSW was co-opted into the political sphere of the local governing party. As a consequence, the ideology of the local branch of the political party permeated the social assistance implementation, creating a highly politicized program. The localization was particularly important because Skenderaj was geographically at the center of some of the most violent parts of the conflict. Although the PDK may have been attempting to construct a more progressive ideological foundation in the larger Kosovo political arena, in Skenderaj the discourse remained highly nationalist and confrontational. The Social Assistance Scheme in Skenderaj was implemented in what could best be described as a nationalist-corporatist model that relied heavily on conflict roles for determining beneficiaries. Locally, the modified implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme correlated with a lower level of general poverty than one would expect considering other data concerning Skenderaj. Although it has one of the lowest HDI scores in the province, Skenderaj ranked in the middle ranges in terms of general poverty. Two-thirds of the components of the human development are lagging indicators in that they reflect long-term trends—life expectancy, and levels of education. As such, changes in these sectors would take a number of years to generate an impact. Social assistance financial distributions, however, would have a much quicker impact on the levels of income and poverty. Income levels in the municipality were higher than might be expected by an outside observer, and poverty levels were lower. At the same time, however, Skenderaj’s particular implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme did not correlate to a lower level of extreme poverty. Unsurprisingly, popular dissatisfaction with the social welfare system in Malishevë was high. The largest and most visible program, the Social Assistance Scheme, provided limited benefits and was generally designed to help only the most desperate. For many of the poor of Malishevë, the program offered them no benefits whatsoever. With so much of the local population displeased with the performance of the governance structures, the long-run stability of the system could be at risk. Conversely, in Skenderaj there was a high rate of satisfaction with social services. For the most part satisfaction with other public services in the municipality ranged from middle to low. The high score for social services and pensions was a relative exception. Public satisfaction with the highly politicized local

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social welfare programming undergirded the local electoral popularity of the PDK. So long as conditions remain unchanged, the local one-party dominance was unlikely to be challenged. The particularities of Malishevë and Skenderaj provide insight into two aspects of the Kosovo social welfare regime. On a general level, the divergence between the two forms of implementation indicates the effect of local political conditions. Although on the surface very similar, the two municipalities had dramatically different political environments. These different environments altered the conditions under which the local CSWs operated, yielding different end results. More specifically, the cases of Malishevë and Skenderaj presented concrete differences of local conditions. Under conditions of clear local political competition, the CSW in Malishevë was better able to implement the policies of the DLSW, and in turn, the consequences of the policy as designed became apparent. In Skenderaj’s essentially one-party system, local political actors were able to co-opt the system and alter its implementation, and in turn, its consequences. Within these two municipalities, differing implementation of the social welfare program created divergent perceptions of what it meant to carry Kosovar social citizenship. Going back to Marshall, there have been competing debates over the effectiveness of different types of social citizenship. The most applicable debate is that between liberal and communitarian visions of citizenship. Liberal citizenship in this regard embeds a highly constrained constellation of social rights within the individual. Citizens, as individuals meeting basic sets of criteria, possess a very limited set of rights that are designed to guard against the most extreme circumstances. A communitarian embeds social protections as rights that accrue to members of a given community as defined by some combination of status markers. The cases of Malishevë and Skenderaj are particularly instructive because the overwhelming ethnically Albanian makeup of the two places effectively holds the ethnic identity constant in the analysis. Despite this, ethno-politics, as separate from identity, reasserts itself into the analysis. Ethnic confrontation and conflict strongly informed the social welfare programs in Skenderaj despite the lack of local diversity. The two types of social citizenship regimes reflect the local interpretations of the social welfare programs. In Skenderaj, with its ethno-nationalist corporatism, the social benefits of citizenship were tightly bound up with the local perceptions of Albanianism that were rooted in wartime behavior. The extension of social citizenship was prioritized for those who had sacrificed for the Albanian cause in Kosovo. Discretion as to what was a worthy sacrifice was assumed by the PDK with its direct roots in the KLA. The violent history of the municipality


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compounded the “glorious” sacrifice of the KLA in the local public discourse. As Yashar argues in the Latin American context, this type of citizenship regime does not necessarily imply an equal extension of political and civil rights along with social rights (2005, 48). The lack of open political alternatives in Skenderaj reflected this sense of restriction on citizenship rights. In Malishevë the social citizenship regime that emerged was completely different. Relying strongly on the protection of the central authority of Prishtinë, the local implementation constructed a strongly liberal citizenship model. In this, it was an accurate reflection of the social citizenship vision that was constructed under the guidance of international NGOs, development agencies, and donor governments. Political and civil rights rooted in an individualist conception of society were prioritized over social rights, which were regulated to safety nets and measures of last resort.


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Local Governance and the Development of Social Welfare Institutions: Prizren and Kamenicë This chapter, as the one before it, focuses on describing and analyzing the formation and implementation of social policy at the municipal level. In this case, the two municipalities being examined are Prizren in southwest Kosovo and Kamenicë/Kamenica in the northeast.1 The emphasis in these cases is on the relationship between the development of the functional capacity of local social welfare institutions and demographic instability related to the conflict. I argue that Prizren, much more so than Kamenicë, underwent an intense process of urbanization over the period from roughly 1995 to 2005 that led not only to an increase in the population of Prizren-town, but also to increased political contestation as new groups of incomers challenge the well established elites.2 Although urbanization is a long-term trend, the process was intensified in Prizren by the severity of the violent conflict in the area. In Kamenicë urbanization over the long term was less pronounced, and the violence of the conflict was also less intense locally. The differences in the urbanization processes directly affected the political stability of both municipalities, and by extension, the implementation of the social welfare programs. Like the previous chapter concerning the municipalities of Skenderaj and Malishevë, this chapter refines the analysis of the larger Kosovo social welfare regime by examining local implementation. Because Prizren and Kamenicë present more complicated dynamics than either Skenderaj or Malishevë, the analysis and the conclusion are somewhat less determinate.

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Despite this indeterminacy, these cases are important for the larger argument concerning the role of social policy in creating an inclusive model of citizenship in the post-conflict context. Where the first two cases addressed the effects of the local political dynamics on the implementation of the social welfare programs, these cases look at the effects of larger social trends. In the case of Prizren, the factors in question are urbanization and social cleavages between urban elites and new challengers from the rural areas of the municipality. Kamenicë also deals with the effects of urbanization, but from a different perspective. Urbanization drew population from Kamenicë, as opposed to towards it as in the case of Prizren. In either case, as in Skenderaj and Malishevë, the ultimate implementation of the social welfare system affects the articulation of citizenship rights. The dynamic of contention between the more well established town administrative elite and the new urban immigrants were especially relevant to the social welfare sector because of the design of the Kosovo social welfare institutions. The social welfare system at the local level was effectively divided between the CSW and municipal departments of health and social welfare.3 The CSWs, which were present in each Kosovo municipality, were directly responsible to the provincial MLSW based in Prishtinë. Their primary task was to implement to policies and programs of the ministry, such as the Social Assistance Scheme. The municipal departments, which were organized by the local administrations, were responsible for organizing and implementing their own localized policies and programs. With the CSW’s longer roots in the prior Yugoslav socialist administrative system, and the new municipal administrative departments having only recently emerged from the post-conflict governing structures negotiated by the UN mission, these two social welfare agencies had the potential to reinforce the division between the prior town-based elites and the new incoming challengers. Developments in Prizren followed this course, while in Kamenicë, where there was less instability, the divisions were not aggravated. The two institutions differed significantly in their profiles during the post-conflict period. The CSWs were, in general, professionalized social welfare agencies with long histories in their municipalities. This was especially true in Prizren and Kamenicë, where the centers were both well established by the end of the 1980s. Most of their staffs were relatively well educated, usually with a university degree in a relevant academic field. Operational and program expenses at the CSWs were funded by the MLSW. As branches of the municipal administrations, the characteristics of the local departments of health and social welfare were much more variable. All current municipal structures, including the local

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departments, had been established under UNMIK authority in 2000. In general the municipal social welfare departments were more politicized. The staffing of the municipal departments reflected the political balance of the given municipal executive. Most municipal departments, including the ones in Prizren and Kamenicë, were responsible for both health and social welfare issues, and the municipal directors generally had either medical or social work credentials. This administrative combination of the health and social welfare sectors reflected the earlier phase of the development of social policy in post-conflict Kosovo. The first UNMIK effort at social policy implementation had been led by the DHSW of the JIAS. Social welfare was not divorced from health policy and joined to labor and employment policy until 2001, just before the first elections for the Kosovo Assembly (Héthy 2005, 14). Attaching social welfare to the institutions for labor and employment helped integrate social policy more effectively into UNMIK and the PISG’s efforts for managing the larger provincial political economy. At the municipal level the association of social policy with health had more functional effects. In general, where the health professions dominated, that aspect of the department was been able to gather the lion’s share of resources. In Prizren, the municipal office is run by a medical professional, while in Kamenicë, social welfare experience runs through the municipal administration. The municipal departments also tended to be less professional than the CSWs, and had fewer resources. If there was permanent municipal social work staff, as in Prizren, they were usually recent political appointments. Professional social work training and experience was not necessarily a prerequisite for the positions, and the levels of education, training, and experience varied considerably across the municipalities. Local departments were funded from municipal resources, and spending and hiring reflected municipal political priorities. In Prizren these funds were especially limited. In interviews the department staff expressed an envious interest in the resources of the local CSW. In Kamenicë, there were greater funds for municipal programs, these were actually run through the local CSW. This type of cooperation between the CSWs and municipal departments was the exception and not the rule. In Prizren, such cooperation was rare, but in Kamenicë it was more common. The relationship between the municipal departments and the CSWs was part of the larger local political dynamic. The municipal administrations reflected the immediate concerns of local political contestation, whereas the CSWs, controlled by the central provincial MLSW, were part of the larger, provincial political apparatus. The ministry policies ideally reflected the decisions of the provincial government and were consistent across Kosovo. Of course, the implementation of these policies could be

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affected by the local political environment, as the case studies concerning Skenderaj and Malishevë illustrated. The local political battles varied from municipality to municipality in their details and intensity. For example, during the post-conflict period, local political competition was much more intense in Prizren than in Kamenicë. The intensity of the local political competition reflected the higher level of instability in Prizren, which was in turn part of the transition away from the conflict period. Prizren underwent a process of urbanization that had transformed the local balance of political power. Specifically, there was significant movement of people from the municipality’s rural villages to the municipal seat of Prizren-town. This migration pattern had a strong effect on the local political dynamic. With the general upheaval of the conflict and post-conflict period, newcomers to Prizren were mostly successful in entering the local political elite. In particular, the predominance of rural actors in the more militant Albanian movements of the conflict facilitated their entry into the municipal administration, eventually including positions within the municipal department of health and social welfare. The newcomers were less successful in gaining entry into the bureaucratized, professional, and well-established Prizren CSW. The successful effort to enter into municipal politics in Prizren can be traced to the immediate post-conflict period when local political structures were still being formed. At the time, competition for local control centered primarily on the dynamic between UNMIK and the different factions of Kosovo Albanian and Serbian political actors. The eventual resolution to that competition, which created both centralized proto-state structures and local administrations, set the conditions for the later political development. In the case of social welfare institutions in Prizren, the conditions set were ones of institutionalized competition. In Kamenicë the Serb-Albanian conflict was much less intense. Without the intensity of the conflict in the rural areas of the province, militants were unable to capitalize on wartime rhetoric or radicalism in order to gain entry into town politics. Additionally, fewer people were displaced into Kamenicë-town itself, reducing the intensity of the urbanization process. For those that were displaced, there were more attractive alternative urban locations exerting a pull. For Albanians that pull was generally toward either Prishtinë, or western Europe. For Kosovo Serbs in Kamenicë, the pull was toward urban centers in Serbia-proper, or western Europe as well. All of these factors combined to keep the conflict-related instability from becoming particularly intense in Kamenicë. As such, the post-conflict social welfare institutions were not subject to the same stresses as in Prizren.


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Overall, both Kamenicë and Prizren represent a more complex situation than Skenderaj and Malishevë. The two municipalities are more ethnically diverse, have larger town centers, and higher levels of industrial and economic development, although Prizren is notably larger than Kamenicë in all respects. Additionally, both Prizren and Kamenicë are border municipalities. Prizren shares borders with the Republic of Macedonia to the southeast, and Albania to the southwest. Kamenicë borders on Serbia-proper to the west. The conflict experiences of Prizren and Kamenicë were also very different from those of Skenderaj and Malishevë. Although the residents of the two municipalities suffered from the conflict, wartime damage was significantly less intense, especially in the central municipal towns. Levels of residual post-conflict violence have differed, however, in the two municipalities. In Prizren, in the period immediately after the conflict, waves of violence were directed toward the remaining Serbian citizens. In Kamenicë, locals reported accounts of Serbs protecting the property of their Albanian neighbors during the height of the conflict in spring 1999, and the reverse during the post-conflict violence of that summer. Later, ethnic riots in March 2004 targeting Kosovo Serbs occurred throughout the province, although with much more intense violence in Prizren than in Kamenicë. Institutional Development and Local Governance Post-conflict municipal governance in Kosovo was the result of a number of different, interrelated dynamics. On the immediate level of the postconflict reconstruction efforts, the municipal institutions in Kosovo were directly affected by the efforts of UNMIK, which assumed responsibility for the province with the passage of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1244. UNMIK, however, did not operate in a vacuum, and its work in building local institutions was formed both through negotiating accommodations with the post-conflict political and military actors, and through building on the legacies of socialist, federal Yugoslavia. The social welfare sector, with its centralized MLSW, local CSWs, and municipal departments, is a prime example of this process. The development of local governing institutions in post-conflict Kosovo begins with the persistent paradox of UNSCR 1244, which mandated the international administration. Officially, the province remained under the sovereignty of Yugoslavia; functionally, the Albanian majority regions operated solely under UN authority, and the Serb majority regions under an ambiguous arrangement between the UN and Serbian authorities. On the face of it, UNSCR 1244 reaffirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia, demanding only

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the absolute withdrawal of Yugoslav “military, police and paramilitary forces.” Although this could theoretically have left the Yugoslav, or more particularly, Republic of Serbia, civil and political administration in place, in reality there was little left of these institutions either in terms of physical resources or social, political, or professional capacity. The UN, recognizing this administrative vacuum as a normal part of the post-conflict environment, authorized the extensive and immediate deployment of an “international civil presence” (UNSCR 1244). The resolution itself is a complicated document that reflected the political intricacies of the Kosovo crisis as it unfolded in 1998 and 1999. Resolution 1244 designated 11 broad tasks for the civil presence. Four of these tasks were organized around the international mission, creating functional governing institutions in Kosovo. In administrative areas where UNMIK was either unable to establish local institutions, or prevented from doing so for political reasons, the mission was to assume governing responsibility itself. These tasks were to promote the establishment of “substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo”; perform “basic civilian administrative functions”; organize provisional institutions for “democratic and autonomous self-government pending a final political settlement”; and to maintain “law and order, including establishing local police forces and meanwhile through the deployment of international police personnel.” A second set of tasks were focused on determining the final status of Kosovo, and transferring governance responsibility from the UN to the institutions that were to be derived from that determination. These tasks were to transfer “its administrative responsibilities”; facilitate a political process “to determine Kosovo’s future status”; and oversee the transfer of the provisional institutions to those established by the final political settlement. The final set of tasks was geared toward the immediate needs of the post-conflict situation. In this regard the mission was called to support the “reconstruction of key infrastructure and other economic reconstruction”; assist the international community in delivering “humanitarian and disaster relief aid”; protect human rights; and assure “the safe and unimpeded return of all refugees and displaced persons.” None of these tasks were mutually exclusive to one another, but neither were they all naturally complementary, nor particularly clear in terms of their ultimate outcome. Chesterman cites an unnamed UN official who related the story that Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) Bernard Kouchner, “claimed to read the text of UN resolution 1244 (1999) twice every morning and still have no idea what ‘substantial autonomy’ meant” (Chesterman 2004, 132).


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Early Competition for Political Control The competition for political control over Kosovo in the immediate wake of the international intervention was more contentious than it may appear in retrospect. Because UNMIK was successful in establishing itself as the preeminent governing authority in Kosovo, at least within the Albanian majority areas, without major violent confrontations, the intensity of the struggle and potential at the time for its dramatic escalation is easily overlooked. The competition was focused on multiple points of contention. At least two different loose groupings of Kosovo Albanian political actors, as well as the prior Serbian political and military actors, contended with UNMIK and with each other for authority. The UN administration mission was authorized by the Security Council on June 10, 1999, and given preliminary shape with the Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council on June 12, 1999. Although initial deployment of UNMIK began as early as 13 June, with the arrival of the interim SRSG Sergio Vieira de Mello and an advance team, full deployment on the ground was slow to start. For most of summer 1999, there were few UNMIK personnel in place in Kosovo, and local administrative authority was often indeterminate. During this period, there were at least three alternative actors seeking to assert authority in the province. The prior Yugoslav and Serbian government that still maintained legal sovereignty over Kosovo; the Republic of Kosova parallel regime, led by the LDK; and an emerging “provisional government” dominated by the KLA were all potential rivals to the international administration. Although the UN was able to consolidate political authority throughout the Albanian areas of Kosovo over time, it did not completely displace Belgrade’s control in most of the Serb areas of the province. Both the KLA “provisional government” and the LDK parallel Republic of Kosova were already established on the ground by the time UNMIK was deployed, and both had competing claims to legitimacy. The parallel regime had been operating throughout Albanian Kosovo since 1991. Still led by Ibrahim Rugova as “president of the Republic of Kosova,” and Bujar Bukoshi as “prime minister,” it had two sources of local legitimacy. The first was their long history of resistance to the Serbian regime. The second was their ability to claim an electoral mandate through the unofficial polls that had been held in 1998. Rugova and the parallel regime also benefited from a perception of legitimacy among international actors who viewed the LDK-led nonviolent resistance favorably. The “provisional government” had emerged from a 23 February agreement made among Ibrahim Rugova, Hashim Thaçi, and Rexhep

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Qosja during the Rambouillet conference. Formally established on April 2, 1999, the KLA took the lead in organizing the provisional government when the LDK opted out of participation (ICG 1999b, 8–9). Legitimacy for the provisional government initially rested on the close connection with the KLA and their leadership in the armed campaign, in addition to the February agreement. The provisional government quickly established local administrations in 27 of the then 29 municipalities, or nearly all of the Albanian majority areas (ICG 1999a, 1). The rapid organization of provisional municipal administrations allowed the provisional government to claim greater effectiveness, which initially translated into increased legitimacy among the local Albanian population. This quickly established but poorly regulated local control suffered from allegations of involvement in ethnic violence and retribution, and criminal activity, as well as unfair and discriminatory administrations (ICG 1999a, 5). The KLA political leadership also enjoyed its share of international legitimacy, especially from the United States, which had worked closely with Thaçi during the period leading up to the intervention. The post-conflict competition in the Albanian-majority areas of Kosovo broke down mostly along KLA/LDK lines. Through the provisional government, those within the KLA with political aspirations stood the best chance of assuming governing authority. At the same time, the LDK-led parallel authorities still considered themselves to be the natural replacements for the departing Yugoslav civil authorities. The Republic of Kosova and its affiliated organizations, including the social welfare organizations of MTS were not fully willing to step aside for either the KLA provisional government or the UNMIK authorities. To a limited degree, the different structures of the KLA and the LDK/Republic of Kosova led to division of labor by default. The KLA had a more established administrative structure on the ground, in large part because it had the enforcement mechanism of ex-KLA fighters. The LDK/Republic of Kosova had a higher profile at the central level and, in the person of Rugova, a higher level of legitimacy among the international actors present. Neither the “provisional government” nor the “parallel regime” was able to displace UNMIK’s efforts at establishing itself as the preeminent civil authority, but they posed a serious challenge to the international mission. Although little violence was directed toward UNMIK itself during this period, there were a significant number of local revenge attacks against Kosovo Serbs as well as Roma and Albanians accused of collaboration with the Serbian regime (HRW 1999b). In Prizren, for example, houses of local Serbs were torched almost nightly in the late summer and early fall of 1999. The Serb neighborhoods had traditionally been on the hill directly above the old town center, and as the bars and cafés filled


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with expatriate humanitarian field workers and UN bureaucrats in the evening, the sky was regularly lit by the flames of homes being burnt. These attacks against minorities were very real challenges to UNMIK’s authority, especially at the local level. Much of the basis of the international mission was its commitment to the creation of a multiethnic Kosovo. Revenge attacks by Albanians against Serbs, other minorities, or accused collaborators undermined this claim and gave weight to the accusations that UNMIK was participating in an exercise of ethnic cleansing. Additionally, UNMIK was unable to rapidly deploy experienced civil managers at the municipal level. This handicap led to a situation in which UNMIK, technically the only legal authority, could not effectively govern in most localities (ICG 1999a, 5). Both these factors forced the international mission to scramble to assert its authority in the province. Success was mixed. With the provisional mayors and municipal authorities in place, it became increasingly necessary to devise a method of co-opting these political structures while at the same time denying them further legitimacy. In December 1999, SRSG Bernard Kouchner negotiated an agreement with the three major Albanian political leaders at the time, Rugova, Thaçi, and Qosja, to disavow their competing efforts at state-building and participate in the JIAS (Brand 2003, 11). This agreement became the basis for UNMIK Regulation 2000/1 of 14 January 2000, which stipulated that [c]urrent Kosovo structures, be they executive, legislative or judicial (such as the “Provisional Government of Kosovo” and “Presidency of the Republic of Kosovo”), shall be transformed and progressively integrated, to the extent possible and in conformity with the present regulation, into the Joint Interim Administrative Structure, which should be operational by 31 January 2000 by which time these and all other Kosovo structures of an executive, legislative or judicial nature shall cease to exist.

In the short term most of the local structures remained in place, but under the authority of an UNMIK Municipal Administrator. Ultimately, UNMIK succeeded in denying either Albanian faction the opportunity to claim sovereignty over Kosovo by co-opting most of their local structures and then dissolving them into the JIAS institutions. In terms of establishing the authority of the international mission in the face of significant challenges, this process of cooptation should be considered a notable success of the international mission. Administratively, Regulation 2000/1 and the establishment of the JIAS had direct effects on both provincial and municipal governance. At the provincial level, the Kosovo Transitional Council (KTC), a multiethnic

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consultative board created by the SRSG in the very beginning of UNMIK’s deployment, was reinforced and enlarged. The JIAS also created the Interim Administrative Council (IAC), and Administrative Departments, responsible for activities across sectors such as health, education, and social welfare. The Administrative Departments were managed by local and international “co-heads.” Regulation 2000/1 also dealt explicitly with local administrations, creating both Municipal Administrative Boards and Municipal Councils, both of which were headed by UNMIK Municipal Administrators. The Administrative Boards were composed of the municipal administrator, municipal presidents, vice-presidents, local heads of Departments such as those for health, education, or social welfare, and other appointees of the municipal administrator. Their role, as the name implied, was meant to be as a local administrative mechanism for the implementation of municipal services. The Municipal Councils, also led by the Municipal Administrator, were a more consultative body and were to “represent the citizens of the municipality” (UNMIK REG/2000/1). Although the JIAS underwent a significant transition at the municipal level between August 2000, when UNMIK adopted a new regulation on municipal government, and the first round of municipal elections in October 2000, at the provincial level the JIAS remained in place until mid-2001. The JIAS provided a platform for the international community to begin reorganizing general governing functions. Social policy under the JIAS originated in the DHSW. As discussed in Chapter 3, much of the original Social Assistance Scheme was designed and implemented under the JIAS. Municipal Governing Structures Municipal governance was central to the prior Yugoslav socialist system, functioning “as a federal arrangement of neighborhood communities” (Allcock 2000, 92). The actual process of municipal governing during the socialist federal period was rooted in Yugoslavia’s system of socialist self-management. The long dissolution of this system throughout the country occurred simultaneously with the growing conflict in Kosovo. By summer 1999, UNMIK and the international community faced multiple challenges in dealing with the municipal governing institutions. At the immediate level, these institutions, along with their necessary administrative and infrastructural resources, had been severely damaged by the recent conflict. Simply put, personnel were displaced, missing, or, in the worst case, dead. Public buildings and offices were often destroyed, or were being used for other purposes, including housing the displaced. Administrative and communications equipment had been stolen or destroyed.


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The local governing institutions were caught up in the conflict between various groups seeking to assert authority and take local control. These groups ranged from the political and ethnic to the criminal. In many areas, remnants of the KLA moved quickly to try to establish local provisional administrations. In other areas the former parallel regime stepped up to try to assume authority. In majority Serb towns, villages, and enclaves, a different set of actors sought to project authority. Representatives of the Yugoslav Red Cross and the Serbian Orthodox Church presented themselves to the international organizations and agencies as the local contact people for a variety of purposes. Across the ethnic divide, shadowy groups of young men with expensive walkietalkies and aggressive attitudes exerted questionable authority. On top of all of this, UNMIK was attempting to establish local administrations, usually understaffed or staffed with international bureaucrats who had only recently arrived in the Balkans. On a deeper level, local governing institutions were also going through a post-socialist transition that was part of the larger dynamic shared across Yugoslavia and the region. Kosovo’s position within socialist federal Yugoslavia as one of the most underdeveloped areas placed it in a special category, but at the same time the province had to deal with all of the common aspects of economic, political, and social transformation ongoing in the post-socialist transition. Political legitimacy, which had been rooted in the socialist party and, in Yugoslavia with its distinctive system of self-management, in the workplace, had come undone. To compound the problem, under the socialist system the local governing institutions had a long history of complicated, confusing, and incomplete efforts at reform (Duncan 1978; Dunn 1975; Woodward 1989). All of these factors presented UNMIK with a tremendous challenge in terms of local governance. Kosovo’s municipalities are similar to counties or parishes; large geographic areas, including many small settlements or villages, that are centralized around one larger town. Known as communes,4 (Allcock 2000, 92) in the former Yugoslav system the municipalities were governed by Assemblies composed of three chambers. The Assemblies were organized around the concepts of the Yugoslav system of socialist selfmanagement. The first chamber represented “associated labor,” meaning workers in self-managing industries, the second, “local communities” or villages and neighborhoods, and the third, “socio-political organizations” such as the LCY or the Socialist Alliance. Higher republic and provincial assemblies were then comprised by delegates selected by these local communal assemblies (Duncan, 1978, 258; Lydall 1984, 103; Lydall 1989, 18–19). Despite the position of the Commune Assembly as the basis of

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the local government, municipal issues involving social services, and the finances that were to support them, were negotiated directly between the self-managing organizations that represented the social service agencies (“self-managed communities of interest”), and the workers in local selfmanaged enterprises, with government intervention only as a last resort (Lydall 1984, 123–124). The local CSWs were originally founded as self-managing communities of interest. As Lydall points out, the public responsibility that this process placed on the workers proved impossible to manage, and communities of interest were “in fact controlled by their administrative staffs, acting on behalf of governments (and the Party)” (1984, 124). The end results were extraordinarily complicated municipal administrations. Few people readily understood the intricacies of the self-managing communities of interest. The complexities involved in accessing the levers of power made them largely unresponsive to local citizens but highly responsive to local elites. Administrative power was firmly in the hands of local bureaucrats and members of the LCY. Where local enterprises were economically successful, there was some chance for workers to influence or control these communities of interest, but this was generally rare in Yugoslavia (Lydall 1984, 124). It was almost impossible in underdeveloped Kosovo. The central role of the commune in the system of self-management was not well maintained, and by the time of the international intervention it had broken down completely. From very early on the “dominant role” of the commune was under pressure (Sirc 1979, 41). The ideological and legal basis for the system disappeared with the 1989 Law on Enterprises, which ended self-management (Woodward 1995b, 280). In Serbia, and Kosovo by extension, municipal governance was transformed by the contentious 1990 Constitution of the Republic of Serbia. This Constitution was itself was a product of both the post-socialist transition in Yugoslavia and the conflict over Kosovo. Only the direct election of municipal assembly councilors was specified in the Constitution, with other issues of self-government left to the locality (Articles 113–117). As detailed in Chapter 2, the implementation of the new Constitution was a part of the intensification of the Kosovo conflict and the increasing exclusion of Kosovo Albanians from public life. The dismissals, firings, and boycotts of Kosovo Albanians during this period extended to municipal officials as well as other employees (Clark 2000, 75). By the time of the international intervention, municipal governance in most localities was in disarray. Some municipalities had been divided into smaller units and at least one had been dissolved entirely into neighboring jurisdictions. In response to the intervention and the international deployment, Kosovo Serbs in the Albanian majority areas who had been serving in municipal


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administrations fled, abandoning their positions. Most Kosovo Albanians who had experience in local government had been excluded from service for nearly ten years. Although the wartime parallel institutions succeeded in preserving some institutional capacity, particularly in the health and education fields, in most cases Kosovo Albanian governance and administrative capacity had atrophied significantly. In the end the transition from the prior Yugoslav methods of local governance, characterized by the dysfunctional, but ideologically ambitious system of socialist selfmanagement was overlaid onto years of conflict. Some effort had been made during the Rambouillet talks to incorporate attention to municipalities into the negotiation process. Article VIII of the agreement specified a number of points directly related to the municipalities, in particular, stipulating that the number of municipalities would remain the same.5 The agreement also gave the municipalities responsibility for law enforcement, education, local environmental protection, and a number of other areas but did not specify local responsibility for social welfare. With the collapse of the Rambouillet talks, the NATO airstrikes, the UN deployment and the displacement of so many Kosovo Serbs who had made up the majority of the local bureaucracy, what little municipal governing infrastructure that was in place soon dissolved. Ultimately, the defining features of the post-conflict context at the level of municipal governance were organizational confusion, informal competition and lack of local capacity. Reforming municipal government was an early task for the international intervention. Having co-opted both the remnants of the Republic of Kosova parallel institutions and the provisional government apparatus with the December 1999 SRSG-brokered agreement, UNMIK sought to effect early change on the ground by committing attention to the municipalities. To this end, UNMIK Regulation 2000/45 “On SelfGovernment of Municipalities in Kosovo” was promulgated by SRSG Kouchner on August 11, 2000. Regulation 2000/45 laid the foundations for elections, specifying the form of the Municipal Assembly, its committees, the municipal presidency and deputy presidencies, and the chief executive officer and the board of directors. The Municipal Assembly was to be directly elected, and the municipal president and deputy municipal president were to be elected by the Municipal Assembly from among its members. In municipalities with nonmajority ethnic communities, an additional deputy president would be appointed by the Municipal Assembly from the appropriate community (UNMIK REG/2000/45). Also mandated by the regulation were the creation of municipal Policy and Finance Committees, Communities Committees, and Mediations Committees. The Policy and Finance Committee, chaired by the president

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of the municipality, was to be “responsible for proposing the budget, and formulating and researching the future strategic direction of the municipality” (UNMIK REG/2000/45). The Communities Committee and the Mediations Committee were designed to work in tandem as an “antidiscrimination and community protection mechanism” (OSCE 2004). Additionally, the Regulation required that the municipalities establish a community office “in those municipalities where a community that is not in the majority forms a substantial part of the population.” The regulation also set the first term of office for assembly members at two years, with subsequent terms of four years. The regulation also required that the Municipal Assembly appoint, at the recommendation of the municipal president, a chief executive officer and a board of directors for the municipality who were to serve as heads of the various municipal departments. Most municipalities had between ten and twelve departments, although some had as few as six and others as many as 14. Municipalities established departments at their own discretion, and almost all had a department responsible for social welfare or social policy, usually in combination with health policy. The local departments for health and social policy or social issues were bureaucratically and administratively separate from the central MLSW. The municipal social welfare departments created with Regulation 2000/45 were not especially powerful in terms of social policy formation. Their budgets were limited by municipal resources, and they were not a part of the social welfare system established at the Prishtinë level through the JIAS in 1999 and 2000. The municipal departments did not have any authority over the CSWs. Some municipalities, mostly in majority Serb areas, did not have municipal departments for social policy. These municipalities also often had smaller boards of directors. With the legalities of the municipal structures spelled out, the first municipal elections were held in October 2000. The LDK performed best in these elections, followed by the PDK, the party dominated by former KLA members and led by Hashim Thaçi. A coalition of small parties registered as the AAK proved to be the third largest Kosovo Albanian political group, displacing Rexhep Qosja’s coalition.6 Despite the fact that the elections were municipal and not provincial, Kosovo Albanian voters took the polls as an opportunity to reaffirm their strong support for Rugova as the primary leader of Albanian Kosovo. The LDK victories unsettled the local political balance that the UNMIK authorities had negotiated in some municipalities, which tended to overestimate popular support for KLA/PDK leadership. The results reflected a number of factors that cumulatively led to strong support and large electoral victories for the LDK in most


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municipalities. Contributing to the LDK victories was the perception that the party, and particularly Rugova himself, deserved recognition for the leadership of the prior years of resistance. Rugova was also seen by many Kosovo Albanians as the most mature and responsible political leader who would likely be taken seriously by the international community. Finally, a popular view at the time was that some former KLA fighters were abusing their positions in the provisional government. Beyond that there was a sense among many Kosovo Albanians that many of the self-proclaimed former fighters were exaggerating their wartime exploits for political gain. This building distrust of the former KLA appeared to have a strong effect on the vote. Overall, the LDK took a clear majority or dominant plurality in twenty-one municipalities. The PDK had a clear majority or plurality in only six municipalities. Most Kosovo Serbs boycotted these elections, and in the three municipalities with large Serb majorities, turnout was too low for a certified result. In these cases the SRSG appointed Assembly members and municipal presidents (Brand 2003, 29). A second set of municipal elections took place in October 2002. This time Kosovo Serbs participated in most municipalities, particularly where they represented a significant portion of the population. Besides the Serb participation in the 2002 municipal elections, the most notable development was the beginning of an increase in the diversification in the overall vote. Although the LDK managed to maintain the municipal assembly presidency in 18 municipalities, in 15 of the 30 municipalities no party received over 50 percent of the vote. A number of new parties also emerged in this round of elections, as well as citizens’ initiatives.7 The next municipal elections were to be held in 2006. As the date approached, anticipation built concerning the possibility of a determination of Kosovo’s political status. With expectations high that a resolution was near, the SRSG at the time, Søren Jessen-Petersen, postponed the elections, intending to hold them after the determination had been announced. Instead delays accumulated, and it became clear that a decision was not imminent. Elections were finally held on November 17, 2007, with Kosovo still officially under international administration. In those elections two trends became apparent. The first was an even more pronounced diversification of the electorate. In the 2002 municipal elections, 15 of the 25 Albanian majority municipalities had one party that gained more than 50 percent of the vote. In a further eight municipalities one party won between 40 percent and 50 percent that year. In the 2007 municipal elections, one party took more than 50 percent of the vote in only three municipalities; between 40 percent and 50 percent in six municipalities; and between 30 percent and 40 percent in eleven

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municipalities. In five municipalities no party took more than 30 percent of the vote.8 This marked a dramatic increase in the competitiveness of the electoral process in much of Kosovo. The second trend that became apparent was the continued increase in the political strength of the PDK, although not necessarily a very large increase in the party’s actual vote totals. The PDK won a majority or plurality in 15 municipal assemblies, while the LDK was reduced to holding majorities or pluralities in only four. The LDK had suffered a split before the election, which reduced its strength. The splinter party, the LDD, did not fare much better, only winning a majority in one municipality, and a plurality in another. Overall this fracturing of support had a negative effect on the fortunes of both parties, individually and cumulatively. If any party managed to win votes away from the LDK-LDD split it was the newly formed AKR. The AKR did remarkably well for a new party that year, winning more than 10 percent of the vote in 15 municipalities. Ultimately, the PDK did not seem to take many supporters away from the LDK or LDD, but also did not suffer from a parallel decline so its position improved considerably. In five municipalities that had previously been somewhat competitive the party was able to build a significant differential between itself and its nearest rival. The municipalities where the PDK managed to build a sizable advantage were Deçan, Kaçanik, Lipjan, Malishevë, and Shtime. In Gllogovc and Skenderaj the PDK maintained its complete dominance of the local electoral process, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in both municipalities. The performance of the municipal assemblies over their first two mandates since the intervention had been hampered by inefficiency, confusion, and a tendency to disregard standard democratic procedures in favor of dramatic confrontational tactics. Where one party was able to claim a majority in the assembly, even if only by a slim margin, the larger party often used majoritarian tactics, isolating and disregarding the opposition. In the face of this local opposition parties repeatedly resorted to boycott strategies, especially in the period immediately after the second municipal elections (OSCE 2003a). Kosovo-wide party structures reinforced central party control and contributed to stifling local political debates. Since the parties tended to be dominated by their central offices, local branches rarely met to discuss policy-making agendas at the municipal level, and assembly meetings were held with little preparation by the party caucuses (OSCE 2003c). This situation of top-down control of local political parties was reported across the ethnic divide in Kosovo and reduced the effectiveness of the municipal assemblies as local governing institutions.

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The Municipal Cases—Prizren and Kamenicë The central argument of this chapter is that the institutional capacity to implement the programs that make up the social welfare regime was modified by the structure of the political relationships between various groups within the municipality. Prizren, as a local urban center in Kosovo, was subject to very intense in-migration both as part of general urbanization and as part of the conflict dynamic. This created an unstable and contentious political relationship between groups of long-time residents and formerly rural newcomers. In addition to other areas, the instability of these relationships played itself out in institutional competition between the local CSW and the municipal department for health and social welfare. In Kamenicë, however, local society was much more stable as the town was not a location for immigration associated with urbanization, nor was the conflict especially intense in the immediate area. The more stable community structures led to accommodative and cooperative strategies by the local social welfare actors across the ethnic divide. See Figure 5.1 for comparative demographic data on Kamenicë and Prizren. Prizren

The municipality of Prizren is in the southwest of Kosovo. It borders Albania to the west and the Republic of Macedonia to the southeast.

Table 5.1

Basic Comparative social and economic data on Kamenicë and Prizren

Demographic Data

Kamenicë

Prizren

Per Capita Income 2004 (€) Estimated Unemployment (2004) (%) Human Development Index Gender Development Index Life expectancy (2004) Live more than 5 km from a health facility (%) Population 15 or older that has completed primary school (%) Completed secondary school (%) Percentage of the population in poverty (2004) Percentage of the population in extreme poverty (2004) Conflict related war damage Housing damaged (%) Of that, Cat III or IV housing damage (%)

1190.59 46.31 0.698 0.662 70.87 0

898 35.00 0.681 0.711 71.00 7.07

27.69 37.16 50.48

43.21 24.45 60.68

7.89

19.12

20.56 40.63

30.25 58.56

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Dragash/Dragas municipality is immediately to its south. Surrounding Prizren to the north, following in a clockwise, west to east fashion, are Gjakovë/Dakovica, Rahovec/Orahovac, Suharekë/Suva Reka, and Shtërpcë/Strpce. Prizren, Suva Reka, Rahovec and Gjakovë are all majority Albanian municipalities. Strpce has a Serb majority. Dragash, although majority Albanian, has a sizable Goranci population.9 Prizren and Prizren-town, despite their clear Albanian majorities, do have significant numbers of ethnic minorities including Bosniak, Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian (RAE), Serbs, Turks, and Goranci. The complexity of the population belies the popular image of Kosovo as strictly divided Serbs and Albanians. Prizren was considered by many to be one of the most pleasant towns in Kosovo. At one point in the 1980s it was designated a “museum village” due to the traditional Ottoman architecture that had been preserved in the town center. The center of the town is dominated by the Mosque of Sinan Pasha and the Serb Orthodox Cathedral of St. Peter. A small and simple Roman Catholic cathedral, Mary Help of Christians, sits slightly off the main square and serves as the seat of the bishop. Just outside of town the Serb Orthodox Monastery of the Holy Archangels is located along the road leading to Strpce and the Brezovica ski resort beyond. Significantly, the town suffered very little damage during the height of the conflict in 1999. While other nearby towns such as Pec/Pejë and Gjakovë were systematically destroyed, Prizren was left relatively untouched. The town was less fortunate in the post-conflict period. In the period immediately after the international community entered Kosovo in force, revenge attacks, especially arson of Serb homes, were common and much of the old Serbian area of town was destroyed. In March 2004, despite having survived the war intact, the Orthodox cathedral and the monastery were very badly damaged by anti-Serb rioters despite the presence of NATO forces who were ostensibly there for protection. The population of Prizren is complex, with a variety of ethnic groups, and multiple and occasionally overlapping identities. Prizren-town traditionally prided itself on its rich heritage of interethnic tolerance and a kind of Balkan cosmopolitanism. With citizens speaking Albanian, Bosnian, Romany, and Serbian, the town remained one of the few multilingual localities in Kosovo even after the conflict. The OSCE estimated in 2002 that there were approximately 180,176 ethnic Albanians in Prizren, or 81.6 percent of the population. The next largest ethnic group was Bosniak at 21,266 persons, or 9.6 percent. Following that is the Kosovo Turk community, at approximately 14,050 or 6.4 percent of the local population (OSCE 2005c; UNCHR / OSCE 2001, 44). The municipality also had a substantial Roma population with approximately 5,148 according


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to the same OSCE 2002 survey. Finally, Prizren historically did have a significant Kosovo Serb population, although that has been severely reduced. According to the 1991 Yugoslav census there were 10,950 Serbs in Prizren. By 1998 this number had decreased to 8,839. Following the intervention in 1999, nearly all of the Kosovo Serb population of Prizren fled in response to intense local violence, especially in the town. By January 2000, the number of Serbs in Prizren was estimated to be 258. According to the OSCE 2002 population estimate, only 194 Serbs remained. Following the violence of March 2004, even that number was reduced to a small number in villages near the border with the neighboring Serb-majority municipality of Strpce, and a small handful in town. The larger demographic trends of Prizren point to the municipality’s central dynamic of increasing urbanization. The municipal population, estimated to be approximately 221,374 in December 2002, is large by Kosovo standards (OSCE 2005c). This figure included both the population in the municipal seat of Prizren-town and the surrounding 76 villages that make up the greater municipality. In the ten years from 1991 to 2001, the overall municipal population grew, but most of that growth occurred within the urban center. In 1991 the Yugoslav authorities counted more than 175,000 residents of Prizren in a highly contested census. There has been no census in Kosovo since then, but international agencies working in Kosovo have made numerous estimates of the local population since the intervention in 1999. The population appears to have peaked in January 2000, when unofficial estimates put it at 236,000 residents. It has fluctuated since then between 221,000 and 218,000. Nearly all of the municipality’s growth appears to have occurred in Prizren-town itself. It is estimated that the town population has gone from approximately 75,000 inhabitants to 125,000 (UNMIK 2002). In the immediate post-conflict period it was estimated that a further 40,000 internally displaced Kosovo Albanian had temporarily relocated to the town. As of 2004 Prizren had a largely depressed economy. With a per capita income of €898 in 2004, Prizren ranked twentieth out of 30 municipalities, well below the high of Prishtinë with €1586 (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 110). Approximately 60 percent of Prizren citizens were in poverty and 19 percent in extreme poverty, giving the municipality rankings of seventh and fifth, respectively (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 126).10 Prizren also had more severe inequality than most municipalities in Kosovo with a Gini coefficient of 42.15 (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 128). By way of comparison, Deçan’s Gini coefficient, 26.37, was the lowest in Kosovo, and Mitrovica’s (44.12) was the highest. The one economic indicator that was not as

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dire in Prizren as in much of Kosovo was the level of unemployment. Although a 35 percent unemployment rate as of the end of 2004 was severe, it was better than 23 other municipalities, and notably better than the top unemployment rates of over 67 percent in Skenderaj and Klinë (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 124). As an important regional town, Prizren has a varied and active civil society. According to the 2005 OSCE municipal profile, more than 20 local NGOs were active in the municipality. These included large Kosovo-wide organizations such as HandiKos, and smaller, local groups dedicated to specific issues. A further ten international NGOs were also present. These also range from very large actors like CRS to smaller groups such as the Forum Civil Peace Service from Germany. Prizrentown has a long history of regional importance and a vibrant civic life. Early in the long period of Ottoman rule over Kosovo (1455–1912), Prizren had been an administrative center. During the Ottoman period major mosques, a madrassa, elementary schools, vakifs or Islamic charitable foundations, and a Turkish style public bath known as a hamam, were all founded locally (Malcolm 1998, 105). In 1874 the district administration moved from Prizren to Prishtinë and the town became much less politically prominent. Despite the reduction in importance within the Ottoman system, the town retained significance within the Albanian nationalist movement. Most notably, the Albanian leader Abdyl Frashëri, who led the struggle for Albanian autonomy within the Ottoman empire, organized the first meeting of the proto-nationalist League of Prizren in June 1878 (Malcolm 1998, 221). Prizren’s historical role helped to create a local self-perception of the town as a site of administration, culture, education, and learning. This self-perception persisted over time, especially among those families that trace their heritage in the town over several generations. It was even more pronounced among the local Kosovo Turk population. Social Policy in Prizren The divide between social policy formation and implementation in the two primary local sites of activity, the municipal department and the CSW, was especially pronounced in Prizren. The two agencies were engaged in entirely different programming, with the CSW implementing the central social welfare programs of the MLSW and the municipal department of health and social welfare serving as an agency of the local administration. The CSW, with its guidance from the Prishtinë based government and its largely professionalized staff, was somewhat removed from the local political struggles. The municipal social welfare office was necessarily a part of the local political dynamic, answering directly to an appointee of


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the municipal president. The interactions between the two agencies were minimized in practice, but they kept a wary eye on one another. Rather than directly affecting local social welfare programming, the relationship of the two agencies was reflective of the contention between the newcomers to Prizren and prior elite. The municipal social welfare office was staffed largely by former residents of rural villages who moved to the town during or after the conflict. Their primary fieldwork was focused on addressing the issues of those displaced by the conflict.11 The staff of the CSW, however, was heavily slanted toward more wellestablished town residents, and their programming was often directed toward addressing urban social problems. The effect of this relationship between the two agencies was not as clear-cut as that of local political competition, as in the cases of Skenderaj and Malishevë, but it did appear that the social welfare system in Prizren was proving to be limited in its ability to reduce local poverty. Differences between the CSW and the municipal office ranged from basic issues of physical resources to larger questions of staffing, experience, training, and politicization. At the most fundamental level of office space and equipment, there were dramatic differences between the two agencies. As of summer 2004, the Prizren CSW operated from a facility recently renovated with assistance from the international community, while the municipal social workers functioned from small and dark offices within the municipal building, which had not been improved since the conflict. The 12 social workers at the CSW are professional employees, many of whom have at least some university level training and experience in social work that predates the 1999 intervention. In addition the Prizren CSW has a number of vehicles, paid for by international donors, and drivers for fieldwork. The municipal social work team in 2002 was composed of three full-time social workers, none of whom had much relevant professional experience. In addition to the social workers, there was also the municipal director and her staff, although their attention was divided between social welfare and health issues. Since the director had a medical rather than social work background, there was a perception that health issues were more strongly emphasized. The municipal social welfare office and staff were clearly underfunded and ill equipped for the tasks that they faced. The implementation of the largest program of the MLSW, the Social Assistance Scheme, in Prizren is notable for its extremely low percentage of beneficiaries. The program is organized at the provincial level and implemented primarily by the CSWs in each municipality. By April 2001, when the initial social assistance rolls in Kosovo were at their highest, Prizren had 9,319 people registered as Category I and Category II

150 Table 5.2 2002


Social assistance beneficiaries in Kamenicë and Prizren in 2001 and 2001

2002

Beneficiaries Percentage of the municipal population (%)

Beneficiaries Percentage of the municipal population (%)

Kamenicë Category I Category II Total

2,447 1,097 3,544

4.89 2.19 7.09

2,102 1,819 3,921

4.20 3.64 7.84

Prizren Category I Category II Total

6,509 2,810 9,319

3.43 1.48 4.90

5,928 4,936 10,864

3.12 2.60 5.72

Note: The DLSW maintained its own population estimates separate from the OSCE estimates. Data comes from DLSW records.

beneficiaries. This amounted to 4.9 percent of the population (see Table 5.2). Only one other municipality, Ferizaj / Urosevac, had a lower percentage with 4.52 percent. By April 2002, Prizren had seen only a slight rise in beneficiaries to 10,864 or 5.72 percent, still among the lowest percentage of beneficiaries in Kosovo. Not surprisingly, Prizren residents’ level of satisfaction with the social service system was extremely low. According to internal UNDP data used for their report on perceptions of local government (UNDP 2003), the municipality had the twenty-fourth lowest rating, with an average rating of –24 on a scale from –100 to 100. Because of the limitations of the available data, it was not possible to definitively conclude whether the low number of beneficiaries reflected low take-up rates by those potentially eligible. The rates may have been depressed in part because, although the level of poverty was high, the level of unemployment was low relative to other municipalities. Considering the high levels of poverty in the municipality, these low rates of beneficiaries did indicate a failure of the social assistance program to address local poverty. Explaining the low level of beneficiaries in Prizren is a challenge, mostly due to the incomplete data available.12 Although there was insufficient data to indicate whether these low rates indicated a problem of non–take up of the social assistance program in Prizren, research into the causes of depressed take-up rates is useful in analyzing the situation. Low


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take-up rates for social assistance programs have a number of possible causes, including stigma, complex qualification rules, “poverty or savings traps,” and changes in the business environment (van Oorschot 1995, 30–34; Wilensky 2002, 325–327). An additional cause that is more particular to the post-conflict environment is lack of capacity to effectively administer the program. In the case of Prizren, the problems that appear most likely to explain the low rates are the presence of a poverty trap and the limited capacity of the local social welfare office. The first reason was more closely related to the design of the social assistance program. The second was more closely related to the relationship between the two local social welfare agencies and the urbanization of Prizren. A poverty trap in social assistance programs describes a condition where benefits of means-tested social programs are diminished in accordance with the beneficiary’s earnings, forcing a decision of whether or not to seek the entitled benefit. When the prevailing wage is close to the level of the social benefit, beneficiaries are forced to choose between work and losing their benefit, or collecting the benefit and not seeking work. The trap comes into effect in that the social assistance program forms a structural barrier keeping people within poverty rather than serving as a method of escaping poverty (Wilensky 2002, 326; Moffitt 1983). A poverty trap can have the effect of either promoting dependence on social welfare, depressing take-up rates, or creating a class of working poor. The social assistance program in Kosovo disqualified any applicant who is employed either full- or part-time. A reduced take-up rate implies that there are eligible beneficiaries who are not applying for benefits. Because of this, it can be argued that those who are disqualified because of employment, even if only earning a wage under the poverty line, are not reducing the take-up rate. Rather, the interaction between employment, social assistance, and reductions in beneficiaries is one that renders the social assistance program ineffective in dealing with the problem of poverty. In effect, the implementation of the social assistance program, as it was written, meant that where employment was even relatively available, potential workers had to choose between wages or social assistance. In Prizren, where unemployment levels were extremely high but still lower than in most other municipalities, this dynamic of a poverty trap may have lead to reduced beneficiary rates for the Social Assistance Scheme. Prizren’s unemployment rate was estimated to be approximately 35 percent in 2004, the seventh lowest in Kosovo overall, and the fourth lowest among the Albanian majority municipalities. The average percentage of income coming from salaries and wages in Prizren was 27.94 percent, and the percentage coming from pensions and social payments was 4.7 percent. This gave the municipality rankings of seventeenth and

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twenty-third, respectively. Pejë and Prishtinë, which both have similar unemployment rates (34.9 % and 30.26 %, respectively), likewise have similar relationships between income from pensions and social payments, and wages and salaries. The prospect of a poverty trap at work, however, was more pronounced in Prizren where poverty is especially high. The second potential reason for the low take-up rate of the Social Assistance Scheme in Prizren was that the CSW lacked the administrative capacity to fully extend the system into the rural areas of the municipality. Superficially, there should have been little reason for the Prizren CSW to lack the capacity to successfully implement the Social Assistance Scheme. Among Kosovo CSW’s, the staff of the Prizren Center were some of the most professionalized and well trained. As of summer 2003, at least a quarter of the 12-member social work staff had university degrees. The Prizren CSW also had significant material resources, including four vehicles for fieldwork (Ahmeti 2003). Despite this, the center was at the very limits of its capacity, and the CSW chose to prioritize the close-at-hand problems of the urban population. In interviews, the director and staff of the Prizren CSW in 2002 and 2003 recognized the need for greater attention to the rural areas, but repeatedly returned the focus of discussions to the problems of the urban center. This prioritization of urban over rural issues was not so much a policy response, but rather an unconscious marshaling of resources to face the more immediate problem of the town. Social problems such as juvenile delinquency, drug use, and domestic violence exploded in the post-conflict period. As the director put it in summer 2002, “Prizren is the center of social problems” (Koqinaj 2002). The director ascribed these problems directly to the increase in the urban population, identifying displaced villagers, overcrowded housing, and dislocated families as the locus of the most intense problems. The center’s rough estimates of displacement put the number of villagers who had migrated to the town in the post-conflict period at between 60 percent and 70 percent of the rural population (see Table 5.3). Although these estimates certainly overstated the problem, they do indicate the sense of overwhelming demand for social services and assistance that arose in the town after the conflict. This disparity in attention between the urban and rural social issues in Prizren was reinforced in the early stages of the implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme in summer 2000. Applications for social assistance were initially distributed through the local NGOs who had served as LDPs during the Kosovo-wide post-conflict emergency food distributions. For reasons external to the political dynamic in Kosovo, the international NGO responsible for food distributions in Prizren, CRS


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was particularly interested in expanding its local partners beyond MTS.13 When the Red Cross of Kosova (RCK) presented itself as a viable partner in Prizren, CRS immediately sought to forge a relationship. The RCK did not, however, have a significant presence in the countryside. Since the municipality was so large, the decision was made to divide the humanitarian distribution program in the municipality into a town-based caseload and a separate rural-based caseload. In the town the RCK was the responsible LDP. In the villages MTS was the LDP.14 Overall, the RCK was more effectively organized than MTS in Prizren. It is reasonable to estimate that qualified beneficiaries were more effectively identified in the beginning of the Social Assistance Scheme implementation by the RCK than MTS in Prizren. The necessary data to absolutely confirm the argument that the low rates of social assistance beneficiaries was related to the CSW’s emphasis on urban over rural issues was, unfortunately, not available. Although beneficiaries indicate their place of residence in their application, the information is not publicly accessible, and since payments were made directly to the beneficiary bank accounts the data may not, in fact, be collected in a central database. Anecdotal evidence indicates that the CSW was more aware of, and more responsive to urban problems. With resources as stretched as they were, prioritization of immediate issues was a rational response. Similarly, the roles of different local NGOs with differing levels of capacity in the early implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme provided a reasonable explanation for how the prioritization of urban issues were unintentionally reinforced. Similarly, without a comprehensive survey of Prizren residents to provide insight into the decision to pursue work over applying to the Social Assistance Scheme, it was impossible to definitively determine whether a poverty trap existed within the scheme. Again, however, evidence strongly supports the argument that such a trap was present. In particular, the informal correlation of relatively lower unemployment and Table 5.3

Population figures for Kamenicë and Prizren

Population (estimated 2002) Population (1991 Yugoslav census) Percent change Percentage Albanian (2002) Percentage Bosniak (2002) Percentage Turkish (2002) Percentage RAE (2002) Percentage Serb (2002)

Kamenicë

Prizren

63,000 58,500 7.69 82.50 — — 0.79 16.60

221,374 175,000 26.50 81.60 9.60 6.40 2.33 0.09

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higher percentages of income from wages and salaries, with lower rates of beneficiaries indicates that work and social assistance were present as alternative rather than complementary choices. Because this relationship was particularly prevalent in Prizren, which also exhibits surprisingly high levels of persistent poverty, my conclusion was that the Social Assistance Scheme itself contained structural barriers that maintained individuals in poverty. These barriers were most significant when there were employment options at the margins of poverty. Any potential failure of the central social welfare system to effectively address local poverty was compounded by the inability of the municipal department of health and social welfare to bridge the gap. As already noted, the social workers of the department were ill prepared for their roles, in terms of education, training, or resources. The programs that they did run, such as the TCC, were not well funded, nor sustainable. The social welfare office in the municipality was a stark contrast to the CSW. Located in a back corner of the municipal building, furnished with odd pieces of old and broken office furniture, it had no computers or other equipment. The social workers themselves were highly politicized and had strongly militant backgrounds including stints in the Yugoslav National Army and the KLA (Agami and Mehmet 2003). In practice, relations between the two agencies were not good. In interviews, workers from each office dismissed the professional skill, competence, and good intentions of their counterparts. The results of these intramunicipal tensions were an underserved and dissatisfied poor population in Prizren. Kamenicë

Kamenicë is in eastern Kosovo. To its west, in a north to south order, are the municipalities of Prishtinë/Pristina, Novobërdë/Novo Brdo, and Gjilan/Gnjilane. Directly to the east, Kamenicë shares a border with Serbia proper. Since September 2001 this border has been open and has been a point of transit for people, goods, and information between Kosovo and Serbia, particularly for the local Kosovo Serb population. The municipality has a small population, approximately 63,000 according to an unofficial OSCE estimate in August 2003 (OSCE 2005a). There are about 74 villages in the municipality. Kamenicë-town is notably smaller than Prizren-town, but is more developed than the municipal seats of either Malishevë or Skenderaj. Kamenicë has a less complicated ethnic composition than Prizren (see Table 5.3 for a comparison of population figures between Kamenicë and Prizren). It is a majority Albanian municipality (52,000 or 82.5%) with a relatively sizable Serbian minority (10,500 or 16.6%) (OSCE 2005a).


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There is a small number of Roma, estimated to be about 500 persons. The surrounding municipalities have varying ethnic populations. Prishtinë has seen most of its minority populations displaced since the conflict with many of the Serb community relocating to Graçanica/Gracanica, which has become something of a political center for the community. Gjilan had a minority Serb population of less than 10 percent prior to the March 2004 rioting, which was particularly intense in the municipality. Novo Brdo has a very narrow majority of Kosovo Albanians. The difference is slim enough that with large voter turnout among Serbs displaced from the province, the Serb community was able to capture a majority in the municipal assembly in the 2002 elections. The community chose to sit out the 2007 elections and the municipal government reverted back to Albanian control. The violence of the conflict was notably less intense in Kamenicë than in most other municipalities. There were few cases of massive human rights violations involving large numbers of deaths, such as other municipalities saw during the height of the conflict. Housing damage was minimal, with about three-quarters of villages having no damage (see Table 5.1 for data on housing damage in Kamenicë and Prizren). In total, less than one thousand homes were damaged in the conflict (IMG 1999). The municipality did not escape the effect of the conflict entirely, and in April and May 1999, during the NATO airstrikes, thousands of Kamenicë’s Kosovo Albanian citizens where driven from their homes (HRW 2001, 118). There were reports of Kosovo Serbs in the municipality protecting the property of Albanian neighbors from outside groups during this period. According to local accounts, this was apparently reciprocated in summer 1999, when Albanian militants from other parts of Kosovo came seeking to push the Serbs of Kamenicë out. By 2003, although the communities were still largely segregated, Serbs in Kamenicë could be seen in the town center, and the local Serbian Orthodox Church had no noticeable NATO protection. Municipal officials from both sides displayed significant understanding of the difficulties of the other ethnic groups (Thaçi 2003; Miroslav 2003; Krasniqi 2003). There was rioting in the municipality during the March 2004 violence, but no homes were destroyed and the OSCE reported that the local minority population was not driven out. Economically, Kamenicë was in better shape than many other municipalities. With a per capita income of €1190.59, the municipality ranked eighth in 2004 (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 110). Approximately 36 percent of incomes came from salaries and wages. Almost four thousand people, or just less than 8 percent of the municipality, were receiving cash benefits as part of the provincial Social Assistance Scheme in spring 2002.

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Although poverty was a problem in Kamenicë as it was in most of Kosovo, the municipality was notably better than any of the other three locations under review. About 50 percent of the local population was in poverty as of 2004, as compared to about 53 percent in Skenderaj, 61 percent in Prizren and 63 percent in Malishevë (UNDP Kosovo 2004, 126). Slightly less than 8 percent of Kamenicë suffered from extreme poverty in 2004. The figures in the other municipalities were almost 11 percent in Malishevë, 15 percent in Skenderaj, and about 19 percent in Prizren. The two economic indicators in Kamenicë that are pessimistic are inequality and unemployment. The Gini index for the municipality was 36.7, which put it among the ten most unequal places in the province. As of 2004, unemployment was estimated to be approximately 46 percent, or fifteenth of 30 municipalities. Politically, the municipal assembly in Kamenicë, as of November 2005, was tenuously controlled by the LDK, which had fourteen of the 31 seats. The PDK was second with nine seats, and the AAK had four seats. The final four seats in the municipal assembly were divided between the Serbian political parties—two for the KP, one for the DSS and one for the Kosovo Objective Party (KOS). The composition of the municipal assembly made local governance difficult because the LDK had enough votes to win on most issues, but not enough for a quorum. Boycotts by the PDK and AAK in response to what were perceived as majoritarian attitude and tactics by the LDK proved effective in slowing the work of the municipality (OSCE 2003a). The LDK’s dominant position meant that the PDK and AAK, as well as all of the Serbian parties, saw themselves as being in the opposition (OSCE 2003c). Forming a coalition to challenge the LDK was not possible, however. Not only was the barrier of the ethnic cleavage insurmountable at the time, but interparty competition on both sides of the ethnic divide would also have been difficult to overcome. The split in the LDK had a particularly strong effect on the 2007 municipal elections in Kamenicë. The LDK lost its dominant position, winning only 14 percent of the vote, and four seats in the municipal assembly. The LDD did better in Kamenicë, which was relatively unusual, winning 18 percent and six seats in the assembly. The PDK and AAK both maintained essentially the same base of support as it had in previous election, 30 percent and 12 percent respectively, taking nine and seven seats. The AKR did particularly well in Kamenicë, winning 22 percent of the vote, making it the second largest party in the assembly with seven seats. Since the fieldwork for this research was conducted prior to the elections, this new political configuration does not play into the analysis.


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Kamenicë, like the rest of Kosovo, saw political and social instability both during the course of the conflict and during the transition away from Yugoslav socialism. Local governing institutions, including the social welfare agencies, were dissolved and reconstituted numerous times. In Kamenicë, however, unlike in many other places in Kosovo, the stresses of instability were substantially reduced by the lack of large-scale violence in the municipality. Explaining why the instabilities of the transition and conflict did not generate the levels of violence seen in other parts of Kosovo is difficult; it is unlikely that a single definitive issue prevented Kamenicë from the violent contention that plagued places such as Gjakovë, Pejë, Skenderaj, Malishevë, or Mitrovicë. The relatively positive economic situation (higher than average per capita income, and lower than average levels of extreme poverty) almost certainly contributed to the relative peace. The municipality was also spared the effects of urbanization as both major ethnic communities had outlets for urban migration, with Albanians drawn to nearby Prishtinë and Serbs drawn mostly to cities in Serbia, including Niš and even Belgrade. Combined, the lack of violence, satisfactory local economic conditions, and relative stability in the distributions of the municipal population contributed to laying the conditions for more successful post-conflict reconstruction in Kamenicë. Social Policy in Kamenicë Like the other municipalities, Kamenicë had both a municipal department of health and social services15 and a CSW responsible to the MLSW. Additionally, the CSW in Kamenicë operated a “satellite” office within the local Kosovo Serb community. Although there was some tension between the municipal office and the CSW in Kamenicë, it was not nearly as intense as in Prizren. Similarly, the satellite CSW office was reasonably well integrated into the overall municipal system. Taken as a whole, the Kamenicë municipal welfare regime was an adequately functioning system. There was a division between the municipal office and the CSW, but it did not generate political tensions the way it had in Prizren. Officials at both the municipal office and in the CSW were quick to point out the Prishtinë-centered organizational structure of the center. The municipal chief executive stressed that he would liked to have seen greater local accountability and input into the social welfare system (Thaçi 2003). He described the ministry-based CSW system as having a “vertical hierarchy—financing and direction are vertical.” His preference was to reorient the social welfare system to a “more horizontal orientation with local accountability.” Rather than seeking to challenge the CSW, however, the municipality had decided to use its own funds to provide supplemental

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social assistance to families that did not qualify for the official CSW Social Assistance Scheme. In the first year this supplemental program had been run through the CSW, but at the time of the interviews in summer 2003 the municipality intended, for the second year of the program, to implement it themselves. Although this was a potential point of tension between the two agencies, it did not cause increases in animosity, and both officials stressed a good working relationship between the municipality and the CSW. Kamenicë had the advantage of two prominent politicians with direct insight into the workings of the social welfare regime. At the local level, the municipal chief executive had a direct relationship with the CSW staff, having worked in the center for six years prior to the conflict (Thaçi 2003). The executive director’s comfort with the CSW’s operations goes a long way in explaining the relationship between the center and the municipal administration. Additionally, the first minister of Labor and Social Welfare in the PISG, Ahmet Isufi, was an AAK politician from Kamenicë. Isufi was not known for directly interfering in municipal politics, but his links to the community certainly helped to clarify the priority of the ministry’s authority over the CSW. The final piece to the social welfare system in Kamenicë was the relationship between the primary CSW in Kamenicë-town and the satellite office in the Serb village of Ranilug / Ranilluk. Satellite CSW offices in minority communities were established from the very start of the Social Assistance Scheme in summer 2000. The satellites were initially conceived of as temporary workspaces, off-site of the actual CSW, in order to address the fact that minority staff in divided municipalities were unable to travel safely from their own villages to the municipal seats. In the original discussions concerning implementation of the Social Assistance Scheme, it was thought the workers in these offices would eventually return to the CSWs full-time. Satellite offices were generally opened in municipalities like Kamenicë with distinct concentrations of minority populations. Unlike Prizren with its mixed ethnic composition, Kamenicë has a clear cut division between the Kosovo Albanian majority and the Kosovo Serbian minority.16 The Kosovo Serb community in the municipality forms coherent blocks in three general areas: two groups of villages, one south of Kamenicë-town and the other to the north; and an area in the main town and the adjoining village of Berivojcë/Berivojce. Ranilug, the site of the satellite CSW office, is in the group of Serb villages south of Kamenicë-town. The area is home to about five thousand individuals, and has a direct road link to Serbia-proper. According to the director of the satellite CSW in Ranilug, about four hundred thirty families were


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receiving Category I social assistance, and one-hundred twenty were receiving Category II in June 2003 (Miroslav 2003). In interviews, the relationship between the main CSW office in Kamenicë-town and the satellite in Ranilug was portrayed positively by both sides. Staff from both offices had previously worked together in the social welfare system prior to the conflict. They knew one another and did not question each other’s professional qualifications or political intentions. The CSW staff in Kamenicë-town did express suspicion that the staff of the satellite office was collecting salaries from both the Serbian and Kosovo governments, but admitted that “their situation is difficult.” Paying salaries to local civil servants has been a primary method for the Belgrade government to continue to exercise some level of control over territory in Kosovo. The practice was extensive enough by 2003 that it had become a parallel system similar to the Albanian system that was part of the Republic of Kosova movement. The issue is particularly relevant to the social welfare sector because of the high number of employees, as well as the fact that the sector is one of the few that provides a direct and tangible benefit to the local population. Despite Serbia’s official recognition of UNMIK as the political and civil authority in Kosovo, the Serbian parallel system in the province was extensive. In areas where it was particularly effective, the parallel system implemented policies designed in Belgrade, enforced Serbian laws, and local staff received salaries or stipends from the Serbian state. The parallel system was largely coordinated through the Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohija (CCK), which had been a joint project of the governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Serbia assumed full control over the CCK after the final dissolution of Yugoslavia. Much like the Albanian parallel systems that had challenged UNMIK at the start of the mission, the Serbian parallel regime posed a threat to international authority in Kosovo. Additionally, it has been particularly damaging to the authority of the emerging local governance system. The Serbian parallel system does not have as open a presence in Kamenicë as in places like Mitrovicë, Zvecan, and Strpce. The social worker in Kamenicë acknowledged that “[t]he Ministry [in Prishtinë] is the legitimate authority” (Miroslav 2003) but it is likely that the satellite staff in Ranilug was receiving additional funds from Serbia, and were, to at least a limited degree, part of the system. Despite being a challenge to the international presence, and then to the new government of an independent Kosovo, the Serbian parallel system has made a contribution to local stability. The fact that the Belgrade government provided material incentives to Serb civil servants in Kosovo,

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from social workers to school teachers, has helped to achieve the international community’s stated goal of making the province multiethnic. If or when the Serbian subsidies cease, the government in Prishtinë—whether internationally administered, independent, or autonomous—will have to work hard to attract the loyalties of these public employees in order to keep them in Kosovo. If they were to leave for Serbia, the Kosovo Serb community would be faced with a deficit of qualified personnel to run the administrative machinery of the civil authorities. The most significant negative effect of the Serbian parallel system was that it undermined the authority of the emerging central authorities in Prishtinë. Like the Albanian parallel institution of the conflict period, the Serbian parallel institutions answered to a different political authority than their local, official counterpart authorities. In the case of social welfare institutions, by providing assistance to their beneficiaries on different terms than the official system, the parallel institutions are effectively a delegitimizing agent. Since the parallel system is ethnically based, it provides an institutional reinforcement for the traditional ethnic cleavages in Kosovo. Regardless of the ultimate political status of Kosovo, if local institutions function according to an ethnic division then the old ethnic cleavages will persist. The most troubling part of the Ranilug satellite office’s operation, however, centers on the number of beneficiaries that they reported to be serving. The director had stated that there were five-hundred and fifty families receiving social assistance in summer 2003. With an average family size of 4.3 for Kosovo Serbs, this would yield approximately 2,365 Kosovo Serbs receiving social assistance in Kamenicë, or about 23 percent of the local Serb population. In spring 2002, the last time for which social assistance numbers based on municipality rather than region were available, the overall number of families receiving benefits in Kamenicë was 1,169.17 Although there were variations in the numbers of beneficiaries from 2002 to 2003, the differences have been relatively small; for example in the Gjilan region which includes Kamenicë, number of beneficiary families from December 2002 to December 2003 decreased by 566 (SOK 2003; SOK 2005). Although the social and economic situation of the local Serb population differed from that of the local Albanians, it was not so different as to reflect such a disparity in beneficiary numbers. The numbers that the director of the Ranilug social welfare office cited indicated a significant overrepresentation of Kosovo Serbs receiving social assistance. It was unlikely that the staff of the Kamenicë-town CSW were unaware of the imbalance in the distribution of social assistance in the municipality, but they appeared to have accepted the situation.


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Contributing to this acceptance was the Albanian CSW staff recognition of the difficulty of their Kosovo Serb counterparts’ position as nominal representatives of the Prishtinë government within the Serb community. There was also a positive incentive to accepting the overrepresentation of Kosovo Serbs among the social assistance beneficiaries. Participation in the system would arguably result in a greater sense of acceptance of the Kosovo PISG and its ministry, which is responsible for the program. On the whole, the local public social welfare system, comprised of the municipal department of health and social wervices and the main CSW in Kamenicë-town and its satellite office in Ranilug, functioned as well as can be expected in the post-conflict environment. To a very large degree the functionality of the social welfare regime in Kamenicë reflected not so much the adequacies of the system itself so much as the positive situation of the municipality. With a stable population, relatively little conflict and a reasonable economic outlook as compared to the rest of Kosovo, many of the stresses on the system in other locations were simply not present. The social welfare regime functioned in Kamenicë not so much on the strengths of the system as on the strengths of the municipality itself. Conclusion: The Role of Institutional Development in Implementation The situation in Prizren and Kamenicë is complex. Both municipalities had characteristics that make their specific contexts distinctive, but they also shared some particular qualities. Both places could be characterized as relatively multiethnic within the Kosovo. Both municipalities also had at least superficially higher levels of economic development. Beneath the veneer of development in Prizren, however, was a much higher level of poverty. The experiences of the conflict were significantly different for the two places, and these differing experiences laid the groundwork for even more radically different post-conflict development. Although urban Prizren had long prided itself on its traditions of multiethnic tolerance, these legacies collapsed spectacularly in the immediate post-conflict period of summer 1999 when Serb and Roma homes suffered numerous arson attacks and a number of local Serbs were murdered. They collapsed again, perhaps even more discouragingly, in the March 2004 riots, when historic Serb landmarks that had survived for centuries were torched by angry mobs. Anecdotally, older Prizren families blamed the newcomers into the city. In general terms the more established Prizrenis felt that the newcomers were to blame not just for the specific incidents in 1999 and 2004, but also for changing Prizren

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into a less tolerant polity. Evidence indicates that there may be a grain of truth in these accusations. The post-conflict transition changed the face of Prizren. The town itself was swollen with new residents. Most came from the rural Albanian villages throughout the municipality, where the nationalist ideology of the conflict was more deeply held. The town was also ethnically cleansed of a once-significant Serbian minority, yielding a less diverse population. New political challengers have come into this transformed Prizren-town, challenging the older cultural, social, and political elite. Their presence is felt in the politics of the municipal administration. In the social welfare sector the competition between the established order and the newcomers is especially clear cut thanks to the presence of the two distinct institutions of the CSW and the municipal department of health and social welfare, each of which parallel their respective bases. Kamenicë, on the other hand, has been largely spared this dynamic of contention. Local stability has meant that the institutional competition between the CSW and the municipal department was not acute. In other cases, the CSW was seen as a prize that can be captured by manipulating the political system in some way. In cases such as in Prizren, municipal attempts to capture the CSW and its resources were fought off with the backing of the ministry and government in Pristina. The previous case of Skenderaj from Chapter 4, where the municipality largely succeeded in its efforts, represents the exception to this pattern. The differences in the Skenderaj case were the overwhelming majority of the local governing party, the quick resort to threats of violence to enforce control over CSW, and the fact that the municipality was both homogeneously rural and nearly entirely Albanian. To elaborate on the last factor, within Skenderaj the lack of a substantial urban center and a minority community eliminated two of the cleavages that divide Prizren. Kamenicë continued to be faced with the traditional primary cleavage of Kosovo’s politics, that between the Serb and Albanian communities. Here again, however, Kamenicë was able to control the contention, at least temporarily, by turning a blind eye to potential manipulation of the Social Assistance Scheme in the Ranilug satellite office. Because the capacity to achieve this accommodation rested on largely on the relative positive economic condition of the municipality, it may prove to be only as sustainable as local economic development. Social citizenship in Kamenicë and Prizren was being constructed in such a way as to reflect the differences between the two municipalities. In Kamenicë, the social rights of citizenship were not highly contentious, either within ethnic communities or across them. A relatively successful local economy no doubt contributed to the reduced tensions around the


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issues of social rights, as fewer community members were dependent on these rights for their survival. The overrepresentation of local Kosovo Serbs on the social welfare rolls may have had the unintended consequence of creating a greater sense of inclusion. Similarly, it may also have generated a sense among local Kosovo Albanians that the Serb community is taking advantage of the rights of social citizenship. The possibility for the creation of a new municipality based in the Ranilug community, which was part of UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s final status proposal, may accentuate local resentment if it is acted on. Within Prizren, difference in social citizenship was less likely to be perceived as organized around the ethnic cleavage of Serb/Albanian. The more persistent local cleavage was the rural/urban divide. This division was exacerbated in the urban center of the municipality by the displacement of so many people from the outlying villages. Institutionally, it was acted out through competition between the CSW and the municipal department. The relatively more intense self-identification of multigenerational residents of the urban center as “Prizreni” is one anecdotal aspect of this division.


Chapter 6

Conclusion In August 2006, as the UN Security Council debated the language of a new mandate for a peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, the political questions that surround social policy in post-conflict reconstruction once again rose to the fore. As reported by the New York Times on August 23, 2006, international aid and relief agencies deployed to the region were faced with the problem of working in an environment where the most effective distribution network operated under the banner of Hezbollah, one of the primary combatants. Donor governments, aid agencies and international NGOs presumably had no intention for their contributions to the reconstruction of southern Lebanon to strengthen Hezbollah’s political position. At the same time, the NGOs were compelled to recognize the party’s important role in the region. Hezbollah was by far the most efficient social organization in the area. It had activated its network of staff and volunteers faster than the Lebanese government or any other local NGO. As the international NGOs sought to implement their projects quickly in a difficult environment, working with a partner like Hezbollah had an obvious advantage in terms of organizational and institutional capacity. But perhaps more important for the political dimension, Hezbollah as the largest social organization in the area had an undeniable popular legitimacy. As stated by a local mayor, “They [Hezbollah] are from the country. They are our sons here. The normal people, the poor people, the nice people, the intellectual people—you have everything in Hezbollah. This is the society” (Batreddine 2006). Working with Hezbollah could potentially impart legitimacy to a complicated social project that might be difficult or impossible for an outside agency to attain otherwise. As in Kosovo, seven years earlier, the international aid and relief community, NGOs international organizations, and donor governments, were engaged in a social

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welfare project in a post-conflict context. Once again they were faced with contending parties that meant to use social rights as the foundations for contending visions of citizenship. The lessons of the Kosovo effort should inform later operations such as the mission in Lebanon and those that follow in other locations. In post-conflict reconstruction efforts, social policy can serve as a basis for incorporative democratic citizenship. Reviewing the arguments of Chapter 1, social policy undergirds the reconstruction process both normatively and functionally. It accomplishes this normatively by providing a foundation for perceptions of social justice that cut across the prior cleavages at the root of the conflict. In turn, this contributes to the reconstitution of the social fabric, which is the ultimate subject of reconstruction. On the functional level, social policy provides the local population with the necessary guarantees against risk associated with fully engaging the emerging market structures, particularly the labor market. On neither of these levels are the potential benefits of social policy ensured. Rather, the specific effects of social policy are mediated by the particularities of the programs and their implementation. In reviewing the Kosovo case, the complexities of the situation have been emphasized. The historical dynamic of institutional development during the conflict period was given particular attention. Over the later years of the Kosovo conflict, considered roughly from 1981 to 1999, the central ethnic cleavage gave rise to the development of parallel institutional regimes, one rooted in the former Yugoslav state, the other in the Kosovo Albanian resistance to that state. These parallel institutional regimes reinforced citizenships that were ethnicized and exclusive to one another. In the post-conflict period, from June 1999 till the Kosovo declaration of independence in February 2008, those prior institutional foundations posed a challenge to the international community in its efforts to create a democratic, nonethnicized Kosovar society. This dynamic repeated itself at the Kosovo-wide provincial level, and at the municipal level. On neither level did the prior institutions succeed in preventing the establishment of the internationally backed administration. Most of the Kosovo Albanian parallel institutions were successfully either dissolved or co-opted by the UN transitional mission that was deployed to administer the province. This process was at times highly contentious, and the success in establishing the dominance of the UNMIK system over most of Kosovo should not be underappreciated. Conversely, efforts by UNMIK to curtail the Serbian parallel regime that emerged in the post-conflict period had only limited success. These difficulties have left the newly independent state of Kosovo with the formidable task of challenging these parallel institutions.

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This final chapter reviews the theory of prioritizing the inclusion of social policy in the larger planning for post-conflict reconstruction, and the particularities of the Kosovo case, at both the provincial and municipal levels. The core lessons of the development of social policy in Kosovo, both at the provincial and municipal levels are drawn out from the overall argument. Finally, a concluding section to the chapter highlights the importance of social policy in addressing future post-conflict situations. Social Policy and Reconstruction—The Theory Social policy and social welfare programs are a fundamental, if often overlooked, aspect of post-conflict reconstruction. To restate the underlying theory, post-conflict social policy has the potential to contribute to successful reconstruction on two levels—a normative level that helps to legitimatize the new post-conflict governing arrangements and a more pragmatic economic level that supports economic development by distributing risk and promoting economic engagement. It is important to stress that these positive effects of social policy are potential in that they are not necessarily realized by any social policy package. Instead, in order to gain the desired effects on the post-conflict reconstruction efforts, policy choices must be aimed toward achieving these goals. Social policy also has potentially negative effects of economic and social stratification, reinforcing prior cleavages rather than transcending them. Designing and implementing social policy that furthers the goals of post-conflict reconstruction is a political choice to be made by the local population, its political representatives, and the external actors involved—international organizations, donor agencies and governments, and NGOs. These political choices are made within the context of the post-conflict dynamic of contending parties seeking advantage under the risk of renewed violence. Finally, despite the policy choices that may be made on the central level, reconstruction ultimately hinges on local implementation, which often responds to its own dynamics and pressures. The normative side of the argument identifies social policy as an aspect of post-conflict justice. In thinking about social policy in this way it challenges the emphasis on traditional notions of post-conflict justice as exercises in retribution. Rather than identifying responsibility for actions committed during the course of the conflict, social policy directs the question of post-conflict justice toward the specifics of the (re)construction efforts. In this argument, the reconstruction of a post-conflict society is seen as a reformulation of the local citizenship regime. The new citizenship regime must be perceived as just across the prior cleavages in order for it to make a positive contribution to the reconstruction efforts.

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A citizenship regime is, in part, defined by social policy. Following Yashar’s expansion of the term, a citizenship regime refers to both the content and boundaries of citizenship (2005, 47–48). Social policy delineates who carries the social benefits and responsibilities of citizenship, and what those benefits and responsibilities are. This conception of social policy builds on the idea of social rights as a core component of citizenship as originally presented by T. H. Marshall in his seminal address on social class and citizenship. In the post-conflict context, this reformulation of the citizenship regime is part of the reconstruction process. The questions of post-conflict justice become questions of whether the emerging citizenship regime is just in its contents and inclusiveness. Can the policies and programs that define the content of social citizenship be considered just by reasonable standards? Are they inclusive across the prior cleavages of the conflict? Affirmative answers to these questions point in the direction of achieving a social welfare regime that reflects a new interpretation of post-conflict justice. The potential political impact of a just social citizenship regime is based largely on the theories of social justice rooted in the work of John Rawls. In particular, Rawls’ assertion concerning the utilitarian role of social justice for supporting social stability provides a functional foundation. Specifically, Rawls argued that the inclusive quality of a just system of social regulation provides a mechanism for self-reinforcement, and as such “a society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable” (1971, 490–491; 498). Rawls pointed precisely to the locus of the potentiality of social policy to contribute to the success or failure of postconflict reconstruction. If the inclusiveness of the social policies does not cut across other social cleavages, particularly those that had been central to the prior conflict, then they may serve to stratify society, reinforcing old divisions or even creating new ones. Taylor and Fraser identified the theoretical mechanism by which inclusiveness can be translated into policy that is not based on traditional notions of redistribution. By incorporating recognition into conceptions of justice, Fraser and Taylor addressed the potential negative impact of social policy. Taylor put forth the idea of misrecognition as a form of basic social injustice (1994, 36). In terms of social policy, misrecognition is equated with exclusion through the lack of programs that are appropriate for or inclusive of a given community. Fraser argued against traditional “liberal welfare state” social policy (1997, 24). Instead she promotes “transformative remedies for distributive injustices of class” such as “universalist social welfare programs, steeply progressive taxation, macroeconomic policies aimed at creating full employment, a large nonmarket public sector and/or collective ownership, and democratic

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decision making about basic socioeconomic priorities” (1997, 25–26). For Powell, these transformative remedies reverse the process of exclusion, providing access to the resources needed for participation in economic, political, social, and cultural life (2001, 91). The guarantee of social rights through effective, inclusive social policy becomes a core component of a reconstructed, broad-based citizenship that transcends the cleavages of the conflict. The economic argument builds primarily on Wilensky and EspingAnderson, and more fundamentally on Keynes. The core of the argument is that social policy is a key component of economic structures, and as such should be a primary focus of post-conflict rebuilding efforts. As part of the economic infrastructure, social policy can promote reengagement in the legitimate economy by managing risk and dispersing the costs of insurance throughout the economy. Like the normative argument, the impact of social policy on the economy is dependent on the design and implementation of the policies and programs. Social policy is part of the post-conflict political economy, and its characteristics and subsequent effects rest on political decisions made by actors involved. Wilensky’s analysis of the economic history of social policy focused on the positive economic impact of relatively high-spending democratic corporatist social policy in post–World War II western Europe, the United States, and Japan (2002, 431–435). Over the long run, “[t]here is no uniform relationship between the costs of job protection, income transfers, and personal services characteristic of advanced welfare states, on the one hand, and their economic performance on the other.” (Wilensky 2002, 432) In the shorter post–World War II period, however, Wilensky provides evidence that, “the greater the average social-security spending, 1950–74, the better the economic performance score” (2002, 433). The potential positive impact of social welfare regimes, however, is not necessarily determined by the level of spending. As Wilensky and Esping-Anderson argue separately, the political economy of the regime modifies whatever effect it may have. For Wilensky, the key political determinant is what he refers to as corporatist democracy (2002, 83). This type of political economy exhibits four key characteristics: (1) Bargaining is done through well-organized interest groups, moderated through a central government; (2) because these bargains are centrally moderated they involve complex and “blurred” relationships between public and private actors; (3) these expansive bargaining processes provide a structure to the local “social contract”; and (4) overall economic policy incorporates attention to social policy (Wilensky 2002, 85–86). These types of political economies are associated with two of the social welfare regimes of Esping-Anderson’s typology—“corporatist”

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and “social democratic” (1990, 26–28). Ultimately, these institutional arrangements, and the social welfare regimes with which they are associated, are derived from political processes. In the contemporary post-conflict environment, the configuration of the political process is unusual on a number of levels. The two most distinct characteristics are the relationship between the threat of renewed conflict and the high levels of interest exhibited by external actors. Neither of these characteristics is historically new; conflict is often at the core of any political dynamic, and states have always existed in regional, and even global, contexts that affect their domestic policy choices. In Kosovo, and in other similar current post-conflict contexts, however, the relationship between the internal threat of conflict and the external intervention by international actors has intensified dramatically. In historical cases of welfare state development, domestic interest groups organized around primarily class interests interacted, often contentiously, over the particularities of social welfare policy, while international actors would offer indirect pressures through the larger regional or global context (Luebbert 1991, 115; Alber and Flora 1984). In Kosovo, international actors took the lead in social policy formation. Traditional domestic actors such as organized labor and capital were mostly sidelined. Some domestic NGOs did play a role, but they were mostly subsidiary to the larger international NGOs. This relationship between the stronger external and weaker internal actors is characteristic of domestic or internal policy making in the post-conflict environment. In some cases, as in some decisions in the social policy formation process in Kosovo, it can be a conscious decision made to remove a potentially contentious issue from the volatile post-conflict public sphere. In many ways this dynamic hampers the development of political institutions by taking some of the most important political decisions off the agenda of local actors. Political choices about social policy were made in Kosovo. These choices, however, were heavily influenced and often directed by international NGOs, international organizations, and outside experts and consultants. All of these external actors had their own political preferences for the pattern of reconstruction, and these preferences were, in turn, expressed in their contributions and interventions, both in terms of what was funded, and the advice that was offered. These preferences did not usually reflect the potential normative or economic impact that social policy might have played in the post-conflict regime, but rather the interests of the actors. These interests were not entirely self-serving, as the primary goal of the major external actors was to establish a stable and peaceful political system in Kosovo and the larger Balkans. In this sense attention was paid to social policy in Kosovo, but it was more often seen

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as an adjunct to more pressing operational concerns or was perceived as part of larger questions of political or economic policy. Social Policy and the Kosovo Conflict Kosovo in 2008 was a very different place than it was in June 1999 when the UN assumed governing responsibility. After nine years under international administration, and with no negotiated resolution looking likely, the Kosovo Albanian leadership chose to declare independence. Serbia rejected the move and continued to press its claim on Kosovo. Although the declaration of independence was essentially a unilateral move, it came with the implicit blessing of the major Western powers. The United States, Great Britain, France, and Germany all rapidly recognized the new state. Russia, as well as a number of other states including some within the EU, did not offer recognition and continued to actively push for a rejection of the declaration of independence. Despite the tension and ambiguity of the process of determining the final political status, Kosovo has continued through its post-socialist and post-conflict transitions. In some aspects it surpassed many of the expectations of observers, and in others there have been profound disappointments. At the most fundamental level, despite occasional incidents of violence, some significant, Kosovo has not descended into wide-scale and sustained conflict. Nor has the situation in Kosovo been allowed to trigger larger, regional conflict, although this was certainly a possibility both in relation to the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia and the northern areas of Macedonia. In short there was not a renewal of war in the Balkans. This is an important accomplishment. In terms of the internal self-governance of Kosovo, among the Albanian community, the international administration succeeded in constructing an institutional foundation on both the provincial, now national, and municipal levels. The international community can claim only much more limited success in regard to interethnic integration. In particular, the gap between the Serb and Albanian communities has remained substantial. Non-Serb minority communities such as Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian (RAE), Turks, Bosniaks, and Goranci have had differing levels of success in achieving political integration. All these factors relate to the social welfare regime in the province to some degree. The most significant but incomplete success was the international community’s efforts at institution building in Kosovo. Led by UNMIK and the OSCE, the institutional reconstruction of the province, for the most part, proved to be effective, but with some notable failures. Surprisingly, although it functions almost exclusively within the Kosovo

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Albanian community, this institutional foundation owes little to the parallel regime that was so important during the years of prior conflict. Instead of using the parallel regime as a foundation for public governance, the institutions that had made up the system were relegated to the private sphere. This was especially true in regards to MTS and its social welfare role. As early as December 1999, UNMIK sought to create a Kosovowide administrative system. The first effort took the form of the JIAS. Although meant to administer all of Kosovo, the JIAS was only effective in the Albanian areas. The JIAS was replaced by a local administration with more democratic legitimacy. Internationally organized municipal elections were held in 2000 and 2002, and provincial elections in 2001 and 2004. Combined elections were held in 2007, just before the declaration of independence. Although all the rounds of elections were free from large-scale fraud and violence, minority participation was sporadic at best. Kosovo Serbs boycotted the 2000 municipal and 2004 provincial elections, as well as 2007 combined elections, but participated in the 2001 provincial and the 2002 municipal contests. Despite the inconsistent participation, the elections did establish democratic precedents, and provided foundations for self-government at both the municipal and provincial level, particularly among Kosovo Albanians. The development of the actual governing institutions in Kosovo and the municipalities was inconsistent. At the provincial level, the capacity building of the various institutions such as the government, the Kosovo Assembly, the ministries, departments, and agencies was uneven, with some areas showing significant capabilities in policy making and public management and others suffering from ingrained politicization, lack of leadership, and corruption. The Ministry and Department of Labor and Social Welfare (M/DLSW) was more successful than most in capacitybuilding, professionalization, and the depoliticization of staff. At the central level there were no serious accusations of corruption within any of the social assistance programs. A comprehensive internal staff performance review in late 2002 contributed to the ministry’s success in this area (Héthy 2005, 77). Professional experience in the prior social welfare system was also generally rewarded in the new UNMIK and PISG ministry and department at the Prishtinë level. Despite these administrative successes, it was not clear whether the policy-making capacity at the center had advanced to a similar level. International expatriate advisers maintained a dominant position in policy making throughout the post-conflict period. The professional capacity of the staff of the DLSW’s Centers for Social Work located in the municipalities was even less consistent. Although some local CSW staff had excelled, others were subject to fierce political battles in their municipalities, occasionally acting as participants and, in

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other instances, getting caught between factions. The particular municipal cases that were examined more closely in chapters 4 and 5 are reviewed below. These cases give some indication of the range of variability in implementation that exists in the social sector in Kosovo. These variations partially determined the specific impacts of social welfare policies that make up the larger social welfare regime. Lessons from the Provincial Level A number of lessons can be learned from the establishment of the postconflict social welfare system in Kosovo, but the two most important focus on the role of the local political dynamic on program implementation, and the risks of institutional competition as a residual factor from intense post-conflict transitions impeding program effectiveness. Because of their position as a concrete representation of the social rights of citizenship, social service institutions are one of the foundations of legitimacy for states and their agencies. Making decisions about social welfare—which offices and agencies were responsible for what types of program, how those programs would be implemented and funded, and which institutions would become permanent policy-making authorities— ultimately contributed to determining which political actors would be in a position to derive legitimacy from these programs. Post-conflict situations notoriously experience a vacuum of legitimate authority. Prior legitimate public institutions are either seriously damaged or destroyed altogether by the conflict. New or reconstructed social organizations compete to assert authority. External actors, such as the UN or regional international organizations that have organized post-conflict assistance can play a decisive role in these competitive struggles. The ways in which the international community dealt with this dynamic in Kosovo can be instructive in other contexts. A consistent problem in post-conflict environments has been a vacuum of political authority, with competing movements, organizations, and parties vying for control. During the Kosovo conflict, the social welfare system of the Kosovo Albanian parallel regime was an important part of the organized resistance to the Belgrade regime. The social services of the Kosovo Albanian resistance movement were representative of the intense internal solidarity of the community. In the post-conflict period, they presented a potentially strong foundation for a political structure that could challenge the legitimacy of the international reconstruction efforts. Co-opting, and then marginalizing the highly politicized, semipublic institutions of the parallel social welfare system was a key part of the international efforts to gain administrative control of the province.

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The Kosovo parallel governing regime, referred to as the “Republic of Kosova” period, can be characterized as part of a stilted or incomplete political transition. The Kosovo Albanian political party that dominated the Republic of Kosova, the LDK, lead by Ibrahim Rugova, owed much of its structure and organization to the old Yugoslav socialist party. Like political parties in other parts of what was then Yugoslavia, the LDK had a strong basis in the nationalist identity that had been reinforced by the country’s distinct federal system. In a manner very similar to the rise nationalism in the politics of Serbia during the late 1980s, the LDK-led Kosovo Albanian opposition to Belgrade prioritized national identity over democratization. In the process, the parallel institutions, including the social welfare agencies of MTS, became expressions of the Kosovo Albanian national movement. As one of the leaders of MTS put it later, speaking of his organization, “Of course we were all part of the liberation of Kosovo” (Shala 2002). In its attempts at state building through the parallel regime, the party, the emerging (quasi-)state institutions and the nation were successively embedded in one another. The quasi-state that was created by the Republic of Kosova existed most concretely in the parallel institutions, the largest of which were organized around various aspects of social policy. The parallel education system was composed of schools, ranging from elementary to the university and professional level, operating in private homes and semiprivate spaces such as community centers. Health and social services were largely run by MTS, which was closely linked to the LDK. In all three social sectors—health, education, and social welfare—there were differing levels of contention in the process of integration into the post-conflict UNMIK sponsored system. In the education sector, contention focused largely on the relationship between the teachers’ union and the new Kosovo government. These tensions eventually boiled over and resulted in a 14-day teachers’ strike in October 2002. The involvement of MTS in the health and social services sectors differed significantly. In the health sector, MTS provided an organizational framework for Kosovo Albanian medical professionals. This sector was quickly absorbed into the UNMIK structures, in part because the doctors, nurses, and medics involved were not deeply invested in MTS itself as an institution and in part because the international mission was able to control access to the resources needed to for the medical professionals to effectively practice, specifically the hospitals, clinics, and equipment (Mujkonimani 2002). Things were somewhat different in the social welfare sector. MTS played an important role in the social welfare regime of the conflict period. In part this role was facilitated by the relationship between

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post-conflict food aid and the later development of the social welfare system. During and immediately after the conflict, MTS was supported by the international NGO community in Kosovo. At the time the province received an overwhelming amount of international food aid, much of which was distributed through a partnership between MTS and the international aid agencies. CRS, MCI, and CARE International, as well as other agencies involved, all considered MTS a key local NGO partner in the distribution network. Despite this close cooperation, MTS’s relationship with the LDK eventually became problematic. Over the course of the conflict, the Kosovo Albanian community factionalized, with other parties forming and challenging the LDK for leadership. In the period immediately after the NATO intervention, the variety of Kosovo Albanian parties, including the LDK and the political parties that emerged from the KLA, competed for political authority. Leaders from both the LDK and KLA saw their respective organizations as leading the post-conflict state-building process. Although this competition never rose to the level of the widespread violence of an insurgency, it did involve violent incidents including assassinations, threats, and intimidation of local civic leaders. The competition was implicitly directed against UNMIK efforts at assuming authority, as well as against the other Kosovo Albanian political organizations. MTS attempted to position itself as the foundation for the social welfare agencies of an independent, post-conflict Kosovo. These efforts put the organization squarely within the competitive political dynamic. Displacing MTS from its position as the primary social welfare agency was part of both creating a nonethnicized Kosovo-wide governing authority and subduing the competition among the Kosovo Albanian political actors. Achieving a position of political dominance was a core challenge to the reconstruction process for UNMIK and the governing arrangements that it sponsored. UNMIK and, later, the Kosovo government in the form of the PISG, faced competition not only from the Albanian side, but later from a parallel Serb network that was rooted in the Yugoslav system. The Serb parallel network was distinct from the Albanian system in that it did, in fact, represent a sovereign and recognized government. The Serb parallel institutions were run mostly by the Republic of Serbia, although, because Belgrade had officially recognized UNMIK as the legitimate local authority, its operations were, for the most part, unofficial and secretive. In addition to assuming a security and policing role within the Kosovo Serb community, the parallel system took on a large role in the social welfare sector. Social workers and administrators received salaries and implemented programs directed from Belgrade. Despite the beneficial impact these programs may have had, they were still a challenge to the

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authority of UNMIK and the PISG in Prishtinë. As such they sat in opposition to the project of constructing a unified Kosovar citizenship. This network continued to operate in the Serb majority areas of Kosovo even past the declaration of independence. On the provincial level, the effort to build a comprehensive, centralized social welfare system was largely successful. In Prishtinë the JIAS Department of Health and Social Welfare, and later the PISG Ministry/ Department of Labor and Social Welfare, did become the center of a nearly Kosovo-wide social welfare apparatus, displacing the Kosovo Albanian MTS network but not the Belgrade-based Serb parallel system that emerged in the wake of the conflict. The Kosovo Albanian parallel network was dissolved at the political level by negotiating an agreement that brought the major Kosovo Albanian factions into a single political framework. This was achieved early in UNMIK’s mission by the first SRSG, Bernard Kouchner. The agreement succeeded in diffusing much of the unregulated competition for constituencies, ideally channeling it into the later electoral contests. A third major lesson concerns the impact of the actual set of social policies that were constructed and implemented in Kosovo. In short, the post-conflict social welfare regime reflected the goals and preferences of those who designed it. Social welfare regimes do not have a common impact regardless of design, but rather are contingent on the actual content and implementation of the policies. Those policies and their implementation, in turn, are determined through a political process. International organizations, NGOs and consultants came to dominate the politics of social policy formation in the post-conflict period. As such, these actors designed social policies based on their experiences, the preferred goals of their organizations, and their political and ideological perspectives. The social welfare regime that emerged relied heavily on means-testing, was geared toward relieving extreme poverty, was designed to facilitate a market transition, and was part of an exit strategy for the international agencies involved. To a large degree the MTS influence on post-conflict social policy formation was marginalized at the expense of the inclusive or democratic credentials of the system. The ethnicized polarization between the Kosovo Albanian resistance movement and the Belgrade-led state structures did not permit alternative organizations to flourish during the conflict, so the only available social policy partner for the international community with any claim toward a representative quality in the post-conflict period was MTS. Although MTS did play some role in the formation of the post-conflict social policy, as an organization at the central level they were mostly marginalized by the international actors

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involved, including the WFP, UNHCR, the two most active donor governments—the United States and the United Kingdom, and the international NGOs. With no other locally representative organizations available, the initial process of post-conflict social policy formation was dominated by these external actors. In Kosovo, two sets of external actors were closely involved with the formation of the post-conflict social policy. One set was rooted in the international aid community that was deeply concerned with ending its operations in Kosovo as soon as possible. Both the major donor agencies and the larger international NGOs saw the creation of an effective social welfare system as part of an exit strategy. Both were also concerned that aid dependency would set in on the Kosovo economy and social psyche, and thought that by ending the aid programs as rapidly as possible this could potentially be prevented. Aid dependency had emerged as a potential obstacle to long-term development in Bosnia over the years, so this issue had become important to the aid community (Fischer 2006, 446; Steil and Woodward 1999, 97; Beiber 2002, 27–28). The international NGO community also espoused two additional characteristics that had an impact on their social policy preferences. A carryover from the immediacy of the humanitarian relief programs was the belief that simpler programs that could be quickly implemented were preferable. The international NGOs were also geared toward addressing poverty on a need basis. Targeting assistance toward those who need it the most is central to the approach of most NGOs in their conception of antipoverty programming. A Second set of external actors introduced into the system as the policy developed were the variety of international consultants and experts who were more concerned with the economic transition in Kosovo. Not primarily concerned with social policy, their impact was less direct, but ultimately substantial nonetheless. These consultants and experts were, in general, adamant promoters of a rapid free-market transition in Kosovo (Héthy 2005, 33). Between these various external actors a particular type of social welfare regime was established that used means-testing to target benefits toward the very poor, and granted extremely low benefits. The social assistance program responded to budgetary pressures similar to a grant-funded project, rather than reflecting economic or taxation policy. Within the social assistance program there were variations in local implementation at the municipal level that will alter its long-term impact. These variations in local implementation did not necessarily affect the central design of the system. The pension system is likely to result in a stratified pensioner population with, at least in the short-to-medium run, a base level of elderly receiving only the very basic pension and living on the edge of poverty.

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The key lesson of this part of the development of the social welfare regime in Kosovo is a very simple one: In most aspects, the type of social welfare regime that is established will reflect the interests and preferences of those involved in its original design and implementation. If the regime is developed by international NGOs that have as their primary goal an effective exit strategy and concern for the needs of the very poorest, these will be the concerns addressed. Similarly, if international consultants seeking to promote a free market economy are at the center of the policy formation, their preferences will strongly influence the eventual policy outcome. This is not to say that their goals will be entirely realized; unintended consequences, mistaken assumptions and the contingencies of the actual implementation of the program will all have their role in the ultimate outcome. However, at the minimum, the interests and preferences of those involved will be accounted for, while the interests and preferences of those excluded will not be. Had organized labor, business interests, and the spectrum of political parties in Kosovo been more closely involved in the formation of the province’s social policy, its contours would have been significantly different. In regard to the core questions of what kind of social welfare regime has been built in Kosovo and what its effect will be on the boundaries and content of social citizenship at the provincial level, the answers are relatively straightforward. As already highlighted, the social welfare system on the provincial level is unambiguously liberal, and potentially even neoliberal. Reflecting this, the social citizenship regime that is implicit in this program can be described similarly, as it places the emphasis on individual responsibility for protection against risk. Arguably this is appropriate for Kosovo, where collective identities have proven to be perpetually contentious. Liberal social citizenship potentially removes social policy from the zero-sum political dynamic of the highly ethnicized politics of the province. The risk, however, is that ethnic identity will reassert itself in private adaptation to risk mediation. The possibilities of this type of response are highlighted in the province’s recurring experience with “parallel regimes” based on ethnicity. These parallel regimes can be described as effectively collective risk management strategies organized around ethnonationalist identities. There are two possible alternatives to address this type of development. One is the complete reorganization of the social welfare regime to one that is not liberal, but rather based on the greater, nonethnicized Kosovar identity. This would represent a tremendous and surprising transformation of the Kosovar political dynamic. It would almost certainly only emerge accompanied by a full and successful engagement of the Kosovo minority communities with the political process. A second

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possible alternative would be to increase the benefit levels of the liberal system to the point where ethnicized private relief is relegated to marginally complementary social welfare support. An increase in the beneficiary level to this point would arguably begin a transformation of the system from a liberal system, as low levels of benefits are a feature of the type. Lessons from the Municipal Level Despite the importance of the policy-making process within the provincial government, in Kosovo social policy, and in particular the social assistance program was implemented at the municipal level. The two most important lessons to emerge from the experience of the local implementers of the social welfare programs in Kosovo are related to the level of dominance that one political party is able to express within the municipality, and the level and type of competition between the various local social welfare institutions. In the first case, the lessons learned were extremely clear—a competitive political environment at the local level keeps local agents focused on implementing policy according to the guidelines set down at the central level. In communities with clear dominance by one political party, the local public social welfare office was exposed to extraordinary pressure to modify the implementation in ways that accommodated the dominant party. The comparative cases of Skenderaj and Malishevë municipalities demonstrate this dynamic. In the second case, the lessons were more complicated. Local social policy implementation occurred simultaneously, but not necessarily in coordination, with UNMIK-driven reorganizations of the municipal administrations. These reorganizations were political operations that involved establishing acceptable local power-sharing prior arrangements among a variety of actors, some of whom had only recently emerged as significant forces from long-term social, economic, or political processes, and the shorter-term conflict dynamic. The local social welfare offices that were being reestablished in the municipalities were ideally outside of these power-sharing constructions, much in the way that social services are expected to operate outside of political patronage networks. The social welfare office was supposed to emphasize professional, nonpoliticized implementation of social service and assistance programs. Complicating this goal, however, was the fact that these programs involved large inputs from outside actors—mostly international NGOs and donor agencies. These inputs made the social welfare offices attractive targets for local political actors as they continually tried to renegotiate the arrangements as the localities underwent complicated multiple transitions, including postsocialist and post-conflict political, social, and economic transformations.

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The comparative cases in this respect are Prizren, which was the site of significant demographic and social transformation throughout the conflict and afterwards, and Kamenicë, which was notably more stable. Unlike in Skenderaj and Malishevë, the competition for control over the social welfare agency here focuses on public institutions rather than political parties. At the local level there were effectively two public expressions of the social welfare regime, one representing the central authority or Kosovo as a whole, and one representing the particular municipality. In the municipalities, the lead institution for the Kosovo-wide implementation was the CSW, located in each municipality and directly operating under UNMIK and the Prishtinë-based central government. In addition, municipal administrations participated in the local social welfare sector through their own departments responsible for social services and assistance. In some cases these municipal departments attempted to craft local social policy, and in other cases, they also sought to implement their own programs. The relationship between the CSWs as the representatives of the central authority, and the municipal administrations, in the form of the political parties or sociological groups, either in power, vying for local power, or stably sharing power, is the fulcrum on which the variations in implementation turned. Machine Politics versus Local Pluralism: Skenderaj and Malishevë

The presence of clientelism in post-conflict environments is neither new nor surprising. Although possibly not as dramatically destabilizing as organized crime, political patronage networks that are extensive enough to be described as clientelism can be considered a form of corruption. Clientelism, or machine politics, is distinct from criminal corruption in that it represents the manipulation of public programs for direct political gain. Social welfare programs are an effort at fulfilling one dimension of the promise of democratic citizenship, so the corruption of these programs affects the principles of incorporation on which the emerging polity is being built. These programs are the content of social citizenship. In a democratic state, this content has been determined through public deliberation. Clientelist corruption within the social welfare programs undermines efforts at establishing this democratic institution. It is especially problematic for the international community in this case, in that the social welfare program being manipulated was directly established under the leadership of UNMIK, therefore calling into question the international community’s ability to control the implementation and impact of its own projects.

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The relationship between clientelism and democracy runs both ways. As much as clientelism can undermine democratization, local political pluralism can undermine efforts by aspiring power brokers to establish clientelistic relationships. A democratic context provides alternative centers of power, allowing institutions and citizens to evade would-be bosses. In the immediate cases of Skenderaj and Malishevë, differences in levels of political competition influenced the ability of the social welfare agency to operate free from local manipulation. In Malishevë, where political competition was fierce and evenly matched, the staff of the local CSW were able to maneuver their office outside of the patronage network. In part, their concern was pragmatic. It was expressed as fear that a change in local political leadership could potentially cost them their employment positions if they were too closely allied with the party that lost power. The staff of the Malishevë CSW actively sought out a method of guaranteeing their positions. In this case, they better protected their jobs by aligning themselves more closely with the central ministry in Prishtinë. In concrete terms, the presence of political pluralism, or lack of a single dominant party, meant that the local CSW has greater institutional autonomy from the local municipal authorities and was able to implement social policies and programs as originally designed by the central offices in Prishtinë The political dynamic of Skenderaj was an example of machine politics at its clearest and most predatory. Politically, the municipality was marked by the almost complete dominance of the PDK, the Kosovo Albanian political party with the strongest roots in the former KLA. The municipality is in the heart of the Drenica region of the province, which was the one of the most heavily fought over areas of the conflict. The level of conflict-related destruction in Skenderaj was extraordinary, even by the standards of the wars of the former Yugoslavia. The municipality is nearly entirely Albanian, and there is a deep current of nationalism in the local politics. Additionally, the municipality is one of the poorest in Kosovo. Locally, the social assistance program is very extensive, serving an exceptionally large percentage of the municipal population. The program has essentially been hijacked by local authorities and is organized on a classic patronage system enforced through threats of violence and nationalist rhetoric. Despite this corruption of the system, the social assistance program is highly regarded by the local population and its impact on poverty in the municipality is noticeable. On the surface Skenderaj and Malishevë municipalities are very similar. Both are very rural, poor, majority Albanian municipalities. Malishevë is also partly in the Drenica region, and suffered significant conflict damage. The municipality was a site of such intense Albanian resistance to the Serbian regime that it was gerrymandered out of existence by

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the Serbian authorities in the 1990s, and was only reconstituted after the conflict under UNMIK. Unlike Skenderaj, however, the two major Kosovo Albanian political parties, the PDK and the LDK, have almost equal support in Malishevë. The local municipal assembly was one of the only ones to see a switch of majority parties in the second round of post-conflict municipal elections in 2002. In that year, the PDK was able to take a slight majority in the municipal assembly, displacing the LDK. In the wake of the conflict, the social welfare institutions in Malishevë were especially damaged. Besides the physical damage that the municipal infrastructure had suffered, the dissolution of the municipality in the 1990s, as well as the intense local militarization, ultimately undermined or destroyed most public institutions. The staff that eventually took over the local CSW after the conflict were especially inexperienced. The director, in particular, was appointed based on almost entirely on his role as a militant in the KLA. Despite this, the Malishevë CSW proved successful at implementing the social assistance program in a nonpolitical and professional manner. The very different political dynamics of Malishevë and Skenderaj have resulted in divergent implementations of the Kosovo welfare programs, especially the Social Assistance Scheme. In Malishevë the CSW was able to maintain its autonomy in relation to local power brokers, and followed the original design of the Social Assistance Scheme as closely as possible. All of the liberal features of the program were present, and their effect was evident. In particular, means-testing and the targeting of the very poor as the primary beneficiaries were pronounced in Malishevë. This resulted in a program that functioned very much as designed, serving as a safety net of last resort for the extreme poor. Despite the obvious benefits of such a program, there were also significant drawbacks, including the promotion of stigma associated with beneficiaries, and the lack of any appreciable impact on the much greater problem of general, though not extreme, poverty. Additionally, strictly applying the centrally designed Social Assistance Scheme allowed for little adjustment to specific local problems such as the prevalence of conflict-related damage, and the persistently weak agricultural economy. Conversely, the machine politics of Skenderaj transformed the social assistance program from the liberal framework into an almost corporatist type of arrangement, with benefits assigned on the basis of political allegiance and past roles in conflict. In this regard, at least within the municipality, the coverage was much broader, with the number of beneficiaries approaching 25 percent of the municipality. In Skenderaj the Social Assistance Scheme responded, however corruptly, to the local political dynamic. Not surprisingly, the social welfare system was notably more popular in Skenderaj than it is in Malishevë (UNDP Kosovo 2003).

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Stability and Instability: Prizren and Kamenicë

The need to appreciate the fact that post-conflict reconstruction is embedded within longer local, regional and even global, social, political, and economic trends is perhaps one of the most important lessons of the experience of rebuilding Kosovo. Reconstructing the social welfare agencies in post-conflict Kosovo did not happen in a temporal pause. Larger ongoing historical social and economic processes continued and interacted with the dynamics of the conflict and post-conflict situation, in some cases compounding the dislocating effects of the conflict itself. More specifically, in the long term, Kosovo was undergoing a general process of modernization. Lagging behind the rest of Socialist Federal Yugoslavia in industrialization, levels of productivity and investment, and surging ahead in rates of population growth and unemployment, Kosovo was long on the receiving end of a variety of efforts at regional development (Lydall 1984, 174–183; Lydall 1989, 186–193; McFarlane, 1988, 55). After 1989 and the collapse of the socialist regimes in eastern Europe, and as part of the ongoing post-socialist and later post-conflict transition, Kosovo was faced with the challenge of regional and global economic and political integration, and the concomitant tasks of economic, financial, and industrial modernization. Within the long process of modernization, one of the most pronounced effects has been increasing levels of urbanization. Simply put, across Yugoslavia, from 1945 onward, much of the population was moving from rural villages to larger towns and cities (Woodward 1995b, 348; Allcock, 2000, 164). This was not occurring in a uniform manner, however, and some areas saw more intense dislocation than others. Kosovo as whole lagged behind the rest of Yugoslavia, and within Kosovo rates of urbanization varied. Where these trends were more pronounced, they had a greater local effect and demanded a greater adjustment. The comparative cases of Prizren, which underwent highly destabilizing social, economic, and political transformations, and Kamenicë, which was markedly more stable, illustrate the overlapping dynamics. Prizren-town is one of Kosovo’s most important towns and can arguably be called something of a cultural and political center for the province. Despite the upheavals of the past 15 years, the town has maintained a veneer of its historic feel with the seventeenth-century mosque of Sinan Pasha and the nineteenth-century Orthodox Cathedral of St. George dominating the cobblestoned town center. The latter survived much of the conflict, but was ultimately attacked and burned in the March 2004 riots and was undergoing government-sponsored reconstruction. The town itself was not badly damaged during the actual conflict of the late 1990s, and by the time of UNMIK’s deployment, most homes

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and public and private buildings were relatively intact. Most damage to the housing stock occurred in revenge attacks against the town’s Kosovo Serb population in the late summer and fall of 1999. Traditionally, the town had relatively high levels of ethnic and religious diversity. The once significant Serb population was largely forced out in a sustained push of low level violence during the immediate post-conflict period. Other minority communities, however, such as Bosniaks, Goranci, Roma Ashkali and Egyptian, and Turks, are all still present in Prizren (Cocozzelli 2008, 290). Commercially, the town was home to a number of industries including pharmaceuticals, textiles, food processing, and artisan jewelry and metalwork. The urban area has a rich network of political and social organizations—official, informal, public, and private. There are also an especially high number of international NGOs working in the municipality. Prizren’s regional centrality has meant that over the course of the conflict the town attracted an increasing number of residents, intensifying local urbanization. By the time UNMIK and the assorted international organizations and NGOs engaged in the reconstruction mission arrived in Prizren in summer 1999, the town was swollen with as many as 165,000 residents. Although some 40,000 were estimated to be the result of conflict-related displacement, the population figures also represent significant long-term growth. This influx transformed the composition of the town, creating stronger and less mediated links between the rural villages and the urban center. The important role that the rural Albanian constituency played in the nationalist resistance to the Belgrade regime, especially within the KLA, meant that these new, stronger linkages also affected Prizren-town’s traditional urbane and relatively multicultural politics. When UNMIK reconstituted the municipal authorities in the wake of the conflict, the new realities of a much larger Prizren-town, changed rural-urban relations, and the political power of the former KLA were taken into account. The end result was that a more militant element found its way into the local power structures. In Prizren, the social welfare system became a point of contention among political actors, with a wide gap opening between the municipal administration, with its department of health and social welfare, and the Prishtinë directed CSW. The gap was most intensely expressed by the social work staff of the two local institutions. The CSW personnel, highly educated and professionalized, had little regard for their colleagues in the municipal department. Similarly, the workers of the municipal department, less educated, and with a more militant Kosovo Albanian nationalist background, were disparaging of the efforts of the CSW in addressing the needs of the municipality. The effect of this breakdown

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between the municipal authority and the Prishtinë ministry appeared to be an informal partitioning of the social work tasks. This division of labor was reinforced by the limited resources and capabilities of both offices. Data and interviews indicated that the CSW focused more of its attention on the problems of the urban center and its traditional population, while the municipal department expressed greater concern for the rural sector of Prizren, including the formerly rural population that had been displaced into the town. This institutional split undermined the effectiveness of the social welfare system in some ways, but it would be difficult to specify the particular results without extremely fine-grained data, much of which was unavailable. The most troubling characteristic of the social welfare system in Prizren was the coverage of the CSW-administered Social Assistance Scheme. In Prizren, the scheme covered a markedly low percentage of the population; less than 6 percent of the municipality receives social assistance benefits. Considering the high rates of both poverty (60%) and extreme poverty (19%), this take-up rate was notably low (UNDP 2004). Although difficult to determine definitely, the low takeup rate may have been a reflection of the CSW’s inability to deal with both the enlarged urban population and, more problematically, the rural population. Challenges in delivering services to the rural population were more problematic because they potentially reflect less a lack of resources and more of an institutional or structural inability. Like Prizren, Kamenicë had a relatively sizable minority population. Its composition was less diverse than in Prizren, being mainly Serb. Unlike in Prizren, the Kosovo Serb community in Kamenicë managed to sustain itself through the conflict and remains mostly intact. Locally, there was little violence during the conflict, and the municipality and town continued to be relatively calm in the post-conflict period. During the intense Kosovo-wide riots of March 2004 there were disturbances in Kamenicë, but no major damage (OSCE 2005). This sense of relative local peace has created something of a virtuous circle, in that the ongoing relations between the two major ethnic communities reinforced expectations for a relatively peaceful future. The dynamic was neatly summed up by a local during an informal conversation in downtown Kamenicë. When asked why there were fewer problems between Albanians and Serbs in the municipality since 1999, he replied that it was because there had been few problems prior to that. Despite the seeming tautology to the comment, it reflects the dynamic reality of multicultural life. The political, social, economic, and even demographic stability of Kamenicë helped create the conditions for continued stability. Expectations concerning interethnic cooperation were formed around past experience and current conditions.

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A significant or unexpected change in any given local condition would almost certainly transform local relations. As it stood, however, most transformational effects were displaced outside of the municipality. The wider trend of urbanization, which played such an important role in changing the local balances in Prizren, was less of a problem in Kamenicë because the process has drawn population out of the municipality. The various social forces that resulted in conflict and transformation in most of the rest of Kosovo are at least momentarily balanced in Kamenicë. In the field of social policy this balance resulted in a relatively unproblematic implementation of the post-conflict social welfare program. In particular, the institutional relations between the municipal department and the local CSW were better than in most municipalities. Where the two institutional sides of local social welfare were driven further apart by local demographic and political transformations in Prizren, in Kamenicë the lack of such dramatic changes has meant continued cooperation. Institutional competition and bureaucratic fighting between the two sides of the social welfare programs were simply less intense, and more manageable. At first glance the CSW in Kamenicë appeared particularly successful at service delivery throughout the majority and minority communities, in part because of the local stability. Most of the social workers and staff across the ethnic line were well known to one another and had experience of cooperation. The long-term sustainability of the arrangement that generated this success, however, was questionable. Kamenicë used a satellite welfare office in the primarily Serb village of Ranilug to provide services to that part of the community. The office operated autonomously, serving the local Kosovo Serb population with very little oversight from the main CSW in the municipality. More problematically, the satellite office received informal instructions and support from Belgrade, implicitly challenging the uniformity of the Prishtinëbased social policy. Information provided by the satellite office indicated that the beneficiary rates among the local Kosovo Serb community are much higher than the rest of the municipality. In an effort to maintain local peace, and in deference to their Kosovo Serb colleagues, the staff of the main CSW in Kamenicë-town informally decided to ignore the overrepresentation. As reflected in the local history, the emphasis is on efforts to maintain stability despite the long-term potential of a divided social welfare system and the stigma or resentment that it may engender. Conclusion: Good Efforts and Missed Opportunities The results of the social policy-making process in post-conflict Kosovo were decidedly a mixed bag. Taken as part of a project to develop a

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functioning social welfare network in the province in the wake of the conflict, the creation of a MLSW, the establishment of the Social Assistance Scheme, the pension system, other social assistance and service programs, and the management of social institutions can all be characterized as overall successes. This is not to disregard the many problems that implementation of these programs have suffered, but to highlight the fact these programs were extraordinarily difficult and the successes that they achieved should be recognized. Despite the destruction unleashed by the long conflict over Kosovo, these functioning programs were established, delivering benefits to the population and caring for those who can no longer care for themselves. In a larger sense, however, the post-conflict social policy of Kosovo had significant failings. The largest program to address poverty in the province—the Social Assistance Scheme—relied heavily on means-testing, granted meager benefits and carried the potential for stigmatization of its beneficiaries. It was effectively a social safety net of last resort. Expectations for the social assistance program to function as a mechanism for effective risk distribution for the emerging entrepreneurial middle class were low. The pension system did little for the elderly of Kosovo today, leaving them with only the lowest acceptable level of benefits. Current contributions were not only unavailable for payment to current beneficiaries, but they were also unavailable as a source of capital for Kosovo at large, as they were governed by fiduciary rules that make local investment impossible. Most importantly for the long-term development of democratic institutions in Kosovo, the province’s social policy was not derived from a process in which any of the local political constituencies were adequately represented. The policy-making process in post-conflict Kosovo relied almost entirely on the intervention of the international community. Designed largely by committee and consultant, the system was not well known or understood by the population that it is supposed to serve. As a result, the overall social welfare regime, although a limited success in a functional manner, failed as an articulation of the social rights of Kosovo residents as citizens. In a very broad sense, this is a much greater failing than any of the technical missteps of the programs themselves. Social policy is the practical mechanism for the fulfillment of a particular set of citizenship rights. In essence, the policies define the rights. If these policies are arrived at through the active participation of the local political actors, they will more accurately reflect the popular conception of the inclusive and exclusive boundaries of these rights. If they are imposed through outside intervention, they may sit uneasily, representing compromises that were not freely arrived at, or securely

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made. State efforts to fulfill social rights are a contentious process in almost any setting. Advanced industrial or even postindustrial states— democratic and otherwise—struggle with debates over the extent of social spending and the particularities of social programs. Democratic states face particular problems in making social policy. Since such policies have intense and direct effects on the lives of individuals and communities, the process of formation can often engender strong ideological and political positions. Debates concerning the design of these policies, and implementation of the programs that they imply, are often characterized by political mobilization and entrenched mutual opposition. Contention may focus on the inclusive or exclusive nature of the programs. Are recent immigrants entitled to the full rights of social citizenship once they are naturalized? Can specific communities define their own social rights within the larger community of the nation-state? Should these community-specific social rights be supported or guaranteed by the state? Other debates may focus on the responsibilities of the larger community versus those of the individual in guaranteeing social rights. Do private citizens bear the responsibility of guaranteeing their own social protection? Or rather, do particular communities? Or is the state the ultimate guarantor of the social rights of the citizen? Who bears the responsibility to pay for these rights, and how is that burden shared? These are all difficult and primarily normative questions that challenge the most stable of democratic states. Projecting these questions into the post-conflict context is an especially daunting task. On the surface, these questions may seem so large and so potentially contentious that it would be better to remove them from the political discourse, or to simply allow external actors to assume responsibility. Despite this temptation, the arguments about social policy cannot be fully removed from the post-conflict reconstruction agenda simply because they are an integral part of the effort to rebuild governing institutions that are more stable, more effective, and more just than those that had been in place prior to the conflict. Social policy, as the articulation of the social rights of citizenship, defines the dimensions of public responsibility of the citizen and state in regards to the issue of social protection. In this conception, the subject of post-conflict reconstruction is the citizen itself. In rebuilding the institutions of social welfare, the dimensions of citizenship, in terms of social protection, are delineated, and the content of social citizenship defined. This process of delineation and definition is not predetermined, but is a function of the variables that exist within the reconstruction effort. The policy outcomes may produce a citizenship that is inclusive, and is considered just by the population across

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the cleavages that drove the conflict, or it may be an exclusive vision of citizenship that reinforces prior divisions. One of the key variables—the policy preferences of the international actors that are active in post-conflict missions—is external to local politics, but because of its oversized role in governance in such contexts, its impact is very strongly felt. In Kosovo these preferences were divided between consultants and advisors who sought to build a post-socialist, market-based welfare system, and NGOs and donors who were committed to an ethos of addressing the poverty concerns of the poorest and, somewhat incongruently, to the pursuit of a plausible exit strategy. The two perspectives overlapped in their shared desire for a system that could be organized and implemented rapidly. The potential impact of social policy on the cleavage structure of Kosovo was not completely ignored. The threat of renewed conflict kept most external actors acutely aware that the ethnic divisions of Kosovo were of primary importance. When these issues were addressed, however, the response was usually conceived along the lines of a zero-sum balancing of the implementation of the social welfare system between the Serb and Albanian communities. Satellite offices and numbers of Serbian speaking staff were primary concerns. How the policy would interact with the particularities of the Kosovo Serb social situation—including issues such as poverty, old age, and isolation—were assumed to be problems of program implementation rather than policy design. The key internal political variable is the policy preferences of the domestic or local political actors. These policy preferences are diverse, differing by ideology, constituency base, and where the political actor sits in the hierarchy of governance. Ideological orientations in post-conflict contexts often form a spectrum of beliefs different from those of traditional political analysis. Questions of left or right are downgraded in deference to questions more closely related to the specifics of the recent conflict. In post-conflict Kosovo, at the provincial level, issues related to conflict roles and positions dominated the political discourse, with political parties focusing almost exclusively on the ultimate political status of the province. The questions of what type of political economy, in particular what type of social welfare political economy, were divorced from the Kosovo-wide political discourse. At the municipal level, however, there was a more active debate concerning social policy. This debate was, at times and in particular municipalities, chaotic, contentious and subject to efforts at political manipulation and corruption. Because of this, municipal input into social policy formation in Kosovo was inconsistent. Cases such as Skenderaj and Prizren, in particular, point to the negative impact of corruption and institutional competition.

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In the end these variables determined what kind of social policy was designed for post-conflict Kosovo. All indications were that there was little awareness of just how strong an impact each of these variables would have on the ultimate social welfare regime. To a very large degree, there was little awareness on the part of the actors involved, both internal and external, that they were constructing an institutional framework that would last beyond the immediate crisis of the post-conflict period. Few actors, whether international expatriates from UNMIK or the many NGOs working in province, or local politicians or activists, saw themselves as part of such a long process as the creation of a welfare state (or quasi-state). The fact that decisions, made in the chaos of the post-conflict moment, would persist through the establishment of more permanent institutions such as the Kosovo government was unappreciated by many of the individuals and organizations involved. In some ways this is the final, and broadest lesson of the design and implementation of postconflict social policy in Kosovo. Stated simply, policy decisions, whether made by international or locals, have political consequences that continue well beyond the immediate situations for which they were made.

Appendix Table A.1

DLSW data on Category I and Category II social assistance beneficiaries, April 2001 and 2002, by municipality

Municipality

Est. population

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Decan Dragash Ferizaj Fush-Kosove Gjakova Gjilan Gllogovc Istog Kacanik Kaminica Klina Leposaviq Lipjan Malisheve Mitrovica Novo Berde Obiliq Peja Podujeva Prishtina Prizren Rahovac Shterpce Shtime Skenderaj Suhareka Viti Vushtrri Zubin Potok Zvecan Total

45000 38000 113000 35000 115000 110000 60000 47000 40000 50000 44000 19000 75000 52000 105000

Cat 1

Cat 1

Cat 1 as

fami- benefi-

percent of

ciaries

population

(April (April

(April 01)

lies 01) 1376 404 887 1007 2956 1470 1443 808 505 957 1162 1816 1146 576 4735

01) 4564 916 3046 2633 9140 4572 5958 3076 1659 2447 4567 2756 3831 2554 10244

26000 704 1879 115000 2018 6269 100000 1596 6725 300000 4638 12763 190000 2233 6509 62000 1097 3756 12000 554 962 28000 341 1386 56000 3029 13307 75000 724 2857 55000 753 2751 79000 1746 5494 15000 1340 1986 16000 2114 2077000 42021 128607

benefi-

percent of

(April

population

lies

ciaries

population

lies

01)

(April 01)

(April

(April

(April 02)

(April

(April

02) 357 319 520 354 320 597 762 260 393 355 329 194 517 253 1776

02) 1994 1599 2862 1758 1491 3006 4379 1609 1922 1819 1807 729 2961 1594 8099

7.83846154 220 4.18086957 610 5.835 696 3.977 1313 3.12 868 5.48870968 301 6.81666667 253 4.80357143 224 20.4839286 1005 3.90133333 353 4.09272727 286 6.41392405 569 12.5466667 83 13.29375 127 5.34068368 14087

1094 3501 4275 6664 4936 1546 1088 1307 4918 2264 1647 2919 358 544 74146

ciaries

population

(April (April

(April 01)

01) 446 193 340 193 479 553 665 146 268 255 528 222 376 126 1955

01) 2624 1088 2058 1000 2169 2966 3888 906 1369 1097 2863 447 2458 826 9220

7.22692308 141 5.45130435 417 6.725 452 4.25433333 642 3.42578947 471 6.05806452 149 8.01666667 214 4.95 95 23.7625 1543 3.80933333 223 5.00181818 138 6.95443038 567 13.24 70 13.2125 130 6.19195956 11867

745 2353 2801 3562 2810 829 871 632 7713 1450 882 3083 210 418 62920

10.1422222 2.41052632 2.69557522 7.52285714 7.94782609 4.15636364 9.93 6.54468085 4.1475 4.894 10.3795455 14.5052632 5.108 4.91153846 9.75619048

Cat 1 as

fami-

1+2

lies

5.83111111 2.86315789 1.82123894 2.85714286 1.88608696 2.69636364 6.48 1.92765957 3.4225 2.194 6.50681818 2.35263158 3.27733333 1.58846154 8.78095238

Cat 2

Cat 1

percent of

Cat

percent of

Cat 2

Cat 2

Cat 1 + 2 as Cat 1

Cat 2 as

fami- benefi-

Cat 2

7188 2004 5104 3633 11309 7538 9846 3982 3028 3544 7430 3203 6289 3380 19464

2.86538462 2624 2.04608696 8622 2.801 9526 1.18733333 16325 1.47894737 9319 1.33709677 4585 7.25833333 1833 2.25714286 2018 13.7732143 21020 1.93333333 4307 1.60363636 3633 3.90253165 8577 1.4 2196 2.6125 2532 3.02936928 191527

15.9733333 5.27368421 4.51681416 10.38 9.83391304 6.85272727 16.41 8.47234043 7.57 7.088 16.8863636 16.8578947 8.38533333 6.5 18.5371429 no data 10.0923077 7.4973913 9.526 5.44166667 4.90473684 7.39516129 15.275 7.20714286 37.5357143 5.74266667 6.60545455 10.856962 14.64 15.825 9.22132884

02) 1025 544 850 1077 1753 1257 1173 598 454 810 947 2064 990 616 4798 734 1773 1491 4363 2174 989 412 356 3191 766 653 1617 1219

02) 3151 1267 2833 2720 5114 3719 4497 1915 1421 2102 3198 3329 3276 2326 10355

2038 4808 5835 11931 5928 3403 818 1345 11471 2926 2251 5067 1882 2127 38694 110926

7.00222222 3.33 2.51 7.77 4.45 3.38090909 7.495 4.07446809 3.5525 4.204 7.26818182 17.5210526 4.368 4.47307692 9.86190476

10.1057/9780230104945 - War and Social Welfare, Fred Pompeo Cocozzelli

Cat 2

Cat

Cat 1 + 2 as

fami- benefi- beneficiaries

1+2

percent of

ciaries as percent of

(April

population

population

02)

(April 02)

(April 02) 4.43111111 4.20789474 2.53274336 5.02285714 1.29652174 2.73272727 7.29833333 3.42340426 4.805 3.638 4.10681818 3.83684211 3.948 3.06538462 7.71333333

5145 2866 5695 4478 6605 6725 8876 3524 3343 3921 5005 4058 6237 3920 18454

11.4333333 7.54210526 5.03982301 12.7942857 5.74347826 6.11363636 14.7933333 7.49787234 8.3575 7.842 11.375 21.3578947 8.316 7.53846154 17.5752381

4.20769231 3132 3.04434783 8309 4.275 10110 2.22133333 18595 2.59789474 10864 2.49354839 4949 9.06666667 1906 4.66785714 2652 8.78214286 16389 3.01866667 5190 2.99454545 3898 3.69493671 7986 2.38666667 2240 3.4 2671 3.56986038 185072

12.0461538 7.22521739 10.11 6.19833333 5.71789474 7.98225806 15.8833333 9.47142857 29.2660714 6.92 7.08727273 10.1088608 14.9333333 16.69375 8.91054405


NOTES Chapter 1 1. President George W. Bush’s inability to push through a privatization of the U.S. Social Security program in 2005 despite having only just won reelection in 2004 and Republican control of both houses of Congress highlights the political strength that the program enjoys.

Chapter 2 1. Because of the particularities of its own political history, Albania itself played only a very limited political role through the long history of the Kosovo conflict. 2. There was an effort to create nonethnic social movements focused on peace building and democratization, however these movements never grew strong enough to displace the more dominant ethnicized movements. Howard Clark documents and analyzes the limitations of the “Democratic Alternative” as it was known, in his excellent book Civil Resistance in Kosovo. 3. It is a mistake either overstate or underappreciate the role of criminal organizations in the Kosovo Albanian nationalist movement. Violent antistate rebellions necessarily operate on the fringes of legality, and connections to criminal organizations are not uncommon. These organizations can facilitate a range of transactions and access to resources that are extremely useful for rebellions and revolutionary groups. Transactions include the movement and laundering of money, as well as the fundraising and the purchase of weapons. Resources that criminal organizations can supply vary from guns and arms to communications and transportation networks. These dynamics are common across a variety of conflicts. Criminality, and its role in political violence is not a particular characteristic of Kosovo, Albanians, Serbs, or the Balkans as a whole. 4. There is some debate as to why the international community did not respond rapidly enough to the refugee flow coming out of Kosovo in spring 1999. The UNHCR independent evaluation of preparedness and response stated, “There is little doubt that the speed and magnitude of the refugee movement took the international aid community by surprise”

194

5.

6. 7.

8.


(Suhrke et al. 2000, 17). One aspect of the debate has been the contention the Western military leaders had known about the impending waves of refugees and had shared that information with the UN, implying that the international agencies should have been better prepared to respond. This aspect was also addressed by the UNHCR evaluation; “NATO might have had intelligence information suggesting that the Yugoslav army was preparing for a NATO attack by planning a counter-offensive, and that civilians as a consequence would be expelled or likely to flee. If so, the alliance did not divulge such information, and probably could not have done so without undermining its claim that the forthcoming military campaign would be brief, surgical and successful” (Suhrke et al. 2000, 18–19). In addition to the issues of political control, CRS was also concerned about the use of Mother Teresa’s name, image, and “brand.” There were contending interpretations of where both Mother Teresa herself and the Vatican stood on the particularities of the issue. As a show of legitimacy, a framed, photocopied letter of support from Mother Teresa herself was a staple of any MTS branch or subbranch office. Despite their weak ideological roots, however, the later political parties that derived from the Enverist have developed a somewhat more leftleaning platform in the post-conflict period. For further discussions of traditional family structures in rural Kosovo see Gloria La Cava et al., Conflict and Change in Kosovo: Impact on Institutions and Society (World Bank, Washington, D.C.: 200), and Berit Backer, Behind Stone Walls: Changing Household Organization among the Albanians of Kosova (Dukagjini Publishing, Pejë: 2003). The events in Racak and their interpretation have been contentious. Debates have persisted over whether the dead were civilians or KLA fighters, whether they were killed at close range and whether the entire event was a provocation by the KLA. The comprehensive 2001 Human Rights Watch report Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo best captures the difficult and tragic interaction between the two competing perspectives, “It is a troubling fact that the 1998 and 1999 Kosovo war was marked by well-publicized massacres of civilians, such as in Prekaz, Gornje Obinje, and Racak, which were all turning points in the war. All of the evidence shows that these crimes were committed by habitually brutal Serbian and Yugoslav forces, but it is clear that the KLA understood the political benefits of publicizing civilian deaths” (109).

Chapter 3 1. The World Bank and the Statistical Office of Kosovo defined “food or extreme poverty” as €0.93 per day, and “complete poverty” as €1.41 per day. Food or extreme poverty reflects the calculations of the cost of a minimal intake of 2100 calories per day. Complete poverty assumes

Notes

195

nonfood expenses, and “is calculated as the sum of the food component (the food poverty line) and nonfood component, where the food poverty line corresponds to 65.9 percent of the complete poverty line” (World Bank 2005, 18). 2. According to officials within the MLSW, the ministry and department “cannot and does not collect data on nationality.” The numbers cited are calculated based on locations of the payment sites, and are therefore not definitive.

Chapter 4 1. Skenderaj and Malishevë are the Albanian spellings. Srbica and Malisevo are the Serbian spellings. For the sake of convenience, and because these were the names in common use among locals and expatriates while I was conducting my research, I use the Albanian spellings. See the Introduction for a more complete discussion of the use of Serbian and Albanian place names. 2. Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian, or RAE, are the designations commonly used by the international community in Kosovo for what are generally referred to as the Roma. The Ashkali and Egyptian communities do not identify themselves as Roms, but by their respective self-designation. Some scholars use the term Egipkjani to distinguish the community from the nation-state of Egypt, but this is not common and differs from the community’s own practice. My thanks to Dr. Victor Friedman for his insights into the use of this term. 3. See Cocozzelli 2008 for a more detailed analysis of the situation of the non-Serb minorities in Kosovo. 4. Dardania was the ancient Illyrian name for the region. It has been used by some Kosovo Albanian activists as part of a discourse that traces their collective roots to the Illyrians. 5. Pilot Municipal Units are small, self-governing areas within larger municipalities. They are part of the Kosovo decentralization plan. 6. Radovan Karadžić, the political leader of the Bosnian Serb community, and Ratko Mladić, the leader of the Bosnian Serb military, were initially indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on July 24, 1995. Karadžić was eventually arrested in Belgrade, Serbia in July 2008. He was transferred to The Hague for trial shortly after his arrest. Ratko Mladić remains at large as of this writing in April 2009. 7. Background information on Malishevë is mostly derived from the 2005 OSCE municipal profile, and the author’s own notes. 8. The lower figure is from the 2002 Department of Labor and Social Welfare’s internal estimate for the lower figure, and the higher figure is from the 2005 OSCE municipal profile. 9. By way of international comparison, in 2004, this is closest to the HDI scores for Moldova and Bolivia.

196


10. Overall, in 2004, 29.34 percent of Kosovo residents over 15 years old had completed primary school and 39.87 percent had completed secondary school (UNDP 2004, 120) 11. See UNMIK Regulation 1999/24, On the Applicable Law in Kosovo, December 24, 1999 12. Data comes from reports of the local Implementing Partner. Data of this kind is available only for Malishevë, Dragash, Prizren, Rahovec, Suharekë, Shtime, and Strpce. Other IPs either did not keep these files or did not make them available. 13. Data comes from DLSW records. This data was only available disaggregated to the municipal level for 2001 and 2002. 14. Unpublished raw data obtained from UNDP—Kosovo. This data was later used to compile the first edition of the UNDP—Kosovo publication Kosovo Mosaic in 2003. 15. Background information on Skenderaj is mostly derived from the OSCE municipal profile as of February 2005, and from the author’s own notes. 16. Additional statistics from 2001 and 2002 were culled from internal DLSW data. 17. These calculations come from raw, unpublished data from UNDP Kosovo. The published report misrepresents the Kosovo-wide score for pensions.

Chapter 5 1. Prizren is spelled the same in Albanian and Serbian; in the interest of consistency I use the Albanian spelling of Kamenicë through the rest of the chapter. 2. The terms Prizren-town and Kamenicë-town are used to differentiate the municipal seat from the greater municipality. Although these terms are admittedly awkward, they were in common usage among international staff working in Kosovo. 3. Each municipality employs its own terminology for the departments. In Prizren, for example, it is the Department of Health and Social Welfare; in Kamenicë it is the Department of Health and Social Services. Other municipalities follow similar practices. 4. Municipalities were known as Opština in Serbian, Kommune in Albanian. 5. The question of the number of municipalities remained a contentious issue, with the Kosovo Serb community pushing for the creation of new municipalities in some areas. The final status proposal released by UN Special Envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari in February 2007 specifies an increase in the number of municipalities in order to accommodate the creation of new Kosovo Serb majority local entities, including in Kamenicë. 6. Rexhep Qosja subsequently resigned his position in the IAC and retired from politics.

Notes

197

7. The term “citizens’ initiative” was meant to designate an ad hoc nonparty organization, usually active only within one municipality. The term was eventually defined in UNMIK Regulation 2004/12 (1.1(d)) as “a group of persons who voluntarily associate on the basis of a common idea, interest or viewpoint with the objective of having their candidates elected, but who do not wish to form a Political Party.” 8. This analysis is restricted to the Albanian majority municipalities because the Kosovo Serb community did not participate in the 2000 and 2007 elections, making it impossible to evaluate the data from municipalities where they had enough of a presence to dramatically alter the electoral dynamic. Those municipalities were Leposavic, Novo Brdo, Zvecan, Strpce, and Zubin Potok, 9. Goranci are a community of Serbian-speaking Muslim Slavs. See Cocozzelli 2008 for more detailed analysis of the non-Serb minority communities in Kosovo, including the Goranci. 10. For the Human Development Report 2004, UNDP Kosovo used the World Bank estimates to define the poverty line and the extreme poverty line. The poverty line was determined at €57.39 per month. The extreme poverty line was determined at €27.93 per month. 11. As late as summer 2002 the municipal social workers were still maintaining the Temporary Collective Centers (TCC) for the conflict-displaced, well after the vast majority had returned to their homes and most international agencies had ended their support. At that point, the TCC was functioning more as traditional homeless shelter serving the long-term displaced, rather than a post-conflict relief effort. 12. Analysis is further complicated by the DLSW’s later decision to maintain statistics by region rather than municipality. 13. There were differing opinions on whether or not MTS was “endorsed” by Mother Teresa, and therefore an acceptable partner for an official Roman Catholic organization. The problem was described within CRS at the time as centering on questions of “branding.” Apparently it was the use of the “Mother Teresa” brand that was in question. 14. Although both MTS and RCK were able to deliver to some minority communities, the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) took responsibility for delivering applications to a small number of minorities, mostly Kosovo Serbs, who were especially vulnerable or isolated. 15. Note that in Kamenicë the municipal department responsible for social welfare is known as the “department of health and social services,” rather than the more common “department of health and social welfare.” 16. According to the OSCE profile of Kamenicë, in addition to the Kosovo Serb community there is a small number (about 500) of Roma living in Kamenicë, primarily in the Serb-dominated parts of Kamenicë-town and the village of Berivojce. 17. Internal data from the DLSW, April 2002.


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Shala, Zef. 2002. Chief Finance Officer, MTS, Prishtinë Headquarters. July 8. Thaçi, Islam. 2003. Municipal Chief Executive Officer, Kamenicë. June 4. Waterfield, Matthew. 2002. Head of Social Assistance Division, DLSW, Prishtinë. June 24.

Index

Page numbers in italics designate figures. Action Against Hunger xi, 4, 53 Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) 53 Agani, Fehmi 46 Albania 39, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 64, 67, 88, 116, 133, 145, 193n Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK) 81, 95, 97, 99, 102–104, 108, 109, 117, 118, 142, 156, 158 Alliance for a New Kosovo (AKR) 108, 109, 117, 118, 144, 156 Banking and Payment Authority of Kosovo (BPK) 75–76, 82, 87, 89 Bosnia-Herzegovina 14, 42, 44, 64, 88, 177 Bosniaks 3, 45, 98–99, 114, 146, 153, 171, 184 Bukoshi, Bujar 46–47, 135 CARE International xi, 4, 53, 77, 175 Caritas 51 Catholic Relief Services (CRS) xi, 3, 4, 6, 51, 52, 53, 67, 75, 148, 152, 153, 175, 194n, 197n Center for Social Work (CSW) 3, 4, 6–8, 69–70, 73, 75–78, 82, 84–86, 92, 94, 108–111,

119–126, 130–133, 140, 142, 145, 148–149, 152–154, 157–159, 160–163, 172, 180–182, 184–186 Cetta, Anton 51 China 1 citizenship 3, 12–13, 15–19, 22–23, 25, 31, 33, 36, 48, 59, 86, 94, 105, 123, 126–127, 130, 162–163, 166–169, 173, 176, 178, 180, 187–189 clientelism 84, 113, 123, 180–181 commodification (and decommodification) 15, 19, 26, 61, 89 Coordinating Council on Political Parties 45 corruption 69, 71, 92, 106, 111, 122, 172, 180–181, 189 Croatia 14, 42, 44, 64 Daci, Nexhat 100 Dayton Accords 44 Deçan / Decani x, 8, 56, 99, 100, 102, 144, 147, appendix Democratic League of Dardania (LDD) 100, 108, 109, 117, 144, 156 Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) 45–48, 50, 55–56, 59–60, 81, 93, 95–96, 99–103,

210

Index

105, 108, 109, 117, 118, 135–136, 142–144, 156, 174–175, 182 Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) 81, 93, 95, 97, 99–103, 105, 108, 109, 117, 118, 119, 123, 125–126, 142–144, 156, 181–182 Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) 97, 156 Department of Health and Social Welfare (DHSW) 73, 77–78, 131, 138 Department for International Development, UK (DFID) 14 Doctors of the World 51 Dragas / Dragash x, 6, 77, 100, 146, 196n, appendix Drenica 51, 56, 97, 102, 107, 115–116, 181 economic performance (and welfare states) 24, 169 emergency councils 3–4, 53, 71 Emergency Financial Assistance Program (EFAP) 108–109 European Union (EU) 29 Ferizaj / Urosevac 100, 150, appendix Field Level Transition Meetings (FLTM) 7 food aid 5–7, 16, 26, 28, 52–53, 58, 69–72, 74, 77, 175 Food for Peace. See USAID Forum Civil Peace Service 148 France 1, 11, 58, 171 Frashëri, Abdyl 148 Fushë Kosovë / Kosovo Polje 100, appendix Germany 24, 46, 47, 56, 148, 171 Gjakovë / Dakovica x, 7, 56, 99, 102, 146, 157 Gjilan / Gnjilane 100, 154–155, 160

Gllogovc / Glogovac 56, 100, 102, 106, appendix Goranci 3, 45, 65, 98–99, 146, 171, 184, 197n Haradinaj, Ramush 103–104 Hezbollah 165 Human Development Index (HDI) 64, 92, 106, 125, 195n humanitarian assistance 3–6, 12, 29–30, 52, 54, 67–68, 73–75 Implementing Partner (IP) 74, 75 Institute for Social Policy (ISP) 50, 56, 73, 79, 82, 85 International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) 14, 103 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 41–42, 63 International Rescue Committee 4 Istog / Istok 56, 100, appendix Isufi, Ahmet xi, 81, 90, 158 Jashari, Adem 116 Jessen-Petersen, Søren 143 Joint Interim Administrative Structures (JIAS) 73, 76, 80, 83, 131, 137, 138, 142, 172, 176 Kaçanik / Kacanik 44–45, 99, 144 Kamenicë / Kamenica x, 6, 81, 85, 91, 99, 104, 129–133, 145, 150, 153–162, 180, 183, 185–186, 196–197n Keynesianism 23–24 KFOR (Kosovo Force) 114 Klinë / Klina 56, 99–100, 102, 104, 106, 148, appendix Koalition Povratak (Coalition Return [KP]) 97–98, 156 Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) (also UÇK) 45, 55–58, 60, 69, 81, 95–97, 101, 103–104,

Index

107, 109, 115–116, 119, 126, 135–136, 139, 142–143, 154, 175, 182, 184, 194n Kosovo Polje (site of the battle of 1389) 41–42 Kosovo Trust Agency 114 Kosovo Verification Mission 58 Kouchner, Bernard 2, 134, 137, 141, 176 League of Communists of Yugoslavia 39, 46, 119 League of Prizren 148 Lebanon 165–166 Lee, Michele. See Magaš, Branka Leposavic / Leposaviq 99, appendix Lipjan / Lipljan 99–101, 144, appendix Local Distribution Partner (LDP) 53, 69, 75, 77, 153 Lushtaku, Sami 107, 116 Macedonia 44, 52–53, 57–58, 64, 65, 68, 88, 133, 145, 171 Magaš, Branka 40 Maliqi, Shkelzen 54 Malishevë / Malisevo 6, 56–57, 85, 91–95, 99–102, 104, 105–113, 115, 119, 121, 124–127 Marshall, T. H. 17, 19, 94, 126, 168 means-testing 1, 61, 70–71, 88, 112, 122, 176–177, 182, 187 Médicins sans Frontières 51 Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art 41–42 Mercy Corps International (MCI) xi, 4, 51–53, 67, 75, 118–119, 175 Miloševic´, Slobodan 1, 31, 41–43, 55, 58 Ministry / Department of Labour and Social Welfare (M/DLSW) 8, 55, 80–86, 89, 93, 110–113,

211

120–122, 124, 126, 130–131, 133, 142, 148–149, 157, 172, 187, 195–197n Mitevic, Dusan 42 Mitrovica / Mitrovicë 8, 100, 147, 157, 159, appendix Mother Teresa Charitable and Humanitarian Society (MTS) xi, 5, 7, 49–55, 57, 59, 69–72, 74–75, 77, 96, 117–119, 136, 153, 172, 174–176, 194n, 197n National Movement for the Liberation of Kosova (LKÇK) 56, 115 nationalism 15, 34, 40–43, 57, 116, 174, 181 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 1, 3, 46, 50, 52–54, 57–58, 62, 67–68, 96, 102, 105–106, 141, 146, 155, 175, 194n Novo Brdo / Novobërdë 99, 154–155, 197n, appendix Obiliq / Obilic 100, appendix Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) 8, 9, 58, 95, 101, 113, 119–120, 146–148, 154–155, 171, 195–197n Ottomans 146, 148 Pejë / Pec 56, 99, 102, 104, 146, 152, 157 pensions 12, 18, 21, 23, 25, 29, 61, 66, 81–83, 86–89, 123, 125, 151–152, 177, 187, 196n Podujevë / Podujevo 100, appendix Popular Movement for the Liberation of Kosova (LPK) 56–57, 60, 115 poverty 16, 27, 56, 62, 64–66, 85, 89, 91–93, 104, 112–113,

212

Index

116, 120, 122, 124–125, 145, 147, 149–154, 156–157, 161, 176–177, 181–182, 185, 187, 189, 194–195n, 197n poverty, trap 151–153 Prishtinë 1, 8, 21, 37–39, 46–47, 50–51, 56, 66, 73, 77, 79, 85–86, 92, 94–95, 100, 103, 105, 107, 110–111, 115, 118–120, 122, 124, 127, 130, 132, 142, 147–148, 152, 154–155, 157, 159, 160–161, 172, 176, 180–181, 184–185 Prizren 3, 6–7, 56, 85, 91, 99, 129–133, 136, 145–158, 161–163, 180, 183–186, 189, 196n, appendix Provisional Institutions for SelfGovernment (PISG) 66, 80–83, 86, 93, 101–102, 131, 158, 161, 172, 175–176 Qosja, Rexhep 136–137, 142 Racak 58, 194n Rahovec / Orahovac 99–101, 106, 146, 196n, appendix Rambouillet 11, 58, 96, 102, 136, 141 Ranilug / Ranilluk 158–163, 186 Rawls, John 14, 17, 168 Red Cross 71; of Yugoslavia 5, 54, 72, 77, 139; of Kosova 54, 77, 153, 197n refugees 30, 50, 52–54, 58, 67, 112, 134, 193–194n remittances 64, 83 Republic of Kosova 9, 35, 36, 45, 46, 47, 48, 57, 100, 135, 136, 141, 159, 174 Rexhepi, Bajram 81, 102 riots: of 1981 38–39, 41, 57, 97; of March 2004, 114, 135, 161, 183, 185 Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian (RAE) 3, 45, 65, 98–99, 105,

113, 136, 146, 153, 155, 161, 171, 184, 195n Rugova, Ibrahim 46–47, 57, 81, 100, 102, 135–137, 142–143, 174 Russia 1, 171 Sejdiu, Fatmir 100 self-management 119, 138–140 Serbia xi, 1–2, 9, 11, 14, 29, 34–35, 37–38, 40–44, 58–59, 67, 85–86, 88, 95–98, 100, 104, 132–134, 140, 154, 157–160, 171, 174–175, 195n Serbian Radical Party (SRS) 97 Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) 97 Shtime / Stimlje 100, 144, 196n, appendix Skenderaj / Srbica 6, 51, 56–57, 84–85, 91–95, 100, 102, 104–105, 110, 113–127, 118, 129–130, 132–133, 144, 148–149, 154, 156–157, 162, 179–182, 189, 195–196n Slovenia 42, 44, 46, 63, 64 Social Assistance Scheme xi, 3–4, 6–7, 21, 26, 28, 61–62, 69, 92, 111–112, 120, 123–125, 130, 138, 149, 151–155, 158, 162, 182, 185, 187 social justice 12–15, 17, 23, 49, 166–168 social rights 11, 15–20, 31, 36, 61, 90, 94, 126–127, 162–163, 166, 168–169, 173, 187–188 social welfare regimes 20, 23, 61–62, 89–90, 169–170, 176 socialism, Yugoslav. See selfmanagement Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) 2, 82, 134–135, 137–138, 141, 143, 176 Stambolic, Ivan 42

Index

Strpce / Shtërpcë 8, 99, 146–147, 159, 196–197n, appendix Suva Reka / Suharekë 6, 8, 100, 106, 146, 196n, appendix take-up rates 112, 150–152, 185 Thaçi, Hashim 96, 102–103, 135–137, 142 Titmuss, Richard 12, 19–20 Transition Task Force 28, 73, 79, 82 Turks (and Turkish community) 3, 45, 57, 98, 114, 146, 148, 153, 171, 184 unemployment 12, 16, 24–25, 29, 63–66, 76, 98, 104, 105, 114, 145, 148, 150–153, 156, 183 United Kingdom (Great Britain) 18, 171, 177 United Nations (UN) 2 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) 8, 65–66, 115, 150 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 4, 66–67, 73, 177, 193–194n United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) 2, 8, 66–70, 72–75, 80–82, 85–86, 94, 97–99, 101, 107–109, 114–115, 119, 131–139, 141–142, 159, 166, 171–172, 174–176, 179–180, 182–184, 190, 196n, 197n

213

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 2, 58, 67, 72, 133–134 United States 1, 18, 58, 96, 103, 136, 169, 171, 177 United States Agency for International Development (USAID) 5, 14, 26–27, 67, 73, 75, 77, 81 urbanization 85, 129–130, 132, 145, 147, 151, 157, 183–184, 186 Vieira de Mello, Sergio 135 Viti / Vitina 100, appendix Vojvodina 34, 37, 43 Vushtrri / Vucitrn 100, appendix Wilensky, Harold 2, 17, 19, 24, 112, 169 World Bank 65, 81 World Food Programme (WFP) 5, 26–27, 52–53, 66–68, 73–75, 77, 81, 177 World Vision 4, 51, 53 World War II 23–24, 38, 169 Yugoslav Left (JUL) 97 Yugoslavia 2, 9, 14, 31, 34, 37–44, 47–48, 56–58, 62, 65, 119, 133–134, 139–140, 159, 174, 181, 183, 195n Zubin Potok 99, 114, 197n, appendix Zvecan 99, 159, 197n, appendix

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