Monday, March 24th, 2014 Ethnonationalist Conflict in Postcommunist States: Varieties of Governance in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Kosovo

Description

Ethnonationalist Conflict in Postcommunist States investigates why some Eastern European states transitioned to new forms of governance with minimal violence while others broke into civil war. In Bulgaria, the Turkish minority was subjected to coerced assimilation and forced expulsion, but the nation ultimately negotiated peace through institutional channels. In Macedonia, periodic outbreaks of insurgent violence escalated to armed conflict. Kosovo’s internal warfare culminated in NATO’s controversial bombing campaign. In the twenty-first century, these conflicts were subdued, but violence continued to flare occasionally and impede durable conflict resolution.
In this comparative study, Maria Koinova applies historical institutionalism to conflict analysis, tracing ethnonationalist violence in postcommunist states to a volatile, formative period between 1987 and 1992. In this era of instability, the incidents that brought majorities and minorities into dispute had a profound impact and a cumulative effect, as did the interventions of international agents and kin states. Whether the conflicts initially evolved in peaceful or violent ways, the dynamics of their disputes became self-perpetuating and informally institutionalized. Thus, external policies or interventions could affect only minimal change, and the impact of international agents subsided over time. Regardless of the constitutions, laws, and injunctions, majorities, minorities, international agents, and kin states continue to act in accord with the logic of informally institutionalized conflict dynamics.
Koinova analyzes the development of those dynamics in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Kosovo, drawing on theories of democratization, international intervention, and path-dependence as well as interviews and extensive fieldwork. The result is a compelling account of the underlying causal mechanisms of conflict perpetuation and change that will shed light on broader patterns of ethnic violence.

Dr. Maria Koinova is Associate Professor at Warwick University in the United Kingdom. She received her Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and spent 10 years in the United States on professional appointments at Harvard, Cornell, Dartmouth, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. She is currenty directing a large research project entitled “Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty: Transnational Mobilization of Diasporas in Europe and Its Impact on the Balkans, Caucasus, and the Middle East.” The project is sponsored by the European Research Council, has four research scholars and will be conducted until 2017. Koinova’s comparative work on diaspora politics, conflicts and post-conflict reconstruction has been published by Review of International Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, Communist and Post-communist Studies, International Political Sociology, and Ethnic and Racial Studies. Another article is forthcoming with the European Journal of International Relations. Her book “Ethnonationalist Conflict in Post-communist States: Varieties of Governance in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Kosovo” was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2013.