15. Gëzim Visoka and Oliver P. Richmond (2017), ‘After Liberal Peace? From Failed Statebuilding to an Emancipatory Peace in Kosovo’, International Studies Perspectives, 18(1): 110-129.
Attempts to build a liberal peace and a concurrent neoliberal state in Kosovo have not managed to produce a sustainable and emancipatory peace. Instead, they have produced a local and negative hybrid peace that has been co-opted by the dynamics of local state formation and state contestation. These dynamics have overshadowed a meaningful transition from ethnic hostility to sustainable peace, which in Kosovo’s context encompasses pluralism, security, law, rights, and liberal institutions, as well as the recognition of contextual identity and historical political struggles for justice. This article examines the emergence of a negative hybrid peace and explores the prospects for a more emancipatory form of peace based on local pro-peace infrastructure which avoids the pitfalls of liberal peace in practice.
