17. Gëzim Visoka (2020), ‘Kosovo’, in Paul Williams and Milena Sterio (eds) Handbook on Post-Conflict State Building. London: Edward Edgar.
This chapter offers an overview of the main features and dynamics of state building in Kosovo, as well as an examination of some of the key challenges in Kosovo’s state building process over the last twenty years. The first section of this chapter offers an overview of three main approaches of international state building efforts in Kosovo to map out the context-specific dynamics that have shaped the state building agenda. Then, in the second section, the chapter examines some of the most salient challenges to state building to illustrate the complex factors that have mitigated the success of international missions in Kosovo. The third and final section reflects on what can be taken as contingent lessons from Kosovo. The chapter demonstrates that a state building process that occurs without a signed peace agreement and defined and without legitimate sovereign authority is prone to failure.
