Kosovo has one of the most decentralized unitary governments in the world, with highly conflicted understandings over the nature of power-sharing. The paradox of conflict resolution in deeply divided societies is that it almost always creates new problems while attempting to solve old ones.
Howard Clark’s 2009 article “The Limits of Prudence” is a clear summary of his research into the civil resistance in Kosovo in the late 1980s and early 1990s and his particular perspectives on its limitations. It was written in the aftermath of the outbreak of guerilla warfare and NATO interventio
This is one of two extracts from Howard Clark’s major study Civil Resistance in Kosovo (the other can be read here). Both are important reflections of Howard’s particular perspectives. They merit close reading alongside his article “The limits of prudence” (republished here).
Howard Clark’s seminal work Civil Resistance in Kosovo, published in 2000, further refined his distinctive approach to nonviolent strategy, and his groundbreaking research into civil resistance in Kosovo: “Nonviolence in Kosovo was a strategic commitment.”
At a meeting of the Nonviolent Action Research Project on Thursday 13 March, 1997, Howard Clark talked about the campaign for self-determination in Kosovo/a. The issues raised in this talk were to be critical to his seminal work, Civil Resistance in Kosovo, published in 2000.
The post-1945 system is today overtaken by events and a new world order is about to emerge. This new—quite explosive—background doesn’t signal the end of the EU, but shouts out that its core features must be redesigned and receive broad popular support. The question is how.
The world has seen far more handshakes and meetings between Pristina and Belgrade than in the first years after the conflict. Is all this to be put at risk by Clint Williamson's part-endorsement of the Marty report?
A new socialist model is emerging in the western Balkans. Can its political vocabulary transcend the ethno-national dividing lines in the region?
From Ukraine to the Balkans, the last twenty-four years have witnessed political elites preaching democracy while surreptitously undermining every single democratic institution, atomizing individuals through economic hardship and reducing freedom to a fake political independence.
The violent clashes that marked Kosovo's election last Sunday are just part of a wider problem regarding the rule of law in the country.
Grasping at vague notions of Kosovo as a ‘good war’ may be expedient - any precedent will do in a pinch. But this comparison is inaccurate and dangerously misleading.
