'Global' norms and 'local' agency: frictional peacebuilding in Kosovo

Summary, in English

This article explores how the 'liberal democratic peace package' is received in post-conflict spaces. As such, it is part of a critical peace research agenda that raises critical questions concerning the quality of peace in many post-conflict societies. A close reading of the peace-building process in post-conflict Kosovo provides the backdrop for the theoretical discussion that identifies friction in norm diffusion processes and the different agencies that are generated through encounters between global norms and local practices. We unpack the interplay between the 'global' and the 'local' in peacebuilding and, through the lens of friction, we reveal the diverse and unequal encounters that produce new power relations. By foregrounding agency, we theorise different agentive subjects in the post-conflict setting, and map local agency from various segments of society that may localise, co-opt or reject global norms pertaining to the liberal democratic peace.

• Author: Annika Björkdahl; Ivan Gusic
• Department/s: Department of Political Science
• Publishing year: 2015
• Language: English
• Pages: 265-287
• Publication/Series: Journal of International Relations and Development
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 3
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/jird.2015.18
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Topic: Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)
• Keywords: agency; friction; Kosovo; norms; peacebuilding
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 1581-1980