Problems of Post-Communism

ISSN: 1075-8216 (Print) 1557-783X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mppc20

Resisting International State Building in Kosovo

Chris van der Borgh
To cite this article: Chris van der Borgh (2012) Resisting International State Building in Kosovo,
Problems of Post-Communism, 59:2, 31-42
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/PPC1075-8216590203

Published online: 08 Dec 2014.

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Resisting International State

Building in Kosovo
Downloaded by [University of Oslo] at 00:30 26 January 2016

Chris van der Borgh

Between 1999 and 2008, Kosovo

Serbs built governance structures
to parallel those of Kosovo
Albanians as a form of resistance
to international administration,
but these institutions became
an arena of domestic political
contestation for elite Serbian
groups.

Chris van der Borgh is assistant professor at the Center for Conflict
Studies, Utrecht University.

Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 59, no. 2, March/April 2012, pp. 3142.

2012 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 10758216 / 2012 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/PPC1075-8216590203

n the years following the bombing missions undertaken

by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in
Serbia, Kosovo was administered by the United Nations
Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK),
which built provisional government institutions while
gradually transferring power to a new government. 1
UNMIKs mission was based on UN Security Council
Resolution no. 1244, which suspended Yugoslavias sovereignty over Kosovo and became the governing charter
for UNMIK (Yannis 2004).2 This resolution has been
criticized for its ambiguity, since it recognized Yugoslavias sovereignty over Kosovo but also mentioned that
UNMIK would promote meaningful self-governance
while calling for a political process to settle the status
issue (Chesterman 2004). Although international actors
postponed the decision about Kosovos future status,
which had become the main bone of contention between
the Serbian minority in Kosovo and the majority Kosovo
Albanians, it remained a key issue for the parties to the
conflict, who fundamentally disagreed about the meaning
of meaningful self-governance.3 In the absence of consensus on Kosovos status, it soon became clear that the
conflict, instead of freezing, had entered a new phase
that included international agencies (De Vrieze 2002).
The UN-led status talks (20062007) on Kosovo did
not lead to an agreement; and on February 17, 2008, the
provisional government of Kosovo unilaterally declared
Kosovo an independent state.4
From 1999 until the unilateral declaration of independence, tensions between the government of Serbia
and the new (majority Albanian) authorities in Kosovo
remained, and Belgrade maintained its presence in the

van der Borgh Resisting International State Building in Kosovo 31

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form of governance structures and institutions in Kosovar

regions with Serbian majorities. The existence of parallel
institutionsand, in particular, the problems of integrating them into the new Kosovar state structureshows that
state building and democratization have suffered from the
absence of consensus about the ultimate goal and have in
fact been contested from the start. UNMIK, an interim
administration mission that claimed full legislative and
executive authority, did not enter a political vacuum but
confronted various local political actors with their own
(opposed) political agendas and practices and their own
political arrangements (Chesterman 2004, p. 128).
When UNMIK arrived, there were three different governance structures, each associated with a different strategy. The first group included Kosovo Albanian structures
related to the nonviolent opposition movement League
for a Democratic Kosovo (LDK), which had emerged
between 1989 and 1999. These institutions consisted of
a shadow parliament and government, a health-care and
educational system, and a parallel tax system, which included a 3 percent tax on Kosovars living abroad. These
institutions were part of a strategy to create an independent Republic of Kosovo (Pula 2004). Second, during the
bombing campaign from March to June 1999, the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) began to build a new provisional
government in exile. After the campaign ended, the KLA
governed parts of Kosovo without coordinating with the
existing parallel structures of the LDK, its political rival
(King and Mason 2006, p. 51).5 Third, the main response
of Belgrade and of the Serbian community in Kosovo to
international governance after 1999 consisted of creating parallel institutions.6 These parallel structures were
remnants of the old regime, which the Serbian state tried
to reorganize after 1999 (OSCE 2007, p. 5). Although
Serbian parallel governance was directly linked to Serbian
state structures and not created by a resistance movement,
it increasingly became part of strategies of resistance by
different Serbian and Kosovo Serbian elite groups. These
groups tried to alter the political facts on the ground and
to challenge the independence project that both Serbia
and Kosovo Serbs feared would mark the end of the
transitional period.
Thus, in the past two decades, varying administrative
practices have created situations of parallel governance:
two or more sets of administrative structuresone belonging to the formal state structure and the other to an
organization or set of organizations linked to an alternative
political projectproviding similar services and holding
competing claims to administer and govern a territory.
Indeed, administrative practices have become a field of

32 Problems of Post-Communism

March/April 2012

contestation in their own right, strongly informed by

monoethnic nationalisman expression of closed ethnic
boundaries and, at the same time, a means to maintain or
reshape these boundaries. The international presence in
Kosovo played an important role in the (re)shaping and
functioning of these governance arrangements. On the one
hand, it was rather successful at buying into the Kosovo
Albanian resistance movement, which hoped that such
cooperation might improve the chances for independence.
On the other hand, the international community failed to
integrate the Serbian parallel institutions that challenged
the international civilian project in Kosovo. That challenge was both internal and external, since Serbia
had lost its sovereignty over Kosovo, but the remnants of
its state apparatus and political network were still present
in the province.
The international community had a difficult time dealing with and integrating the Serbian parallel institutions.
The formal statements of international organizations hold
Serbia (often called Belgrade) responsible for the parallel institutions, which are portrayed as strategic means of
furthering the nationalist cause and resisting international
state building. International staff and observers have also,
however, often stated that Serbias strategic capacity and
impact are rather limited. This is expressed in such phrases
as Belgrade is not logical or not strategic, noting the
absence of concerted action and the results of the Serbian
reactions, which have not improved the position of Kosovo Serbs.7 Although these statements seem in part to
reflect the frustration of international staff dealing with
Serbia, they also indicate the absence of a monolithic
and united Serbian interest in creating and using parallel
institutions. Most Serbian political actors do claim that
Kosovo is Serbia, but Serbian elite groups differ markedly regarding the strategic role of parallel institutions.
This has restricted their capacity to act in unison.
Writing about new minorities in the Balkans, Brubaker
(1995, p. 115) argues that to understand the dynamic
interplay among (new) national minorities (like Kosovo
Serbs), their (new) home states (in this case, Kosovo),
and their external national homelands (Serbia), the
national minorities perceptions and characterizations of
the new host state can become crucial objects of struggle
within the national minority itself as well as with the
external national homeland.8 This article examines
this dimension of Serbian parallel governance in Kosovo,
focusing on how and why different Serbian elite groups
made strategic use of parallel institutions to resist international governance and how their actions affected local
government. The article is based on literature research

and interviews in Kosovo (see appendix) and focuses on

the period between 1999 and a few months after Kosovos
unilateral declaration of independence on February 17,
2008. After analyzing Serbian elite groups strategies and
their uncertain and unforeseen results, I discuss parallel
state institutions as sociopolitical processes, taking into
account images and practices at two interrelated levels
(local and national). I then explore the historical background of Serbian parallel institutions, the efforts of different Serbian leaders and elites to use these institutions
strategically in different parts of Kosovo, and the strategic
role of parallel institutions.

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Parallel Institutions: Contesting State

Practices and Images
Through parallel institutions, Serbs seek to govern and
control the Serbian districts of Kosovo while demonstrating to the agents of international governance and the new
Kosovar elite their sovereign right to rule these populations. By opposing their own state-building project to the
dominant one, the Serbs have created a new form of split
sovereignty (Pula 2004). Parallel institutionsnot a new
phenomenon in Kosovocan be seen as a contentious
performance, defined by Tarrow and Tilly (2007, p. 11) as
a relatively familiarized and standardized way in which
one set of political actors make collective claims on some
other set of political actors.9 What distinguishes parallel
institutions is that claims are based on the existence of
and partially made through these institutions. Hence parallel institutions combine different functions; they offer
both a means to govern and control parts of Kosovo and
a means to make claims against other (national and/or
international) state builders. Understanding the dynamics of Serbian parallel institutions requires us to take this
combination of governance and claiming into account.
Although the Serbian parallel institutions are unusual in
being primarily a reaction to an international organization
that temporarily took over the administration, challenges
posed to states by internal (informal) political entities
are quite common throughout the world. The end of the
cold war, globalization, and neoliberal reform have led
to growing concern about the weakening of state power
and the fragmentation of authority (see, e.g., Duffield
2001; Kaldor 1999; Holsti 2004; Kingston and Spears
2004; Migdal 2004). Kingston and Spears (2004) refer
to a wide variety of states-within-states that challenge
(the idea of) formal state authority. The challenge to state
authority, however, often remains implicit, while state
power can be linked in complex ways to local political

entities, giving rise to hybrid political constellations (see,

e.g., Boege et al. 2008; Menkhaus 2008). Only occasionally do these challenges become explicit and acquire the
form of parallel institutions that explicitly challenge the
dominant state-building project and make explicit claims
on this project. These dynamics appear to be strongest
and fiercest in ethno-political conflicts where the borders,
institutions, and the very idea of the state are contested. In
these cases of contested state building nationalist claims
do largely inform and legitimize the parallel project. The
case study of Serbian parallel institutions is one example
of contested state building.
In analyzing the internal workings of parallel institutions, we must take into account the combination of
governance and claims and the ways in which these two
factors strengthen or weaken each other. Migdals (2001)
theory on statesociety relations is useful in this regard,
since he emphasizes the contested nature of state building,
distinguishing between practices and images of the state.
While practices have to do with governance, images deal
with claims about the idea of the state. Migdal (2001, p.
16) emphasizes that the state is a contradictory entity,
which he defines as a field of power marked by the use
and threat of violence and shaped by (1) the image of a
coherent, controlling organization in a territory, which is
a representation of the people bounded by that territory,
and (2) the actual practices of its multiple parts. Migdal
argues that both images and practices are important as
governments strive to become or to remain the only legitimate authority vis--vis other groups with ambitions
to exert control. The same point holds true for parallel
institutions.
The image of the state implies the perception of a single
entity that is fairly autonomous, unified, and centralized.
This image is defined by two kinds of boundaries: territorial boundaries between states, and social boundaries
between state actors and other political and social forces.
Both types of boundaries are blurred in the case of Kosovo, where the key bone of contention is the status of
the territory, and different governments (Kosovar and
Serbian) vie for authority and legitimacy. The absence of
any unified image of the state is closely connected to the
existence of a third, ethnic boundary. The relationships
between Kosovo Serbian and Kosovo Albanian communities are characterized by high levels of segregation. The
attempts to shift the boundaries between these groups are
crucial to understanding the different strategies of Serbian
and international elites.10 The high level of segregation in
Kosovar society has profound consequences for images
of territorial and social boundaries. Holsti (2004, p. 82)

van der Borgh Resisting International State Building in Kosovo 33

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argues, where the idea of the state does not command

consensus or loyalty within a population, the political
institutions and perhaps even the territorial base of the
state will be weaker. In this context, he makes a distinction between vertical and horizontal legitimacy. Vertical
legitimacy refers to belief in the rightfulness of the state
(Migdals social boundary), whereas horizontal legitimacy
is about the attitudes and practices of individuals and
groups within the state towards each other and ultimately
to the state that encompasses them (Holsti 2004, p. 88).
The absence or erosion of horizontal legitimacy can
lead to people withdrawing loyalty from the state and its
institutions and looking for other political arrangements
(Holsti 2004, p. 88). Under such circumstances, the image
of the state is no longer unified, and debates rage over the
questions of where and what the state is.11
Although Serbs see Kosovo as Serbian territory, the
political actors creating and using this image are informed
by different forms of nationalism. We can distinguish between more radical (or aggressive) and moderate/liberal
(or defensive) forms of nationalism.12 Whereas radical
nationalists are not willing to discuss any political arrangement for Kosovo outside the Serbian state and, for
that matter, have not wanted to cooperate with the international administration, they have generally employed
a strategy that promoted more rigid group identities
(Wimmer 2008b, p. 1031). Moderates do not want to give
up Kosovo either but have placed more emphasis on the
needs of Kosovo Serbs, which has generally led to greater
willingness to work toward interethnic cooperation. The
largest Serbian political parties reflect these different
shades of nationalismwith the ultranationalist Serbian
Radical Party (SRS) at one extreme, the Democratic
Party of Serbia (DSS) more moderate than the SRS while
supporting the Greater Serbia ideology and attaching
great importance to the Serbian national question, and
the Democratic Party (DS) generally more pragmatic in
its dealings with Kosovo and in disagreement with the
DSS regarding the national question.13 Thus, the brand of
nationalism embraced by political elite groups influences
the strategic use and practices of parallel institutions.
Elite groups at the national level (mostly in Belgrade)
do not necessarily hold the same image of the state as
Serbs living in Kosovo and looking at Belgrade. For
Serbian political parties and the Serbian general public,
parallel institutions have mainly a symbolic value as
evidence that the Serbian state does not and should not
give up Kosovoa position shared by many Serbs. Serbs
living in Kosovo, however, regard the parallel institutions
as a lifeline with Serbia that provides services. Here the

34 Problems of Post-Communism

March/April 2012

Serbian state competes with the international presence,

which also envisages integrating the Kosovo Serbian
community. Although in practice, these different governments are not necessarily at odds with each other and can
even be complementary, their underlying images of the
state are contradictory.14 This fundamental disagreement
makes the issue of cooperation between Serbian parallel
institutions and the international administration a sensitive
topic. The more radical nationalist elite groups may view
cooperation as not only undesirable but also dangerous,
because it could strengthen horizontal legitimacy and
weaken peoples preferences for one state project or the
other. Cooperation could even make the common people
receptive to a hybrid state image (i.e., one centered on
both Belgrade and Pristina). Such a result might damage
the interests of the (usually more radical) elite groups,
which want Serbian parallel institutions to be the only
ones available.
Thus, what happens in practice can both strengthen and
weaken the image of the state (Migdal 2001, p. 17). Unlike
a coherent, unified image, a states practices are many and
often contradictory. Sections of the state create their own
practices, based on moral codes quite different from the
ethics expressed in the image of the state. These practices
can be unlawful, even criminal, without being seen as
morally wrong (Migdal 2001, p. 19). Links between state
agents and particular groups in society, including illegal
groups, can be based on sets of rules that are often quite
distinct from those set out in the states official laws and
regulations. In the context of contested state building in
Kosovo, for example, the new Kosovar government perceives the practices of Serbian institutions as illegal. More
important, however, is that Serbian parallel institutions
do not provide a full range of political services. Specifically, the weakness (if not absence) of the rule of law and
the importance of patronage in the everyday practice of
parallel institutions have led to corruption and criminality
that may undermine the image of the state.
In analyzing the practices and images of Serbian parallel institutions, I distinguish several different phases
in the organization and sustenance of parallel institutions. I pay special attention to (1) the rebuilding and
structure of institutions, and (2) the strategic use of these
institutionsin particular, the contest to control or use
them and the capacity to generate popular support.15 The
first point is foundational. Parallel institutions and the
practices associated with them result from the willingness and the capacity to create and maintain government
institutions. Since parallel institutions are remnants of the
Serbian state, they demonstrate its staying power even as,

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given the rapidly changing circumstances in Kosovo after

1999, they also show the transformative capacity of state
agents to adapt state institutions to a new situation. These
processes require the willingness and the capacity to use
state resources (collected in Serbia) in a region that is no
longer under Serbian jurisdiction but is still seen by state
agents as an inseparable part of Serbia. Such willingness
and capacity are obviously limited by structural factors
that influence the Serbian states room to maneuver.
The second point addresses the control over and staffing of institutions by elite groups and individuals for
whom parallel institutions form an important structure that
influences their strategies and preferences. The (political)
processes that determine decisions about staff appointments and about resource allocation and the establishment of control, as well as the interests and motivations
underlying such decisions, influence the workings of these
institutions.16 Parallel institutions require specific control
and staffing arrangements that differ from those of regular
Serbian state agencies. The functioning of these institutions at the local leveland between the local and the
national levelsis likely to affect the perceived need of,
support for, and efficiency of a Serbian presence. The
perceived need of a Serbian presence, however, does
not mean that the parallel institutions are seen as effective. Even when residents regard the parallel institutions
as corrupt and deficient in services, they may still express
strong support for a Serbian presence for security reasons
(or fears of a future without Serbias support). Obviously,
national and local elites can utilize and even stimulate
such fears to legitimize the parallel institutions and support their broader project of state maintenance.
The analysis that follows maintains this distinction
between the foundation of parallel institutions and their
use by political elite groups, paying particular heed to
overlapping images and practices and how and why they
have produced different forms of parallel governance.

The Origins and Structure of Serbian

Parallel Institutions
Parallel institutions emerged as one phase in the longstanding debate over Kosovos status. As nationalist forces
gained strength in Kosovo and Serbia in the 1970s and the
1980s, Kosovos political status increasingly dominated
the political agenda. In the former Yugoslavia, the struggle
revolved around the Kosovo Albanians campaign for the
status of a republic, rather than an autonomous region,
while Serbs increasingly saw Kosovos autonomy as
opposed to their interests.17 Kosovo acquired significant

symbolic value in the Greater Serbia project of Serbian

nationalists (Pei 2007, pp. 45). The nationalists portrayed Kosovo as the cradle of the Serbian nation; and
the battle of Kosovo (1389), where the Turks defeated the
Serbs, became a totem or talisman of Serbian identity
(Malcolm 1998, p. 58). The revival of Serbian nationalism
in the post-Tito period and the redefinition and growing
importance of the Kosovo question in nationalist discourse
legitimized Slobodan Miloevis 1989 decision to dissolve Kosovos autonomous government in favor of reSerbianization.18 This marked a breaking point in relations
between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, and segregation
increased. Albanians lost their jobs in a number of government institutions, while others chose to resign.
In response, the opposition League for a Democratic
Kosovo gained strength and became the key actor in
organizing parallel political and administrative structures (Judah 2002; Pula 2004).19 The LDK boycotted the
national elections, set up alternative elections for parliament, and declared independence through a referendum
organized by the resistance movement. At this point, the
conflict between the Kosovo Serbian nationalist elite and
the Kosovo Albanian opposition became a zero-sum game
offering incompatible solutions to the national question:
full integration into Serbia or independence. Each group
backed its claims with competing projects of monoethnic
state formation and its own administrative arrangements.
These administrative practices then became a field of
struggle in their own right. In particular, this development
affected Kosovo Albanian educational institutions, to
which the movement assigned a key nation-building role
(Judah 2002, p. 71). At the same time, there were instances
of cooperation: for example, in the official (Serbian-dominated) health-care system, where Albanians still made
up 50 percent of the staff (Judah 2002). Together, these
administrative practices constituted a (highly unstable and
unplanned) system of parallel governance.
When the UN installed an international administration,
it confronted a situation of parallel governance with its
own logic. But the bombing campaign preceding the installation of the international administration reversed the
status quo ante, since the forced departure of the Serbian
army and police and the minimal protection offered by
the international Kosovo Force (KFOR) sparked revenge
killings, reverse ethnic cleansing, and rising anxiety
among Kosovo Serbs (Human Rights Watch 2001, p.
455). Several hundred Serbs were killed; and during the
first six months, tens of thousands fled to Serbia proper.20
The structural changes were also extensive. The Serbian
population dropped to about 5 percent of the two million

van der Borgh Resisting International State Building in Kosovo 35

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inhabitants. Territorial segregation followed as Kosovo

Serbs withdrew to Serb-dominated regions in the north,
which borders on Serbia and contains approximately
one-third of the Kosovo Serb population, and to a number of villages, large and small, in the center and south,
where the majority of Kosovo Serbs live. These villages
are usually called enclaves because of their isolation.
Kosovos capital, Pristina, became, for the most part, a
monoethnic city. The second-largest town, Mitrovica,
was divided along the Ibar River, with the southern part
offering a home to Albanians and the northern region
mostly to Kosovo Serbs.21 The bridge that divides this
town became an important symbolic line between the
Serbian north of Kosovo (including the northern portion
of Mitrovica) and Kosovo south of the Ibar (almost 90
percent of the territory).
At first, the Serbs withdrew. After June 1999, some
administrative institutions (municipalities, courts) and
services (schools, hospitals) succeeded in staying, while
others abandoned their public buildings and left (taking
their records). Health-care centers relocated to northern
Kosovo and the enclaves, while universities and municipal
archives went to Serbia (OSCE 2007, pp. 2837). A later
reversal led to the return of key state functions to Serb
majority areas, thus perpetuating a Serbian administration
that answered directly to Belgrade (OSCE 2007, p. 5). It
is fair to see this reversal as an effort by the Miloevi
regime not to give up Kosovo, while the form of the
response drew on repertoires of behavior developed in
previous decades. On the one hand, parallel institutions
grew out of a tendency among the republics of disintegrating Yugoslavia to support administrative structures of their
ethnic groups in neighboring countries (Glenny 1996, pp.
26264). On the other hand, the practice extended the split
sovereignty and parallel governance that were the (not so)
temporary and nonconsensual outcome of efforts to deal
with fundamental political tensions in Kosovo.22 Although
in the first year after the intervention, the institutions
were still under reconstruction and corresponded to real
needs of the Kosovo Serbs, the Miloevi regime made
strategic use of the structures by prohibiting local leaders
to cooperate with UNMIK. In several cases, Miloevi
replaced individuals who cooperated with officials whose
views more nearly resembled his own (ICG 2000, p. 5;
King and Mason 2006, p. 70).
This de facto continuation of the Serbian state presence
in Kosovo also indirectly resulted from the failure of the
international presence in the first year after NATOs bombing campaign ended. KFOR could not protect the Serbs;
and the civil presence, still extremely weak at the time,

36 Problems of Post-Communism

March/April 2012

endorsed the return of Serbian institutions and services.

The international communitys failure to protect the Serbs
affirmed Serbs fears that they needed a Serbian presence
in Kosovo because they could not trust the Kosovo Albanians. This was grist to the mill of Serbian nationalist
politicians, who emphasized the need for Serbia to retain
control of Kosovo as the only means of guaranteeing
security. The first year of international administration
showed that the ideal of a multiethnic Kosovar state was
still far away (Garton Ash 2000). Meanwhile, UNMIK
had to deal with various competing governance projects.
Although it convinced the Kosovo Albanian leaders to
accept the international project, it did not enjoy the same
success with Serbian leaders.
After 1999, the Serbian state returned to Kosovo and
rebuilt a rather extensive structure of administration in
the fields of justice, security, education, and health care.
Serbia established municipal and district courts in Kosovo that apply Serbian law, while there are also courts
in Serbia proper that claim jurisdiction in Kosovo (OSCE
2007, p. 16). The courts fulfill various legal needs, ruling
on inheritance and family disputes as well as cases of
criminal law (OCSE 2007, pp. 17, 18). Although UNMIK
considers these courts illegal, many Kosovo Serbsand
Kosovo Albaniansrely on them, and people even bring
civil cases to both UNMIK and Serbian courts (OSCE
2007, p. 20).
Serbia also maintained a certain security presence in
the northern part of the province. As Serbian groups in
Kosovo struggled for survival, an organization called the
Bridge Watchers emerged to defend Serbs on the northern side of the Ibar River. The Bridge Watchers received
support from the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs,
voluntary donations, and even the local hospital. A local
leader, Marko Jaki, controlled the group, which at first
was the main security organization. It lost support when
some of its members became involved in crime (OSCE
2007, p. 24). By 2008, the year of independence, several
armed groups existed in northern Kosovo, as did representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and police
officers (OSCE 2007, p. 25).23
In addition, the Serbs built a parallel system of education and health care. The Serbian Ministry of Education
and Science oversees the educational system and supplies
books, diplomas, and stamps. In 2007, the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE [2007, p.
33]) counted about fifty primary schools and twenty-five
secondary schools in Kosovo. The Ministry of Education
and Science paid teachers double salaries (400500),
while the Kosovar Ministry of Education also paid staff a

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salary (150200) (OSCE 2007, p. 36). Even though the

Kosovar interim institutions (PISG) created and backed
by UNMIK have tried to buy themselves into the Serbian
school system, the level of segregation remains high. The
same goes for health care, which relies on two hospitals
(one in the north, one in the center), nine sanatoria, and
seventy-five clinics or smaller health facilities (OSCE
2007, p. 43). The system comes entirely under the purview
of the Serbian Ministry of Health Care, which also pays
double salaries to staff. Until 2006, the Kosovar Ministry
of Health Care supplemented these salaries (OSCE 2007,
pp. 4849).24
The budgets of the ministries in Belgrade financed the
parallel institutions (ICG 2009a, p. 14). Funding remained
quite low after 1999 but increased over time. Total funds
in 20062007 were estimated at 1.52 billion per year.
Most of the money went for staff salaries in health-care
facilities and educational centers and for pension payments (ICG 2009a, p. 18). As a result, Kosovo Serbs
depend heavily on employment opportunities offered by
the Serbian state. At the same time, the monetary transfers have given rise to new patronage systems, largely
controlled by members of political parties, of which the
DSS wielded the most influence from early 2004 until
2008. As I discuss in the next section, inadequate control
of these monetary transfers has led to inefficient use of
funds and widespread corruption. There are reports of
jobs for sale, people holding several jobs with double
incomes, the absence of auditing mechanisms, and severe
overstaffing at hospitals and schools.
This overview of the origins of Serbian parallel institutions shows that they resulted from a Serbian government strategy to hold on to Kosovo. Parallel governance
had already become a system with its own logic before
1999, and it was based on the increasing mutual exclusion of these communities. After 1999, the balance of this
system reversed, with Kosovo Serbs promoting parallel
institutions, while incompatible views about Kosovos
status remained. Changes in the administrative structure,
however, required the Serbian government to adopt new
models of governance, since the Serbian state was denied
any formal presence in Kosovo. Thus, it developed new
governmental institutions and control mechanisms that
sparked new tensions and domestic struggles.

Parallel Institutions, Elite Maneuvering,

and Local Control
Parallel institutions represented the continuation of the
Serbian state institutions as they had existed since 1989

and maintained relations with the ministries in Belgrade.

But after the fall of Miloevi in October 2000, subsequent governments developed special linking agencies
to channel and control the resources made available to
Kosovo by the Serbian state. The purpose behind these
linking agencies was not solely administrative. They also
had a strategic goal: to strengthen the Serbian states
presence in Kosovo and to counter the international statebuilding project. In this section I examine how and why
these strategies were formulated at the national level, how
political control over the linking agencies and parallel
institutions was contested, and which political agendas,
motivations, and interests of local and national level actors lay behind them. Then I consider the different forms
of governance they helped shape.25
The first linking agency, the Yugoslav Committee for
Kosovo and Metohija, was founded after the Miloevi
regime fell in October 2000. It had a tiny budget, and
almost immediately the coordinator, Momilo Trajkovi,
was accused of using the committee for personal and political purposes (ICG 2009a, p. 3). The agencys role was
small; in this period, many people worried about Serbias
limited attention to Kosovo (ICG 2009a, p. 3). The situation changed in the course of 2001, partly in response
to the more active role played by the newly formed and
more moderate government, which maintained a working relationship with UNMIK. The Coordination Center
for Kosovo and Metohija (CCK) was founded in August
2001. UNMIK endorsed the CCK in an agreement with
the government of Serbia.26 It maintained its headquarters
in Belgrade and established local branches throughout
Kosovo. Belgrade agreed to Kosovo Serbian participation in the first provincial elections of November 2001
organized by the international community.
Not all the Serbian political parties, however, supported
this deal. The more radical Kosovo Serbian leaders, many
of them members of the DSS based in northern Kosovo,
called for a boycott of the elections. Moreover, within
Coalition Return (Povratak), the coalition of Serbian
political parties that took part in the Kosovar elections
and after the elections joined the Kosovar government,
debate continued on the wisdom of participation in Kosovar institutions. The CCK conducted similar discussions.
Several factors brought these fragile efforts at cooperation
to a halt. First, the Kosovo Serbs perceived a failure of
power sharing that left them mere window dressing in
the Kosovar parliament and government.27 Second, the
March 2004 riots in Kosovo left many Serbs feeling unsafe
in Kosovo and forced to rely on the Serbian government
for security.28 Third, the victory of radical nationalists

van der Borgh Resisting International State Building in Kosovo 37

Downloaded by [University of Oslo] at 00:30 26 January 2016

in the Serbian elections of December 2003 led to DSS

dominance of Serbias Kosovo policy. As a result, Serbia
and UNMIK failed to coordinate their practices and to
strengthen the idea of a multiethnic Kosovar state.
Between March 2004 and July 2008, the DSS dominated Belgrades Kosovo policy, bringing about a sea
change in its attitude toward the international administration. Not only did the Serbian government reject political
participation by Kosovo Serbs in Kosovar institutions, but
it also managed to take over the CCK and make itself a
key player in Kosovo Serbian politics (OSCE 2004). It
achieved this, first, by drying up the funds channeled
through the CCK, still led by the partys political adversary, Neboja ovi. Then, in the summer of 2005,
Sanda Rakovi-Ivi, a senior figure in the DSS, replaced
ovi. At the same time, DSS members replaced most
of the CCK coordinators, while many of the institutional
staff already had links with the party (ICG 2009a, p. 5).
These traditions of party loyalty were a heritage of the
Miloevi era, adopted first by ovis party, then by the
DSS (ICG 2009a, pp. 45).29 This political patronage
along party lines has been dubbed a partocracy, a system in which political parties are the major factor in the
social life of Kosovo Serbs (Helsinki Committee 2008, p.
9). The patronage system benefited not only individuals
linked to the DSS (thus stimulating cooperation with and
membership in the party) but the party as a whole, since a
payback system in which staff had to hand over money
guaranteed funds for the party.30 Even though the Serbian
government had to pay to keep Kosovo part of Serbia, the
monetary transfers indirectly benefited the DSS.
The increasing importance of party leaders from northern Kosovo, Marko Jaki and Milan Ivanovi, also pointed to growing DSS influence in Kosovo. Jaki, already a
key leader of the northern branch of the Kosovar Serbian
National Council (SNC), further strengthened his own
position and increased the DSSs sway over the council.31
Jaki also served as vice-president of the DSS in Serbia,
sat on the Serbian parliament in Belgrade, and later joined
the Serbian delegation to the Office of the Special Envoy
of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the
Future Status Process for Kosovo (UNOSEK). Although
his party membership and ties to Vojislav Kotunicas
DSS in Belgrade were important to leaders like Jaki,
he also based his position in Mitrovica on control over
certain institutions that he used to meet his personal and
political goals. For instance, the hospital in Mitrovica is
widely seen as a stronghold for Jaki, who controls the
large sums of money (from both Serbia and the Kosovar
government) that go to the hospital. People have been right

38 Problems of Post-Communism

March/April 2012

to argue that DSS dominance has limited the autonomy of

indigenous Kosovo Serbian organizations and tightened
links with Belgrade. At the same time, the northern leaders
retained a substantial degree of local autonomy and were
not simply implementers of Belgrades policy.
As the leaders of SNC-North, Marko Jaki and Milan
Ivanovi became the dominant political force in Kosovo,
thanks to their unique combination of high-level political support from Belgrade and a local power base. They
primarily based their power on certain important public
institutions funded but not directly controlled by Belgrade. Moreover, the region north of the Ibar has been
called the wild west of Kosovo, because the rule of
law is enforced neither by the newly established Kosovar
institutions nor by the state of Serbia. The existence of
such a gray zone serves the interests of politicians of various parties involved in illegal or criminal activities. The
link between crime and politics is endemic throughout
Kosovo (and the Balkans) and in some cases explains
leaders changing political stances and alliances.32 The
remains of the Trepa mines, around which the towns of
Mitrovica and neighboring Zvecan once flourished, offer
another means of control. According to estimates, more
than a thousand former mine employees have continued
to receive incomes from Belgrade while being pushed to
support local political leaders.33
Access to different kinds of resources can support local positions of power, but control of some (although not
all) parallel institutions proved of great importance to the
strategies of northern local elite groups. In the absence
of any rule of law, the local political elites hold on the
parallel institutions ensures their dominance in the local
arena. When they organized demonstrations, they ordered
the hospital staff and university students to attend. Leaders had to endorse seminars, workshops, or other public
events before they could take place. For example, a passerby asked a BBC film crew whether Marko (Jaki)
knew they were there. The leaders win further support
from armed groups, also to some extent under their sway.
Jaki himself allegedly oversees the security service at
the hospital in Mitrovica.34 Although such groups operate
in the dark, they indirectly deter UNMIK and the new
European Union (EU) northern mission from entering the
region (ICG 2008, p. 1). These armed groups capacity
and threats to use violence have also promoted in-group
policing and intimidation, restricting local peoples room
for maneuver. As a result, the local elite has managed to
discourage, if not prohibit, northern residents from cooperating with Kosovar institutions. For instance, during
the status talks in 2006, the Serbian government asked all

Downloaded by [University of Oslo] at 00:30 26 January 2016

Kosovar staff to choose between their Serbian and their

Kosovar salaries (ICG 2009a, p. 7).35
The situation in the scattered enclaves in central and
southern Kosovo is different. Although political parties
(especially the DSS from 2004 to 2008) have played a
key role in social life in these parts of Kosovo, too, and
these political ties have been crucial for local power builders, the local leadership remains weak and fragmented.
Moreover, a considerable number of local staff members
working in Serbian institutions actually live in Serbia and
visit the enclaves a few days a week, which has caused
them to be known as weekenders or false returnees
(Helsinki Committee 2008, pp. 1822). This situation has
led to widespread feelings of abandonment in many central and southern enclaves and to complaints that there
is no organization, no long-term strategy, and no leaders
and Serbia has forgotten about us (Voitzwinkler 2008, p.
39). Although many northerners also experience frustration in response to corruption, their reaction is softened
by their sense that they still need the Serbian state, and
their vicinity to Serbia makes their image of the state
more viable. In central and southern Kosovo, however,
the absence of effective control mechanisms has produced
a contradictory situation in which the publics desire for
more Belgrade coexists with a growing recognition
that cooperation with Kosovar authorities may also be
necessary (ICG 2009b; Voitzwinkler 2008). This situation also explains why local leaders are more inclined
to work with both Serbian and Kosovar institutions (see,
e.g., Lasance 2009).
Contrasting forms of local governance, as well as
conflicting strategies, increasingly result from the differences between northern and centralsouthern Kosovo.
Radical parties like the DSS and SRS have proposed plans
for a northern secession (Helsinki Committee 2008, p.
3).36 Key components of this strategy include the further
closing of ethnic boundaries and the isolation of parallel
institutions. The first Serbian municipal elections held
on May 11, 2008, in Kosovo (and declared illegal by the
Kosovar government and UNMIK) and the foundation
of the Assembly of Serbian Municipalities on June 28,
2008, in Mitrovica can both be considered steps in this
direction.37
Central and southern Serbs have protested against these
plans, fearing that secession will further marginalize and
isolate the remaining Serbian communities. The more
moderate Serbian parties articulated similar grievances
during the December 2007 elections. With the installation of a more moderate government in July 2008, the
new minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovi (himself a

Kosovo Serb), called on Belgrade to take a more handsoff approach and to leave more responsibilities to local
leaders. The switch also had an impact on the CCK, which
moved its headquarters to Gracanica in central Kosovo
(ICG 2009a, p. 8). Although the move did have some
effect on the position of the DSS and the northern leadership, the parallel institutions there remained strong after
2008 (ICG 2011).38 Although the new Kosovar state (still
under international supervision) has shown its willingness
to take the rights of the Serbian community into account,
the likely scenario includes the virtual separation of the
northern region from Kosovo combined with the continuing emigration of central and southern Serbs.

Conclusion
In the last few decades, parallel institutions have acquired
importance for both the Albanian and the Serbian communities in Kosovo. The parallel institutions were built
on remnants of the toppled former regime and sought to
maintain the image and the practices of the state. Thus,
since the late 1980s, parallel governance has been the rule
in Kosovo, creating an unstable political arrangement that
reflects a situation of split sovereignty.
Although a continuation of the former regime, the parallel institutions were adaptations to a new context. Far
from being static, these institutions are social and political
processes in their own right. Interactions among Serbian
and international elite groups and individuals at various
levels (local, national, and international) transformed and
adapted the Serbian parallel institutions. Several of these
institutions, including municipal administrations and the
university, left Kosovo but then returned. The inability of
the international peacekeeping forces and administration,
especially during their first year, to protect the Serbian
community in Kosovo convinced people that of the need
for an ongoing Serbian state presence. Despite the contest
for power that characterized the first year after the international bombing campaign, Kosovo Serbs never really
abandoned the image of the Serbian state. The weakness
of the international presence and the insecurity felt by
Kosovo Serbs enabled the Miloevi regime to claim
that it was saving Kosovo againa claim it was all
too willing to make.
The existence of parallel institutions supports the view
that Kosovo is Serbia and thus strengthens the image of
the Serbian state. But institutions are not strategic practices. The strategic use of these institutions results from
the actions of politicians who seek to control institutions,
combined with structural factors. These structural fac-

van der Borgh Resisting International State Building in Kosovo 39

Downloaded by [University of Oslo] at 00:30 26 January 2016

tors go a long way to explaining the different strategies

followed by the northern and the centralsouthern elites.
Northern Kosovo borders on Serbia, and the vast majority
of its residents are Serbs. A strategy of isolation, even secession, is viable in this area. The presence of a relatively
strong local elite that maintains strong ties with Belgrade
and a grip on numerous local institutions, including security organizations, is key to understanding the dynamics of
relative isolation. In this region of Kosovo, the image of
the Serbian state (centered on Belgrade) is viable; and the
practices of the parallel institutions, although inefficient
and corrupt, support that image.
Such an isolationist strategy would be a mission impossible in the Kosovar enclaves. The enclaves are scattered
and isolated in predominantly Albanian territory. Other
enclaves of Kosovo Serbs and Belgrade are relatively far
away, which challenges the image of the Serbian state.
Local leaders have not succeeded in creating political
networks to control the scattered enclaves and the public
sphere, as the northern leadership has done. Local leadership in central and southern Kosovo is much more fragmented and lacks the capacity to strategize on the basis of
parallel institutions. In this region of Kosovo, the image
of the Serbian state is less viable, and the practices of the
parallel institutions cannot hide that fact. The reactions
are twofold: on the one hand, a cry for more Serbia; on
the other hand, more pragmatic dealings with the new
Kosovar state.
The existence of Serbian parallel institutions has had
a great impact on the internationally led state-building
project, but the Serbian elite has not been able to forge a
coherent strategy. Instead, the institutions have become
a field of domestic political contestation among Serbian
elite groups with contrasting and changing interests,
producing marked differences in the local practices of
parallel institutions. Although almost all Serbs declare
that Kosovo is Serbia, they fundamentally disagree about
the future state of Kosovo in terms of its practices and
its images.
While the Serbian parallel institutions in Kosovo are
rather unusual, this case may provide insights of more
general relevance to the role of parallel institutions in
ethno-political conflicts. First, in ethno-political conflicts
where parallel institutions are established, it is important
to distinguish the institutions themselves from the elite
groups seeking to control them and to identify intraelite
disputes over the strategic use of these institutions.
Second, elite groups can argue about both the practices
and the images of parallel institutions. The main practice
of parallel institutions involves the allocation of resources.

40 Problems of Post-Communism

March/April 2012

Subgroups or factions of resistance movements try to establish a hold on such institutions as a means of acquiring
levers of control as well as income for themselves and
their associates. If successful, the groups can then lay
particular claims against other actors who support particular images of the state. Even when elite groups seem
to agree about the image of a parallel state (e.g., Kosovo
is Serbia), the groups may employ different strategies
in pursuit of their goals. For example, Serbias radical
parties sought absolute control over Kosovo, whereas
more moderate parties were willing to cooperate with the
international project.
Third, as in all state-building practices, the legitimacy
of a parallel state depends on how strongly state practices
match the images of that state. In this regard, territory and
location matter. The larger the area controlled by parallel
institutions and the stronger the ties to supportive outside
states, the greater the chances will be of building a successful parallel state.

Appendix: Research Methodology

In my analysis of the data, I focused on what the research
methodologist Charles Ragin (1994, p. 26) describes as the
weight of the evidence. My findings are, in this sense,
social representations that summarize a large amount of
collected evidence from diverse sources. The findings presented here are based on a triangulation of several sources
that transcend the individual details of any one piece of
evidence. The sources in question include (1) interviews I
conducted during five field visits between 2006 and 2008
with local politicians, employees of parallel institutions
and international organizations, local nongovernmental
organizations, and scholars; (2) reports of international
organizations working in Kosovo (especially the OSCE
and the UN); (3) reports of international think tanks and
organizations (especially the International Crisis Group);
and (4) the academic literature on Kosovo. It is important
to note that most of the interviews were confidential. In
general, international staff members of the OSCE and the
UN preferred to talk in an informal settingover coffee
or just an informal chatrather than give formal interviews. Hence, for methodological and ethical reasons, the
text does not refer to individual interviews.

Notes
1. I presented an earlier version of this article at the Conference on Rebel
Governance, Yale University, October 24, 2009. I would like to thank Dr.
Mario Fumerton and Dr. Jolle Demmers as well the anonymous reviewers for
their valuable input.

Downloaded by [University of Oslo] at 00:30 26 January 2016

2. I use the international name Kosovo for the territory called Kosovo
and Metohija (Serbian) and Kosova (Albanian). For purposes of readability,
I do not use both Albanian and Serbian names, only the name that is most
often encountered in English and most resembles the Serbian name: Pristina
(Prishtin/Pritina), Mitrovica (Mitrovic/Mitrovica), Gracanica (Graanica/
Graanic).
3. To label the Serbs in Kosovo a minority is sensitive, since Serbia considers Kosovo Albanians to be a minority inside Serbia. Kosovo has approximately
two million inhabitants. The percentage of Kosovo Albanians in the total
population has increased over the last four decades from 75 percent to around
95 percent. Today the Serbian community therefore consists of approximately 5
percent of the total. Other (tiny) minorities in Kosovo include Bosniaks, Turks,
Roma, and Ashkali. The term community is also not without problems. Although the ethnic boundaries between groups are rather closed, there are still
marked differences within groups. The Kosovo Serbs comprise various groups
with different histories in the province. Some Serbian families (mainly in central
and southern Kosovo) have long family histories in the region, including close
relationships and intermarriage with Albanians. In contrast, Serbs who migrated
from Montenegro in the early twentieth centuryor those living in northern
Kosovo, a region that was part of Serbia until the 1950sdo not. In general,
however, the Albanian and Serbian communities have remained rather distant
and, more than in any other part of former Yugoslavia, relatively segregated
(Detrez 1999). I use the terms Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians for
the two communities in Kosovo (Judah 2000, p. xv).
4. For an overview of the status talks, see www.unosek.org, accessed
February 12, 2012.
5. For interesting examples of KLA officers attempts to take over parts of
Kosovo and of KFORs reaction, see Zaalberg 2005, chaps. 9 and 10.
6. I use the term parallel to indicate that these Serbian institutions
existed alongside those of the international administration that replaced the
Serbian state. I do not mean that they are illegal, which is a discussion in its
own right.
7. In numerous interviews with international officials, I was told that
Serbia is not logical and that there was no Serbian strategy but rather Serbian reactions. In a report on the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo, the Helsinki
Committee for Human Rights in Serbia (2008, p. 18) notes that Serbian policy
is irrational.
8. See Cocozzelli 2009 for an analysis of the critical junctures and local
agency on the road to independence in Kosovo. It shows that dynamics within
communities are essential to understanding the course of this process.
9. Tarrow and Tilly (2007, p. 11) distinguish between performances (a
relatively familiarized and standardized way in which one set of political actors
make collective claims on some other set of political actors) and repertoires
(arrays of contentious performances that are currently known and available
within some set of political actors).
10. See Wimmer 2008a and 2008b for a discussion of strategies for making ethnic boundaries. Wimmer (2008b, p. 1027) conceives ethnicity not
primarily as a matter of relationships among predefined groups but rather as
a process of constituting and reconfiguring groups by defining the boundaries
between them.
11. See Ingimundarson 2007 for an interesting account of the development
of national identity in Kosovo.
12. See Fearon and Laitin 2000, p. 486, for the importance of distinguishing moderate from radical elites. See Kuzio 2003 for the distinction between
aggressive and defensive forms of nationalism.
13. Until 2002, the DSS and the DS together formed the coalition party
Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), which won a landslide victory in
December 2000. The SRS and the DSS together make up the radical nationalist bloc. The line between radicals and moderates is not always clear-cut.
Members and leaders of political parties have changed their stances repeatedly.
14. The image of the state is, however, not necessarily contradictory when
different parties decide to create a new image of the state that contracts existing boundaries and creates a new social category, a process Wimmer (1998b,
p. 1031) calls fission.
15. On the need for a phased approach, see Tilly and Tarrow 2006, p. 77;
King 2007.
16. See Weber 1978, vol. 1, p. 183, on the importance of a staff to rule a

considerable number of persons. Weber emphasizes the various ways of binding employees to superiors through custom, affective ties, ideals, or material
interests. Serbian political parties have invested in institutional staffing as a
means of control.
17. Kosovo was an autonomous region within Serbia, one of the six republics. The 1974 constitution gave each nationality in Yugoslavia a republic where
it had an ethnic majorityexcept for the Albanian and Hungarian territories,
which became autonomous regions within Serbia. These regions had similar
powers to the republics but not the right to secede.
18. For an analysis of the role of Serbian intellectuals in the development
of Serbian nationalism and the importance of Kosovo in this process, see
Dragovi-Soso 2002.
19. See Pula 2004, p. 797, for a discussion of how the construction of a
parallel state was largely an unplanned-for phenomenon.
20. Estimates of how many Serbs fled to Serbia differ. See European Stability Initiative 2004, esp. pp. 1819. The European Stability Index lists 65,000
Serbs as displaced, whereas other calculations approach 150,000.
21. KFOR was criticized for doing too little to prevent this ethnic division
(King and Mason 2006, p. 54; ONeill 2002).
22. The concept of split sovereignty comes from the discussion of the
emerging Kosovo parallel state in Pula 2004, p. 818.
23. Serbia, KFOR, and the intelligence services monitoring the situation
in Kosovo do not reveal information about the structure and organization of
these military and defense structures to the public, for obvious reasons. Some of
these armed movements, however, have clear ties with the Ministry of Internal
Affairs and with local political leaders.
24. Until 2003, only health-care employees received double salaries. In
2003, the DS government under Zoran ivkovi expanded this program to all
other state institutions (ICG 2008, p. 15).
25. Data on local support are virtually absent. For an interesting analysis of
the complex relations between the provisional institutions of self-government
and Serbian institutions at the local level, see Lasance 2009.
26. The government of Serbia and UNMIK signed the Common Document
on November 5, 2001.
27. Povratak had 22 out of 120 seats. Goran Bogdanovi became minister
of agriculture, and Milorad Todorovi was named interministerial coordinator
for returns (OSCE 2004, p. 1).
28. See ICG 2004 for an analysis of the riots.
29. The change of government and of Kosovo policy in July 2008 also led
to new parties trying to control these structures (ICG 2009a, p. 8).
30. Interviews with international staff and private correspondence with
former OSCE employees. According to estimates, 20 percent of Serbian funds
flow back to the DSS.
31. Marko Jaki led the northern section of the Serbian National Council in
Kosovo, eventually dominated by the DSS. Founded as an umbrella organization
in 1998, the council soon split into a radical and a moderate group.
32. See Aaron 2005 on links between Serbian criminals and politicians.
On the institutionalization of criminal economic activity in Kosovo, see Yannis 2003.
33. The director of the mines, Jovan Dimki, also led the local SPS in
Zvecan (Miloevis former party) and is one of the less visible leaders in
northern Kosovo. He cooperates closely with Marko Jaki and Oliver Ivanovi
(correspondence with former OSCE staff).
34. Jaki also maintained close ties with Dragoljub Delibai, regional
chief of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (ICG 2008, p. 4).
35. After Kosovos unilateral declaration of independence, many Kosovo
Serbs submitted their resignation from the Kosovo police (a Kosovar institution).
Marko Jaki said that Belgrade should pay people in the police and judicial
system: Belgrade must pay those people. If they are not paid by Belgrade,
they will be paid by Hashim Thaci. The police belong to the one who pays it
(Helsinki Committee 2008, p. 9).
36. The nationalist bloc (the DSS and SRS) seems to see the secession of
northern Kosovo as a serious option. Their proposal would seize 12 percent (of
land with majority Serbian populations) from Kosovos territory, as recompense
for the 12 percent taken by Kosovo from Serbia.
37. Former Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardi and Marko Jaki

van der Borgh Resisting International State Building in Kosovo 41

came up with this plan, but most political parties participate in it, including
the SRS and the DS.
38. The recent spike over the border posts in North Kosovo is a case in
point (Brunwasser 2011).

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