In shaping the institutions of a new country, what interventions from international actors lead to success and failure? Elton Skendaj’s investigation into Kosovo based on national survey data, interviews, and focus groups conducted over ten months of fieldwork, leads to some surprising answers. Creating Kosovo: International Oversight and the Making of Ethical Institutions highlights efforts to build the police force, the central government, courts, and a customs service.

Skendaj finds that central administration and the courts, which had been developed under local authority, succumbed to cronyism and corruption, challenging the premise that local “ownership” leads to more effective state bureaucracies. The police force and customs service, directly managed by international actors, were held to a meritocratic standard, fulfilling their missions and winning public respect. However, local participation and contestation supported democratic institutions, and when international actors supported the demobilization of popular movements they undermined the public’s ability to hold elected officials accountable.

Elton Skendaj is visiting assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of Miami. He was a European Studies Research Scholar at the Wilson Center in 2011.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
List of Abbreviations

1. Building Effective Bureaucracies and Promoting Democracy in Kosovo

2. Contested Statehood

3. Deadly Cocktail

4. Without Fear or Favor

5. Mass Mobilization and Democracy in Kosovo

6. Creating Constituencies for State Building and Democratization

“Elton Skendaj’s Creating Kosovo: International Oversight and the Making of Ethical Institutions provides an in-depth analysis of state building and democracy promotion in the case of Kosovo. State building has been analyzed in depth from the institutional perspective; however, Skendaj’s book tackles it from a different angle by focusing on bureaucracies.… Answering the democratization and state-building hypotheses with rich data (many interviews) and a structured organization and presentation of the material contributes to the salience of the book.”—Arlinda Rrustemi, H-Diplo

“The book successfully manages to capture varying degrees of institutional overlap, conflicting political agendas and other legal and political factors that determined Kosovo’s statebuilding.”—Gëzim Krasniqi, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding

“The author skillfully creates a realistic narrative on the challenges of building effective state institutions in post-conflict environments.… I highly recommend this well-written and documented book to both researchers and midgrade to senior-level military officers and government officials involved in developing postconflict strategies and policies.”—Lt. Col. (Ret.) Edward D. Jennings, Military Review

“In a very crowded academic field, the study makes a valuable contribution due largely to a nuanced and well-designed approach.… Highly recommended.”—J. R. Clardie, Choice

“The best feature of the book is the ‘unpacking’ of state institutions across four different bureaucracies. This offers a more refined understanding of state-building and generates important practical lessons for the international actors involved in such endeavors.”—Alex Grigorescu, Loyola University Chicago

“Creating Kosovo is very well written and researched and outlines a compelling hypothesis regarding the need to isolate certain aspects of the bureaucracy from politics in the process of statebuilding.”—Aidan Hehir, University of Westminster