Bandits, bondsmen, and leviathans: Ethnic groups contesting local security after conflict in the Western Balkans

Abstract

This study analyzes how the process of integrating ethnically-distinct enclaves into state organizations after conflict, specifically in the field security, affects stability and patterns of violence after institutional settlements. The primary argument I develop is that integrating existing local security networks as ‘new entrants’ into the official ‘market of public goods’ can bind potential spoilers to state institutions and disincentivize them from using violence. However as new entrants to the market, they are overshadowed by established state institutions. To gain a share of the market, they engage in ‘capture’ of local institutions by aligning with local political leaders, who can affect the regulations of local security and policing within distinct locales. In this sense local security capture, though often paradoxical to rule of law institutions, can not only facilitate policing of a distinct group, but enforce state institutions. Findings from three cases - Kosovo, Serbia, and North Macedonia - further illustrate that foreign peace actors are key in the process of facilitating capture by preventing the state from monopolizing security.