“… Source : ESK (, ), HBS (, 2009, 2015) . Some poverty and inequality data from the figure are also mentioned in Mustafa (); Note : Own calculations.…”
This study examined: (i) Kosovo's social policy's poverty and inequality outcomes in recent history, namely during Yugoslav self‐management socialism (1952–1989), the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) (1999–2008) and independence (2008 onwards), and (ii) the impact of local politics in the more recent trajectory of social policy. The study shows that the poverty rate after the war (1999) is significantly lower than it was during socialism, but that there is persistent high and deepening Gini inequality and social exclusion. Transfers and taxes of the residual‐liberal policy have reduced more pretransfer–pretax inequality, and especially poverty, compared with self‐management's insurance‐dominated socialism, but their effectiveness is declining due to the policy's underlying long‐term, pro‐market logic and its increasing particularism with respect to short‐term transfers. The article argues that the main local political cleavages have originated from self‐management socialism's extensive stratification. These cleavages matter in distributive conflicts, and they mattered also during the UNMIK period by easing the pathway for the unprecedented influence international organisations have had on policy formation.
“… Source : ESK (, ), HBS (, 2009, 2015) . Some poverty and inequality data from the figure are also mentioned in Mustafa (); Note : Own calculations.…”
This study examined: (i) Kosovo's social policy's poverty and inequality outcomes in recent history, namely during Yugoslav self‐management socialism (1952–1989), the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) (1999–2008) and independence (2008 onwards), and (ii) the impact of local politics in the more recent trajectory of social policy. The study shows that the poverty rate after the war (1999) is significantly lower than it was during socialism, but that there is persistent high and deepening Gini inequality and social exclusion. Transfers and taxes of the residual‐liberal policy have reduced more pretransfer–pretax inequality, and especially poverty, compared with self‐management's insurance‐dominated socialism, but their effectiveness is declining due to the policy's underlying long‐term, pro‐market logic and its increasing particularism with respect to short‐term transfers. The article argues that the main local political cleavages have originated from self‐management socialism's extensive stratification. These cleavages matter in distributive conflicts, and they mattered also during the UNMIK period by easing the pathway for the unprecedented influence international organisations have had on policy formation.
“…The KLA was officially entirely disbanded after the war, but its spokesman, Hashim Thaçi, formed the PDK (Jonsson 2014, 186–188) while many personnel were integrated into the various security services (Dziedzic, Mercean and Skendaj 2016, 191–193). The PDK, in particular, dominated the Assembly after independence in 2008 (Mustafa 2019, 167). As we shall see later, the question of which party consists of the “authentic heirs” of the KLA remains a significant theme in political discourse (Schwandner-Sievers 2013, 953).…”
Section: Case Study: the Rise Of Kosovo’s Left-wing Nationalistsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The LDK, in particular, benefited from the privatization program as public assets ended up in the hands of LDK client hands, and they were in effective control of government patronage until about 2008 (Ahmeti Interview 2021). Then came the turn of the PDK: they doubled the sale of public enterprises, selling them to party members below market price, and increased average civil service salaries far above the private sector (Mustafa 2019, 167–168). The result is that, as of 2015, there are proportionally 50% more central administration employees than the East European average, far too many more to merely be explained by Kosovo’s high unemployment rate, and attempts to reduce this have been very strenuously resisted.…”
Section: Case Study: the Rise Of Kosovo’s Left-wing Nationalistsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Many still benefit from the largesse in the sense that there is often little other options. Indeed, the direct beneficiaries of PDK patronage are enough to make up 35% of all PDK votes (Mustafa 2019, 168). The parties’ struggle for self-determination thus enabled them to create and dominate a patrimonial economy.…”
Section: Case Study: the Rise Of Kosovo’s Left-wing Nationalistsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The case of Kosovar Albanian nationalism and the rise of LVV demonstrates very clearly how radically opposing interpretations can be made of the same body of ideas by opposing political agents. After “the war” – by which Kosovar Albanians almost always mean the conflicts of the 1990s and especially the NATO intervention in 1999 (Ahmetaj 2020 Interview) – Kosovo’s politics was dominated by the legacy parties of the Kosovo Liberation Army, especially the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), and the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which had led the (mostly) non-violent resistance to Yugoslavia/Serbia in the 1990s (Skendaj 2015, 136, Mustafa 2019, 167). I characterize these parties as the “old guard.” This is not because they were friends; indeed, there was both political and violent competition between them (see, for example, Perritt 2008, 31–32), but this is because they share broad similarities in how they legitimized their rule through hierarchical and patrimonial nationalism.…”
This article highlights the significance of Lëvizja Vetëvendosje’s (LVV) left-wing Kosovar Albanian nationalist challenge to the authoritarian and patrimonial nationalist system of Kosovo’s rebel victors. LVV used the political settlement’s own legitimizing metanarrative – that of Kosovar Albanian nationalism – to bolster their own legitimacy while undermining that of post-war elites drawn from organizations active in the conflict of the 1990s. A methodology based on Discursive Institutionalism makes sense of LVV’s position as both a challenger of rebel victors but also as a representative of the same ideological culture that underpins Kosovo’s political culture. There are two key contributions here. Empirically, this study characterizes LVV as a nationalist challenge to the rebel victor parties rather than as a distinctively nationalist or a protest party. The second contribution is theoretical: peacebuilding and political settlements theories must take a more dynamic and agency-sensitive view of legitimacy creation than they have hitherto.
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