M.A.

The thesis deals with the role of the United Nations in resolution of international ethnic conflicts. The aim of the thesis is to try to evaluate the activities of United Nations in resolution of the Kosovo ethnic -- cultural conflict. The thesis sets the problem into context of United Nations' approach to ethnic conflicts. It analyses the historical development of the Kosovo conflict and the impact of the United Nations' activities. On basis of the gathered knowledge the thesis concludes that in spite of many partial problems, the activity of United Nations in Kosovo may be considered effective.

The theme of this thesis is position of Kosovo in international relations. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 and belongs to the failed states. In this thesis I will examine the main causes of the dysfunction of Kosovo, and how it is reflected in Kosovo current position.

The population of Kosovo had suffered years of abuse, ethnic cleansing, turmoil, human atrocities, and constant conflict--the results of which plunged Kosovo into costly war. Following the war, Kosovo was placed under the protection of the United Nations in 1999. Kosovo received many years of support and developmental assistance from the international community. Kosovo became a sovereign nation in February 2008. Kosovo's government immediately recognized the importance of serving the needs of the people with responsibility and integrity. There is no institution more important to the successful development of a sovereign nation and their economy than the ethical administration of a tax authority. In the spring of 2008, after Kosovo's declaration of independence, this study was initiated to determine the moral maturity of the members of the Tax Authority of Kosovo. This study provides an extensive review of the current situation in Kosovo and discusses ethical considerations in tax administration. The paper further provides a comprehensive discussion of ethical concerns and discusses the importance of moral development in the tax administration of Kosovo. Recommendations for managers and future research are presented.

Ever since Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, the EU has striven for a supportive relationship with the burgeoning new state; a relationship which can be seen to have been built upon the institution’s constitutive normative principles. This relationship has consequently resulted in a national emphasis upon environmental development throughout Kosovo. However, how beneficial has the EU’s promotion of these normative principles over Kosovo actually been for Kosovo’s environmental development? And subsequently, what are the potential consequences of the EU being perceived as an influential ‘normative power’ for other actors in the international system? This thesis has addressed these questions through conducting a series of semi-structured expert interviews, as to generate contemporarily relevant and applicable data which reflects the benefits of the EU’s operation in Kosovo and illustrates contemporary EU power exertion. Ian Manners’ theoretical conceptualisation of EU power, ‘Normative power Europe’, provides the theoretical framework for the conducting of this research. This paper argues that the EU’s exertion of normative power over Kosovo has, overall, been beneficial for Kosovo’s environmental development through wide-spread developments to key areas of Kosovo’s environmental sphere; however, there have also been certain shortcomings and failures of the EU in in this regard as certain key-areas of Kosovo’s environmental sphere, regardless of the long-term presence of the EU in Kosovo, remain largely underdeveloped. This conclusion can be employed in order to draw reflections on the potential consequences of the perception of the EU as an influential ‘normative power’ for other actors in the international system; other international actors could move away from more traditional conceptual approaches to power/ influence exertion in the international system, and developing states could also grow to be more receptive to normative power exertion processes. Therefore, the presented conclusions are not only relevant to the case of Kosovo, but could also be employed in a more practical manner in exploring the role and consequences of the EU’s contemporary power exertion in the international system as a whole.

The thesis examines the European Union as a mediator in the case of Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. It tends to discover which factors led to lower mediation effectiveness after 2015, by EU's mediation strategy, leverage and coherence. The thesis is designed as a qualitative case study which compares three different stages of the case by implementing a combination of congruence method and process tracing. Drawing for the content and document analysis as well as four interviews conducted and two personal communications, the thesis analyses the factors which influenced effectiveness and compares them throughout three different phases of the mediation. In the end, the analysis shows that while strategy remained the same, levels coherence and leverages changed and concluded that it was the weaking of EU's leverage strength that influenced mediation effectiveness the most.

Despite the frequency of use amongst scholars of IR, myth remains largely a term of colloquiality. However, this paper aims to argue that as a distinct temporal and normative structure within discourse, it is a powerful tool for understanding the ways in which narratives give meaning to political phenomena, not just by describing how they are, but how they ought to be. To explain the function of myth, a case study of Kosovo has been conducted. Much scholarly debate on the nature of internationally contested states exists, but we will make the argument that Kosovo is best understood as a being in a state of liminality, due to the conflicting nature of its political structures and foreign intervention. By joining the theory discourse of Laclau and Mouffe, with insights from psychoanalysis we suggest a framework for analysing the distinct nature of political myths. The utopian horizons of myth spell out two antagonistic narratives of sovereignty in Kosovo: one of European integration and market liberalisation, and one of unification with Albania.

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The issue with achieving a balance between a stable democratization process and peacebuilding is an ongoing difficulty. Scholars argue that the long-term effects are not properly considered when constructing a peace accord and is affecting the process of nation-rebuilding. The integrationalist and consociationalist perspectives, two major strands within this field, disagree on the point of incorporating ethnicities in the political arena, in which both parties argue that the outcome is negative for a state's developmental process.  An analysis of state reports conducted by the U.S. Department of State and the cases´ peace accords, will be conducted using Freedom Houses indicators for political rights. This is to observe if there is a difference in efficiency between the two perspectives and to what degree it can be mirrored in the level of political rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The Most Similar System Design is used to isolate the similar variables that the two case countries share in order to compare a possible difference in the level of political rights. The results show that there is a difference seen from the start to the end point for both cases, as well as a difference in the level of political rights between the two. This lines up with the findings of present scholars on this topic thus amplifying the need for more research to be conducted.

Nationalist discourse has played an important role in the breakup of Yugoslavia, with particularly extensive influence on the future of the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The tensions raised by ethno-nationalist rhetoric would lead to a 1992-1995 War that effectively segregated the population of Bosnia into three ethnic camps and destroyed the country's trademark multiculturalism. Bosnia emerged from the war as a weak union of two ethno-territories; the Bosniak-Croat Federation (FBiH) and the Serb-dominated Republic of Srpska (RS). During the first post-war decade, it made considerable progress towards reconciliation and Euro-Atlantic integrations. However, in May of 2006 the Prime Minister of RS Milorad Dodik made first of a series of comments that advocated the right of RS to hold independence referendum, signalizing a major return of inflammatory and divisive ethno-nationalist rhetoric. What we can call "RS Referendum Discourse" is not exactly a new object or desire, but its articulation and expression from 2006 onwards deserves careful consideration on its own merits. This thesis seeks to document the emergence and performative structure of the RS Referendum Discourse through a textual analysis of how it was registered and recorded in two Bosnian daily newspapers. The research is an empirical study of nationalism as expressed in discourse on the future of the Bosnian state. / Master of Arts