Role of an Agent in (un)Keeping the Multiethnic State Together: The Case of the Secession of Kosovo

Abstract

This paper proposes an explanation for the Kosovo secession from Serbia/Yugoslavia. This is achieved by disaggregating the ‘reality’ of the state through the process tracing method, which compares the cases of the Tito and Milošević triangles of accommodation practices. The focus is on the games of survival practiced at the middle levels of political life, around the local state policy implementer and the consequences of his removal. This paper examines not only why, but how the secession of Kosovo occurred when it did. It shows that the strength of authoritarianism or the regime-oppression capability is not what held the Serbia and Kosovo together; rather, it was the policies of accommodations which one leader did better than the other