This volume provides one of the first comprehensive feminist readings of international statebuilding, with a specific focus on the case of Kosovo. Rather than simply showing how the state in Kosovo is being built by and through women and feminist encounters, this volume is interested to problematise women and feminist subjectivities vis-à-vis the state and statebuilding. The book challenges three main arguments related to the processes and subjects of statebuilding in Kosovo. First, the academic literature on Kosovo has a tendency to take the international intervention of 1999 as the originary point of statebuilding processes in Kosovo. Second, and relatedly, given Kosovo's unprecedented exposure to Western intervention and statebuilding, the majority of works start from the presumption that liberal interventionism in Kosovo (and elsewhere) is normatively more progressive than the previous system, and that the liberal interventionism and statebuilding are naturally gender progressive and gender-equal. The third argument has to do with the existing legal architecture on gender and women’s rights in contemporary Kosovo. The aim of the volume is to, on the one hand, problematise the evidence against the backdrop of everyday manifestations and/or performances of statebuilding and on the other hand interrogate the co-constitutive gender aspect. In terms of methodology, the volume brings together contributions that rely on traditional and multi-sited ethnography, and narrative research rooted in projects and initiatives in Kosovo. This allows the contributors to unearth new and silenced actors, entry points, subjects and subjectivities in processes of and related to statebuilding in Kosovo; feminist frictions and challenges to statebuilding in Kosovo; as well as encounters of heteronormative statebuilding. This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, Balkan politics, feminisms, and international relations, in general.

This book examines the international efforts to regulate violence in Kosovo since 1999 through the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and covers 15 years of international presence. The book analyses the process of implementing international policies from a sociological perspective, and looks at the adaptations and arrangements of public policies achieved through the transactions of international actors with local actors, who are at the heart of policy implementation. In particular, it analyses the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration of combatants (DDR) programme and shows the extent to which it was co-produced with Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders co-opted by international administrators. These analyses take the opposite view to the work that considers ex-combatants as spoilers. In Kosovo, the combatant leaders acted as peace brokers, facilitating demobilisation and exercising disciplinary control over rank-and-file combatants. Their position as brokers helped them to take control of the new state being built under international administration. This book shows the importance of the relationship between ex-combatants and the state and illustrates the multiplicity of their possible trajectories, including political ones. To elucidate the dynamics of co-production in shaping DDR policies and hybridising international policies as well as in state formation, the book relies on around a hundred interviews with ex-combatants of the KLA and with international personnel, as well as on the archives of international organisations and observations in the field. This book will be of much interest to students of international statebuilding, peace and conflict studies, Balkan politics and international relations.

This book provides a critical understanding of Europeanization and statebuilding in the Western Balkans, using the notion of everyday practices. This volume argues that it is everyday and mundane events that provide the entry points to showcase a broader set of practices of Europeanization in countries outside the EU. It does this by tracing notions of Europeanization in the everyday statebuilding of Kosovo, Europe Day celebrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, urban politics in Tirana, and space and place making in Skopje. In doing so, the book shows that everyday events tell us that as much as it is about changing structures, institutions, and economic models, Europeanization is also about changing behaviours and ideas in populations at large. At the same time, the work shows that countries outside the EU use everyday events to perform their belonging to Europe. This book will be of much interest to students of European Studies, Balkan politics, statebuilding, and International Relations generally.

This book provides a critical assessment of the impact of UN Resolution 1325 by examining the effect of peacebuilding missions on increasing gender equality within conflict-affected countries. UN Resolution 1325 was adopted in October 2000, and was the first time that the security concerns of women in situations of armed conflict and their role in peacebuilding was placed on the agenda of the UN Security Council. It was an important step forward in terms of bringing women’s rights and gender equality to bear in the UN’s peace and security agenda. More than a decade after the adoption of this Resolution, its practical reality is yet to be substantially felt on the ground in the very societies and regions where women remain disproportionately affected by armed conflict and grossly under-represented in peace processes. This realization, in part, led to the adoption in 2008 and 2009 of three other Security Council Resolutions, on sexual violence in conflict, violence against women, and for the development of indicators to measure progress in addressing women, peace and security issues. The book draws together the findings from eight countries and four regional contexts to provide guidance on how the impact of Resolution 1325 can be measured, and how peacekeeping operations could improve their capacity to effectively engender security. This book will be of much interest to students of peacebuilding, gender studies, the United Nations, international security and IR in general.

Highlights feminist rhetorical practices that disrupt and surpass boundaries of time and space In 1917, Alice Paul and other suffragists famously picketed in front of the White House while holding banners with short, pithy sayings such as “Mr. President: How long must women wait for Liberty?” Their juxtaposition of this short phrase with the image of the White House (a symbol of liberty and justice) relies on the same rhetorical tactics as memes, a genre contemporary feminists use frequently to make arguments about reproductive rights, Black Lives Matter, sex-positivity, and more. Many such connections between feminists of different spaces, places, and eras have yet to be considered, let alone understood. Feminist Connections: Rhetoric and Activism across Time, Space, and Place reconsiders feminist rhetorical strategies as linked, intergenerational, and surprisingly consistent despite the emergence of new forms of media and intersectional considerations. Contributors to this volume highlight continuities in feminist rhetorical practices that are often invisible to scholars, obscured by time, new media, and wildly different cultural, political, and social contexts. Thus, this collection takes a nonchronological approach to the study of feminist rhetoric, grouping chapters by rhetorical practice rather than time, content, or choice of media. By connecting historical, contemporary, and future trajectories, this collection develops three feminist rhetorical frameworks: revisionary rhetorics, circulatory rhetorics, and response rhetorics. A theorization of these frameworks explains how feminist rhetorical practices (past and present) rely on similar but diverse methods to create change and fight oppression. Identifying these strategies not only helps us rethink feminist rhetoric from an academic perspective but also allows us to enact feminist activist rhetorics beyond the academy during a time in which feminist scholarship cannot afford to remain behind its hallowed yet insular walls.

In this book, militarization, nationalism, and globalization are scrutinized at sites of violent conflict from a range of feminist pespectives.