1st Edition
Former Combatants, Democracy, and Institution-Building in Transitory Societies Kosovo and North Macedonia
This book explores the long-term impact on democracy and institution-building in post-conflict and transitory societies, stemming from the political integration of former combatants of intra-state armed groups. By providing a comparative analysis on two countries with certain commonalities but also sufficient differences to warrant an intriguing comparison – Kosovo and North Macedonia – the author undertakes an examination of their respective political trajectories with a focus on the role of combatants turned politicians. Revolving around the concepts of democracy and political inclusion versus clientelism, corruption and institutional capture, the objective is to shed light on the correlation between the inclusion of former combatants in politics, democratization and institution-building, and the perpetuation of clientelist behavior and other illicit phenomena. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of democracy, nation building, institution building, and security studies.
1. Introduction; 2. Combatants and armed groups in fledgling peace: literature review; 3. Towards an inductive-based theory on democracy spoilers: theoretical framework and research design; 4. The rise of intra-state armies: background and context; 5. The political integration of former combatants; 6. Kosovo: former combatants building institutions and democracy; 7. North Macedonia: sharing power with former rebels; 8. Conclusion; 9. References
Biography
Armend Bekaj is a Researcher at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research (DPCR), Uppsala University in Sweden. He combines academic and policy experience on peace and conflict, and democracy versus autocracy, with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. For the past three years he has also been working at Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament (AMC) at DPCR, focusing on the role of sanctions on disarmament and non-proliferation.
