The ethno-nationality of a modern saint: an interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

institutions and undermine democratic rule. Those left behind where the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and other Balkan countries who decided to take matters into their own hands and emigrate or protest. The third and final phase that Belloni introduces is marked by increased civic activism and citizen involvement. Titled ‘Tuzla, or the Local Turn’, after an industrial city that saw massive protests in 2014, it confronts the prevailing top-down dynamic of liberal peacebuilding that marked the two previous phases, through either imposition or cooperation. This phase coincides with the ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding literature. The focus is on dynamics between intervenors and intervened upon, including local resistance to international peacebuilding agendas. Belloni highlights the relevance of every-day experiences as opposed to the relevance of externally conceived institutional frameworks. The problem of agency and the interplay between international actors, local power structures, and citizens shape this phase. The local turn is rarely analysed in the Balkans as the plethora of academic literature on the region focuses on previous forms of international intervention. At the same time, citizens’ protests against local leaders do not feature prominently in international relations research, including peacebuilding. Belloni, however, demonstrates that the local turn in the Balkans is equally directed towards country elites as towards the results of international liberal intervention. Citizens’ demands for equality, inclusion and social justice do not always coincide with international state-building and European integration agendas. Facing corrupt local elites and resistant citizens, along with diminishing multilateral support for intervention, foreign actors including the European Union are recently being forced to reassess their strategies towards the Western Balkans in more pragmatic terms. The Balkans have been instrumental in shaping the academic literature on peacebuilding and are still relevant for this task. As Belloni traces the theoretical evolution of peacebuilding, he proficiently illustrates this through cases and developments in the Western Balkans. This book makes us appreciate how theory and practice are intertwined in a way that one informs the other. The insights into the complex interactions of international, local elites’ and citizens’ agendas that shape peacebuilding are equally applicable to other contexts of international intervention.