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Full Description
Competing Sovereignties: Parallel States, Public Services, and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Kosovo examines thirty years of parallel state competition in Kosovo, exploring how ordinary people navigate between rival authorities when multiple states compete for their loyalty through the provision of essential public services.
In Kosovo's remote villages, children attend separate classrooms under different flags, representing competing educational systems from two states that deny each other's existence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and over 100 interviews, the book examines this parallel state competition in Kosovo. First during the 1990s Albanian resistance movement operating underground beneath Serbian rule, then after 1999 when ethnic Serbs established their own parallel institutions alongside the emerging Kosovo state. The book reveals how different services, such as education, healthcare, and justice, carry distinct political profiles that shape citizen choices in fundamentally different ways. Individual decision-making is influenced by two key factors: the specific characteristics of each service (whether technical or symbolic, individual or collective) and the degree of group solidarity within communities. Through detailed analysis of how Albanians and Serbs have chosen between competing schools, hospitals, and courts, the book demonstrates that the real competition for legitimacy in contested territories is fought through governance, not guns. It challenges conventional assumptions about state-building and citizen loyalty, showing how people tactically navigate between authorities based on complex calculations involving quality, trust, identity, and social pressure.
Providing a nuanced understanding of how people experience and respond to competing political authorities in their everyday lives, Competing Sovereignties will be of great interest to political scientists, historians, and sociologists interested in state formation, nationalism, and conflict resolution. Scholars of international development, peace and conflict studies, and Balkan politics will find valuable insights into how parallel governance structures function in practice. The book also offers important lessons for policymakers and practitioners working in contested territories.
Contents
Introduction: The Everyday Politics of Parallel States Chapter 2: Choosing Sovereigns: Solidarity, Services, and Decision-making in Parallel States Chapter 3: History, Myth, and the Roots of Parallel Governance in Kosovo Part 1: Building an Underground Alternative: The Albanian Parallel State, 1989-1999 Chapter 4: Educating the Nation: Loyalty, Resistance, and the Politics of Schooling Chapter 5: Healing in the Shadows: Trust, Fear, and the Politics of Care Chapter 6: Between Honour and Utility: Justice in the Parallel State Part 2: Holding On: The Serb Parallel State, 1999-2018 Chapter 7: Lifelines of Learning: Education and the Politics of Continuity Chapter 8: Quietly Surviving: Healthcare and the Politics of Dependence Chapter 9: Parallel Verdicts: Fragmented Justice and Everyday Pragmatism Chapter 10: Between Two Roofs: Rethinking Sovereignty from the Ground Up
