In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarization and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Soerensen argues that the region must be analyzed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting inter- and intracommunity relations, the emergence of a "political economy" of conflict, and of informal clientelist arrangements in Serbia and Kosovo and provides a framework for interpreting the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the emergence of ethnic conflict and shadow economies, and the character of western aid and intervention. Western governments and agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. As the author persuasively argues, this discrepancy has exacerbated and cemented problems in the region and provided further complications that are likely to remain for years to come.

In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarization and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Soerensen argues that the region must be analyzed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting inter- and intracommunity relations, the emergence of a "political economy" of conflict, and of informal clientelist arrangements in Serbia and Kosovo and provides a framework for interpreting the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the emergence of ethnic conflict and shadow economies, and the character of western aid and intervention. Western governments and agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. As the author persuasively argues, this discrepancy has exacerbated and cemented problems in the region and provided further complications that are likely to remain for years to come.

Europe today is deeply divided. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War and the celebratory moment when the wall came down, we are again faced with a new Cold War with Russia-Western relations probably more dangerous than ever since the Cuban missile crisis. Diplomatic relations are frozen, sanctions installed, the old arms treaties abandoned (ABM, INF), and new nuclear weapons developed (Supersonic etc.). Indeed, we are arguably in a new nuclear arms race. Further, Russia and the U.S. are involved in proxy wars in Syria and Ukraine, in the sense of supporting opposing sides in these conflicts. The EU Europe itself is divided. It is not just Brexit, marking the first real break-away from the Union, but also clashes within. In the heart of Paris, the yellow vests are now well over a year into continuing violent demonstrations. So-called populist movements have been on the rise across the continent. The Visegrad countries (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic) are regularly at odds with the EU core (Brussels and the France-Germany axis) to a degree where the idea of sanctions is sometimes invoked. The Western security framework appears to break down, with Turkey, a NATO member and with the organisations second largest military numerically, beginning to purchase Russian weapon systems (S-400) and enter a strategic alliance with Russia and Syria in the Middle East. How did it come to this and what happened with the post-Cold War dream? And what has happened to the post world war visions of European integration and security order? What are the critical processes and events that have led us unto this path? This book aims to address and explore these historical problems.