Politics of Enforcing A “Multi-Ethnic” Society in Kosovo-A Brief History of Constitutional Development and State Building in Kosovo

Abstract

Constitutional law and state building in Kosovo was conducted with the goal of creating a multi-ethnic society; this impacted on the nature of the international administration from 1999-2008 and also the nature of Kosovo’s political/judicial structures after independence. The determination to forge a multi-ethnic society impacted on the design of various institutions and has had the perverse effect of cementing ethnic divisions and enabling certain parties/groups opposed to the existence of Kosovo to infiltrate Kosovo’s institutions. As a result, the creation of an inclusive “Kosovo” identity has been somewhat paralyzed. This paper aims to revisit constitutional history development of Kosovo to try and make sense of the current state of affairs in the Constitution of Kosovo.

Keywords

• history; constitutional law; state building; multi-ethnicity; kosovo