International Intervention in Kosovo: A case of Normative and Factual Social Capital

Abstract

Almost fifteen years after the Kosovo War in 1999 and with a continuous international presence, there are still considerable discrepancies regarding the goals of the country’s development and its reality. This article provides an explanation based on the economic theory of social capital. While the usual explanation tries to point at failures of the international community or at different problems in Kosovar society, this article opts for analyzing the exchange of social capital between the international community and Kosovo-Albanians. Whereas the international community failed to recognize the existent stock of social capital in Kosovo, local society discovered different gaps between the normative and factual stock of social capital that the international community represented. Both sides engaged in a process of exchanging social capital. This exchange of social capital is a natural process and it explains the discrepancies between development-goals and the status quo.