Civil Society Resistance Responses to International Failing Liberal State- and Peacebuilding in the Cases of Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo and North Macedonia

Liberal peace interventions initiated by the international community in the 1990s seemingly are collapsing at various places in the world and new counter resistance activism is on rise and questioning failed mainly Western state- and peacebuilding interventions.

This project deals specifically with the resistance practices of the “new” civil society that challenges liberal peace interventions that began more than two decades ago, as well as the failed state structures followed from these interventions in three cases in the former Yugoslavia context: Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo (KOS), and North Macedonia (MK).

This cutting-edge study will explore - theoretically and empirically - the new bottom-up civil society activism that vocalize the need of improvement of social justice, material fair distribution, as well as establishing social market responsible socio-economic policies.

This project, using both quantitative and qualitative research approaches, is concerned with how we can understand and explain grassroots grievance and various different civil resistance practices in stalled peace processes, how they interrelate to the broader public, as well as what magnitude of support they have in each society.