In 1999, the United Nations embarked on a massive intervention in Kosovo. This book compares the fate of two adjacent municipalities two years into that intervention. Though similar in all key respects, by 2001 the municipalities were headed down markedly different paths—one making progress toward institution-building, democratization, and reconstruction, the other stagnating.
Drawing on extensive field research, the author shows that the successful municipality was able to bring together international organizations and local populations as part of a “network” organization. The lack of progress in the second municipality was due to the same organizations staying behind bureaucratic walls, and keeping local populations at a distance. In both municipalities, information and communication technologies contributed in surprising ways to the success or failure of the international efforts.
This book has relevance for interventions around the world, most obviously for the challenging situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the author develops policy recommendations in the concluding section. No other book on nation-building or democratization examines the daily behavior in an international intervention to answer the big question: How do you get from the chaos of a post-conflict society to one with functioning institutions?
