ABSTRACT
Despite many internal and external constraints, Kosovo managed to build the foundations of a modern state in less than two decades, while generating widespread international legitimacy and support for its independent statehood by securing extensive diplomatic recognition and membership in international organisations. Yet, the price of statehood has been relatively high for Kosovo: it suffered from oppression, ethnic violence, and war, underwent a decade of international intervention and administration, and endured the challenges of statebuilding and constrained sovereignty after independence. This chapter provides a critical reappraisal of the price paid by Kosovo for becoming a sovereign state and explores the potential scenarios that will shape Kosovo’s future. The chapter then concludes with an outline for a proposed critical research agenda on state recognition, which needs to offer a new normative framework for statehood in world politics beyond the restrictions imposed by existing international law and state practice as well as generate emancipatory alternatives to existing norms, rules, and institutions governing state-becoming in world politics.
