ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the evolution in the understanding of the statebuilding process in Kosovo. It captures how the subjective perceptions of the people have become gradually important for frameworks of international intervention. The first, analyses in the initial section, is the one adopted by United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) until Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia. The second section draws out the critique of UNMIK's approach, which is considered to have strengthened ethnic and territorial divisions and hindered reconciliation. In the final section, the two frameworks of peacebuilding will be read as two versions of the same problematisation of post-conflict Kosovo. This is possible because both perspectives have understood that the problems are caused by a psychosocial dysfunction: the dominance of ethnicity in the universe of social and political relationships. The vital point highlights the every dispute in Kosovo, from the claims for self-determination to the security dilemmas to the discussion over language rights.
