ABSTRACT
Kosovo is perhaps one of the best examples today, at least in Europe, where formal and informal mechanisms of dealing with conflict coexist but do not communicate with each other. Whereas the formal mechanisms of dealing with conflict are the result of hierarchically superior decision-making processes mostly taking place outside Kosovo, most of the informal mechanisms, and especially the traditional ones, have been rather home-grown and based on very specific cultural, historical and religious roots. The parallel and independent development of such mechanisms reveals and at the same time contributes to the tension, or at least estrangement, between the two approaches.
