ABSTRACT
The argument of this chapter is that while international agencies claim to be promoting economic liberalisation in the protectorates of south-east Europe, in practice they reinforce the dominance of clientist and corporatist political economies. In this respect there is cooperation as well as friction between international and domestic actors. The notion that “protectorates” operate in south-east Europe is not admitted by the states and international organisations involved in the region. But informed observers have argued that the only realistic goal of western policy in Kosovo would be an international protectorate that, as in Bosnia, would last indefinitely.1
The inhabitants are deemed unable to determine their futures without paternalistic guidance and rules of governance determined from the outside. The rules reflect the values and norms of acceptable behaviour according to constructions by the powers that dominate the external institutions.
