ABSTRACT
The residual social policy launched by international organisations after the war in Kosovo failed to contribute meaningfully to building a citizenship of rights and living standards shared between people and communities. During the UN administration of the territory, minimum social transfers were made to poor and elderly people under the policy, which handed the rest of the responsibility for welfare over to the market. Around and after the declaration of independence, the now greater power in the hands of local political parties and other social actors was used to increase social spending. Most of the active new policy layering, however, primarily targeted individuals and families connected to the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA); the social benefits received by state administration employees also grew disproportionately, compared to those of the rest of society; and when it came to granting social rights to Kosovo’s Serbian community, the role of the government of Serbia expanded. All of these developments meant that the institutional structure increasingly favoured particularism and a duality of rights, rather than consolidating citizenship. In terms of the post-socialist transformation debates in Southeastern Europe, post-war Kosovo discontinued the Yugoslav social policy of self-management, which had been centred on workers – yet, producing results similar to those of self-management, Kosovo continued to have very high levels of social inequality and exclusion after the war. This explains the low levels of democratisation, the deep political distrust and the emigration to Western countries.
