Trading with the enemy in Mitrovica, Kosovo. - RUhosting

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indefinitely postpone the interview. This did cost me a lot of time and also is one of the reasons why I interviewed less traders than expected, because before I started my research many people told me they 'knew' a trader and only after I started with my interviews I discovered this was most often not the case. 2.4. Ethical considerations. As mentioned many times before Kosovo is a sensitive region and Mitrovica is its most extreme location. Because of this it was inevitable that some things discussed in my interviews could lead to dangerous situations for my interviewees if this information would become publicly known. This is why before every interview started the interviewees were clearly informed that their information will be kept anonymous and great effort was put into living up to this promise. I did not record the names of interviewees who discussed sensitive information so the information could never directly lead back to them. Also, I kept all the information from my interviews on my personal and password protected web-server instead of on my computer so the information could not be stolen. Also, because Mitrovica is such a small place I had to leave more details about my respondents from my results than I would have liked. For example, there are only a few internationals working in Mitrovica so if I would give information about their nationality or job in my results I might just as well give their full names. This is why details about respondents are kept very vague throughout the results section. Besides informing respondents about anonymity they were also explained what the interview was about and that is was for my master thesis. Afterwards I would offer to send my thesis to them when it is finished, so they could see their own contribution. Some NGO-workers asked for this themselves out of interest for the topic. The topic was presented as 'inter-ethnic trade' not as 'the possible effect of inter-ethnic trade on relations between Albanians and Serbs' or anything like that. This was because of two reasons: first, from this more expanded topic description my hypothesis could be more easily guessed and this might influence the answers respondents choose. Second, inter-ethnic contact or reconciliation are in general quite negative and loaded terms, so I would be better to avoid them. Not only could they lead to negative reactions but using these words would also tell something about my political orientation: improving inter-ethnic relations is a goal of the IC but and the Kosovar government and against the goals of the Serbian government. Although I would not introduce the topic of inter-ethnic contact early in the interview, it would eventually be introduced because it was an integral part of my research. Because this is a sensitive topic and people could have strong, emotional opinions about it, the topic of inter-ethnic contact was always introduced in an open matter. The reason for this was that people can tell their own story about it and vent if necessary, without being pushed in one direction or having to talk about it without really wanting to. It was also considered that people may have had firsthand experiences of the war and therefore direct questions in this direction were never asked, and so it was only discussed when people started to talk about this out of their own initiative. 17
CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK "Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent: for if one has the interest in buying, the other has the interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on the mutual necessities". -Montesquieu (1900: 316) This chapter focuses on the theoretical framework used in this research. The main scientific foundation is the trade aspect of the Kantian Peace theory, also known as the liberal peace or simply as the "trade brings peace" concept, which will be discussed in the first paragraph. The second paragraph will discuss trade in (post) conflict areas and how the effects of illegal trade may be different from legal trade regarding intergroup relations. The third and last paragraph of this chapter examines some points of attention which are needed when applying these theories on the specific case of Mitrovica. 3.1. The Kantian Peace The claim that “trade brings peace” can be dated back as far as to the classical Greeks, but especially gained in popularity during the 19 th century. Nowadays it's a mainstream ideology supported by a wealth of empirical data (Keshk, Pollins & Reuveny, 2004). Oneal and Russet (1999) show that many research reports in the 1990s have indicated that “economically important trade has statistically significant and substantively important benefits for reducing interstate violence”. To this they add their own research results which shows abundant support for this case. The notion that trade fosters peace is perhaps best known as a part of the concept also known as 'the Kantian Peace'. This theory – based on Immanuel Kant's theory about a perpetual peace – holds that there are three important factors which reduce the chances of war for a country: membership in intergovernmental organisations, a democratic system and levels of trade causing economic interdependence. When focussed on the effect of trade and democracy on peace this theory is often referred to as 'liberal peace'. The empirical evidence for this theory is strong with only a few 'marginal' cases of war between democracies according to its supporters. The general consensus is that all three of these variables have a positive effect on peace but also affect each other positively. For example, the effect of trade would have a positive effect on a country's economy which is good for the entire population, but it would most directly affect the traders who earn their bread with it directly. In a democracy this group of traders would be more able to voice their concerns against losing trade if a war would erupt and could influence policies. Lagazio & Russett (2004) developed a model which predicts conflicts over the period 1885-1992 with an accuracy ranging from 64.8% - 82.4%, in which they find a consistent strong effect for interdependence and democracy, and a lesser but still significant effect for membership of international organisations. The same 18
Page 1 and 2: Nijmegen School of Management, Radb
Page 3 and 4: TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
Page 5 and 6: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION “Sixteen
Page 7 and 8: Governmental Organisations (IGO's)
Page 9 and 10: 1.4. Thesis organisation - Short ou
Page 11 and 12: I learned a lot from it, as I found
Page 13 and 14: Of the seventeen people interviewed
Page 15 and 16: interesting experience was organisi
Page 17: Mitrovica Serb admitted that when h
Page 21 and 22: 4. Trade encourages the broader exp
Page 23 and 24: Miljacka River, separating the Serb
Page 25 and 26: This part of inter-ethnic trade can
Page 27 and 28: For the largest part of the past 60
Page 29 and 30: “Because of such dissatisfactions
Page 31 and 32: sent all colonists back to Kosovo.
Page 33 and 34: Conditions have improved and the de
Page 35 and 36: Albanians reacted to these new poli
Page 37 and 38: same: First an Albanian village whi
Page 39 and 40: Data from the SOK is sometimes used
Page 41 and 42: the highest aid per capita ever giv
Page 43 and 44: Country % of Export % of Import Alb
Page 45 and 46: which were in turn disbanded in fav
Page 47 and 48: Another similarity between both com
Page 49 and 50: situation developed in favour of th
Page 51 and 52: its economic situation. Mitrovica u
Page 53 and 54: CHAPTER 5: RESULTS Placing inter-et
Page 55 and 56: Albanian” and by Serbs associated
Page 57 and 58: “But I will never accept the inde
Page 59 and 60: Another important reason why reconc
Page 61 and 62: “Everything that happens in Mitro
Page 63 and 64: August 2009 with violent protests a
Page 65 and 66: nationalists” because he believes
Page 67 and 68: (respondent #4). A Serb working in
Page 69 and 70:
CHAPTER 6: RESULTS Views on the eff
Page 71 and 72:
elieves inter-ethnic trade will imp
Page 73 and 74:
Trader 3. Respondent #7, an Albania
Page 75 and 76:
daughter of his sister who went to
Page 77 and 78:
issues. On top of that you have to
Page 79 and 80:
towards their colleagues of the oth
Page 81 and 82:
that even if the legal or the grey
Page 83 and 84:
2004. Second, Blanton argues that "
Page 85 and 86:
REFERENCES Andreas, P. (2004). The
Page 87 and 88:
Lagazio, M., & Russett, B. (2004).
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