Trading with the enemy in Mitrovica, Kosovo. - RUhosting

unsafe for Albanians to go into Mitrovica north I was told on several occasions that the Albanian
construction workers are completely safe there. The Serbian majority is dependent on them for cheap and
skilled labour. The same goes for trade, within trade contact is completely safe: they need each other for their
jobs. This is interdependence.
Some authors have argued that it is hard to determine causality regarding the trade part of the Kantian peace
theory. Do states have good relations because they engage in trade or do they engage in trade because they
have or pursue good relations? While their argument stands, the Kosovo-Serbia relation is a quite interesting
case in this. Keshk, Pollins & Reuveny (2004) argument that levels of trade are only high between states
because those states have good relations does not fly for the relations between Serbia and Kosovo. The
relations between the government in Belgrade and the government in Pristina are bad, to put it mildly. Serbia
is even actively promoting bad relations with the government in Pristina, mainly aimed at denying its (legal)
existence. The trade flows between the two territories are huge though, and based on these Serbia can be
considered to be Kosovo's largest trading partner. So despite the efforts of both governments not to engage in
any kind of relations, on the ground this situation is completely different. People engage in trade contact on a
large scale. It is unclear to what extend this is inter-ethnic contact because many Albanians are living in
Serbia proper and many Serbs are living in Kosovo, but this is irrelevant for my argument here. The point I'm
trying to make is that on a state level the Kantian peace theory does not apply at all on the relationship
between Kosovo and Serbia, no matter which direction of causality is considered. This is another argument
for my case that the Kantian peace theory needs to be expanded to the micro level instead of merely
focussing on the macro level. While on a macro level the situation is opposite of what the trade aspect of the
Kantian peace theory predicts (terrible inter-state relations combined with very high levels of trade) on a
micro level there seem to be plenty of indicators that the same theory does apply, which was demonstrated in
the results section. Of course, the inter-ethnic relations on the ground are almost as bad as the inter-state
relations but traders are the exception here as they seem to be operating under peaceful conditions, while
trusting their colleagues of the other ethnic group in their business. In short, what is happening on a state or
macro level is very different from what is happening on an individual or micro level, especially in Mitrovica.
This is an area where the Kantian peace theory can be expanded because not only does this lower layer
provide extra information, it can also provide completely new applications for this theory such as inter-ethnic
trust building, for example.
So far the purely economic argument. During the theoretical framework it has been discussed how Blanton
(2006) argues that trade is more than just trade flows. His argument was targeted at the Kantian peace theory
and therefore he was referring to states, which is why it not entirely applicable to this thesis and research.
But out of his four points three can be directly related to inter-ethnic trade as well: First, inter-ethnic trade
also encourages the trading and sharing of information as well as transparency between parties. This can be
seen by the example of traders calling and checking up on each other, even during the crisis with the riots of
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