Peace at Any Price

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Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo
Peace at Any Price.jpg
Authors Iain King and Whit Mason
LanguageEnglish
SubjectInternational
Published2006 (Cornell University Press)
Publication placeUnited States and United Kingdom
Media type Hardcover
Pages328
ISBN 978-0-8014-4539-2

Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo is a 2006 book by Iain King and Whit Mason. It chronicles the history of Kosovo, focusing on the period from 1999 to 2005, when Kosovo was governed by and under the authority of the United Nations. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

The book explains this history with sections on Kosovo's security and the rule of law; inter-ethnic relations; political developments; hearts, minds and culture; and economy. [13] It draws on Kai Eide's Report of 2005, which criticized the international community's performance in Kosovo, and was approved unanimously by the United Nations Security Council. [14]

The book has 226 citations in other published works, and features in university reading lists on politics, conflict studies and international relations. [15] [16] [17]

The book concludes that:

“The international community was very successful where there was a strong and unified international will to tackle a straightforward physical task, such as the humanitarian crisis of 1999… Where the international protectorate almost completely failed was in changing the way people thought and behaved... After six years of unprecedented international support, Kosovo remained a place where the strong bullied the weak and where there remained an extraordinary lack of public spirit. This is less than Western democracies hoped for when they intervened to stop barbarities in 1999, and much less than most of the thousands of foreigners and Kosovans believed they were working towards between 1999 and 2005.” [13]

It attributes this poor performance to six mistakes made by the international community:

The book concludes with ten lessons for future interventions. [13]

References

  1. Oisín Tansey. Review of Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo by Iain King, Whit Mason in International Journal , Vol. 62, No. 3, "What Kind of Security? Afghanistan and Beyond" (Summer, 2007), pp. 717-720.
  2. James Ker-Lindsay (April 2007). "Peace at Any Price". Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans. 9 (1): 87–98. doi:10.1080/14613190701217126. ISSN   1461-3190. S2CID   216135841.
  3. "Kosovo Spotlight". CNN . 2007-12-14. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  4. "Time for a Reckoning (Review of Peace at Any Price)". The Economist . 2006-09-21. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  5. Jackson, Thomas (May 2007). "Peace at Any Price" . Journal of Peace Research. 44 (3): 369–370. doi:10.1177/00223433070440030708. ISSN   1460-3578. S2CID   111227554 . Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  6. Mason, Whit (2006). "Kosovo: Unravelling the Knot". World Policy Journal. 23 (5112): 87–98. ISSN   0254-1807. JSTOR   40210036.
  7. "Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo". Foreign Affairs. Council on Foreign Relations. May 2007. pp. 87–98. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  8. Pierre Hassner (2007-01-31). "Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo". International Affairs. 83 (1). Wiley: 191–192. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2346.2007.00610.x.
  9. Mertus, J (2008-02-24). "Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo by Iain King and Whit Mason". Journal of Peace Research. 33 (2). Wiley: 316–318. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0130.2008.00496.x.
  10. Roger D Petersen (2011). Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict. Cambridge University Press. p. 116. ISBN   978-0-521-28126-3.
  11. Paddy Ashdown (2007). Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing Peace to the 21st Century. Orion. p. 318. ISBN   978-0-297-85303-9.
  12. Hubrecht, Joël (November 2006). "Peace at Any Price – How the World Failed Kosovo". Esprit. 329 (11): 218–221. ISSN   0254-1807. JSTOR   24258933.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Iain King and Whit Mason (2006). Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo. Cornell University Press. ISBN   978-0-8014-4539-2.
  14. "Kosovo Security Council Report" (PDF). United Nations. 2005. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
  15. Google Scholar, accessed 2017-02-08
  16. "Yugoslavia Reading List". Goldsmiths. 2012. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
  17. International Politics Reading List. LSE. 2015. ISBN   9780801445392 . Retrieved 2017-02-08.