The seminar focuses on the international interventions of the 1990s and early 2000s in the Western Balkans (Former Yugoslavia). However, this focus is embedded in a broader historical and geographical context.

We begin with international interventions in the late 19th century noting some remarkable similarities in terms of language, motivation, justification and implementation. From there, we skip ahead a century to examine the immediate antecedents of the 1990s interventions in the Western Balkans — including the peacekeeping missions in Cyprus and the Near East, as well as the short-lived and ill-fated U.S. intervention in Somalia — in order to understand the mindset, toolkit, and institutional architecture of interventionism that was subsequently applied in the region.
The main section of the seminar deals with the actual interventions of the 1990s and early 2000s in the Western Balkans: how they drew on lessons from previous decades and how they evolved in response to context-specific challenges and shifting requirements. We then turn to simultaneous interventions outside the Balkans (e.g., Rwanda, Liberia, Guatemala) and to subsequent interventions (e.g., Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor) to see how simultaneous missions influenced each other and how these influenced subsequent missions. In the final session, we return to the Western Balkans to examine the legacy of the 1990s interventions and what remains in place today — particularly the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

In addition to the assigned literature, I will also draw on my personal experience to provide insights into several of the missions discussed over the course of the seminar. close