Elena B. Stavrevska | University of Bristol (original) (raw)

Journal articles by Elena B. Stavrevska

European Foreign Affairs Review, 2019

The ratification of the Prespa Agreement between Greece and North Macedonia marked the end of one... more The ratification of the Prespa Agreement between Greece and North Macedonia marked the end of one of the longest diplomatic disputes in Europe. EU officials were quick to praise the agreement not only as a positive example for resolving bilateral disputes in the Western Balkans, but also as an illustration of the power of attraction of the EU. Nevertheless, while it is undeniable that the agreement aligns with EU strategic interests and its normative agenda of transformation of its near abroad, we argue that a closer look into the history of the dispute and the ratification process in each country reveals tensions that cut across the internal governance of the EU and the conduct of its external relations. Our analysis of the Prespa Agreement as an instance of this internal-external nexus of EU governance showcases lingering stresses that today's mode of European integration generates between state elites, EU institutions and democratic communities across the EU's internal and external periphery.

Civil Wars, 2018

This article highlights the political consequences of financial measures in post-conflict economy... more This article highlights the political consequences of financial measures in post-conflict economy formation processes. It focuses on how microfinance for women in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even when considered successful, affects women’s agency, what forms of female subjectivities emerge and what forms become excluded or reinforced as a result. Juxtaposing the two goals of microfinance for women – improved family welfare and gender equality – and the consequences, it shows how neoliberal discourses on female economic empowerment through microfinance in the context of a disappearing welfare state may enable limited individual agency within the household, while circumscribing women’s agency in the public domain.

Civil Wars, 2018

Looking beyond and beneath the macro level, this special issue is interested in the processes and... more Looking beyond and beneath the macro level, this special issue is interested in the processes and outcomes of the interaction of economic reforms, socio-economic peacebuilding programmes and international interventions with people’s lived realities. Despite decades of international involvement, many of the debates about peacebuilding and conflict prevention are still detached from the basic livelihoods and everyday concerns of citizens in conflict-affected societies. While the formerly strict distinction between conflict-related and development efforts has been problematised and rethought in recent decades, the (socio-)economic aspects of peace formation still remain on the margins of the discussion.

From a peacebuilding perspective, EU support for civil society organisations (CSOs) in conflict-r... more From a peacebuilding perspective, EU support for civil society organisations (CSOs) in conflict-ridden countries can be criticised for artificially boosting a liberal, ‘bourgeois’ civil society at the expense of more representative initiatives at the grassroots level. Seen from a governance perspective, however, this criticism is lacking in nuance and conceals the actual rationale and effects of the support. As a basis for a more relevant and realistic debate on international peacebuilding as a form of governance, this paper investigates what the character and effects of EU support for CSOs in conflict-ridden countries actually are: how does it affect the relations between the supported organisations and (1) the wider society, (2) the state, and (3) between the recipient country and the EU? We consider four ideal types of EU conflict governance: ‘liberal peace’, ‘hollow hegemony’, ‘vibrant hegemony’ and ‘post-liberal peace,’ and compare them to empirical data from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, and Georgia. We find that while the objectives of promoting peace and democracy through CSO support tend to fail, the strategic interests of the EU are still maintained.

Book chapters by Elena B. Stavrevska

Cultures of Governance and Peace: A Comparison of EU and Indian Theoretical and Policy Approaches, edited by J. Peter Burgess, Oliver P. Richmond and Ranabir Samaddar, 2016

The apparent peace that prevails today is ‘governed’ peace, which does not completely rule out co... more The apparent peace that prevails today is ‘governed’ peace, which does not completely rule out conflicts, but makes a convenient mix of war and peace—convenient to most parties and stakeholders involved in such conflicts. Thus, the predominant mode of conflict governance, advanced not solely by multilateral, but also by unilateral actors, appears to be what some scholars have labelled as ‘peace-as-governance’. This most common form of peace, ‘applied by international actors through a methodological peacebuilding consensus in conflict zones’, entails pacification, rather than genuine conflict resolution, through governmentalism and liberal state institution building. Such approach is multi-layered and targets all spheres of society. On the one hand, it zeroes in on state institutions in creating the basis for liberal peace and on the other, on non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and agencies in governing the society itself. Through this governmentalisation and promotion of liberal peace, the society becomes depoliticised and political agency is removed. Importantly, ‘[t]he liberal peace has been imbued with a specific set of interests, partly through the habitual decontextualisation of classical political theory to support inherency arguments about conflict, or confirm liberal norms of market democracy, and a propensity to reshape rather than engage with non-liberal others.
It denies the capacity of others, as well the significance of alternative identities, customs, cultures, patterns of governance, or economy.’ This is also the basis of the concept of government of peace, resulting from the security-development nexus, which entails making social conflicts become at the very least manageable, while making societal schisms opportunities for social development. The focus being on institution building, rather than on social justice and everyday life, has produced new resistive subjectivities. Namely, the subjects that are produced through institution building and the governmental policies of suppression do not merely repeat themselves in their conduct as in the conflict the
institutions aim to govern, but in fact revise their subjectivities and advance different emancipatory claims. Two examples include locally relevant ‘identities’, such as ethnicity and gender, based on which people have claimed not solely the citizen’s rights, which the liberal state guarantees, but also the collective rights arguably stemming from their ‘identity’.

In this chapter, we first outline the ‘government of peace’ approach of
governance, after which we proceed by analysing the interaction of the approach with local ‘identities’ related to ethnicity and gender. In our examination, we draw on substantive fieldwork carried out in India’s Northeast and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Given the multiplicity of protracted conflicts, including those between the state and the different societal groups, as well as conflicts among different ethnic communities who have lived on the same territory for centuries, India’s Northeast is in some ways comparable to the Balkans. At the same time, the present situation in BiH and the Northeast differ greatly with the former having enjoyed relative stability and period of non-violence since the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord in 1995 and also being significantly less heterogeneous in terms of population and autonomy claims than the Northeast. While the two cases vary in terms of the historical, political and social contexts, and despite the units of analysis being different, the chapter shows that irrespective of the scale of the conflicts, there are important similarities in the way conflict governance has been undertaken.

Cultures of Governance and Peace: A Comparison of EU and Indian Theoretical and Policy Approaches, edited by J. Peter Burgess, Oliver P. Richmond and Ranabir Samaddar, 2016

This chapter zeroes in on the interaction of local agencies with dominant discourses, as manifest... more This chapter zeroes in on the interaction of local agencies with dominant discourses, as manifested through political, social and cultural practices and norms. Driven by postcolonial sensitivities, it critically engages with the issues of local agency, including its marginal forms, autonomy and resistance. It examines how local agency complies with, (mis)appropriates, rebels against or uses hidden forms of resistance against top-down conflict governance initiatives. It also brings in the notion of the everyday, where the encounter between the local agency and the cultures of conflict resolution takes place drawing on extensive fieldwork undertaken in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Cyprus, and Jammu and Kashmir.

Focusing on the concept of space(s), both political and physical, the chapter tries to make different forms of local agency and their relation to the dominant culture of conflict resolution visible. It addresses the question of whether local agency conforms to the set boundaries and if not, what kind of tactics and strategies it uses in questioning those boundaries and claiming alternative spaces. It further problematises borders as conflict resolution mechanisms. Borders have in all case studies initially been used in prevention of further violence, and have as a result later played a major role in the various conflict resolution efforts. In that context, we look at how local agency interacts with physical borders as well as governance and cultural practices related to them.
In its analysis of local agency, while trying to bring in empirics from all the case studies, as well as draw parallels across and highlight differences, this chapter zeroes in on different types of local agency, classifying them based on the level of institutionalisation. It shows examples of civil society organisations, non-institutionalised citizens’ initiatives and movements, as well as individuals as critical local agencies in their relation to top-down conflict governance initiatives.

Spatialising Peace and Conflict: Mapping the Production of Places, Sites and Scales of Violence, edited by Annika Björkdahl and Susanne Buckley-Zistel, 2016

This chapter explores the issue of spatial governmentality as a mechanism of social ordering base... more This chapter explores the issue of spatial governmentality as a mechanism of social ordering based on spatial regulation. In particular, it looks at this phenomenon in (post-)conflict societies, using examples from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). Adding a temporal dimension to the analysis, it examines possibilities for the creation and development of ‘peace’ spaces along other political cleavage lines that start emerging in the post-war period, such as class cleavage. While the primary goal of the chapter is to contribute theoretically and conceptually to the on-going discussion on the role spaces and places play in peace and conflict zones, it also aims to provide a rich empirical account drawing on ten months on ethnographic research at various locations in BiH.
In recent years, the focus has been on managing spaces in which people exist and function rather than managing the people themselves. Space, in this context, is understood as a category that provides an ordering system for both individual and collective thoughts, as well as perceptions and feelings. Inevitably, spatial governmentality is contingent upon the creation of spaces where the governance of the self is consensual and participatory. Such spaces in post-Dayton BiH are created along ethnic and related, religious lines. What we witness is spatialisation of ethnicity, where ethnicity is represented as the dominant centre of power, superior even to the state. This results in the creation and governmentality of ethnic spaces that are not solely geographical, but also linguistic and socio-cultural, present in every aspect of everyday life in the country. These spaces are recreated through a large number of metaphors and practices, which the chapter analyses more closely.
At the same time, it zeroes in on the existence of ‘peace’, or in the case of BiH where the war was fought along ethnic lines, supra-ethnic spaces at the grassroots level. Specifically, it brings socio-economic issues to the fore and focuses on the interplay between class, space and relatedly, peace. This is illustrated through everyday life examples of people living in rural areas near or next to the Inter-Entity Boundary Line, which is where governance boundaries overlap and/or unintentionally leave an ‘undergoverned grey area’ in-between, where grassroots actors can fully exercise their agency. Equally importantly, these are also areas where people often struggle for subsistence. The other example of the class-space-peace interplay relates to the recent social protests in several towns in BiH, in the follow-up of which citizens’ plenums have been formed, which have shown potential for developing into supra-ethnic, ‘peace’ spaces. In both of these cases, the existing governmentality of ethnic spaces is challenged and reconciliation can or does occur.

Policy papers by Elena B. Stavrevska

Papers by Elena B. Stavrevska

OSCE-Yearbook 2008: Yearbook on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 2008

The purpose of this contribution is to map the current security configuration in Europe, trace ch... more The purpose of this contribution is to map the current security configuration in Europe, trace changes, predict likely scenarios, and discuss what the OSCE can do to affect which scenario will be realized. To this end, we loosely draw on regional security complex theory (RSCT). Our principal argument is that the basic structure of the European security order is gradually being transformed into a bipolar, conflictual order. This process is reversible, and the OSCE may play a small part in bringing about such a change.

Books by Elena B. Stavrevska

Drafts by Elena B. Stavrevska

We are convening a workshop on decolonial (and) feminist approaches to peace(-building) as part o... more We are convening a workshop on decolonial (and) feminist approaches to peace(-building) as part of the European Workshops in International Studies 2020 (details on our workshop here - https://eisa-net.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WS_K.pdf). If you are interested in joining, make sure to submit your abstracts by Jan 13 - https://eisa-net.org/ewis-2020/abstract-submission/.

Conveners: Sladjana Lazic, University of Tromso, Norway (sladjana.lazic@uit.no) and Elena B.
Stavrevska, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK (e.stavrevska@lse.ac.uk)
In recent years, and due to the evident failure of the liberal peace enterprise, we have witnessed
the emergence and popularisation of critical theoretical and empirical peace(-building)
scholarship that has generated interest in ‘local’ voices and local conceptualisations of peace,
everydayness, empowerment, and participation. Even though critical peace studies and the socalled ‘local turn’ claim to focus on counter-hegemonic paradigm(s) for social change and
empowerment of marginalised voices, which could lead to equity, justice, and sustainable peace,
they still largely concentrate on the role of ‘the West’ in conceptualising peace and
peacebuilding. This Western focus largely fails to account for the intersecting oppressions,
exclusions, and injustices, compounding crises to peace in differing historical and global
contexts, and most importantly, further invisibilises different ways of knowing and living
‘peace’.
Provoked by the limitations of such critical conceptualisations of peace, we centre the
contributions of decolonial and feminist thinking in envisioning desirable, alternative futures. In
our approach, we strive to cultivate the awareness and acceptance of the discomfort that arises
from the realisation that a straightforward and technocratic vision of a ‘blueprint peace’ is
neither enough, nor peaceful in its very essence. All the while, we remain mindful not to
romanticise decolonial and feminist knowledges. Instead, we aim to think through both sets of
critiques, engaging with their subversive and enriching potential, which encourages us to
imagine alternative, possible and desirable future(s). This is not only relevant, but also necessary
to discuss at this critical juncture in history, which finds a multiplicity of global crises unfolding
in parallel to existing violent conflicts and the discipline of International Relations grappling
with the limitations of its ‘canon’.
We seek to bring together contributions that analyse intersecting inequalities and the ways in
which structural, environmental, racial, gendered, and material realities continue to exclude the
already marginalised voices and people whose lives have been curtailed by the limits of
peacebuilding practice and peace imaginaries more broadly. By drawing on and putting in
conversation extensive decolonial and feminist traditions from different parts of the world, we
focus on the notion of peace (instead of war and its undoing) and explore pluriversal avenues for
sustainable and just peace.
We welcome contributions from various epistemic, methodological, disciplinary, and
geographical perspectives, that examine ‘doing peace differently’ and imaginaries of peace from
‘the periphery.’ We especially welcome contributions that engage with one or more of the
following questions:
• What alternative ways of approaching and knowing peace are there?
• Who produces and/or cultivates knowledge about the peace?
• What kind of peace imaginaries and possible future(s) emerge from decolonial (and)
feminist thought, literature, art, activism, and praxis?
• Whom are those alternative peace future(s) for, to whom do they belong, how can they be
built, and who can build them?
• What tensions exist within and between different approaches to ‘doing peace’ from ‘the
periphery?
• Is a plurality of peace(s) possible and desirable?

European Foreign Affairs Review, 2019

Civil Wars, 2018

Cultures of Governance and Peace: A Comparison of EU and Indian Theoretical and Policy Approaches, edited by J. Peter Burgess, Oliver P. Richmond and Ranabir Samaddar, 2016

Spatialising Peace and Conflict: Mapping the Production of Places, Sites and Scales of Violence, edited by Annika Björkdahl and Susanne Buckley-Zistel, 2016

OSCE-Yearbook 2008: Yearbook on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 2008