Commissioned Book Review: Ioannis Armakolas and James Ker-Lindsay (eds), The Politics of Recognition and Engagement: EU Member State Relations with Kosovo
| Author | Vladimir Đorđević |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920908703 |
| Published date | 01 August 2021 |
| Date | 01 August 2021 |
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(3) NP5 –NP6
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
908703PSW0010.1177/1478929920908703Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2020
Commissioned Book Review
The Politics of Recognition and Engagement:
EU Member State Relations with Kosovo by
Ioannis Armakolas and James Ker-Lindsay
(eds). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. 245 pp.,
€85.59, ISBN 9783030179458
The volume edited by Armakolas and Ker-
Lindsay is most certainly an interesting addi-
tion to academic scholarship dealing with the
Kosovo issue. Although the Kosovan conflict
and international diplomacy leading to the
former Serbian province’s independence in
2008 have generally been well researched in
international academic scholarship so far,
Kosovan independence and the recognition
issue have however been only occasionally
treated as such in the said scholarship, partic-
ularly so in the form of a volume. In that
regard, the edited volume introduces new
information and argues cases that had so far
been at best presented sporadically mostly in
academic articles and, to a much larger
degree, non-academic pieces of various think-
tanks, international nongovernmental organi-
zations (NGOs) and so on.
The said volume is composed of 11 chap-
ters, discussing various cases of Kosovan (non)
recognition by selected EU states. In that
regard, as the editors themselves claim in the
first chapter that also introduces methodologi-
cal considerations, the issue of Kosovan inde-
pendence in relation to EU states that have and
have not recognized Kosovo is that
this simple division tells an incomplete, if not
wholly wrong, story. In truth, the two broad
camps – recognisers and non-recognisers – are
far more heterogeneous than is often realised.
Over the course of the past ten years, a wide vari-
ation of positions has emerged.1
Therefore, the editors decided to argue the
Kosovan (non)recognition by asking a team of
international experts to analyse different diplo-
matic responses to the said independence of
selected EU member states. Hence, the vol-
ume’s introductory chapters provide treatments
of the United Kingdom and Germany’s rela-
tionship with Kosovo, only to continue with
the Czech Republic and Poland having recog-
nized Priština but remained reluctant and dip-
lomatically disengaged towards developing
any stronger ties in this regard. The volume
then continues with the chapters on non-recog-
nizers in Greece, Slovakia and Romania, only
to finish with the sections on Cyprus and Spain
as having refused to recognize Kosovo and
having very limited mutual ties with Priština.
The given structure is fully in line with the
methodological section that opens the volume
and comes at a peculiar time when Kosovo is
facing somewhat of a halt in terms of being
internationally recognized, with the obvious
need to address its respective foreign policy
priorities. This particular point has been spe-
cifically argued in the second chapter, where
respective Kosovan strategy and issues with it
are introduced.
In respect to this, it is certainly fair to say
that the editors have managed to compile a
volume showing manner in which the said
states have reacted to the Kosovan independ-
ence and, more importantly, analysing the
rationale and consequences behind such
actions. In that regard, the volume is valuable
because it delivers an analysis of the selected
EU states’ responses/reactions to the Kosovan
independence by treating this issue from a
number of different vantage points, having
diplomatic recognition and subsequent (non)
relations at the heart of the selected methodo-
logical approach.
Last but not least, The Politics of Recog-
nition and Engagement: EU Member State
Relations with Kosovo is certainly a piece to
be addressed by all those who in (not only aca-
demic) manner deal with the issue of Kosovo.
The volume’s greatest contribution therefore
lies exactly in this fact and thus presents a
great opportunity and initial source of infor-
mation to (not only) researchers engaged in
a more in-depth analysis of the said states’
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