Security Community Practices in the Western Balkans

Although the Western Balkans have seen no incidents of large-scale violence since 2001, the peaceful transformation of the region is still far from complete. As a result, a growing number of scholars are looking for innovative ways to research the protracted peace-building process in the region. The volume under review offers an example of such a new approach as it examines the role of professional communities in the transition of the Western Balkans from war to peace. It assesses how the everyday practices of security and foreign policy professionals have affected the emergence and evolution of a ‘security community’ in the region. The idea of the region transforming into a security community is not new: it has been deliberated since the launch of the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe in 1999. Most authors interested in security community building in the Western Balkans, however, tend to research the process through the prism of states and international organisations (IO). The innovative element of the reviewed study is its focus on practices below and beyond the levels of states and IOs.

Thirteen contributors to the volume draw on the ‘practice turn’ in social theory and International Relations and on the theory of security community to analyse how the statements and actions of security personnel, foreign policy officials and members of international policy networks (IPN) have contributed to the spread of trust in the Western Balkans and to the institutionalization of dependable expectations of peaceful change, or, in other words, the consolidation of a security community. The volume includes seven case studies, framed by an introduction and a conclusion. The case studies investigate regional cooperation through the experiences of Albanian diplomats (Arjan Dyrmishi and Mariola Qesaraku), the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (Kenan Dautović), the police services of Montenegro (Dženita Brčvak and Emir Kalać), Kosovo (Florian Qehaja and Armend Bekaj), Croatia (Sandro Knezović, Vlatko Cvrtila and Zrinka Vućinović) and North Macedonia (Cvete Koneska), as well as of the IPN of the Study Group for Regional Stability in Southeast Europe (RSSEE) within the Partnership for Peace Consortium (Filip Ejdus). The introduction by Filip Ejdus sets the general premise of the work and outlines the key theoretical frameworks that guided the authors in their empirical discovery, yet without offering a single theoretical paradigm that could bind the chapters together (1–2).

Finally, Sonja Stojanović Gajić uses the conclusion to summarise the key findings on the state of regional cooperation in the Western Balkans. She stipulates that the everyday practices of security and foreign policy professionals in the Western Balkans are largely cooperative, confirming that the region is now accustomed to the peaceful resolution of conflicts. This transformation, attributed to socialisation by external actors—predominantly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU)—and to the shared professional experiences of former Yugoslav communities of practice, according to the authors has not achieved the same level of maturity among individual states of the region and different professional communities within them. As a result, although communities of practice are shown to cooperate regionally on a range of security and foreign pol‑icy issues which, as noted by Brčvak and Kalać, are mostly apolitical or do not have relevance for high politics, not all the authors unequivocally support the supposition that such cooperation has contributed to the development of a security community in the region. Some even question that such a community exists in the Western Balkans in the first place (Koneska, 99; Knezović et al., 73).

Nonetheless, the study makes a valuable contribution to the literature on building peace in the Western Balkans for at least three reasons. First, it offers a new perspective on security community building by linking the process to the everyday work of security personnel, foreign policy officials and even international networks. While the theory of security community is based on a number of abstract concepts, such as trust and ‘we-feeling’, researchers of the topic dealing with states and IOs, whether in the Western Balkans or outside, often struggle to depict the manifestation of these concepts empirically. This is not a problem found in the current volume. By analysing, for instance, how Albanian diplomats go about their daily practices, or areas of policing in Montenegro and Kosovo that are more open to regional cooperation, the contributors give the process of security community building in the region tangibility and specificity, making it more accessible, especially for those new to the theory on the subject. Moreover, the employment of theories of professions and communities of practice makes it possible to delve deeper into the intricacies of the complex process of security community building.

The second reason for this study being notable is the richness of empirical data. The authors turned to ethnographic research, employing methods ranging from semi-structured interviews and content analysis to observations and surveys in order to investigate how security personnel, diplomats and IPN members engage with each other on the regional level. This allowed them to investigate in depth how patterns of security cooperation have changed since the end of the conflicts or, in some cases, from the pre-conflict years to 2012–2015. It should be noted that most contributions use a small sample pool, e. g. Dyrmishi and Qesarku analysed twelve interviews. Such an approach, however, is quite common for security research as it is often the quality and not quantity of information that is of most value. In the case of the volume under review, it is possible to say that it offers a significant pool of new empirical knowledge on the security transformation of the region, unavailable previously. The fact that all thirteen authors are ‘themselves embedded within the process of security community building in the region’ (Ejdus, 10) provides them with another advantage.

Thirdly, the study presents an interesting theoretical exercise, too. By refusing to impose a single methodological framework upon the authors, the editors effectively gave them the freedom to choose their theoretical tools within the broad parameters of security community building and the study of professional practices. The result is a diverse mix of approaches to the peaceful transformation of the region: some are quite reserved and more content with interpreting existing theoretical data to explain the empirical phenomena they deal with (e. g. Dautović, when linking the concepts of profession, community of practice and security community), while others are more ambitious and innovative (e. g. Ejdus in his chapter attempts to open the theory of security community to the concept of international policy networks).

The last advantage, to an extent, can also be seen as a limitation. As the editors did not define the key frameworks, there is a lack of coherence and consistency in the use of terminology among the authors, especially in relation to security communities and their typology. Some terms that are close, but not necessarily identical, are used interchangeably, for example ‘no-war community’ and ‘security community’ or ‘embryonic’ and ‘nascent phases’. This could cause confusion among readers who are unfamiliar with the existing scholarly corpus on the subject. Additionally, the lack of a unified approach leads to the repetition of some basic theoretical data across the chapters. The latter, of course, presents a lesser problem for those interested in individual chapters only.

Another limitation of the work is the non-generalisability of its findings. The authors concur that their discoveries concerning the role of professional communities in the process of security community building cannot be transferred to other geographical and temporal contexts. Nevertheless, this volume could be of interest to scholars of peace-building and security community building outside of Southeastern Europe. Still, the primary audience of the book comprises researchers of peace and conflict in the Western Balkans, as well as practitioners in the field. For them, the volume is highly recommended due to its innovative perspective on the region’s peaceful transition, its theoretical rigour and richness of empirical data.