‘We speak over the phone almost dailyʼ: routinisation as an overlooked source of pacification in the Western Balkans
Abstrakt
This article provides an in-depth assessment of the peaceful change in the Western Balkan relations between the years 1999 and 2011 that happened despite weak internalisation of norms and unsuccessful democratisation. It argues that the logic of habit and the creation of new routines of interactions are the crucial missing piece in this puzzle.
New routines reduced uncertainty about intentions of former enemies and created automatic responses when addressing conflictive issues. Routinisation can explain why we indeed saw new practices among Western Balkan elites without inadvertent internalisation of new norms.
This article thus adds to theoretical debates on peaceful change, Europeanisation, socialisation and norm internalisation. To support my argument, I conducted twenty-six semi-structured interviews with Western Balkan elites that were used to understand the role of socialisation and routinisation in their political relations.