Transformation of Kosovar Albanians’ Struggle from Parallelism to Armed Conflict: Why is Violence Necessary?

Following the abolition of the Kosovo’s autonomy in the 1989, Albanians refused to accept the legitimacy of Serbian rule over Kosovo and advocated the peaceful strategy to resolve the Albanian-Serbian conflict. In this respect, parallel state structures emerged as a hallmark of the K-Albanians peaceful resistance to Serbian rule. However, in the second half of the 1990s, K-Albanians’ resistance took the form of an armed struggle with the actions of the KLA. Insufficient involvement of international community for solving of the Kosovo issue and lack of democratic cooperation mechanisms and relatedly existence of “democratic deficit” in the issue contributed to the transformation of K-Albanians’ struggle into an armed conflict.