Description
The primary objective of this research is to analyse the communicative discourses between the domestic actors in Kosovo as an ‘emerging state’ and the EU as a ‘primary state-builder’ in a semi-peripheral European country such as Kosovo. Building on the theoretical frameworks of communicative action, critical discourse analysis and decolonial/postcolonial studies, this study will critically assess the domestic agency in Kosovo and the dynamics of communicative discourses between Kosovo as an ‘emerging state’ and the EU as a ‘primary external state-builder’ through discourse analysis. The EU has been identified as one of the main external state-building actors in Kosovo and since March 2011 it has taken on the role of facilitating the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue on a ‘comprehensive normalisation of relations’ between the two countries. Kosovo remains in an in-between state of being unequivocally European and permanently detached from the EU. This entanglement of EU’s state-building efforts and Kosovo’s projected European future opens up new avenues for further research into narratives, discourses and communication among the two.
The study is motivated by the growing schism between the EU and Kosovo in their respective communicative discourses about ‘Europeanness’ and the ‘European path’ for Kosovo. This research attempts to explore how the communicative discourses between Kosovo and the EU have changed over time as manifested around key critical junctures, particularly since the current Kosovo government took office in 2021. It will adopt the decolonial study approach in assessing the Kosovo domestic agency and its potential to act, communicate and relate to the EU. The key research questions are: how
