“America and the European Union are stealing Kosovo from us”

Posted by Marc Hodak on February 18, 2008 under Revealed preference | Comments are off for this article

That’s a quote from a Serbian nationalist. What it looks like to rest of the world is that NATO and the UN have provided a space where Kosovars can express their collective preference about the locus of power over them, and they decided overwhelmingly to move it out of Serbia and into their own territory.

Kosovo has been recognized by some countries and denounced by others. The line of demarcation is pretty clear: If your country has managed to keep all its cultures and regions at reasonable peace with each other, then you are happy to see Kosovo gaining its independence. If your country is held together by raw power, and has a strong, separatist movement looking to pull power away from the center, then you are against the independence of Kosovo.