Abstract/Summary

Peacekeeping organizations have recently begun to critically evaluate their operations concerning the effects their activities have on the local community in post-conflict environments. There is now an increased recognition that local-level, or day-to-day, activities play a much more significant role in post-conflict stabilization than once attributed and that they affect policy goals more directly than previously thought. Yet, a systematic study of the effects of military bases in post-conflict environments is absent. This research begins to fill this gap concerning military bases established in post-conflict environments. It uses process tracing through within case study comparison and livelihoods focused political economy analysis of the Republic of Kosovo to address several questions: what are the impacts of the base construction activities; what are the effects of the day-to-day sustainment activities, and what are the effects of the continued presence of the base on relations between military and local elites. Noting the economic gains of shadow economies by war-time elites often translates into political power in a post-war environment, elites’ relations with the military base may assure their dominance through control of access to high-paying base employment and profitable business relationships. Thus, the everyday practices of establishing and maintaining military bases in post-conflict environments, which directly affect the political, social and economic components of the local political economy, may permanently affect stability and development. Field research of these questions finds substantial variance between bases, which have roots in the procedures of the lead contributing nation. Overall, political effects are limited, while social and economic effects are mixed. Given the size, characteristics and enduring presence of military bases in peace operations, it is therefore necessary to look beyond size of the base, and interrogate more closely the specific practices, rules and regulations that they follow to identify their effects on the local political economy and implications for sustainable peacebuilding.