Transnational veto players in conflict negotiations: Cross-border coalitions and constraints

Transnational veto players in negotiations

In 2004, the Macedonian government’s commitment to the Ohrid Framework Agreement that ended the 2001 conflict was threatened by a referendum to reject municipal decentralization included in the Agreement. The United States and EU warned the referendum would damage North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and EU aspirations. The referendum was petitioned for by the World Macedonian Congress, a diaspora organization linked to far-right politics in Macedonia, ¹ whose members would not bear the same costs or receive the same benefits as those in Macedonia (Pettifer, 2004). Although the referendum failed to reach quorum, it highlighted both the influence of transnational actors in affecting state’s commitments to an agreement and disparate incentive structures between the state and transnational actors. ²

Situating TVPs in a negotiating framework begins from bargaining models of war that contend states fight when they perceive the outcomes of settling to be worse than the costs incurred from conflict, including losses and shifting power balances (Fearon, 1994). When costs of continued conflict are assessed as preferable to the outcome of settling, sides perceive a “better alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA). Alternatively, when costs are perceived as too high and prospects of victory low, sides can be induced to move into a zone of agreement (ZoA) in which they are willing to make concessions on preferred outcomes to attain a settlement (see Zartman, 2001). Thresholds, or “reservation points,” for moving from BATNA to ZoA are influenced by internal and external constraints. Internally, leaders are limited in what they can commit to by coalitions and “win-sets”—what will be accepted by a domestic coalition. A smaller win-set limits what a leader can commit to, making a ZoA harder to reach (Putnam, 1988). Voter preferences (Fearon, 1995), unified opposition (Oktay, 2022), or elite preferences all constrain commitments and can lead to a continuation of the status despite increasing costs on the state (Weeks, 2008).

Externally third-party mediators can induce sides to move from BATNA to ZoA. Although communicative strategies rarely shift reservation points, though effective in reducing distrust or information asymmetry, manipulative strategies alter perceived costs or inducements using leverage can move sides over BATNA-ZoA thresholds (Beardsley et al., 2006; Carnevale, 1986). Inducements, or “carrots,” provided by mediators increase the appeal of a ZoA by offsetting political costs of concessions or linking them to side payments (Carnevale, 1986; Zartman and Touval, 1985). EU accession, for example, offered to post-communist Hungary and Romania offset the political gains of ethnic outbidding or irredentism, making settling preferable to conflict (Csergő and Goldgeier, 2004). Conversely, threat of punishments, or “sticks,” increase perceived costs of maintaining the status quo by depriving a state of resources or legitimacy, or possibly the use of force. Economic sanctions were used to increase costs on Serbia to pressure it into negotiations over Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 (Bass, 1998), increasing costs for maintaining the status quo policy. As Vuković (2015) argues, this necessitates multiparty mediation and coordination between mediators who can simultaneously use leverage to push sides over the BATNA-ZoA threshold.

TVPs complicate both internal constraints on a negotiating state and use of external leverage by mediators to shift sides preferences from BATNA to ZoA. Addition of any veto players increases internal constraints by narrowing win-sets and making policy change more difficult even when external costs, such as sanctions, are imposed (Corda, 2023; Oppermann and Brummer, 2017). Transnational groups, in different jurisdictions and facing different costs from conflict or the status quo, have different ordered preferences and different thresholds for moving from BATNA to ZoA. A cross-border group may view a conflict existentially and be willing to incur higher costs than the negotiating state, making a status quo BATNA, such as a “frozen conflict” preferable to any ZoA. In addition, as it resides outside of the negotiating state’s formal jurisdiction, inducements, side payments, or threats of sanctions do not exert the same pressure on the cross-border group to move reservation points as the benefits or costs are not directly received. Given the state-centric structure of the international system, states are more prone to internationally imposed costs such as sanctions or diplomatic isolation (Cunningham, 2010). The repertoire of strategies available to manipulative mediators, such as sanctions, aid, or isolation (Zartman and Touval, 1985), is more suited to impose costs on states and less directly felt by cross-border groups.

If a mediator threatens sanctions or expulsion from an international organization, it imposes a direct cost on the negotiating state that makes maintaining the status quo costlier by depriving it of benefits. A cross-border group residing beyond the negotiating state’s jurisdiction does not incur the same cost. Threats of increased economic sanctions were used to leverage Serbia into supporting the Vance Plan for Croatia in 1992, reordering its preferences from annexing the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) to autonomy for the RSK in Croatia and deploying UN peacekeepers. Serb leaders in the RSK regarded their independence from Croatia as existential and preferred continued [‘frozen’] conflict to settling. Sanctions relief for Serbia, while beneficial to the Serbian government, did not directly benefit them, while permitting peacekeepers’ deployment and the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army imposed a cost (Caspersen, 2010; Jackson, 2025).

The gap between BATNA-ZoA thresholds in the negotiating state and cross-border groups creates incentives, and thereby opportunities, for TVPs to veto changes to the status quo, as perceived costs of conflict compared to settling move out of line. It is expected that divergent cost and incentive structures between negotiating states and TVPs are most evident when the negotiating state is subject to external leverage that moves it across the BATNA-ZoA threshold. External leverage that does not directly affect cross-border groups does not incentivize moving to a ZoA. The negotiating state moves into a ZoA, but the TVP continues to prefer a status quo BATNA. Exercising a veto prevents a change to the status quo for the TVP, but increases political costs on the negotiating state either by it incurring sanctions or missing out on benefits. The introduction of external leverage to induce a ZoA, is not necessarily causal to TVPs exercising a veto, but does cause the preferences and costs to diverge, creating opportunities to veto.

Managing transnational veto players

In Stedman’s and others’ studies of spoilers, there is no singularly correct strategy to manage veto players. Rather management is contingent upon correctly assessing preferences and opportunities. Stedman (1997) provides a static model of management that includes the strategies of inducement or making certain concessions to appease spoilers, socialization to set normative conditions on behaviors, and coercion or the threat of force or withdrawal by international stakeholders. ⁴ Alternatively, Greenhill and Major (2007), who argue spoilers act on opportunity and capability rather than static ex-ante preferences or ideologies, contend that management requires the altering of incentive structures that reduce opportunities and resource necessary for capabilities. If spoiling is determined by individual actors’ perceptions of how far they can push or modify a process, or what they can expect to get away with, they are managed by reducing incentives and opportunities for autonomous actions, such as by increasing the costs they incur for defection or limiting their resources to mobilize opposition.

If the negotiating state is subject to mediator leverage, and this creates the incentives and opportunities for TVPs, then the management of TVPs requires making exercising a veto politically costlier or accepting policy changes politically beneficial. Vetoing a settlement thus becomes costlier for them as individual actors—the costs, or perceived costs, of taking the opportunity increases and incentives decrease. The management of TVPs is incumbent upon the negotiating state which (1) may stand to lose from their actions, by the imposition of sanctions or withholding of benefits, and (2) may shirk responsibilities for costly concessions and deflect blame to cross-border groups. This makes it simultaneously a party of negotiations and partner whose use of leverage to alter veto players’ costs must be coordinated with manipulative mediators’ own use of leverage. Conversely, if the leverage on the negotiating state declines, and it is no longer incentivized to remain in a ZoA, the costs it incurs from TVPs decline along with its incentive to coordinate with mediators to manage them.

TVPs’ existence beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the negotiation state problematizes state-centric projections of authority to manage them by altering costs and reducing opportunities. Drawing from studies of cross-border conflict and transnational mobilization, negotiating states have three broad strategies to reduce TVPs’ incentives, opportunities, and capabilities to autonomously veto settlements. The first is imposing a collective cost on the cross-border community. Following Salehyan’s (2010) argument, states can constrain actions of a client group by cutting off support, or the threat to cut off support, such as transfers of weapons or cash, closing borders, or expelling safe havens. In 2019, for example, Turkey cut off public services to Northern Cyprus to pressure its government to support Turkey’s policies on ending negotiations (Jackson, 2025). However, this is a largely retrospective mechanism (Salehyan, 2010), and preemptively cutting off support can produce unpredictable outcomes and increased autonomy for TVPs (see Garfias and Sellars, 2022). In the RSK, Belgrade cutting off support for the RSK to leverage it into concessions did not bring it into line, but triggered intra-elite conflict over resources and support, and outbidding that drove it further from Belgrade’s preferences (Jackson, 2025).

A second strategy is cooption using targeted benefits that bind TVPs to the negotiating state’s coalition and increase benefits for supporting its preferences. This affects TVPs’ logic by offering inducements or increased benefits for supporting certain preferences, affecting their own BATNA-ZoA threshold. They may oppose concessions in principle, but if they receive material rewards in exchange for supporting an agreement, they can be induced to supporting it. Targeted inducements include cash transfers, access to state resources, social status and invitations, and preferential access to education or scholarships (Dalmasso et al., 2018; Tsourapas, 2021). Furthermore, cooption includes distributable private or club goods that condition access on non-opposition, minimizing opportunities and capabilities for vetoes (Jackson, 2025). Access to public services in post-2014 Crimea, as well as Abkhazia and South Ossetia, was conditional upon having a Russian passport and accepting Russia’s claims to de facto sovereignty (Wrighton, 2018). For communal elites who constitute TVPs, the benefits of these resources are not strictly material gain but are fungible as political resources they can use to build support networks or mobilize supporters.

Finally, and often in concert with cooption, negotiating states can employ coercion against TVPs to both increase costs for individual TVPs to face and push them into the political margins and out of positions from which they can mobilize supporters against a settlement. This differs from the coercion described by Stedman (1997) as threats of force, exclusion, or withdrawal, as well as traditional statist understandings of coercion as a state function to gain compliance from a public (Tilly, 2003). Coercion beyond the state’s formal jurisdiction to target opponents or dissidents abroad includes targeted assassinations or intimidation, surveillance, threats against families or associates in the negotiating state, or bureaucratic burdens such as withholding official documents or mandatory check-ins at embassies or returns to the state where they are subject to formal jurisdictions (Adamson, 2020; Tsourapas, 2021; Waldinger and Shams, 2023). Alternatively where existing links between elites and the negotiating state exist, the threat to withhold or cut off resources or patronage can be effective coercion that both increases costs on individual TVPs and deprives them of political resources necessary to maintain and mobilize support.

Importantly, cross-border groups are not monolithic, but themselves composed of different factions, elites, and thereby viable TVPs. The management of TVPs by the latter two strategies disaggregates the cross-border community into political networks and seeks to alter incentives, opportunities, and capabilities for TVPs. Cooption strategies increase individual and political welfare for TVPs inducing them to support the negotiating state’s preferences and reducing the incentives and opportunities to veto. Conversely, coercion strategies increase costs on TVPs for the status quo, or BATNA, by depriving them of material resources or patronage, subjecting them to intimidation, and reducing their capabilities to mobilize supporters. The objective of TVP management is to align their incentive and cost structures with the negotiating states, discourage autonomous action, and reduce the opportunity space and capabilities to veto, by increasing benefits of consenting to a settlement and the costs of opposing it. This closes the gap between the negotiating state’s and TVPs’ disparate BATNA-ZoA thresholds.

Theoretical argument

Combining the components above, the theoretical argument can be summarized accordingly. Mediators use a range of strategies to move negotiating parties from a conflictual status quo BATNA to a ZoA including manipulation or leverage that can make concessions rewarding or maintaining the status quo costlier. TVPs complicate this as they have different thresholds between BATNA and ZoA and different cost and incentive structures. Leverage that is beneficial or costly for negotiating states does not directly transfer to incentives or costs for TVPs residing outside the state’s territory, creating incentives and opportunities to veto changes to the status quo. Negotiating states manage TVPs by altering their costs and incentives to more closely align them with the negotiating state and reduce incentives, opportunities, and capabilities to veto: making it costly to exercise a veto and beneficial to accept, or at minimum not oppose, a change to the status quo pursuant to international negotiations. The general implication is that when negotiating states and TVPs have divergent preferences and incentives, efforts to undermine a negotiated settlement that changes the status quo will be observable. These efforts are more likely to be effective when the state does not successfully manage TVPs by altering costs and incentives, and TVPs within the community remain politically viable and autonomous.

A final theoretical point of consideration is distinction between TVPs and spoilers. Along with cross-border conflict and transnational mobilization, spoiler literature informs the theoretical framework outlined here. Stedman (1997) does acknowledge some cross-border influences on spoilers, such as patronage for spoilers in Mozambique from Rhodesia and South Africa in keeping with transnational civil war literature. However, they are regarded as “recipients” of state policy, and he does not conceptualize of the inverse relationship, how those spoilers constrained or vetoed changes to policy. Although spoiling may be one strategy for exercising a veto, TVPs differ in three important ways. First, they are not restricted to the use of violence, as are generally the focus of spoilers, but as political agents and parts of political coalitions, vetoes include other forms of obstruction, such as mass mobilization, capturing plebiscites, or even basic campaigning. Second, TVPs form parts of transnational coalitions regardless of preferences or incentives to engage in spoiling or vetoing. They are, however, uniquely endowed with these extra-institutional capacities increasing their value in a political coalition. Finally, drawing on Greenhill and Major (2007), TVPs have incentives to spoil based on variable incentive structures and opportunities based upon veto points in an agreement. The management of TVPs relies on adjusting their incentive structures to align with negotiating states, such that they, as political actors, incur similar costs or rewards as coalitions in the negotiating state.

Context: Serbia and the Kosovo Serbs after the Kosovo war

Conclusion of the Kosovo War in June 1999 altered the context of mediation in three important ways. Serbia refused to move into a ZoA during the Rambouillet Talks in February–March 1999 and rejected a mediated settlement, with Russia’s backing, that provided for the restoration of Kosovo’s autonomy as a province of Serbia. ⁶ NATO subsequently intervened and carried out 3 months of airstrikes against first Kosovo and then Serbia-proper, effectively increasing the costs of maintaining the BATNA (Judah, 2000; Vuković, 2015; Weller, 1999). After June 1999, Kosovo was effectively separated from Serbian authority. Its security and administrative institutions and personnel were expelled from Kosovo, and authority in those areas passed to the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) and UNMIK, which was charged with policing, economic development, and democratic institution-building. NATO’s intervention changed the status quo by force, and although UNMIK was ostensibly a neutral actor, its role in both governance and institution-building changed the political status quo in Kosovo from pre-1999 direct rule by Belgrade. What was unacceptable at Rambouillet—a return to autonomy within Serbia—after June 1999, became Belgrade’s preference (Weller, 1999, 2008; UN Security Council (UNSC), 2006b).

A second change occurred in Serbia in 2000, with the ousting of Slobodan Milošević and his Socialist Party (SPS) government by the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), removing the coalition that had rejected compromise at Rambouillet. Although the DOS was united in opposition to Milošević, it was divided on ruling post-Milošević Serbia, including the issue of Kosovo. This was embodied in the split between Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić’s liberal Democratic Party (DS) and Yugoslav President Vojislav Koštunica’s conservative Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), which split from the DOS in 2001 (Gordy, 2004). Neither was willing to enter a coalition with the ultra-nationalist Radical Party (SRS) despite it being the best-supported party in Serbia from 2003 to 2010 (Stefanović, 2008). The general preference across the spectrum of Serbian parties was maintaining sovereignty over Kosovo, setting that as a reservation point. They differed, though, in what they would accept in other areas short of that point. ⁷ The DS and DSS differed on cooperation with UNMIK and later the EU, and the extent to which they accepted independent institution-building in Kosovo, while the SRS supported UNMIK’s expulsion and remilitarization of Kosovo. The centrality of Kosovo in Serbian national narratives made it a salient issue that generated social and political anxiety, making changes to policy potentially politically costly (Ejdus, 2020; Pribićević, 2004; Subotić, 2010).

The third change was within the ethnic Serb community in Kosovo. Under Milošević, Kosovo lost its political autonomy, with policy determined by Belgrade and administrative positions distributed to cronies. Deployment of UNMIK and Milošević’s ousting upended existing political structures and resulted in an exodus of Serbs employed in the administration and security services. The remaining Serb community estimated at 100,000–120,000 (approximately 5%–7% of Kosovo’s population) ⁸ was politically disorganized and faced threats of violent reprisals and discrimination in public services, leading it to “unmix” from the Albanian majority and relocate to enclaves outside cities or the northern municipalities of Leposavić/Leposaviq, Zubin Potok, Zvečan/Zveçan, and the northern half of the city of Mitrovica (Dahlman and Williams, 2010; Petersen, 2011; UNHCR/OSCE, 1999). The post-June 1999 administrative separation placed the remaining Serbs in a distinct territorial jurisdiction, where they faced different potential costs and threats than those in Serbia.

Two new political organizations emerged in 1999 in the absence of the Serbian state that (1) were politically autonomous from Belgrade and (2) had different thresholds for accepting a settlement than Belgrade and one another. The Serb National Council of Kosovo and Metohija (SNV-KiM) formed in the central enclave of Gračanica/Graçanica near Prishtina, representing Serbs from the disparate enclaves in central and eastern Kosovo, and was regarded as more cooperative and moderate in relations with UNMIK and ethnic-Albanians. Serbs in these enclaves were regarded as more vulnerable and had to cross ethnic lines and boundaries out of necessity, making cooperation and dialogue necessary and the status quo costs of not cooperating higher. The Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo and Metohija (SNV-SKiM) was likewise formed in 1999 representing the northern municipalities and was more hardline, preferring isolation if not partition from UNMIK and Prishtina’s authority. Incentive structures and welfare of both were tied to the so-called “parallel structures”—a system of administration and public service provision in Serb enclaves funded by ministries in Belgrade that included healthcare and education, courts, post, and welfare benefits. Although they entailed targeted and group-level benefits to the cross-jurisdiction community, they were not initially conditional to manage preferences but regarded as practically important for Serbs who faced threats of violence or discrimination when crossing ethnic boundaries to seek services. It also meant Serb elites in Kosovo served as brokers between Serbian government ministries and local publics with limited oversight as they existed beyond Serbia’s authority (OSCE, 2003; UNHCR/OSCE, 2001, 2002; UNSC, 2003, 2004a). Parallel employees received 200% salaries to comparable positions in Serbia, and Belgrade reportedly spent 60 million dinars monthly on salaries, payoffs, and expense accounts for local elites (Blic, 2008). Parallel funds were commonly misused or embezzled, and public services and posts were doled out to build political support networks, making parallel positions sought after for personal and political gain (Insajder, 2012). The SNV-SKiM was likewise reportedly closely aligned with organized crime and smuggling in northern Kosovo, further benefiting from a status quo that lacked oversight from Belgrade or Prishtina/UNMIK. After 2004, many Kosovo Serb elites were coopted by political parties in Belgrade, notably the DSS (Politika, 2007).

As mediation on Kosovo’s status began in 2003, the position of Kosovo Serbs was unclear. The UN proposed their inclusion in Prishtina’s delegation, which was opposed even by moderate factions in the SNV-KiM, who believed Serbia represented their interests (B92, 2003). The Return Coalition (KP) which ran in UNMIK’s elections for the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government (PISGs) in 2001–2002 agreed to join Prishtina’s delegation but were excluded from talks in Vienna (Beta, 2003). The turn to Belgrade became more pronounced after 2004 when the DSS-led government instituted a boycott policy following ethnic riots targeting the Serb community that resulted in Serbs ending their cooperation with UNMIK and greater reliance on Belgrade for parallel benefits and representation (UNSC, 2006a,b). By the time UN-led mediation began, Kosovo Serbs had an incentive structure from which political elites gained as brokers with little oversight, and were politically represented in negotiations by the Serbian government in Belgrade.

UN-led mediation, 2000–2007

Early mediation under UN auspices had dual foci of Kosovo’s final status and the status of the Serbs in post-war Kosovo. This would require Serbia moving from its preferred status quo of maintaining de jure sovereignty over Kosovo, and isolation or ethnic closure of the Serb community administratively linked to Belgrade via the parallel structures. The former saw two notable proposals formulated by the UN: Michael Steiner’s Standards for Kosovo in 2003 and Martti Ahtisaari’s Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement in 2006–07 (colloquially known as the Ahtisaari Plan). Within Serbian politics, preferences were firmly against measures regarded as weakening Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo or enhancing Kosovo’s own statehood. In 2003, the DS-led government in Belgrade rejected the UN “Standards” proposal which envisioned Kosovo meeting eight democratic and governance standards, including minority rights and refugee returns before any decision on status, on the grounds that it presupposed a change to Kosovo’s political status, including its interim status under UNSCR 1244, which Serbia interpreted as retaining de jure if not de facto sovereignty over Kosovo (RTS, 2003; UNSC, 2004a).

Their preference for an outcome that maintained Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo was further threatened in 2005 when UN envoy Kai Eide determined that the “standards” focus was untenable without an outcome for status. This led to Ahtisaari’s subsequent proposal for supervised independence to be overseen by an International Civilian Office and EU rule of mission (EULEX). The DSS-led government rejected the Ahtisaari Plan and was supported in the UN Security Council by Russia. Serbia’s new constitution in November 2006 included a clause enshrining Kosovo as a province of Serbia, precluding concessions that changed the status quo, intended to preempt the Ahtisaari Plan’s presentation in 2007 (UNSC, 2006b).

Both the Standards and Ahtisaari proposals lacked accompanying leverage to reorder preferences within Serbia. The all-or-nothing question of status made concessions that would change the status quo politically costly, especially for the DSS which faced a potential far-right challenge for support from the SRS (Bakić, 2009). External inducements such as easing sanctions and NATO’s Partnership for Peace were linked to domestic changes in Serbia such as political reforms and arresting suspected war criminals. Illustrative of political costs, loss of support for the pro-EU DS in 2003 and electoral gains for the SRS and DSS were domestically attributed to backlash against EU support for the Standards proposal (RTS, 2003). Accordingly, the reservation point on the issue of sovereignty was not moved, as domestic coalitions faced high costs of concessions, and an indeterminate or “frozen” status quo was preferable to moving into a ZoA envisioned in the UN proposals that presupposed Kosovo’s sovereignty.

The other focus was Serb participation in UNMIK’s institutions. Ahead of elections for the PISGs in 2001 UNMIK sought Belgrade’s endorsement of Serb participation. The split between the DS and DSS became evident. Đinđić and the DS endorsed participation in March 2001, 8 months before elections (AFP, 2001a). The DSS, which split from the DOS in July 2001, was less supportive, believing that agreement on the PISGs presupposed independence that changed the status quo under UNMIK (AFP, 2001b). Ultimately Koštunica agreed to endorse elections in early November 2001 after UNMIK guarantees that the PISGs would not declare independence, but tellingly his party denounced the decision was made under duress (SRNA, 2001).

The split between parties in Belgrade was reflected in the Kosovo Serbs, resulting in a mixed outcome in elections. Many notables from the SNV-KiM joined the KP and ran in elections following Đinđić’s endorsement. The SNV-SKiM opposed Đinđić and the DS’s position and organized a boycott in northern Kosovo. Many Kosovo Serb elites leading the boycott, such as Marko Jakšić, Milan Ivanović, Dragiša Milović, and Momčilo Trajković, were aligned with opposition parties in Belgrade—namely the DSS, SPS, and SPO (SRNA, 2001). The KP joined the PISGs, but was opposed by the SNV-SKiM, which expelled members who joined the KP, and the northern municipalities recorded the lowest turnout in all of Kosovo. ⁹ Factionalism within the Kosovo Serb community, and its TVPs, meant opposition-aligned elites in northern Kosovo undermined the DS-led government’s commitments to the UN on participation in Kosovo—prolonging the status quo of isolation and ethnic segmentation in northern Kosovo. Without inducements offered by the UN, this did not impose notable costs on Belgrade, nor did it generate incentives to manage opposition from the SNV-SKiM, which though undermining Đinđić’s preference was not imposing costs on Belgrade. The split within the Kosovo Serbs saw different factions align with different coalitions in Belgrade, with the SNV-SKiM aligning with the opposition coalition between 2001 and 2003, and the KP with the DS/DOS-led governing coalition.

Another point of change occurred in 2003–2004 with the election of the DSS in Serbia (Figure 1) and inter-ethnic riots in Kosovo in March 2004 that destroyed more than 700 Serb homes and displaced an estimated 2,400 Serbs (UNSC, 2004b). The DSS, already opposed to Serb participation with UNMIK, responded by instituting a boycott policy that encouraged Serbs to quit UNMIK posts and boycott the November 2004 elections. This meant the SNV-SKiM was aligned with the new governing coalition. The boycott policy could be undermined by more cooperative factions in Kosovo, namely the KP, especially as Serbia’s president, Boris Tadić (DS) endorsed participation ahead elections (Beta, 2004; UNSC, 2004c).

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Figure 1.

Serbian Government and Opposition Coalitions, 2000-08

To manage TVPs in Kosovo and ensure that its policy was followed, the DSS-led government combined cooption and coercion. The existing parallel structures, intended to provide necessary services to enclaves, were used to alter incentive structures to coopt or coerce potential Serb TVPs. The SVN-SKiM, which after 2003 headed the self-proclaimed autonomous Association of Serb Municipalities (ZSO) in northern Kosovo, received increased funding and transfers via parallel structures, both rewarding it for supporting Belgrade’s preferences and binding it to the DSS-led coalition. Many of the SNV-SKiM and ZSO leaders were directly coopted into the DSS, or its coalition partners in the SPO and SPS. The parallel structures were strengthened during this time, including increased funding and reorganization, and formation of a Civil Protection Corps. ¹⁰ Many of these elites, acting as local brokers for parallel structures, conditioned access to parallel benefits on supporting the boycott policy (Politika, 2007) and monitored for those cooperating with UNMIK or voting in elections (Beta, 2007; Politika, 2006).

KP officials were given the choice to join the parallel structures or lose political and economic support from Belgrade and face marginalization, which led to a split in the party. ¹¹ A moderate faction led by Ranđel Nojkić went to work for UNMIK where it was worked in technical and advising capacities rather than political ones and was denounced by Belgrade. Other KP members, led by Oliver Ivanović, quit the PISGs and took positions in parallel structures where they were elevated politically, but bound to the DSS-led government’s preferences (Kontakt Plus, 2005a, 2005b). The DSS coerced other Serbs to turn down UNMIK contracts, threatening those in UNMIK posts with losing access to parallel benefits. This was especially threatening to those who received family welfare benefits or had accrued pensions, and by 2006, 70% of Serb employees quit UNMIK (UNSC, 2006a). Moderate elites who did not join parallel structures and continued to cooperate with UNMIK were denounced as traitors and harassed by police if they crossed into Serbia. The outcome was to align incentive structures with the DSS government’s preferences, making it beneficial to support its boycott policy and costly for elites and publics to contravene it, reducing incentives and opportunities for TVPs

During UN mediation, the independent influence of TVPs was not readily observable in negotiations on status. Veto players domestically in Serbia and in the Kosovo Serb community were aligned in their opposition to changing Kosovo’s status, and the UN did not link inducements to negotiations, which failed to offset high political costs within Serbia. Influence of TVPs was more evident in the matter of Serb participation in UNMIK and the PISGs. Although the DS-led government supported participation, its preference was not uniformly accepted either by the Serbian opposition or the SNV-SKiM, both of which saw participation in elections as contributing to Kosovo’s sovereignty. Despite the opposition being unable to veto this endorsement domestically, the SNV-SKiM, which was aligned with it, could veto implementation by boycotting the election and KP in northern Kosovo. Once the DSS was in power after 2003, their boycott policy—maintaining the isolated status quo—was opposed by the DS and moderates in the KP. The DSS-led government altered incentive structures to make continuing participation after 2004 costly leading to growth in the parallel institutions and DSS alignment in Kosovo, coopting them into the governing coalition.

The EU and “technical dialogue,” 2008–2012

The negotiation environment again changed following Serbia’s rejection of the Ahtisaari Plan and Russia’s according veto power in the UNSC in 2007. In February 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence with the Ahtisaari Plan as the basis of its constitution. Following the International Court of Justice’s 2010 advisory opinion that Kosovo’s declaration of independence did not violate international law, Serbia and Kosovo accepted EU-led mediation. Unlike the UN, the EU had leverage to move the parties’ reservation points. The EU had become further engaged in Kosovo with deployment of EULEX and the EU Special Representative Pieter Feith as head of the International Civil Office supervising Kosovo’s independence (UNSC, 2008). EU leverage over Serbia likewise increased, with Serbia having signed a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) in 2008 and applied for membership in 2009. For Serbia, EU candidacy, even if accession was a long-term prospect, would bring two short-term inducements: (1) international status and a signal that it had progressed past being “post-socialist” and (2) more than 1.5 billion euros in the first tranche of “pre-accession assistance.”

EU accession prospects could potentially compensate Serbian parties for costly concessions necessary to reach a ZoA, but depended upon a pro-EU coalition that perceived intermediate and long-term rewards of the accession process as preferable to the status quo (see Schimmelfennig, 2005). ¹² This was the case after March 2008 when the DS-DSS coalition collapsed and was replaced by the DS-led For a European Serbia (ZES) coalition, with the DSS going into opposition. The DSS opposed EU accession believing Serbia would be forced forfeit sovereignty over Kosovo for membership and upon Tadić’s signing of the SAA quit the coalition, triggering the government’s collapse (AFP, 2008), signaling a preference for the status quo. In opposition, the DSS could not form a unified position or alternative coalition against EU accession or negotiations, which it attempted in both the National Assembly and before the Constitutional Court. Though in opposition alongside the SRS, the single largest party, the SRS fractured in 2008 over the issue of EU accession between the conservative wing under Vojislav Šešelj and a progressive wing under Tomislav Nikolić that formed the Progressive Party (SNS). The LDP, also in opposition, was the only party to support Kosovo’s independence (Figure 2). The ZES government reached agreements with the EU in 2008 to alter the isolated status quo in northern Kosovo, including deployment of EULEX under a “status neutral” mandate and opening EU offices in North Mitrovica. Before the start of mediation, the EU amended Serbia’s SAA to include “tangible results” in the dialogue with Prishtina (AFP, 2011), thus changing the incentive structure for a pro-EU coalition—progress toward EU accession would require changes to the status quo in Serbia’s Kosovo policy.

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Figure 2.

Serbian Government and Opposition Coalitions, 2008-12

EU mediation began in March 2011. The EU intended to shift the focus away from the all-or-nothing question of status that undermined talks from 2003 to 2007 and precluded a ZoA (Bieber, 2015). Labeled as “technical dialogue,” it focused on ostensibly apolitical matters intended to improve governance and living conditions in Kosovo and begin to “normalize relations.” This included civil registries, cadastral records, freedom of movement, border management, education credentials, customs stamps, and regional representation—all of which changed the status quo policies without broaching the question of status. Five rounds of talks were concluded between March and July 2011 with agreements reached on civil registries, freedom of movement, education records, and trade restrictions. ¹³ Although these agreements were opposed by the SRS and DSS, the domestic opposition was not strong enough to veto agreements and these particular agreements did not create veto points for Kosovo Serbs (UNSC, 2011a, 2011b).

Independent influence of TVPs was more evident in 2011 than during UN-led mediation for three reasons. First, Serb elites, particularly in northern Kosovo, became linked to parties from during 2004–2007, which after 2008 were in the opposition coalition. Rather than coopting them by altering incentives, the ZES government alienated the ZSO by attempting to reduce parallel transfers that weakened their positions, while also failing to coopt alternative elites, many of whom after administrative decentralization by Prishtina, joined Kosovo’s institutions rather than parallel ones after 2009 (Danas, 2009; Jackson, 2023). Second, the leverage of accession provided by the EU, which moved the ZES’s reservation points did not likewise affect preferences within the Kosovo Serb community, where accession-related benefits were not received. Although long-term benefits like EU passports may have been appealing, the short-term inducements of pre-accession aid were targeted at democratic reform, economic innovation and competitiveness, and education, all of which would benefit the Serbian economy, but not Kosovo Serb enclaves (EC, 2020). Rather changes to the status quo threatened their own incentive structures as brokers between Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs. The ZSO, dominated by the SNV-SKiM, rejected agreements with the EU and in response to the agreement on EULEX pledged to not cooperate with it, petitioned for its withdrawal, and impeded its operations with roadblocks (B92, 2009; UNSC, 2009). Head of the ZSO, Marko Jakšić, stated its position was for prolongation of the “status quo—a so-called frozen conflict” (Danas, 2011a). The ZES dismissed the ZSO as an illegitimate opposition-run body, making it parallel even to the parallel structures, while also alluding to its political linkage to the DSS and SRS in the opposition coalition (Beta, 2009).

Third, negotiations over customs and border management in late July 2011, coupled with trade restrictions, created a veto point and therefore opportunity for the ZSO to undermine Belgrade’s commitment. The ZSO, whose leadership remained intact and funded by parallel structures and whose self-styled “crisis committee” could mobilize thousands of Serbs in support networks, ¹⁴ maintained the capability to act autonomously. On 26 July 2011, mobs mobilized by the ZSO blocked roads connecting Serbia and Kosovo and attacked customs gates. The ZSO rejected interim agreements in early September and escalated unrest, mobilizing more protests and barricades, and attacking KFOR, EULEX, and humanitarian personnel (UNSC, 2011c). Ostensibly this was in response to Prishtina’s attempt to take control of customs gates to enforce its agreed upon authority over customs, but the ZSO’s response undermined the credibility of Serbian commitments on freedom of movement and customs agreed on 2 July and 2 September 2011. ¹⁵ The seventh round of technical dialogue was canceled due to unrest. Belgrade publicly disassociated itself with the ZSO again and attributed the unrest to opposition parties and criminal elements (Danas, 2011b; Politika, 2011).

The opposition-aligned ZSO, dominated by DSS and SRS-affiliated local elites, both vetoed a change to the status quo and imposed costs upon the ZES government. First, northern Kosovo remained beyond Prishtina’s and EULEX’s authority, leaving parallel institutions and smuggling networks intact. Control over customs gates in northern Kosovo had to be maintained by ferrying police via helicopter to avoid traversing northern municipalities. Second, in December 2011, the EU withheld Serbia’s candidacy citing unrest in northern Kosovo and failure to implement technical agreements—the “tangible results” envisioned in the amended SAA (AFP, 2011; UNSC, 2012). The political costs were greater for the DS. Withholding candidacy, although it was eventually granted on 29 March 2012, before a general election in May 2012 weakened its support among pro-EU constituents and triggered a split between Tadić and Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić. It further discredited the DS with potential coalition partners, especially the SPS and G17plus which joined the SNS coalition government after elections, and the EU (RFE/RL 2011).

A key difference between the ZES government from 2008–2012 and the DSS-led government that preceded it and the SNS-led government that followed was inability to manage Kosovo Serb veto players. The ZES government’s efforts to reduce parallel transfers and salaries by 25% in 2009 triggered a backlash of protests and further opposition to its policies, causing it to eventually reverse course, but alienating the TVPs from the governing coalition (B92 2009; Danas 2009). Attempts to replace ZSO leaders in 2009–2010 likewise failed. Belgrade ran parallel elections in northern Kosovo in 2008, which the DSS and SRS dominated. In 2009–2010, it attempted to replace municipal officials with DS appointees and rerun elections. Municipal positions were overshadowed by the ZSO, which Belgrade regarded as parallel to the parallel structures and not an official body to engage with. The ZSO rejected the authority of appointed officials and opposed cooperation with them. This left both incentive structures for the ZSO and political networks intact, and opportunities and capabilities to mobilize supporters against ZES preferences and the 2011 technical agreements unchanged. Belgrade failed to bind them to the ZES’s preferences, reign in their autonomy, and further pushed them to align with the opposition coalition. This was compounded by the defection of moderates, who had been derided and subjected to coercion for contravening the boycott policy post-2004, to Prishtina’s institutions after 2009. This left few elites and political structures to coopt in place of the ZSO. The cooption and coercion pursued under the DSS, which the ZES failed to resolve, kept TVPs linked to the post-2008 opposition in Serbia.

Introduction of EU accession as leverage, particularly for a pro-EU government, incentivized changing the status quo for Belgrade, but not the ZSO. The ZSO, whose leaders and constituents benefited from the status quo through parallel transfers and salaries, could effectively undermine both cooperation with the EU on a local level—EULEX and EU offices in North Mitrovica—and in mediation by the veto points created in customs and boundary management agreements that required non-opposition. Not only could the ZSO obstruct implementation of agreements, it could impose political costs on the ZES and DS in Belgrade, which the parliamentary political opposition could not. Despite a pro-EU government in Belgrade that faced a fractured opposition unable to prevent commitment in mediation, its commitments to negotiated agreements were constrained by TVPs aligned with opposition factions in the DSS and SRS.

The SNS and “political dialogue,” 2012–. . .

Three further changes occurred to the mediation environment in 2012. First, following an agreement on regional representation in March 2012, Serbia was granted EU candidate status, albeit delayed from December. Second, the DS-led government and Tadić were ousted in elections in May 2012 by the SNS and its leader Tomislav Nikolić who was elected president. Third, the SNS-led government and Nikolić agreed to progress EU-led mediation to a “political dialogue” that would address issues deemed to require political changes, namely parallel structures. ¹⁶

Political dialogue began in March 2013 convened by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, with the sides represented by political leaders—Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi and Serbia’s Prime Minister Ivica Dačić (SPS) and Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić (SNS). For the SNS-led government, the inducement of the EU accession process was politically beneficial, having split from the SRS over its position on the EU and having run on a pro-EU platform, and the EU for its part favored the SNS as a party capable of delivering (see Bieber, 2020). The opposition was split between a pro-EU faction in the DS and LDP and euro/mediation-skeptic faction in the SRS and DSS, while the popularity of the SNS relative to the SPS in government allowed Vučić to marginalize Dačić in negotiations (Politika 2013a). ¹⁷

The First Agreement of Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations (“the Brussels Agreement”) was reached in April 2013 as the first and most significant agreement of the political dialogue. The EU, whose preference for dismantling parallel structures in northern Kosovo aligned with Prishtina, used the leverage of accession to press for concessions (Blic, 2013). ¹⁸ Facing opposition within Serbia in early April over the degree of autonomy that Serb communities in Kosovo would receive, the EU issued an ultimatum that Serbia accept the proposal on the table, a Community of Serb Municipalities (also named ZSO) based on the Council of Europe’s Charter on Local Self-Government, or have its accession process indefinitely postponed (Al Jazeera Balkans, 2013; Večernje Novosti, 2013). ¹⁹ This introduced a potential cost for maintaining the status quo alongside a reward for moving to a ZoA. The Serbian government accepted the Brussels Agreement on 19 April 2013.

In addition to the ZSO, the Brussels Agreement provided for the integration of Serb-inhabited municipalities into Kosovo’s police, judicial, and administrative institutions ending their isolation from Prishtina, and Serbia’s status quo administrative claims over northern Kosovo via parallel structures. It further required participation of Serbs in Kosovo’s municipal elections in 2013, conditioning Serbia’s reward for concessions on Serbs’ participation in elections (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 2013). This created disparate incentive structures and, importantly, a new veto point. For the ZSO, dismantling parallel structures and being subjected to formal oversight meant politically and materially costly changes to the status quo. Inducements of EU accession negotiations, both status and pre-accession aid, would not be received by ZSO. Hence, its reservation point did not cross into a ZoA, as Belgrade’s did.

The condition of participation in municipal elections created a veto point and opportunity for TVPs in the ZSO and made contingent upon Belgrade their acceptance of an agreement. Vučić rightly worried Serb elites in northern Kosovo were an obstacle to commitment and visited North Mitrovica to persuade them to accept it (RTS, 2013). The same elites who opposed the technical agreements remained in power in the ZSO and northern municipalities and rejected the Brussels Agreement, calling Vučić and Dačić traitors, and mobilized 10,000 Serbs in North Mitrovica to protest its signing (AFP, 2013), signaling both discontent and their capabilities to mobilize support. In July 2013, the ZSO assembly rejected Belgrade’s authority and directly threatened a veto by announcing a boycott and “anti-election” campaign for the municipal elections scheduled in November—the veto point created by the Brussels Agreement (B92, 2013; Politika, 2013b). This included pressure on the public to boycott elections by ZSO leaders, intimidation and threats against candidates often by criminal gangs, threats against parallel employees or recipients of parallel benefits for voting, and violence targeting polling stations to depress turnout (Reuters, 2013). Though successful in North Mitrovica where violence at polling stations destroyed ballot boxes and depressed turnout, elections were successfully run in the other municipalities and rerun with increased security in North Mitrovica 2 weeks later. Accordingly, the anti-election campaign failed, and in January 2014, Serbia formally opened its accession negotiations with the EU (UNSC, 2014).

Despite the same TVPs being in power in the ZSO as in 2011 and a greater incentive to oppose more significant changes to the status quo, the attempt to veto commitment failed. The SNS used a combination of cooption and coercion to align incentives with their own, making it individually costly to veto and beneficial to support Belgrade’s preferences for a new status quo. This reflected the DSS strategy after 2004, only instead of the aligned preference being ethnic closure it was participation in elections. In August–September 2013, Belgrade formed the Serb List (SL) to run in elections and replaced parallel administrators, members of the ZSO, with members of coalition parties who would run as the core of the SL. They acted as new brokers with discretion over parallel funds which they redirected from enforcing the boycott to building a support base before elections. This incentivized voter mobilization and deprived the ZSO of its primary tool for enforcing the boycott since 2004 reducing its capability to mobilize against a plebiscite and exercise veto power. Elites who aligned with Belgrade’s new position but had not been central in the ZSO were elevated to new positions and endowed with distributable resources (cooption), while prior elites in the ZSO were deprived of resources and pushed into the political margins (coercion). TVPs were rewarded for their non-opposition to Belgrade’s preferences, incorporating them in the SNS coalition, or faced a loss of political resources and marginalization if they threatened a veto.

Following the 2013 elections, the SL monopolized Kosovo Serb politics at the municipal and central levels such that Serb-inhabited municipalities were no longer considered democratic, indicating a unification of communal politics and integration of TVPs in the increasingly autocratic Serbian ruling coalition (EU, 2019). ²⁰ Opportunities and capabilities to veto policy changes were reduced. This ensured alignment of both preferences and incentives between Kosovo Serb elites and the SNS-led government in Belgrade, which retained power after 2012 (Figure 3). Kosovo Serb elites who opposed Belgrade’s preferences were ousted from the SL, meaning they lost access to political patronage, resource transfers, and were subjected to intimidation and violence. The most extreme cases of coercion saw the assassinations of viable challengers to the SL, namely Dimitrije Janićijević and Oliver Ivanović, both of whom ran against the SL for the mayorship of North Mitrovica (Jackson, 2023). Alternatively, non-members of the SL could gain access to patronage and avoid threats, and be ensured of electoral success by joining the SL (Jackson, 2023, 2025).

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Figure 3.

Serbian Government and Opposition Coalitions, 2012-23

The effects of first unifying viable TVPs in a single political structure and then aligning their incentive structures to Belgrade’s were evident in subsequent negotiated agreements that followed the Brussels Agreement despite further changing the status quo for many Kosovo Serbs. In 2015, Serbia agreed to disband the Civil Protection Corps in Serb enclaves and in 2017 to integrate parallel judges into the Kosovo legal system. Although there was confusion and individual-level resistance to the changes these agreements entailed, there was neither spoiling nor widespread protests (UNSC, 2015, 2017). Another illustrative example occurred in 2022 when Serbs in northern Kosovo blockaded border crossings in protest of a dispute over vehicle registration and freedom of movement, akin to the 2011 unrest. However, unlike in 2011, when Belgrade and Prishtina reached an agreement, mediated by the EU, the barricades were dismantled and protestors demobilized within a week (UNSC, 2022). This is not to say there were not opponents to these policies or agreements, but rather that they did not have the opportunities and capabilities to veto policy changes, while those with potential opportunity and capability to were coopted in the SNS coalition. SNS-led coalitions reduced the propensity for Serb TVPs to exercise a veto by (1) reducing the opportunity to do so and achieve beneficial outcomes without incurring high costs and (2) depriving opponents to their policies of the capabilities to organize or mobilize a veto through spoiling or voting.

The EU exerted leverage over Serbia in 2013 by threatening to indefinitely postpone accession talks, moving reservation points into a ZoA, and leading Vučić to marginalize Dačić’s opposition. However, the disparate preferences and incentive structures for TVPs—the ZSO—were evident both in Vučić’s concern over implementation and the ZSO’s threatened anti-election campaign that would undermine the Brussels Agreement. The SNS government managed the Kosovo Serb veto players by a combination of cooption, rewarding those who supported changes to the status quo, and coercion, marginalizing and making it costly for those who opposed changes. Accordingly, Belgrade coordinated its use of leverage against the ZSO with the EU’s leverage over accession. The result was that while the SNS remains in power in Belgrade, the preferences and incentives for the SL mirrored its own.

The effect of this, however, is that as EU leverage over Serbia and willingness to deploy it has decreased, Belgrade is not incentivized to move from the status quo. Declining credibility of long-term EU rewards, driven by such factors as costly reforms and lower political will in the EU, along with increased opposition in Prishtina to concessions since 2015, has reduced incentives for Belgrade to make further commitments (see Bieber, 2020; Börzel and Schimmelfennig, 2017). This is coupled with vocal public opposition to the SNS within Serbia, such as the “1 of 5 Million” protests in 2018–2020, 2023 protests following a school shooting, 2024 environmental protests, and the 2024–2025 student protests, all of which have led the SNS to rely on conservative and nationalist supporters opposed to concessions on Kosovo. Incentives to make concessions and reign in Kosovo Serb actors declined. The post-2018 boycott of municipal governments in northern Kosovo, the erection of barricades and roadblocks in 2022, violent riots in 2023, or the September 2023 Banjska attack were not themselves caused by declining external leverage. ²¹ Rather that decline in leverage reduced the incentives for Belgrade to manage the actions of the TVPs to keep them aligned with agreements.