Making Peace Prevail: Preventing Violent Conflict in Macedonia

The urgency to tell the story of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the only republic in the former Yugoslavia to secede without bloodshed, is made more compelling by the crisis in Kosovo. In Making Peace Prevail, Alice Ackermann offers the first in-depth account of how Macedonia—one of the few examples of successful preventive diplomacy—held onto peace during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Faced with ethnic tensions and the threat of the Bosnian war, this republic was spared the fate of Croatia and Bosnia. With this book Ackermann furthers our understanding of the challenge in conflict prevention in multiethnic and newly democratized societies. She provides a framework of analysis that underscores the "art of conflict prevention." She notes the activity of the major players such as the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) but maintains that groups such as the Working Group of the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia—although not in the public eye—accomplished much through an "interactive workshop" approach to conflict management. In her epilogue Ackermann addresses the most recent developments with NATO's intervention in Kosovo and the Balkans and the internal forces at work in Macedonia, which account for its current state of stability.