Serbian Compliance or Defiance in Kosovo?

Abstract

Working during the third week of NATO's bombing campaign against Serbia (in April 1999), the authors analyzed events data from the Kosovo conflict for January 1998 through January 1999. The authors expected the Serbian government's actions toward Kosovo to show an inverse-triangular response to Western actions toward Serbia—a response pattern found earlier for Serb forces in Bosnia and for Iraq from 1979 to 1997. The authors found, however, using time-series statistics, that Serbian actions toward Kosovo were not affected by international actions toward Serbia, despite bilateral reciprocity in the international-Serbian dyad. If this past pattern continues, it is predicted that NATO bombing will not affect Serbian actions toward Kosovo either by inducing Serbian compliance or by provoking greater Serbian hostility toward Kosovo Albanians.