Abstract

158 BOOK REVIEWS This focus on stability gave opportunity to local leaders to further hollow out independent institutions and undermine democratic rule. Those left behind where the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and other Balkan countries who decided to take matters into their own hands and emigrate or protest. The third and final phase that Belloni introduces is marked by increased civic activism and citizen involvement. Titled ‘Tuzla, or the Local Turn’, after an industrial city that saw massive protests in 2014, it confronts the prevailing top-down dynamic of liberal peacebuilding that marked the two previous phases, through either imposition or cooperation. This phase coincides with the ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding literature. The focus is on dynamics between intervenors and intervened upon, including local resistance to international peacebuilding agendas. Belloni highlights the relevance of every-day experiences as opposed to the relevance of externally conceived institutional frameworks. The problem of agency and the interplay between international actors, local power structures, and citizens shape this phase. The local turn is rarely analysed in the Balkans as the plethora of academic literature on the region focuses on previous forms of international intervention. At the same time, citizens’ protests against local leaders