Abstract:

Since 2008, Kosovo has emerged as one of the youngest state of the territory. Despite of the fact that the country is known by its tense relations with Serbia and its ongoing international recognition issue Kosovo's very close relationship with the USA attracts the attention of international public opinion. In this context, the country's very close relations entail the "Kosovo is the 51. State of the USA" discourse. Doubtless, USA's lasting support to Kosovo during its independency process should be considered as the major reason of Kosovo's affiliation to USA. From the perspective of realist paradigm, states' interests are the main dynamic which determines the cooperation between the international actors. In other words, USA's wide support to Kosovo is very much connected to USA's major interests over the territory. On the other hand, USA's close relationship with Kosovo where is mostly inhabited by Muslims does not support the Samuel Huntington's famous Clash of Civilization thesis. This study seeks to investigate the rightfulness and the socio-political background of the "Kosovo is the 51. State of the USA" discourse. As a theoretical background, a comparison is applied to (neo) realism and Clash of Civilization thesis on the case of Kosovo. According to the findings of the study, interests are tend to surpass the identity notion in international relations.

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