How do emerging states obtain international recognition and secure membership of international organisations in contemporary world politics? This book provides the first in-depth study of Kosovo-s diplomatic approach to becoming a sovereign state by obtaining international recognition and securing membership of international organisations. Analysing the everyday diplomatic discourses, performances, and entanglements, this book contends that state-becoming is not wholly determined by systemic factors, normative institutions, or the preferences of great powers; the diplomatic agency of the fledgling state plays a far more important role than is generally acknowledged. Drawing on institutional ethnographic research and first-hand observations, this book argues that Kosovo-s diplomatic success in consolidating its sovereign statehood has been the situational assemblage of multiple discourses, practiced through a broad variety of performative actions, and shaped by a complex entanglement
