Post-war societies can be considered highly internationalized settings, in which international actors try to establish a viable peace. One aspect of this transformation is the promotion of democratic elites and inclusive elite systems through transitory institutions. We hypothesize that the effect of these internationally backed institutions on the formation of local elites is rather limited. The paper investigates elite formation in internationalised post-war societies, using the examples of Kosovo and Liberia. Starting from a theoretical framework of patrimonialism, we describe national dynamics characterized by competition between different political actors with unequal access to power resources. More powerful actors try to use their advantageous position to further accumulate resources to maximize power and private wealth. In as much as external peace-builders perceive these dynamics as threatening stability, they back or impose transitory institutions targeted at restraining or removing elites. In Kosovo, the International Community imposed an ethnically proportional government (2000-2001), thereby intervening directly in the formation of government. In Liberia, external actors eventually prosecuted the exiled former President, banned certain elites from foreign travel and froze their assets, and imposed a Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program overseeing national elites. Despite the wide variance of these measures, external intervention had remarkably little impact on elite formation. In as much as intervention was effective, it was because it reinforced national dynamics present before. If Liberia’s elite system is nowadays relatively more inclusive than that of Kosovo, it is first of all because of changes in national patterns of elite formation.
