Bosnia and Herzegovina Five Years after the Dayton Accords

A specialist on financial issues in the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina assesses economic performance in that country during the five years following conclusion of the Dayton Peace Accords. The basic provisions of the Accords relating to economic activity and post-war reconstruction are presented, after which the analysis focuses on developments in the economy, privatization, and banking-sector reform, to the extent that available data allow. Coverage then turns to a review of the role of the Office of the High Representative in administration of the State's two constituent Entities: the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Serb Republic. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O11, O18, O52. 5 tables, 33 references.     

Consociationalism and the politics of the census in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland

Population censuses have symbolic and instrumental importance for ethnic, national, linguistic or religious groups and their political representatives. This is particularly apparent in deeply divided societies, where political institutions are designed to accommodate groups through forms of power sharing. Existing literature posits that consociational power-sharing institutions, which are commonly employed to manage inter-group conflict, are likely to incentivise contestation and mobilisation in relation to the census, but this claim has not been tested empirically. Employing the case studies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Northern Ireland, this article tests a proposition about the relationship between consociationalism and the politics of the census: that it is corporate consociational designs that are likely to result in contestation of the census and mobilisation of groups during enumeration, whereas liberal consociational designs will not. The analysis offers support for this proposition, but also suggests that other features of power-sharing settlements, such as the federal nature of the Bosnian state and the majoritarian provision for a ‘border poll’ in the Northern Irish settlement, also play an important role in shaping census politics. These insights contribute to political geographic debates about the census by highlighting the influence of institutional design on struggles over how and where populations get counted, which are applicable beyond the immediate context of deeply divided societies.     

Muslims' nation‐building process in socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1960s

During the 1960s, the Yugoslav Socialist authorities gradually recognised Bosnia and Herzegovina's Muslims as a nation. Interestingly, in the 1940s, the Yugoslav Communist leaders refused to consider Muslims even as an ethnic group and saw them only as a religious community whose members had to designate themselves as Serbs or Croats. Why did the regime decide to recognise Muslims as a nation in the 1960s, whereas 20 years earlier they supported the opposite position? To understand the shift, this nation‐building process must be understood as the result of a dual dynamic on the federal and the republican level, where important changes occurred. At the federal one, the Communist authorities initiated a decentralisation process within the context of Yugoslav self‐management in the 1950s, which significantly reinforced the republic elites. This coincided with the resurgence of the national question in the whole of Yugoslavia. Simultaneously, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new elite progressively rose to power in the 1960s and put the ‘Muslim question’ on the political agenda. This led to the gradual increase in status of the Muslims from a religious community to an ethnic group at the beginning of the 1960s and then to a nation at the end of the decade.     

Imperial inventories, “illegal mosques” and institutionalized Islam: Coloniality and the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

Looking at the architectures of governance that have characterized the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), this essay explores the ways in which imperial inventories of colonial institutions come to influence and arbitrate contemporary debates over what constitutes legitimate practices of Islam in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Austria. Examining the larger political context in which these debates emerge, including the criminalization of Muslim communities that refuse to submit to the authority of state-sanctioned Islamic religious institutions, I detail the ways in which colonial histories are recruited to curate a homogenized, continuous representational mandate for Muslim communities and practices in Austria and BiH. Attending to nostalgic invocations of the late Habsburg governance of Islam and Muslims, I argue that these discourses serve to legitimate specific Muslim institutions and actors in Austria and BiH that privilege the Habsburg legacy through the exclusion of outlawed/illegal Muslim communities and practices in both countries.     

Symbolic Violence and the Politics of Environmental Pollution Science: The Case of Coal Ash Pollution in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract: Environmental justice movements often contest environmental knowledge by engaging in scientific debates, which implies accepting the predominance of scientific discourses over alternative forms of knowledge. Using Bourdieu's concept of symbolic violence, this paper warns that the engagement with hegemonic forms of knowledge production may reproduce, rather than challenge, existing social and environmental inequalities. The argument is developed with reference to a case study of coal ash pollution in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The case study shows that the construction of knowledge in a scientific project led to the exclusion of local definitions of the situation and the dismissal of their observations of environmental pollution. The case suggests that the capacity of different actors to put forward their interpretation of an environmental issue depends on the forms of symbolic violence that emerge within hegemonic discourses of the environment.     

On globalization,borders, and borderlands: A historical geographical perspective

Under current dialectical conditions of globalization and increased demands for security, borders are no longer just symbols of sovereignty and national histories; they are evolving into new forms and as such are taking on new functions. Yet while borders continue to exist and are arguably more fluid and dynamic than ever before, despite the once robust but now contested rhetoric of “a world without borders,” this doesn't mean that borders prior to the current phase of globalization were relatively static and stable. What is constant is the fact that borders and borderlands are always in a state of becoming and in this context, we need to address the relationship that exists between borderland evolution and the changing forces of globalization. This paper considers the important role that time‐space plays in globalization and borderland theory and in doing so emphasizes that any such effort must recognize the importance of historical geographical context. My argument is developed with reference to the Canadian‐American borderlands and the relationship between Canada and the United States that developed during the various phases of globalization that emerged after the creation of two North American polities following the American Revolution.     

Funder and facilitator: Swedish development aid aimed at cultural heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995–2008

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the relationship between the Swedish development agency Sida and Cultural Heritage without Borders (CHwB), a facilitating organisation in the field of cultural heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) following the Bosnia War. From 1995 to 2008 CHwB was the only NGO in BiH working to preserve cultural heritage, and was almost exclusively funded by Sida. From having been an organisation focusing on the restoration of historic monuments, CHwB transformed into becoming an NGO facilitating social and economic development. The paper suggests that CHwB gradually changed from having a very particular position of working with the preservation of an ethnically diverse cultural heritage with the aim of promoting reconciliation, to one where it needed to focus on reconstruction and its implications for economic development. By analysing a large number of key documents using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis this change is interpreted in relation to changes taking place within the landscape of international aid and post-conflict recovery.     

The international heritage doctrine and the management of heritage in Sarajevo,Bosnia and Herzegovina: the case of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments

Since the formal end to the conflict of dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1995, cultural heritage has been given a central role in post-war recovery and reconstruction, and in the development of sustainable peace in the region. This role reflects the pivotal function accorded to heritage in post-conflict settings within the international heritage doctrine, while re-assessing the crucial role of culture in ‘building peace in the minds of men and women’ (UNESCO) and in creating ‘greater understanding of one another among the peoples of Europe’. I will present and analyse the current formal/legal system of heritage construction and reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), its relations with the international heritage doctrine and its implications on the local process of memorialisation of armed conflict. As I will argue, one fundamental pitfall of the international heritage doctrine fashioned by UNESCO and the Council of Europe is that it implicitly relies on the nation-state as the carrier and developer of collective cultural memory and identity, overlooking settings where the primary mode of group identification and legitimisation occurs at different (lower) levels, as in BiH.     

Perceptions of the War in Bosnia

Books reviewed in this article:
Roger Cohen, Hearts grown brutal: sagas of Sarajevo
Chuck Sudetic, Blood and vengeance: one family's story of the war in Bosnia
Richard Holbrooke, To end a war
General Sir Michael Rose, Fighting for peace: Bosnia 1994     

‘Sistem te laže!’: the anti‐ruling class mobilisation of high school students in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article presents the case of a high school student‐led protest movement in the Bosnian towns of Jajce and Travnik. Over the course of 2016 and 2017, the students developed opposition to a plan for an ethnically segregated high school in Jajce. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, ethnicity is strongly politicised and limits the political activities of citizens to what is prescribed by the elites of their respective ethnic groups. In particular, Bosnian youth is often named as part of an apathetic ‘lost generation’ whose voices are smothered by this ethno‐political framework. I argue that the political agency of ordinary young Bosnians should not be neglected, since the formulations of their relationship with the state form meaningful political activities. The student protests in Jajce and Travnik are telling examples of their political agency. In an analysis of the protest movement's actions, I show that the students adopt a narrative that opposes the ruling political class and their prevalence of personal interests over the future of younger generations.     

A graph-based analysis for generating geographical context from a historical cadastre in Spain (17th and 18th centuries)

Abstract

The cabreves are notarial documents prepared between the 13th and 19th centuries in the Catalan and Valencian regions of Spain. These historical records were published before the first cadastral maps and contain geographical information that could help spatially reconstruct historical landscapes. However, these documents have not been used to their full potential mainly because of their semi-structured and complex nature. In this article, we propose a new graph-based interactive methodology for partially reconstructing historical landscapes. We have successfully applied this methodology for reconstructing the historical landscape of the Barony of Sella in the 18th century and the methodology has also helped us locate “El Poblet,” a previously unknown archeological site abandoned after the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609.     

历史分期的概念与历史编纂学的实践

历史编纂学中对历史的分期有自然的或技术性的分期与理论性的分期两种。中国和西方传统时代的历史学家都不注重运用历史的理论分期来编纂历史。对理论化的历史分期的热情是启蒙时代以来社会、自然和历史观念变化所激发起来的,对于中国历史学家说来是外来的。凡理论化的历史分期,其理论的根据都远远超出历史学之外,所以对于历史编纂学来说是无法从理论角度判断的,而只能从其对历史编纂学的实际产生怎样的作用来判断。任何理论模式都具有主观性。所以理论性的历史分期对于历史编纂学说来是假说、工具和方法。     

1927—1937年上海失业人群再就业状况述略

由于政局动荡、市面萧条、工商企业衰敝等因素的影响,1927-1937年间上海的失业形势十分严重.在失业群体中,以民族工商业的工人、职员等男性青壮年为主,其文化程度总体上较低,失业的时间较长,谋生的压力较重.他们或力图通过社会中介机构谋求就业机会;或参加各类职业培训,提高再就业技能;或在政府和社会的帮助下,自主就业.就这一时期再就业的特点而言,一是传统的血缘、地缘关系仍是失业者在沪谋生的主要条件,同时市场化就业的趋势也日趋明显;二是就业竞争十分激烈,再就业的成功率不高;三是政府和社会在这一过程中形成了一定的分工.