Warlords, priests and the politics of ethnic cleansing: a case-study from rural Bosnia Hercegovina

Abstract

There is a tendency among social scientists and others to interpret the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia Hercegovina as the result of a political policy carefully orchestrated from above and systematically carried out. Whatever eruptions of war violence might deviate from this interpretation are generally viewed as primitive balkanism, pointless acts, banditism or mental aberrations. Terms of this kind re ect an uncritical acceptance of a central or national leader perspective, dismissing as deviant everything that fails to go according to plan, and denying the signi cance of speci c local and regional circumstances or failing at any rate to problematize and examine them. This article describes a process the nal result of which can be seen as the ethnic homogenization of a region, but only part of its dynamics can be attributed to a policy implemented from above. Rather, its course can largely be traced back to local vendettas and a long-standing con ict between Franciscan friars and diocesan priests. The case illustrates that a systematic study "from below" is crucial to a better understanding of the dynamics and the developmental logic of the processes of ethnic cleansing. The article concludes with some theoretical thoughts which t into the current debate on civilizing and decivilizing processes.

Unlikely Friends of the Authoritarian and Atheist Ruler: Religious Groups and Collective Contention in Rural China

“…Second, religious groups may cause or reinforce a so-called clash of civilisations and the associated or underlying socio-political conflicts. Huntington (1996) argues that the primary axis of conflict in the post-Cold-War world falls not along ideological or economic lines but cultural and religious ones, and his thesis is 7 supported by empirical evidence drawn from across the globe, including Southeast Asia (Searle 2002;Houben 2003), South Asia (Cady andSimon 2006;Gould 2011), the Middle East (Baumgartner et al 2008), Africa (Ukiwo 2003;Ellis and Haar 2004) and the Balkan Peninsula (Bax 2000). Lastly, religious groups may provide organisational structures and personnel for collective contention.…”

The patterns of ethnic settlement and violence: a local-level quantitative analysis of the Bosnian War

“…Similarly, while discussion on ethnic conflict raged at the macro-level, an attempt to quantitatively analyze the impact of ethnicity at a lower level of analysis has been missing. This study is an attempt to address such issues by focusing on the war that ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early nineties, and hopefully to provide a quantitative complement to richer political/ethnographic literature on the case (Bax 2000). Whatever the "root cause" (or causes) of the war, the ethnic dimension results turned out to be extremely relevant.…”

Η Συγκριτική Μελέτη Των Εμφυλίων Πολέμων

“…Επιπλέον,: σειρά μελετών'έχέί· δέίξέΐ dtl η διαιρετική τομή που χαρακτηρίζει έναν εμφύλιο πόλεμΟΊΤτό κεντρικό επίπεδο δεν μεταφράζεται γραμμικά στο τοπικό επίπε δο, αλλά διαμεσολαβείται και μεταλλάσσεται από τις5 κατά'τόπους βεντέτες ' -('Bax7(2000;Schroeder 1996) και την επίλυση διαφορών μεταξύ γειτόνων και τοπικών φατριών (Asóhe: nbreriiierT987). ■ ' ■ -ffC|3TÙ3Ô μ ιιτη,υοοί] ωοno oro Την ίδια στιγμή, η 'φύση' της κατάρρευσης της έννομης τάξης και οι συμμαχίες που δημιουργούνται από εκεί και πέρα έχόυν σημαντικές επιπτώ σεις στον χαρακτήρα και τη μόρφή πόύ λαμβάνει η βία και στην έκβαση του πολέμου.Ό Bax (2000) τονίζει τη σημασία της συνεργασίας παραστρατιιοτι-κών με τον τακτικό στρατό στη Βοσνία, ενώ ο Aschenbretiner (1987) περι γράφει τις συμμαχίες μεταξύ των διαφορετικών φατριών ενός χωριού και εξωτερικών παραγόντων στα πλαίσια του'έλλήνίκίΐύ έήφύλϊ'όΐ'πόλέρ,όυ. Η στρατολόγηση και η επιλογή των θυμάτων στο χωριό που μελέτησε ο Aschenbrenner ακολούθησε;την τοπική/λογική της: φατρίας: και των οικογε νειών, παρά την εκ νέου αντιπαράθεση του πληθυσμού μυ βάση τις διαιρετι κές τομές που δανείστηκαν από το κεντρικό πολιτικό .σκηνικό·.…”