Jana Bacevic provides an innovative analysis of education policy-making in the processes of social transformation and post-conflict development in the Western Balkans. Based on case studies of ...educational reform in the former Yugoslavia - from the decade before its violent breakup to contemporary efforts in post-conflict reconstruction - From Class to Identity tells the story of the political processes and motivations underlying each reform. The book moves away from technical-rational or prescriptive approaches that dominate the literature on education policy-making during social transformation, and offers an example on how to include the social, political and cultural context in the understanding of policy reforms. It connects education policy at a particular time in a particular place with broader questions such as: What is the role of education in society? What kind of education is needed for a ‘good’ society? Who are the ‘targets’ of education policies (individuals/citizens, ethnic/religious/linguistic groups, societies)? Bacevic shows how different answers to these questions influence the contents and outcomes of policies.
In the 1990s, amid political upheaval and civil war, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia dissolved into five successor states. The subsequent independence of Montenegro and Kosovo brought ...the total number to seven. Balkan scholar and diplomat to the region Mieczysław P. Boduszyński examines four of those states—Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—and traces their divergent paths toward democracy and Euro-Atlantic integration over the past two decades.
Boduszyński argues that regime change in the Yugoslav successor states was powerfully shaped by both internal and external forces: the economic conditions on the eve of independence and transition and the incentives offered by the European Union and other Western actors to encourage economic and political liberalization. He shows how these factors contributed to differing formulations of democracy in each state.
The author engages with the vexing problems of creating and sustaining democracy when circumstances are not entirely supportive of the effort. He employs innovative concepts to measure the quality of and prospects for democracy in the Balkan region, arguing that procedural indicators of democratization do not adequately describe the stability of liberalism in post-communist states.
This unique perspective on developments in the region provides relevant lessons for regime change in the larger post-communist world. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers will find the book to be a compelling contribution to the study of comparative politics, democratization, and European integration.
What is the appropriate political response to mass atrocity? InHijacked Justice, Jelena Subotic traces the design, implementation, and political outcomes of institutions established to deal with the ...legacies of violence in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars. She finds that international efforts to establish accountability for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia have been used to pursue very different local political goals.
Responding to international pressures, Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia have implemented various mechanisms of "transitional justice"-the systematic addressing of past crimes after conflicts end. Transitional justice in the three countries, however, was guided by ulterior political motives: to get rid of domestic political opponents, to obtain international financial aid, or to gain admission to the European Union. Subotic argues that when transitional justice becomes "hijacked" for such local political strategies, it fosters domestic backlash, deepens political instability, and even creates alternative, politicized versions of history.
That war crimes trials (such as those in The Hague) and truth commissions (as in South Africa) are necessary and desirable has become a staple belief among those concerned with reconstructing societies after conflict. States are now expected to deal with their violent legacies in an institutional setting rather than through blanket amnesty or victor's justice. This new expectation, however, has produced paradoxical results. In order to avoid the pitfalls of hijacked justice, Subotic argues, the international community should focus on broader and deeper social transformation of postconflict societies, instead on emphasizing only arrests of war crimes suspects.
Reconciliation by Stealth advances a novel approach to evaluating the effects of transitional justice in postconflict societies. Through her examination of the Balkan conflicts, Denisa Kostovicova ...asks what happens when former adversaries discuss legacies of violence and atrocity, and whether it is possible to do so without further deepening animosities.Reconciliation by Stealth shifts our attention from what people say about war crimes, to how they deliberate past wrongs. Bringing together theories of democratic deliberation and peacebuilding, Kostovicova demonstrates how people from opposing ethnic groups reconcile through reasoned, respectful, and empathetic deliberation about a difficult legacy. She finds that expression of ethnic difference plays a role in good-quality deliberation across ethnic lines, while revealed intraethnic divisions help deliberators expand moral horizons previously narrowed by conflict. In the process, people forge bonds of solidarity and offset divisive identity politics that bears upon their deliberations. Reconciliation by Stealth shows us the importance of theoretical and methodological innovation in capturing how transitional justice can promote reconciliation, and points to the untapped potential of deliberative problem-solving to repair relationships fractured by conflict.
Building democracy in societies that have known only authoritarian rule for half a century is complicated. Taking the post-Yugoslav region as its case study, this volume shows how success with ...democratisation depends on various factors, including establishing the rule of law, the consolidation of free media, and society's acceptance of ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. Surveying the seven successor states, the authors argue that Slovenia is in a class by itself as the most successful, with Croatia and Serbia not far behind. The other states - Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo - are all struggling with problems of corruption, poverty, and unemployment. The authors treat the issue of values as a policy problem in its own right, debating the extent to which values have been transformed by changes in education and the media, how churches and women's organisations have entered into the policy debate, and whether governments have embraced a programme designed to effect changes in values.
In most post-conflict countries nongovernmental organizations are everywhere, but their presence is misunderstood. InThe NGO GamePatrice McMahon investigates the unintended outcomes of what she calls ...the NGO boom in Bosnia and Kosovo. Using her years of fieldwork and interviews, McMahon argues that when international actors try to rebuild and reconstruct post-conflict countries, they often rely on and look to NGOs. Although policymakers and scholars tend to accept and even celebrate NGO involvement in post-conflict and transitioning countries, they rarely examine why NGOs have become so popular, what NGOs do, or how they affect everyday life.
After a conflict, international NGOs descend on a country, local NGOs pop up everywhere, and money and energy flow into strengthening the organizations. In time, the frenzy of activity slows, the internationals go home, local groups disappear from sight, and the NGO boom goes bust. Instead of peace and stability, the embrace of NGOs and the enthusiasm for international peacebuilding turns to disappointment, if not cynicism. For many in the Balkans and other post-conflict environments, NGOs are not an aid to building a lasting peace but are part of the problem because of the turmoil they foster during their life cycles in a given country.The NGO Gamewill be useful to practitioners and policymakers interested in improving peacebuilding, the role of NGOs in peace and development, and the sustainability of local initiatives in post-conflict countries.
In the 1990s, Yugoslavia, which had once been a role model for development, became a symbol for state collapse, external intervention and post-war reconstruction. Today the region has two ...international protectorates, contested states and borders, severe ethnic polarization and minority concerns. In this first in-depth critical analysis of international administration, aid and reconstruction policies in Kosovo, Jens Stilhoff Sörensen argues that the region must be analyzed as a whole, and that the process of state collapse and recent changes in aid policy must be interpreted in connection to the wider transformation of the global political economy and world order. He examines the shifting inter- and intracommunity relations, the emergence of a "political economy" of conflict, and of informal clientelist arrangements in Serbia and Kosovo and provides a framework for interpreting the collapse of the Yugoslav state, the emergence of ethnic conflict and shadow economies, and the character of western aid and intervention. Western governments and agencies have built policies on conceptions and assumptions for which there is no genuine historical or contemporary economic, social or political basis in the region. As the author persuasively argues, this discrepancy has exacerbated and cemented problems in the region and provided further complications that are likely to remain for years to come.
From Ethnic Conflict to Stillborn Reform is the first complete treatment of the major post-communist conflicts in both the former Yugoslavia— Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia—and the former ...Soviet Union—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Tajikistan. It is also the first work that focuses not on causes but rather on consequences for democratization and market reform, the two most widely studied political outcomes in the developing world.
Building on existing work emphasizing the effects of economic development and political culture, the book adds a new, comprehensive treatment of how war affects political and economic reform.
Author Shale Horowitz employs both statistical evidence and historical case studies of the eight new nations to determine that ethnic conflict entangles, distracts, and destabilizes reformist democratic governments, while making it easier for authoritarian leaders to seize and consolidate power. As expected, economic backwardness worsens these tendencies, but Horowitz finds that powerful reform-minded nationalist ideologies can function as antidotes.
The comprehensiveness of the treatment, use of both qualitative and quantitative analysis, and focus on standard concepts from comparative politics make this book an excellent tool for classroom use, as well as a ground-breaking analysis for scholars.
Do languages cause borders or do borders cause languages? This volume in the Current Issues in Language and Society series attempts to situate the debate on language policies in Southeastern Europe ...within the larger debate in social sciences and humanities on the issues of borders and the formation of national identities.
