To examine the relationship between war experiences and war-related distress in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The survey was performed in the late 2003 on a representative sample of 3313 respondents. The ...face-to-face interviews included 15 items on war-related distress and 24 items on war experiences. From these items we developed the War-related Distress Scale, the Direct War Experiences Scale, and the Indirect War Experiences Scale. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between war-related distress symptoms and war experiences variables, controlling for a range of other variables.
Almost half of the respondents did not report any war-related distress symptoms, while about 13% reported 7 or more symptoms. Direct war experiences had a significant effect on war-related distress even eight years after the war, while indirect war experiences showed no significant effect on war-related distress. We found that marital status weakly decreased war-related distress, while household size increased it.
Direct war experiences seem to have a long-lasting traumatic effect on a substantial number of residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Comparative work on reconstruction and peace building in war-torn countries is dominated by a macro-oriented approach, focusing on structural political reforms, legal issues, disarmament, ...demobilization and reintegration of (rebel) soldiers, and repatriation of the displaced. This article offers a different perspective, examining micro-level determinants of reconciliation. Earlier research indicates that political attitudes in post-ethnic conflict societies are shaped by ethnic affinity. A large literature on the importance of contextual conditions for human behavior would suggest that ethnic composition of the local population and physical proximity to the conflict zone also should affect individual support for peace and reconciliation. To test these propositions, we draw on a geo-referenced survey of the Macedonian population that measures respondents' perception of the 2001 civil conflict. Contrary to expectations, the spatial and demographic setting exerts only feeble impacts on individuals' support for the Framework Agreement. Several years after the conflict was settled, the survey data reveal a strongly divided Macedonian society where ethnicity trumps all other individual and contextual factors in explaining the respondents' preferences.
This issue of the International Journal of Sociology presents some of the first studies based on the South-East European Social Survey Project-a social survey data resource for the sociology and ...social history of the group of societies included in what is now commonly referred to as the Western Balkans during late 2003 and early 2004. This introduction is intended to give an overview of the project that produced these data, concentrating on the data structure itself. It also discusses the articles based on the project that are included in this journal issue.
This article presents basic analyses of overall cross-national and cross-ethnic group differences within this region regarding three of the project's topics of interest: ethnic exclusionism, gender ...role conservatism, and moral conservatism regarding sexual mores. Ethnic groups that represent at least approximately 10 percent of the population in each country are contrasted. These analyses demonstrate the relative importance of both general social-demographic variables acting across societies in this region and the continuing importance of cultural and contextual issues affecting specific ethnic groups in each country. As we demonstrate, the importance of one set of factors versus the other varies greatly depending upon the topic.
This study focuses on war experiences, war-related distress, and health. It is based on face-to-face interviews in a representative survey of 1,000 Kosovar Albanians. Results show that direct war ...experiences have a stronger impact on war-related distress and health than indirect war experiences. The strongest predictor among crucial single experiences was being held prisoner of war. Among Kosovo-Albanians, direct war experiences may have had a strong effect on war-related distress, even 4 years after the end of the war.
A fundamental feature of the nature of values in a society is the degree of diversity in values versus unanimity in values. In this chapter, we explore the degree to which there are social divisions ...in attitudes towards values in Kosovar society, how great these divisions may be, which kinds of group divisions are most important in explaining differences in attitudes, and how group differences differ depending on the dimensions of values involved. Naturally, we are interested in overall Albanian–Serb differences in the population of Kosovo.¹ Possibilities for cooperation and integration between these two major ethnic groups should be
Kosovo, Europe’s youngest state, had a difficult birth. Originally included in the emergent Albanian state more than a century ago, it was overrun by the Serbian army in October 1912 and, for most of ...the next century, was ruled by Belgrade, in spite of its majority Albanian population. Nonetheless, although Belgrade imposed its rule in disregard of the wishes of the local population, it was not the difference in ethnicity which rendered Kosovo unstable in the decades thereafter. Rather, it was the fact that, with the exception of the years 1968–87, Belgrade tended to treat the Albanians of Kosovo
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