The right to be elected, although an important political right guaranteed in human rights documents on international and regional levels, is still an under-researched and undertheorized concept with ...many synonyms in use. While the right to vote is often correlated with democracy, the closely related right to be elected is often neglected, and the constitutions of most countries are silent about it.
The 2009 European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) decision in the case of Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina started the discussions concerning the discrimination in enjoyment of the right to be elected in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Although the right to be elected is not explicitly guaranteed in the Dayton Constitution but only in the Law on Election, the ECtHR considered equal enjoyment of this right by everyone in Bosnia and Herzegovina of high importance and declared the relevant Dayton Constitution’s provisions discriminatory.
The book explains the conceptual relevance of the right to be elected, its interrelatedness with the right to vote and both these rights’ significance for democratic systems. Through analyzing and explaining the regional human rights tribunal’s decisions concerning the right to be elected, the importance of this political right is elucidated.
Objective
To assess the quality of maternal and newborn care (QMNC) in countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Method
Women giving birth in a facility in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia‐Herzegovina ...between March 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021 answered an online questionnaire including 40 WHO standards‐based quality measures.
Results
A total of 4817 women were included in the analysis. Significant differences were observed across countries. Among those experiencing labor, 47.4%–62.3% of women perceived a reduction in QMNC due to the COVID‐19 pandemic, 40.1%–69.7% experienced difficulties in accessing routine antenatal care, 60.3%–98.1% were not allowed a companion of choice, 17.4%–39.2% reported that health workers were not always using personal protective equipment, and 21.2%–53.8% rated the number of health workers as insufficient. Episiotomy was performed in 30.9%–62.8% of spontaneous vaginal births. Additionally, 22.6%–55.9% of women received inadequate breastfeeding support, 21.5%–62.8% reported not being treated with dignity, 11.0%–30.5% suffered abuse, and 0.7%–26.5% made informal payments. Multivariate analyses confirmed significant differences among countries, with Slovenia showing the highest QMNC index, followed by Croatia, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, and Serbia.
Conclusion
Differences in QMNC among the countries of the former Yugoslavia during the COVID‐19 pandemic were significant. Activities to promote high‐quality, evidence‐based, respectful care for all mothers and newborns are urgently needed. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04847336.
Synopsis
Quality of maternal and newborn care during the COVID‐19 pandemic varied greatly between Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia‐Herzegovina, and Serbia, with significant room for improvement.
Abstract
To what extent does local LGBT+ activism have impacts beyond its immediate surroundings? We offer a theoretical framework emphasizing how a combination of local movement visibility and LGBT+ ...cultural receptivity can account for disseminating influences of LGBT+ activism. We illustrate our framework in part through an analysis of the potential diffusion of LGBT+ support in Bosnia in the aftermath of the country’s first-ever Pride. Our model explains why the 2019 Sarajevo Pride increased LGBT+ support locally but had no immediate effects on attitudes in greater Bosnia. It also explains why LGBT+ support has since expanded beyond the capital to Bosnia’s surrounding regions in a follow-up 2021 study. Even when local LGBT+ visibility is low or nonexistent, underlying cultural receptivity can be conducive to the gradual diffusion of LGBT+ support. Moreover, the challenging circumstances of the pandemic did not undermine the expansion of LGBT+ tolerance across Bosnia. Our findings illustrate the persistent power as well as limitations of LGBT+ activism to usher in downstream cultural change.
Bosnia and Herzegovina represents a very suitable experimental space for the analysis of integrative policy in the conditions, war and long-lasting crisis, of a devastated society which, due to the ...challenges of history, is deeply divided. In such a space, applying the analytical model designed and used by Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokan, the paper deals with the detection of social divisions that underlie party preferences in the 1990 elections for the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Analyzes of pre-election and post-election activities of political entities show the existence of an important link between ethno-confessional characteristics and attitudes on political issues and party preferences, which in accordance with the used theoretical model creates preconditions for talking about social divisions that have turned into party divisions. It can be determined that they are bh. political parties formed, with all their specifics, on the basic lines of Bosnia and Herzegovina social divisions. In the analysis of the relationship between social and political space and the influence of the structure of society on political relations and divisions, it is possible to determine that party divisions and divisions, their segmentation and polarization are conditioned, above all, by the depth and dynamics of fundamental Bosnia and Herzegovina social divisions. The divisions that emerged in the pre-election period of 1990 (we can conditionally define them as divisions communism vs anti-communism) were pushed into the background in the first post-election year and priority was given to the split that S. Lipset and S. Rokan defined as the center-periphery split. (or the territorial-cultural split as, after adaptation, Professor Nenad Zakošek called it). The second part of the paper presents an overview of the most important political parties in the 1990 elections and continues to examine the applicability of S. Lipset and S. Rokan's theory of turning social divisions into party divisions, this time in the first year of ethno-confessional parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Analyzing the basic lines of historical ethnic and confessional divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina society and in the sphere of political (sub) system through indicators such as: predominant (ethnic, confessional, linguistic, cultural and regional) identifications, the relationship between ethno-confessional and civil, the relationship to the rights and freedoms guaranteed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the Constitution, the attitude towards different solutions to the state question (remaining in the common state of Yugoslavia vs. the independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina) tested the hypothesis that historical lines of ethno-confessional splits represent the basic determinant of political goals. It can be seen that the territorial-cultural divide (primarily in the form of center-periphery conflict) is actually a kind of complete split, given that it is a split that involves conflict between stable social groups (residents of the center and periphery but also members of different ethnic and confessional communities). In the Bosnia and Herzegovina case, these are (ethnic and confessional) communities that have different views on the most important issues of the social organization of the common state, which results in open conflict on the political scene in the form of voting for different political options, which can be transformed by ethnopolitical elites. (very easily) into various forms of violence against others and different in the territory that is under their political (and police) control.
La memoria transicional Miguel Roan
Tiempo Devorado,
09/2023, Volume:
8, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
La literatura bosnia posyugoslava surge a partir de la fundación del nuevo estado bosnio, pero también procede de las consecuencias de la fragmentación de Yugoslavia, de la guerra (1992-1995) y de su ...configuración durante la transición. Se han traducido en español un número significativo de novelas y autobiografías que nos permiten trazar algunas líneas colectivas tanto temáticas como emocionales, para conocer las motivaciones e intereses de los creadores bosnios hasta poder explorar someramente en las características generales de su memoria colectiva. Sin embargo, si bien los géneros literario y autobiográfico permiten acercarse a la realidad del país, la producción editorial en España se revela tan completa para conocer patrones comunes como incompleta o parcialmente completa para explorar la complejidad del país y de su historia reciente.
This paper is a reflexive examination of ethnographic positionality in the Bosnian border town of Bihać as it experienced a bottleneck of migrants and refugees from outside of Europe attempting to ...reach prosperous EU states by traversing the Balkan Route of irregular migration. Drawing from critical border studies and the principles of engaged ethnography, I approach the relational quality of life on the border as it shapes and also produces social boundaries that must be navigated also by researchers. The paper gives an account of my own active engagement in migrant solidarity activities and chronicles how this positioning came to be seen as my aligning myself with one distinct "side" of the social boundary between those working to support migrants in the community, whether as part of the official migration management response or as autonomous solidarians, on one hand, or those advocating the containment and expulsion of migrants, or "anti-migrant" positions, on the other. I show how this positioning helped to reveal the relational quality of social boundaries created through different ways of relating to the border.
The organization of the Yugoslav armed forces into two strategic components of which the Yugoslav People’s Army was one, while the others were made up from the territorial defence forces of the ...Yugoslav republics and autonomous regions, was a concept based on the idea of a massive and general popular resistance, modelled on the partisan movement from the times of the Second World War. From the outset their development and organizational forms were significantly determined, among other things, by the relationship between the unitarist and separatist tendencies and policies, which was a permanent feature of the complete development of the Yugoslav political system that had its final expression in the provisions of the Constitution of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia that had been adopted in 1974. The Constitution defined as the right and duty of municipalities, autonomous regions and republics that, in accordance with the system of people’s defence, each one could regulate and organize the people’s defence forces on its own territory. The Law on the people’s defence also delimited and stipulated that the relevant organs of the Federation established the basic plans concerning the development and implementation of Yugoslav armed forces as a whole, securing the unity of their actions and organizing and preparing the Yugoslav People’s Army, while the relevant organs of the republics, regions and municipalities organized and prepared the territorial defence forces and secured the unity of its organization, preparation and action on their respective territories. This was the basic constitutional responsibility in terms of defence which was not changed for the duration of the common state’s existence. Interventions regarding the organization of Yugoslav armed forces that were implemented since the 1980’s were reflected on certain formational solutions, some aspects of relations in the command and control lines and in the selection of personnel for the most responsible duties in the detachments and headquarters of territorial defence forces, but in essence it did not affect the doctrine nor did it change or derogate the constitutional authority of the republics or their state organs in the domain of defence. The state organs of Bosnia and Herzegovina attempted to secure an equal position in the process of Yugoslav dissolution, up to the extent to which this was possible and within the framework of their jurisdiction. In official documents that were adopted in the Assembly in October 1991 and which defined the determination and attitudes of Bosnia and Herzegovina concerning the possible arrangement of the Yugoslav union and the future relations within it, the constitutional authority of the Presidency was confirmed in the domain of defence as well as in the command and control over the territorial defence forces. After the proclamation of state independence and its subsequent international recognition, the dramatic political crisis escalated into an armed aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina. By proclaiming the state of direct military threat, the Presidency assumed the responsibilities of the Assembly, and with a set of legal acts quickly defined the forms, organization and dynamic of the development of its own armed forces. This development was quickly initiated on 8 April 1992 with the abolishment of the Republican headquarters of the Territorial defence forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the establishment of the Headquarters of the Territorial defence forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which assumed command over the subordinate headquarters and detachments with an unchanged formation and structure. The Decree with legal power that was passed on 20 May defined that Armed forces in peacetime were made up of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while in wartime they also included the police forces and all other armed units that placed themselves under their command. It was stipulated that until the Army became established, its function in the Armed forces would be performed by the Territorial defence forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 4 July 1992 the Presidency as the highest organ of leadership and command passed a Decision about the organization of the Armed forces of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereby the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was officially formed and put into function, while the Territorial defence forces stopped existing.
This article addresses the travelling monument Prijedor '92 dedicated to all civilian victims of genocidal violence in Prijedor, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The young Vienna-based artist Anita Zečić ...developed this project with the aim of raising awareness about the local authorities' obstruction of memorials for civilian victims in her hometown. The artist suggests an alternative way to advance this goal by using an art installation that travels in transnational space to make the past crimes and the local efforts against continued human rights violations widely known. The article analyses this project with a dual focus. It explores the use of this public art intervention for transnational memorialisation and delves into the artist's motivation for engaging with these memories. The article argues that reflecting upon her story provides a perspective on the significant experience of the 1.5 generation and its role in dealing with the past in transnational and diasporic space.
•The overall severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) secondary attack rate in this study was 17%.•Adults were more likely to be secondary cases than children.•Particular care ...should be taken if primary cases present with cough and rhinorrhoea.•Kissing a SARS-CoV-2 case or sharing a meal with a SARS-CoV-2 case increased the risk of infection.•Reducing contact in the household immediately is key to prevent onward transmission.
The secondary attack rate (SAR) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) was estimated, and the risk factors for infection among members of households with a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) index case were identified to inform preventive measures.
Between 3 August and 19 December 2020, a household transmission study was implemented based on a standardized World Health Organization protocol. Laboratory-confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection were recruited through the federal COVID-19 database. Trained contact tracers interviewed index cases and household members to collect information on demographic, clinical and behavioural factors. Contacts were followed up for 28 days to identify secondary infections. SAR was estimated and odds ratios (OR) were calculated for risk factors for transmission.
In total, 383 households and 793 contacts were included in this study. The overall SAR was 17% 95% confidence interval (CI) 14–21. Contacts had higher risk for infection if the primary case had both cough and runny nose (OR 4.31, 95% CI 1.60–11.63), if the contact was aged 18–49 years (OR 4.67, 95% CI 1.83–11.93), if the contact kissed the primary case (OR 3.16, 95% CI 1.19–8.43), or if the contact shared a meal with the primary case (OR 3.10, 95% CI 1.17–8.27).
These results add to the global literature by providing evidence from a middle-income setting. Standard preventive measures in households with positive cases remain critical to reduce transmission.
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