QUESTION: Why does identity preservation act as a representation of security in post-war Bosnia?

Research Statement: I am proposing to research institution reconstruction post-conflict because I want to find out what explains the rise in identity preservation discourse to help the reader understand how identity is politicized.

            The first source identified is the Constitution of Bosnia Herzegovina, article 4, section E, respectively. In Article 4(e), while emphasizing rights, seats itself in the normalization of ethnic divide and preservation that’s seen pervasively in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Article IV(e) specifically states that “A proposed decision… may be declared destructive of a vital interest of the Bosniac, Croat, or Serb people by a majority…[it] Shall require for approval… a majority of the Bosniac, Croat, & Serb delegates present.”[1] The specific mention of the different ethnic groups by name represents identity preservation as a form of safety and security. Furthermore, it represents the significance of ethnic minority groups still, countering a blanket statement of Article 2, and emphasizes that they are still a significant force today.

Furthermore, the representation of safety is emphasized through the 2013 census data, as the people of Bosnia still vote along ethnic lines – for political parties that preach rights for their group.[2] Further, newspaper reports about segregation in schools, school textbooks & language curricula, as well as Bosnian historical recounts, collectively represent national identity as a means of safety, through stories of myth and reality and how preserved national identity is long after disillusionment. [3]

Ethnic preservation is even more significant when it comes to the statute of the political parties. Though the only party site found was the Social Democratic Union, their statute, though not ethnic-based, still perpetuates representations that ethnicity still matters predominantly. Preservation is firstly emphasized by Article 4(18), which upholds the “preservation of cultural and social identity.” [4] Furthermore, 4(20) highlights the “protection of cultural and natural heritage.”[5] While both should be a right of all people, through the examination of the constitution & other texts, it implies the preservation of ethnic roots as a “vital interest”[6]  of the Bosnian people, thusly preserving the divide that is national identity.

The actors perpetuating these discourses are domestic and foreign actors who did intervene in dividing the country alongside making the constitution to ensure that conflict would not occur again.[7] Finally, because Bosnia is a republic, the people are actors as well.[8] As the public, they are ultimately electing leaders that elect the ideology.

With the ethnic discourse provided in the constitution, the statements in the statute mean more than merely preserving a monument or memorials. It takes the meaning of retained division among groups that must be perpetuated for the country to survive – at least according to those who wrote the constitution, statutes, and those who vote for them. Further, the texts connect to practices of anti-reconciliation reforms post-conflict, such as the separation of schools, the decentralization of the government, and the scattered population. All are emphasizing that ethnicity remains significant, to a point where it is politicized, as shown by the constitutional statements and party statute.

[1] “Article II: Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [Paragraphs] 1-8,” Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995 English text of Annex 4 of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1995 (1995): 4.

[2] “Popis 2013 BiH,” accessed November 7, 2019, http://www.popis.gov.ba/popis2013/knjige.php?id=0.

[3] Ena Duranović, “Segregation in Education: Two Schools under One Roof,” Medium, last modified February 4, 2019, accessed July 9, 2019, https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/segregation-in-education-two-schools-under-one-roof-82b611adb626.

 Pilvi Torsti, “SEGREGATED EDUCATION AND TEXTS: A CHALLENGE TO PEACE IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA,” International Journal on World Peace 26, no. 2 (2009): 65–82.

Geografija : … Razred Gimnazije 2 […], 2. izd. (Min. Obraz., Nauke i Kult., 1996).

 F. Bieber, “Nationalist Mobilization and Stories of Serb Suffering: The Kosovo Myth from 600th Anniversary to the Present,” Rethinking History 6, no. 1 (2002): 95–110.

[4] “About SDP,” SDP BiH, n.d., accessed November 5, 2019, http://www.sdp.ba/about-sdp/.

[5] Ibid.

[6] “Article II.”

[7] “Bosnia and Herzegovina – Government and Society,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed November 7, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/place/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina.

David A. Dyker and Ivan Vejvoda, Yugoslavia and After: A Study in Fragmentation, Despair and Rebirth (Routledge, 2014).

[8] “Bosnia and Herzegovina – Government and Society.”

Three Part Proposition
I am proposing to research institution reconstruction in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina because I want to find out the persistence of (or lack thereof) post-war reconciliation narratives in order to help my reader understand what role government institutions play in reconciliation between ethnic groups.

Research Question
What explains the variation in reconciliation narratives in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina’s cantons?

Provide a brief description along with the full citation for the dataset(s) you are discussing
The article International Studies of Values in Politics by Philip Jacob & Henry Teune conducts a survey in communities across India, the United States, and the former Yugoslavia.

Regarding the former Yugoslavia, the article utilizes community activeness as the dependent variable and independent variables: change in values, which was operationalized as a “commitment to innovation in social policy and action propensity in public life”, economic norms operationalized as a  “commitment to… raising the standard of living and concern for economic equality”, as well as Process Interaction, Identification & Moral Values, which encompass the leader’s concern for truthfulness and honesty, both regarding themselves, and within their nation. [1]

The authors interviewed 1179 people within thirty communities, and specifically.[2] Jacob’s & Teune’s survey focused on the role of social values in relation to the behavior of the local political leader to further emphasize, that social development is in part, the job of a community leader. They hypothesize that the values leaders hold do make a difference and that the more selfless the community leaders are, the more likely their community is to push towards community development and activeness. [3]

Their methodology is a series of survey questions, towards both leaders and some community members, in order to better understand the communities’ baseline for social mobilization – involving both leader and community. However, the authors discovered that the local authorities do not have much power, and thusly, nothing really changes unless the central government changes itself. Most of the support for community action is sought from the “population generally”, while the majority of the responsibility for that action, however, lays in the hands of the “central government”.[4]

This article helps me utilize my dependent variable of reconciliation narratives through its results, as it shows a variance in the support of nationalism, but also in its emphasis on the role of community leaders in influencing their constituents. It helps me prove to my audience that the power of community leaders do indeed impact the power of the community, and thusly, helps me understand perhaps why there may be a variance in action, and thusly narrative,  now, because there is not just one being pushed by the central government, but many, many others.

Full Citation
Jacob, Philip, and Teune, Henry. International Studies of Values in Politics, 1966. Ann Arbor, MI:
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research., 2006-01-12.
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07006.v1

[1] Philip Jacob and Henry Tenue, “International Studies of Values in Politics,” Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research 1, no. 7006, ICPSR (1966): 1-4

[2] Ibid 1.

[3] Ibid 4.

[4] Ibid 128.

I am proposing to research the divergence of post-war narratives because I want to find out what explains the increased diversity between them [consolidated narratives] in order to help my reader understand how they can be politicized. Essentially, I want to understand why social narratives split in both positive and negative directions, and how they can be rewritten to impact policies aiming towards ethnic reconciliation.

Though slow in their development, individual beliefs and thusly narratives, are not stable.[1] As discussed by many scholars in sociological and psychological fields, narratives, like most things produced by and from humans, are inherently dynamic, in that they have the capability to change and develop over the course of time.[2] However, despite their moldability, when integrated into society,  or socialized, these seemingly dynamic entities adopt what Daniel Bar-Tal calls “durability”.[3] This durability of social narratives is defined by their long-term significance as an aspect of identity in society, and in our case, within a specific ethnic group. Alongside Bar-Tal is Shenhav, who further emphasizes the idea of durability under the title “core element” of a social narrative, an aspect of a narrative that remains durable and lasting despite the increasing divergence around it. [4]

However, what happens when this core element shatters?

Scholars tend to agree and understand how these core elements develop and continue to persist, which is primarily through an amalgamation of communicative institutions such as mass media, family, peers and education/pedagogy.[5] However, this consensus of durability does not, and for the record, cannot exist. At some point, there must be a line where the divergence of a narrative completely shatters the core element. We see this perhaps most drastically in the case of ethnic conflicts, where the core beliefs of certain groups are contested and change drastically. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, groups lived as neighbors and friends, but there was a sudden turn in this core element, with a major structural crisis, institutional factors that promote ethnic intolerance, manipulation of historical memories by political entrepreneurs to evoke resentment, and hate towards the ‘other’ – among other factors – caused an eruption of mass hatred and ethnic cleansing.[6] And in the aftermath of it all, a new core element evolves around the idea of reconciliation and, ultimately, justice. [7]

The divergence of the core element of narrative is significant in that as we’ve seen, it can impede upon a society’s capability to redefine and reconcile itself after change. Narrative is essential to our society, it is in school books, what we hear on the news, and influences who define ourselves as, and when these core elements break, we see monumental change, almost suddenly.

Therefore, I want to explain why what social scientists have traditionally named “durable” can no longer be considerably named so. But also, what explains this lack of durability? Why are these core elements considered such in literature? Why are we now seeing this breakdown, or has this been going on throughout history?

Most scholars answer these questions through the divergence of the components narrative alone through the idea of “reform” and change post-conflict.[8] These schools of thought, as they were, related to institution reform, educational reform and demographic reform. The institutional reforms debate between how influential external influences and internal influences are on their core elements – such as the Dayton agreement’s influence on the decentralization of Bosnian cantons or if it was more caused by domestic factors within specific governing bodies. Essentially, they debate what causes more of a rift in narratives. Then comes education reform, divided between the pedagogy of language and history. Language scholars argue that the distinction of language in classrooms, and thusly separation, is what causes a shift in their core narratives, whereas history argues that textbooks, that houses the narratives of their and other groups can cause great rifts.[9] Finally, is demographic reform. The demographic debate, though rather rare, cites that the separation or integration of certain groups in society, depending on who you talk to, is what leads to this divergence.[10]

The current situation pertains to this core element of reconciliation among social groups who have snapped a core element – through civil or ethnic war and genocide. In Bosnia specifically, the goal is for the people to reconcile, but there are some people who say that it is an issue and others who do not wish to see in as an issue. This is primarily emphasized by the “two schools under one roof “policy, that has endured since the early 2000s and despite a call for change, has only changed in one canton. [11] Education is one of the communicative institutions that influence the development of this core element, but people are divided around it, and it is thusly fracturing. [12] Whereas in Rwanda, the schools are not segregated, but still have a hard time teaching history and contest that. What happened in this narrative formation that caused this riff here but not there? I intend to look deeper into other case studies beyond Rwanda after this posting to understand more of these divergences. It is essential that we understand this lack of durability, so that we can thus see when it happens to us, and hopefully, how we can fix it, and begin to repair countries impacted by this breakdown.

General question: What explains the lack of durability in post-war narratives?

Case-specific question: What explains the lack of durability in the reconciliation narratives of post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina?

[1] Daniel Bar-Tal, Shared Beliefs in a Society (Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc, 2000): 69.

[2] Shaul R. Shenhav, Analyzing Social Narratives (London, UNITED KINGDOM: Routledge, 2015), http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=2038970. 3.
Abelson, Robert P. “Beliefs Are Like Possessions.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 16, no. 3 (1986): 223–250.
Labovitz, Sanford, and Robert Hagedorn. “Measuring Social Norms.” Pacific Sociological Review 16, no. 3 (July 1, 1973): 283–303.

[3] Bar-Tal, Shared Beliefs in a Society. 69

[4] Shaul R. Shenhav, Analyzing Social Narratives (London, UNITED KINGDOM: Routledge, 2015), http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=2038970.

[5] Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean Claude Passeron. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage Publications, 1977.

[6] Bojana Blagojevic, “Causes of Ethnic Conflict: A Conceptual Framework,” Journal of Global Change & Governance 3, no. 1 (2009): 3.

[7] Sarah Freedman, My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity, ed. Harvey Weinstein, vol. 1, 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 305–307.

[8] B. Baliqi, “The Aftermath of War Experiences on Kosovo’s Generation on the Move – Collective Memory and Ethnic Relations among Young Adults in Kosovo,” Zeitgeschichte 44, no. 1 (2017): 6–18.

[9] L.L. Kasumagic-Kafedžic, “Exploring Challenges and Possibilities in Pre-Service Teacher Education: Critical and Intercultural Pedagogy in Post-Conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in Challenges Associated with Cross-Cultural and At-Risk Student Engagement, 2016, 42–62.

[10] I. Moore, “Linguistic, Ethnic and Cultural Tensions in the Sociolinguistic Landscape of Vilnius: A Diachronic Analysis,” in Expanding the Linguistic Landscape: Linguistic Diversity, Multimodality and the Use of Space as a Semiotic Resource, 2018, 229–263.

[11] “‘Two Schools Under One Roof’ – The Most Visible Example of Discrimination in Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (n.d.): 52.

[12] Bar-Tal, Shared Beliefs in a Society, 67.

I understand the concept of ontology as the study of being, why we are here, and, as Abbott understands, a study of the social world through a variety of lenses. [1]Therefore, I thus understand methodology as how we go about studying and evaluating the social world and reality in general, also through a variety of lenses and overall experiences. Abbott understands it in a similar way, defining it as “the discipline of investigating methods,” which Abbott defines as a “set of standard procedures and assumptions for carrying out rigorous social analysis”, and therefore aligning ontology with methods relating to the social structure, and interactions we have with others, among many others.[2]

To emphasize this idea, Abbot first brings up ontology when he emphasizes the debate between the all-out rejection of cultural contexts (behaviorism) vs. the significance behavior related to culture contexts (culturalism) which are the essential foundations of analyzing our social structure. On the other spectrum, methodology would be less of a debate and more of a, well, method such as ethnography, standard causal analysis, historical narration, alongside many more ways of conducting our studies of the world around us.

Though these concepts do differ greatly, they are an essential part of building a strong research concept. Methodology gives you ways to navigate the social world, and in order to navigate that world, you naturally, as a subjective human being, utilize those ontological principles, which can greatly impact how you not only go about your method of study. With this opinion in mind, I would like to emphasize how we, as subjective beings, all view the world through some ontological preference. I personally believe that we cannot be, as researchers or as humans, objective viewers of the world and though we may be acutely aware of our biases, I do not believe it is possible for us to suspend our subjectivity for too long. My argument anchors itself in the core of realism, where our identities are well-defined aspects of our being both before and after we interact in the social world, and thus, are at the mercy of our biases, both conscious and unconscious. [3] Even when we are critical and acutely aware of our biases, we still present those biases through the points we find in research and through the paths we decide to take as researchers. This includes the methods we decide to use, the philosophies we decide to follow and even the sources we utilize in our research. Though I understand that there are objective truths in the world that we cannot contest, when we as human beings attempt to analyze these concepts, we bring in our own personal experiences and baggage along with it, leaving us to write with a persistent, albeit subtle, bias.

Because of my view, I believe that my research project will be thoroughly anchored in context and clarifications about where I am coming from as a researcher, which would include citing my own individual experiences with this topic if I have any at the time, as well as ensuring that I am not too generalized in my statements. Thus, I am more likely to gear toward more specific practices rather than more generalized principles and would probably avoid making as grand assumptions without backing it up with heaps of context first, which is quite natural for most researchers. Regarding my own topic relating to social narratives, it probably means I will be looking deeper into how a variety of different and quite individualized contexts create an interplay of narratives, rather than trying to classify certain narratives within a generalized social group in order to appease the varying contexts present.

Finally, speaking of narratives and social interplay, I do believe that we as researchers can study whatever we want, if we are able to thoroughly understand the context through which we are examining our topic. This means not only the context, and the culture but also the means by which we conduct our research. We are obviously limited by our abilities, and thus we need to practice and hone certain abilities in order to properly study a subject or culture. For example, I am not fluent in Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian, and thus, cannot interpret the words and their contexts in a cultural setting. Thus I am going to have spend a while conducting surveys and ethnographic data within Bosnia-Herzegovina itself, in order to understand what these words mean and how they are interpreted in various social groups. Certain things will be harder to study than others, but if we are able to train our brains and eyes, I believe we do have the capability to have at least a foundation in any type of research we want, even if it does not have a mountain of empirical evidence surrounding it, I mean, at least not yet.

Ultimately, our study of the social world is limited by the methods we use, the lenses through which we conduct such a method, and finally our intellectual capabilities, which at times, we can eventually hone through practice, determination and will.

[1] Andrew Abbott, “Glossary,” in Methods of discovery: Heuristics for the social sciences,
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2004), 251.
[2] Abbott, Methods, 44.
[3] Abbott, Methods, 47.