This case study will examine the effectiveness of peacebuilding and transitional justice in the post-conflict society of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bosnia-Herzegovina represents a multi-ethnic coexistence between Muslim Bosnians – also known as the Bosniaks –, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. During the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) in 1995, Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed independence from Yugoslavia. These events marked the end of the conflict, as well as direct violence considered by Galtung (2011, p.173) as “negative peace” – this absent of direct or “hot” conflict. However, the Bosnian population is still divided and harmed by the recent conflict. Division, segregation, and discrimination are embedded in the everyday life of the citizens who experienced one of the most shocking and brutal genocides and ethnic-cleansing campaigns in the post-cold-war era. As Saunders (1999) argues, “until relationships are changed, deep-rooted human conflict are not likely to be resolved”. This article argues that according to Steinberg (2013, p.36), none of the current theories and models can be utilised as reliable means for changing political relationships, leaving deterrence and defence as the best alternatives to peace.
This case study will examine how the liberal peace as well as post-conflict peacebuilding initiatives have failed to achieve a positive peace that make relations between genders, races, classes, and families flourish, and peacefully coexist in the same space. This article critiques the liberal forms of Peacebuilding. Steinberg (2013, p.43) states, to supplement the elite or top-down trades, bottom-up forms of interaction contact were created to change social perspectives and discernments at the cultural levels. This article suggests that everyday peacebuilding, as emancipatory bottom-up initiatives, must be considered an important building block of peace formation as formal liberal approaches are often deficient.
This case study poses a critique to Transitional Justice mechanism in addressing the legacies of a violent past in post conflict societies. Transitional Justice is part of the liberal agenda, with little interest in testimonies of the victims and reconciliation, but rather it seeks to prosecute and addressed war crimes address through the lenses of state-based and top-down liberal peace. This article proposes a more transformative justice, rather than transitional, that examines the specification of the context instead of offering a general answer for such contingent and complex situations.
During the 20th Century, the east of Europe was not exempt to big diplomatic tensions and territory conflict. After the death of Josip Tito, the communist era internal balance of power was shattered by ethnic politics and nationalist independent movements that arose in the former republic of Yugoslavia. The republics of Slovenia and Croatia claimed independence, escalating the agitation in the Balkan region. A referendum was held in 1992, but Bosnian Serbs boycotted the referendum. Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognised by the European Community, and the United Nations, during the spring of 1992. Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Yugoslavia, ordered to invade the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, to “free” his fellow Orthodox Christians and create a “Greater Serbia” (Sell, 2002). An ethnic-based conflict began in the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which lead to a genocide and a deeply divided society. In the context of “new wars”- identity-driven inter-state conflict (Kaldor, 2013, p.2) –ethnicity represented the main point of division between the three main identities: Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. In the context of “new wars”- identity-driven and inter-state conflict (Kaldor, 2013, p.2) –ethnicity represented the main point of division between the three main identities: Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. Ethnic cleansing – a term that denotes the elimination of a group of people in a specific place – turned into the fundamental methodology employed by Serb nationalists authorities (Pine, 2019, p.109). Rape was also used as a weapon of genocide, in order to “destroy” Muslim Bosnian ethnic identities (Stiglmayer, 1994, p.85).
In 1993, the United Nations (UN), proclaimed “safe zones”, for civilians and refugees providing protection by the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). However, the UN’s peacekeepers were not successful in guarding civilians (Pine 2019, p.110). Over 8,000 Muslim Bosnian males were massacred in 1995 in Srebrenica, in the worst episode of mass murder within Europe since World War II (Smith, 2022). In 1995, a reluctant international community including NATO, the UN and the UN Security Council carried out a number of airstrikes against Serb positions, which led Bosnian Serb to agree to U.S.-sponsored peace talks in Dayton in November (Friedman, 2004, p.51).
The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina is part of a series of conflicts of the previous decades that have drawn the attention of policymakers and organisations. Ginty’ s(2013, p.38) debate on peacebuilding and how to approach the complexities of building peace have entered the mainstream of the debates on global security. The conflict left deep emotional scars on survivors and created enduring obstacles to political reconciliation among Bosnia’s ethnic groups (Smith, 2022). Divisions between the three main ethnic groups persisted and often increased after the signing of the DPA. Belloni (2001, p.163) states that the international effort to build civil society in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to foster peace and democratization has been insufficient and sometimes, counterproductive.
The driving rationale behind peace-building theory and practice over the course of 20 years is what has come to be known as “liberal peace building” in the context of post-conflict management (Randazzo, 2016, p.1351). This approach represents a top-down elitist perspective that maintains the hegemonic status as a paradigm for peace (Richmond, 2011, p.17). However, critical studies have exposed the limitations of statist liberal peacebuilding projects. The liberal peace has become a model through which Western-led agency, epistemology, and institutions, have attempted to unite the world under a hegemonic system that replicates liberal institutions, norms, and political, social, and economic systems (Richmond, 2011, p.1).
Critical studies suggest a bottom-up approach, where local community underplays an important role in peace building. Brewer (2010) proposes a deeper focus on human relations and sociology, in order to overcome the contradictions of liberal, technocratic top-down approaches. This article focuses on the everyday as an important mechanism in achieving a positive peace in deeply divided post-conflict societies. Ginty (2014) defines the practice of everyday peace as “methods that individuals and groups use to navigate their way through life in deeply divided societies”. In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a deeply divided society separated by afflicted ethnic groups, drew upon a context of segregation, identity discrimination and polarisation. However, Ginty (2014, p.557) also argues that, deeply divided societies do not tend to commit violence against each other, in the attempt to minimise conflict or uncomfortable situations. They carry out a number of tactics to minimize risk in their daily life interactions.
Ginty (2014, p. 557) describes five different types of peace-making: ‘avoidance’ – of controversial issues, and topics that might lead to disagreement or tension and try to disremember past trauma (Grass, 2008, pp. 286). ‘Ambiguity’ – in representing oneself, discarding affiliation to any identity group. ‘Ritualised politeness’ – paying attention to use of offensive language and behaviour. ‘Telling’- automatic identification and categorisation of the other self, and lastly blame deferral – blaming outsiders, beyond their own group.
Even though these practices might resemble the pursue for a negative peace, Ginty (2014, p. 558) notes that everyday peace involves creativity, innovation, and improvisation as well as considerable agency at the local level. As Marijan (2017, pp.71) agrees, there is a level of diplomacy in these activities, regarding the interaction and mediation between groups.
Steinberg (2013, p.43) emphasises the importance of societal transformation in post-conflict contexts as part of unofficial diplomacy and people-to-people (P2P) or grass-root activities. Chigas (p.560) builds upon this argument, stating that these practices may widen up empathy and erase the divisions. Hence, according to the Contact Theory, P2P initiatives reduce the intergroup prejudices (McKeown and Taylor, 2017, p.416), promoting cooperative relationships in the pursue of peace (Chigas, 2007, p.559). Ginty (2014, p.560) highlight the new models of identity groups interactions as part of the contribution of everyday peace formation. People-to-people and interactions between the grammars of the ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina, could eliminate the ontological dualism of “otherness”, tackling the stereotypes and dehumanising prejudices amongst identity groups (Nasser-Najjab and Perlman, 2006, p.88). Skeggs (1997, p.4) explains that everyday peace is dialogic in the sense that it relies on interaction, social recognition, and social responses. As a consequence of the interaction between actors in the local level, individuals create “conversational contracts” relying on reciprocity. These contracts act as ad hoc practices, in the sense that precise aspects might vary according to the circumstances and the actors (Ginty, 2014, p.560). Everyday peace opposes to the universalism and generalisation of top-down liberal approaches, that often ignore the details of the context. Everyday peace considers the complexity of the interconnections of multiple actors and groups (Randazzo, 2016, p.1354).
Richmond (2008, p.15) introduces the concept of “emancipatory peace” in which consideration of forms of justice, identity and representation allows for marginalised actors (such as women, children, and minorities) to be considered. Bottom-up context-specific practices, involving “the local” and their interconnections, will overcome what Richmond (2008, p.439) calls ‘virtual’ image of peace, imposed by elites in the top.
However, the identification of what agency to valorise as part of the everyday realm brings up debates regarding the analytical purposes of the “local turn”. As Randazzo (2016, p.1356) states, ‘bottom-up practices as part of the everyday, require identification of identities, through which agency is identified’. This is what Randazzo (2016, p.1356) considers the Paradox of Selectivity, when certain forms of agency may be legitimised over others. This differentiation goes through neoliberal lenses, giving more attention and legitimacy to those agencies who align with the liberal peace paradigms, and marginalising others. Richmond (2011, pp.572) warns about the dangerous distinction between ‘civil’ and ‘uncivil’ forms of everyday agency, discarding all forms of violence as more traditional and more aligned to Western approaches. Thereby successful everyday peacebuilding must engage with the local turn´s own normative aspirations and ‘authentic’ or organic forms of exchange with everyday realities (Randazzo, 2016, p.1357).
According to Randazzo (Randazzo, 2016, p.1351) local forms of justice also offer a closer insight of the society it is meant to affect. These local practices of justice in post conflict-societies represent a counterargument against top-down liberal forms of justice.
After the end of the Cold war, peacebuilding initiatives and transitional justice have increasingly followed (Sharp, 2013, p.166). The growing demand for the later has enabled a global norm for accountability of war crimes and violations of human rights. Both peacebuilding and transitional justice overlap in the same purpose: achieving long-term positive peace. They both share the same interests in addressing issues of governance, accountably and institutional reform (Sharp, 2013, p.168).
Transitional justice is a conflict resolution mechanism that aims to deal with the legacies of a violent past, addressing repression, violations, and abuses to achieve peace and reconciliation (Brown, 2012, p. 444). It also seeks to reform and recalibrate the judicial and political system to prevent the emergence of new conflicts, by creating a new distribution between state and citizen (Brown, 2012, p. 444).
Gready and Robins (2014, p.341) argue that the liberal peace in which transitional justice is embedded, favours liberal paradigms of civil and political rights through western modern models and democracy, as well as market-driven economics. They critique the tendency to create ‘empty institutions’ that lack of contextualisation, ignoring the everyday needs of the specific local community.
Critiques of the liberal approach of transitional justice consider that it is backward looking – accounting for the crimes and violations of the past, looking at the symptoms rather than the causes – as well as forward looking,– justice is crucial to preclude the emergence of conflicts in the long term (Sharp, 2013, p.175).
Sharp (2013, p.177) argues that transitional justice has become widely normalised and institutionalised embraced by global institutions like the UN, moving from its roots to Western liberal democracy. Furthermore, the main purpose of transitional justice bodies like the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is to investigate crimes and punish the perpetrators, with their main focus on conviction rather than helping the victims to address and cope with the brutal conflict in the 1990s. Selimovic ́(2010, p. 51) indicates that there is a wide gap between the ambitions of the ICTY and the experiences of the victims, fading the possibility of reconciliation among the local communities. Critics require a more account of complex and contingent forms of memory in the divided society of Bosnia-Herzegovina (Brown, 2012, p. 444).
Gready and Robins (2014, p.339) suggest a more transformative – rather than transitional – justice that emphasises the local agency and opposes the unequal top-down structures of exclusion both at the local and international level. Transformative justice is presented as a bottom-up victim-cantered approach that seeks to understand and analyse ‘the local’ in a deeper and more complex manner, providing a range policies and approach that impact on the social, political, and economic status of a broader scope of stakeholders (Gready and Robins, 2014, p.340).
Brown (2012, pp.446) suggests that everyday and localized memory practices may contribute to the evolution of the conflict in the process for peace.
Brown (2012, pp.446) argues that these everyday practices may enhance the interactions not only between the state and the citizens, but between different groups at a local level, fostering coexistence as well as other political forms of engagement in order to achieve reconciliation.
Initiatives like RECOM – interstate commission created to address the testimonies of the victims as well as foster the interconnections between the states involved in the war- may overcome the contradictions of top-down transitional approaches, that sometimes underestimate the reconciliation among the ethnic groups. It was created with the purpose of tackling misinformation and nationalist rhetoric, that just pay attention to their own testimonies. The RECOM coalition promoted the idea of a TRC – a regional truth commission (Clark, 2013, p.226). Although truth-seeking initiatives should adopt a bottom-up approach, this initiative was rejected due to political resistance, particularly among Bosnian Victim’s associations, that opposed to the apparent international top-down approach (Dragovic-Soso J, 2016).
This article does not seek to dismiss transitional justice mechanisms, but aims to transform its politics and priorities, emphasising the local agency and challenging the liberal universalist approach.
The current situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina is clearly uncertain. Division between ethnic Catholic Croats, Muslim Bosnians, and Orthodox Serbs – especially between the last two– is still present in regions of the state. This is a clear indication that neither liberal peacebuilding nor transitional justice mechanisms have not successfully achieved a stable positive peace. 30 years after the war and there is still an unclear understanding of “who belongs where” (Marijan, 2017, p.75) Symbols still underplay a crucial role in many aspects of the society in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the city of Banja Luka – located in the Serb region of Republika Srpska – citizens make use of flags and symbols, thus demonstrating the dominant ethnic group (Marijan, 2017, p.74). Ethnic division is also noticeable in Prijedor, where a high school student highlights: ‘you know who goes to which cafes. At home we are filled with the different narratives’ (Marijan, 2017, p.74).
But a more alarming indication of a bigger conflict relies on Republika Srpska, where Serb nationalists have declared intentions to declare their own army, followed by claims for independence of the Serb region.
Everyday peacebuilding and transformative justice mechanism are crucial in order to foster interrelations and reconciliation between ethnic groups, erasing the prejudices of ‘otherness’ and therefore achieve a long-term positive peace.
In conclusion, this article builds on the critique of liberal approaches to peacebuilding and transitional justice made by authors such as Richmond and Ginty. This article argues that hegemonic top-down forms of peacebuilding and transitional justice overlook and sometimes ignore the real needs of the local community. It then suggests bottom-up approaches in to tackle the statism and institutionalisation of mainstream approaches.
It builds on the idea of an ‘emancipatory peace’ introduced by Richmond (2008, p.15) in which marginalised identities are included context-specific practices to tackle the “virtual peace” of the empty neoliberal institutions (Richmond, 2008, p.439).
Finally, it introduces the notion of transformative peace, which encourages a transformation of the statist and international vision of transitional justice, reforming social politics and structures. Transformative peace will also attempt to centre its focus on the testimonies of the victims, supporting the local community to cope with the legacies of the conflict.
A post-Dayton era seems that only a negative peace has been achieved. Division and polarisation are still present in the Bosnian Society and only bottom-up context-specific approaches may nurture the interactions between ethnic groups and thus, achieve a positive peace.
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