Shaping Social Identities After Violent Conflict

This book examines the identities of young adults in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. With research drawn from a large multidisciplinary project exploring a potential for reconciliation in post-conflict societies, the authors discuss the interplay between ethnic, religious and national identities that have been the source of recent violent conflicts. They focus on people aged 18-30, representing generations that are socialized after the wars, but live in ethnically divided societies burdened with a difficult history. Another aim of the project was to compare majority and minority perspectives within each country, and to provide a unique view on how to reinterpret and build more inclusive social identities. Scholars and organizations interested in areas of social psychology, political science and sociology will find this research of great value.

Social conflicts are ubiquitous and inherent in organized social life. This volume examines the origins and regulation of violent identity conflicts. It focuses on the regulation of conflict: the constraining, directing, and repression of violence through institutional rules and understandings. The core question the authors address is how violence is regulated and the social and political consequences of such regulation. The contributors provide a multidisciplinary multi-regional analysis of identity conflicts and their regulation. The chapters focus on the forging and suppression of religious and ethnic identities, problematic national identities, the recreation of identity in post-conflict peace-building efforts, and the forging of collective identities in the process of democratic state building. The instances of violent conflict treated here range across the globe from Central and South America, to Asia, to the Balkans, and to the Islamic world. One of the key findings is that conflicts involving religious, ethnic, or national identity are inherently more violence prone and require distinctive methods of regulation. Identity is a question both of power and of integrity. This means that both material and symbolic needs must be addressed in order to constrain or regulate these conflicts. Accordingly, some chapters draw on a political-economy approach that places primary emphasis on resources, organization, and interests, while others develop a cultural approach focusing on how identities are constructed, grievances defined, blame attributed, and redress articulated. This volume offers new ideas about the regulation of identity conflicts, at both the global and local level, that engage both tradition and modernization. It will be of interest to policymakers, political scientists, human rights activists, historians, and anthropologists.

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. Thanks to generous funding from the London School of Economic and Political Science, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

This volume brings together perspectives on social identity and peace psychology to explore the role that categorization plays in both conflict and peace-building. To do so, it draws leading scholars from across the world in a comprehensive exploration of social identity theory and its application to some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as intrastate conflict, uprising in the middle east, the refugee crisis, global warming, racism and peace building. A crucial theme of the volume is that social identity theory affects all of us, no matter whether we are currently in a state of conflict or one further along in the peace process. The volume is organized into two sections. Section 1 focuses on the development of social identity theory. Grounded in the pioneering work of Dr. Henri Tajfel, section 1 provides the reader with a historical background of the theory, as well as its current developments. Then, section 2 brings together a series of country case studies focusing on issues of identity across five continents. This section enables cross-cultural comparisons in terms of methodology and findings, and encourages the reader to identify general applications of identity to the understanding of peace as well as applications that may be more relevant in specific contexts. Taken together, these two sections provide a contemporary and diverse account of the state of social identity research in conflict situations and peace psychology today. It is evident that any account of peace requires an intricate understanding of identity both as a cause and consequence of conflict, as well as a potential resource to be harnessed in the promotion and maintenance of peace. Understanding Peace and Conflict Through Social Identity Theory: Contemporary Global Perspectives aims to help achieve such an understanding and as such is a valuable resource to those studying peace and conflict, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, public policy makers, and all those interested in the ways in which social identity impacts our world.

This edited collection seeks to address and analyse the ramifications of terrorism and terrorist activities at a world-level, with a specific focus on the economies and political systems in the Afro-Asian regions.

This open access book features various studies on democratization, transformation, political and economic development, and security issues in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) geographical region and beyond. Written by experts and academics in the fields of human rights, security, transformation and development, particularly in post-soviet and communist countries, it examines the status quo of regime development in various member states of the OSCE; their economic, security and human rights performance; institutional reforms and transformations and the challenges that these countries and their societies face, including the USA, Canada, Germany, Macedonia, Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. This is the 2019 edition of this Compilation Series of the OSCE Academy. The OSCE works to promote Minority Protection, Security, Democratic Development and Human Rights guided by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and to enhance securitization and development policies in Eurasia, Europe, Central Asia and North America. Since being founded in 1993, the OSCE and its agencies and departments have attracted a wealth of academic research in various fields and disciplines, ranging from economic development and election monitoring to enhancing global principles of human rights and securitization. About the OSCE Academy in Bishkek: Founded in 2004, the Academy offers post-Doc research fellowships and runs two Master Degrees, one in Economic Governance and Development and one in Politics and Security in Central Asia. The Academy"s regular academic programs and conference contributes to developing human professional capital in the sectors of particular importance for Central Asian states and societies. The Academy's graduates and visiting researchers contribute to economic development, governance and policy-making in Central Asia and beyond the OSCE region. Website: http://www.osce-academy.net/en/about/

The Western Balkan countries are characterized by an entanglement of different national, ethnic and religious groups. Within all Balkan states, nationalist rivalries have been and are exploited by political leaders as a propaganda tool when faced with internal unrest or unpopularity. Yet, the proximity of ethnic communities to their countries of ethnic origin tie all the Balkan states into a common problem: the spillover effect of regional insecurity. Existing and future disputes require an exhaustive survey of national, ethnic, religious, territorial, economic and political problems, and this is precisely what this volume sets out to do.

This book offers a novel approach to understanding violence and violent conflict using complexity and network theories, borrowed from the natural sciences, together with social network analysis. Because violence is both a universal and central component of human communication and identity formation, it has a fundamental function in shaping social behavior. Using Manuel Castells’ work on the programming of social networks, this book explores the Lebanese Civil War and the ongoing war in Afghanistan under the perspective of violence within networks. The approach presents a unique and compelling argument that counters the long-held assumption that war is caused by specific events, or is the unavoidable culmination of existing conditions or grievances. Rather, this book argues that violence emerges when the structure of social networks becomes too rigid and hierarchic to adapt to stresses and challenges that materialize on a constant basis from both within and without the network. This is important not only for the study of war, but as a method of improving the success of contemporary peace building efforts.