Conflict In Yugoslavia Research Articles

Vukovar, de ville multiculturelle à ville croate

Vukovar, the once charming multicultural town at the easternmost edge of Croatia, was badly damaged during the Yugoslav conflict that put the region on fire in the early 1990s. The policies of territorial homogenization at work during the war led to the destruction of its infrastructure and its social fabric, instilling fear and hatred between Croatian and Serbian communities. Two decades after the conflict, the splitting between populations is deeply rooted in the minds and in the physic space. Reconciliation is hampered by competing nationalist ideologies that sustain resentment. This is visible in the rivalry between communities seeking to control the landscape. Indeed, landscape carries collective ideals and memory and allows a group to appropriate the territory by marking its with symbols. It is therefore crucial, in a competitive context, to have mastery over this issue both symbolic and material.

Third-Party Intervention and the Escalation of State-Minority Conflicts1

This article addresses the problem of escalated violence against minorities induced by interventions. The conventional interventionist wisdom rejects the very possibility of such escalation, claiming that violence against minorities is a monotonically decreasing function of interventions and insisting that it is third-party inaction that is the problem. In recent years, this position has been challenged by scholars, who have argued that the threat of intervention generates a moral hazard, providing minorities with perverse incentives to provoke the very violence the threat of intervention is supposed to deter. I argue that while many of the criticisms of the interventionist position contained in this argument are correct, it is nonetheless not fully convincing, because it fails to explain why the same threat of intervention that radicalizes minorities does not make the states that are the potential targets that much more moderate. Nor does it explain adequately why interveners are unable to make the threat of intervention conditional on the minorities’“good” behavior. I propose an alternative theory of escalation, which depicts third-party interventions as instances of incomplete information bargaining, demonstrating that escalation is a function of certain distributions of private information about the target-state's level of brutality and the third party's resolve, as well as the third party's motives. The conflicts in Yugoslavia are used to illustrate and test the key implications of the model.

Good Morning, Belgrade

Adrienne van Heteren recalls her time at B92 — a small radio station at the forefront of the anti-war movement during the darkest days of the Yugoslav conflict

‘It All Ended in an Unsporting Way’: Serbian Football and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia, 1989–2006

Part of a wider examination into football during the collapse of Eastern European Communism between 1989 and 1991, this article studies the interplay between Serbian football and politics during the period of Yugoslavia's demise. Research utilizing interviews with individuals directly involved in the Serbian game, in conjunction with contemporary Yugoslav media sources, indicates that football played an important proactive role in the revival of Serbian nationalism. At the same time the Yugoslav conflict, twinned with a complex transition to a market economy, had disastrous consequences for football throughout the territories of the former Yugoslavia. In the years following the hostilities the Serbian game has suffered decline, major financial hardship and continuing terrace violence, resulting in widespread nostalgia for the pre-conflict era.

:Civil War and World War in Europe: Spain, Yugoslavia, and Greece, 1936–1949

This work by Philip B. Minehan is one of the most ambitious reconstructions extant of European history between the 1930s and the 1940s. The author provides a comparative analysis of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the ethnic and religious conflicts in Yugoslavia before and during World War II, and the civil war in Greece between communist and anticommunist forces, following the liberation of the country from German occupation (1946–1949). Minehan maintains that the ideological and social conflicts and the open wars that swept these three countries between 1936 and 1949 were manifestations of a broader international war, of which Spain, Greece, and Yugoslavia represented the battlefields. What was this war? In the author's opinion, the struggle for power between liberal capitalism, Soviet communism, and fascism/Nazism exploded between the 1930s and the 1940s, peaking during World War II (p. 5). In this international conflict, the civil wars that broke out in the three European countries should not be seen as domestic and independent events but as phenomena strongly conditioned by the evolving dynamics of the international situation. In Minehan's estimation, before the 1930s in none of the three countries were the social, economic, and political conditions such as to foment revolutionary change, despite their strong internal tensions. In order to draw this conclusion, the author devotes the first part of his book to reconstructing the societies and state forms of Spain, Greece, and Yugoslavia before World War II.

Mobilising generosity, framing geopolitics: Narrating crisis in the homeland through diasporic media

This paper provides an account of the humanitarian interventions enacted by the Croatian–American diaspora during the secessionist conflicts in Yugoslavia during the 1990s. Whilst undeniably an act of generosity towards ‘distant strangers’, actions such as these also represent a much more complex reality – they are an outcome of a complex set of relations and processes, in which the ethical choices of individuals become bound up with nationalist ideologies, geopolitical questions and, crucially, knowledge and understanding of distant events. In particular, this paper considers the ways in which generosity is mobilised through the framing of Balkan geopolitics through diasporic media. In so doing, it becomes possible to deepen the dialogue between work on geography and ethics on the one hand, and critical geopolitics on the other. In particular, the paper argues that due attention needs to be paid to the ways in which such ‘networks of concern’ are constructed in a variety of banal and mundane ways.

The Factors of Ethnic Cleansing in Former Yugoslav Conflict : A Socio-Historic Discourse Analysis

The Factors of Ethnic Cleansing in Former Yugoslav Conflict : A Socio-Historic Discourse Analysis

What did he actually say? About translation as politics and interpretation in factual literature

Twenty years ago, Slobodan Milosevic uttered a sentence which was afterwards repeated in the literature about the Yugoslav tragedy innummerable times. The sentence "Niko ne sme da vas bije" was directed to the Serb demonstrators in Kosovo. In this text, the author analyzes the ways this sentence was translated in factional literature (non-fiction literature: essays, newspaper article, history, biographies etc.) and shows that different versions, apart from being different lexically and semantically, influence the political interpretation and understanding of the Yugoslav conflict. This text poses another, maybe even more important question: are unprecise and wrong translations of Milosevic's words a proof of what Georg Johannesen claimed - that faction is fiction. .

The Modern Yugoslav Conflict 1991-1995: Perception, Deception and Dishonesty by Brendan O'Shea (review)

REVIEWS 375 victory,when Fidesz threatenedto mobilize millions of demonstratorsagainst the change (p. 4). Zigzags in public assessmentsof the Communist past reflect the pattern of alternatingsocialistand centre-rightgovernmentsin Hungary since I990 but, at a deeper level, link to ambiguous attitudes towards Hungary's comparativelyliberalpost -I956 Communistregime. It is interestingthat Fideszfelt that millions could be mobilized on this issue.James illustratesthe mixed opinions of ordinaryHungarianswith referenceto an opinion poll askingBudapesters to name people they associated with I956. Although most mentioned Imre Nagy, only 56 per cent considered him a 'positive' actor. Discussing the controversyover Tam'asV'arga'sstatueof the executed PrimeMinister,James explores why it is that Nagy has not achieved the status of 'postcommunist foundationalhero' (p. I47)despite the extraordinarysymbolic significanceof his public reburialinJune I989. James also discusses many dilemmas which are not specific to Hungary. There is the issueof whether some crimesaremore heinous than others are Fascistatrocitiesunderrepresentedin the House of Terror?The desirabilityof a dispassionateapproachis also implicitlyquestioned:the even-handednessof the official I956 exhibit in the MilitaryMuseum is contrastedwith the more moving but partisan approach of Gergely Pongratz in his private I956 museum. Although its main focus in on post-Communism, the book includes many vignettes of the Communist period -the terrorof the unfortunatesculptors commissioned to design the Stalin statue, or the ironic attitude of the public towardsgrandiosememorialswhich were given irreverentnicknamesand used as meeting places and landmarks. The book is generously illustrated,with forty-two photographs, sited in relevant sections of text. Many of the outdoor photographswere taken in the snow, making them particularlystriking. Department ofEuropean Studies andModemLanguages ANNE WHITE University ofBath O'Shea,Brendan.7heModern rugoslav Conflict I99I-I995: Perception, Deception andDishonesty. Cass Contemporary Security Studies Series. Frank Cass, London and New York, 2005. xii + 244 pp. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. ?6s.oo. IN September 1994, BrendanO'Shea, a formerlong-servingofficerin the Irish Defence Forces,joined the European Community Monitor Mission (ECCM) in the formerYugoslavia.Afterservingas a Monitor, he was attached to HQ Staff in Zagreb with responsibilityfor 'evaluatingand reporting on the war in Bosnia' (p. i). This book has come out of that experience, but it is not an account based primarily on the author's active role in the field with the ECCM. The bulk of it comprises five chapters, each titled simply by year (I99I-95), and he joined the ECCM only towardsthe end of the period dealt with in the book. It is important to be clear on this point, because O'Shea 376 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 writesmostly about events, and the personalitiesinvolved, of which he has no first-handknowledge, nor does he claim it. This is an interpretativework of history,not a personal memoir. O'Shea writeswell enough on the militaryaspects of the Bosnian conflict, but his strengthis as an analystof the politicalcontext. He was in post during the crucialfifteenmonths leading up to the Dayton Agreements,in December 1995, and this experience informsthe whole book. He was able to observe at close quartershow businessbetween the warring sides and Western agencies was done, or mostly, in fact, failed to get done. Hopes of reaching agreement on a ceasefirein Bosniawere continuallyscupperedby malevolent competing nationalismsand appallingblunders(orwere they part of a deliberatepolicy?) perpetrated in the name of the Realpolitik dictated from Washington. His account of how a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) failed at the final stages, in December I994, gives a remarkableinsight into the way in which personalitiesand circumstancescombined to ruin a promising peace initiative, leaving the misery to continue for another year. In a compressed way, it says an awfullot about everythingthat went wrong in Bosnia. O'Shea's telling of this episode is notable for its generous assessmentof the part played by Radovan Karadzicin nearlybringing COHA to fruition,and he questions the justice of tryingto convict the Bosnian Serb leader of genocide under international law. This even-handedness runs through the book as a whole. The massacreat Srebrenicais recounted in all its unrelievedand inexcusablehorror,but O'Shea is scathingabout comparisonswith the Holocaust , and points out that the expulsion of the Krajina Serbs was the biggest single act of ethnic cleansing during the Balkanwars. There are no heroes. Izetbegovic, Tudjman and Milos'evic'are presented as perfidious, amoral clones, and O'Shea is...

La désintégration yougoslave : un cadre fertile pour la théorie des dominos ?

Undoubtedly, one of the most critical crisis in the post-Cold War ex a, the Yugoslav conflict, due to its nationalist character, nurture the fear that a full scale Balkan War would result. In the very heart of Europe, it threated to spread, and then to slip away from the Occidental power's control. How to explain it, but specially how to prevent this diffusion ? The Domino Theory applied to the Yugoslav conflict proposes a model to answer these core questions. Based on a positive model of spatial diffusion, the analysis which follows investigates in depth the relationships between the « 1989 socialist break-up », the internal situation of Yugoslavia, and the spreading of the conflict. By so doing this analysis sheds light on the circomstantial causes and on the chaine of events which explain the origin of the conflict, as well as its expension. Starting with the postulate that the actions of state, within a given spatial and time framework, have a definite chance of influencing the actions of its neighboring states, we attribute an important mesure of responsibility to the collapse of USSR in the Yugoslav Conflict's release.

Eppur, si muove - Le régime de sécurité européen - Les États non belligérants et la guerre en ex-Yougoslavie

The central assumption of this paper is that international regime theory constitutes an important heuristic tool which contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of European security as it emerges from the Cold War era. Comprising a set of principles, norms, decision-making procedures and a framework of permanent organizations, the new European architecture forms an authentic security regime based on a process of regional cooperation. The Yugoslav conflict, which constitutes the first test of this regime, illustrates the fact that, even if these institutions failed to end the conflict, they did influence the behaviour of the main European actors. Not only did they favor interstate cooperation but they also reined-in the inclination of states to opt for self-centered policies based on short-term interests. From this perspective, regional security organizations have helped significantly to limit the scope and potential spill-over risks of the conflict in addition to decreasing the tension between the major European actors.

La crise yougoslave : la genèse du conflit et ses perspectives de paix dans l'après-Dayton

The present article compares the conditions that sparked the Yugoslav conflict and the prospects for peace following the signing of the Dayton Accords. Analysis suggests that the outbreak of nationalist hostilities in Yugoslavia should he explained through a combination of underlying and proximate factors. Just as the circumstances accompanying the collapse of communism were chiefly responsible for the eruption of violence, the immediate factors associated with the Dayton Accords and, more specifically, the attitude of the political elites will determine the likelihood of a lasting peace. Although the new context arising from Dayton seems to have had peace-promoting effects, the socio historical factors that helped to spark the hostilities are still active and are keeping alive the conflict-oriented motives of the local leaders. A resurgence of violence is thus possible.

The origins of the Yugoslav conflict: 1980-1992

Cet article s'attachant a la periode 1980-1992 se veut synthetique et s'inscrit dans la recherche d'une analyse credible et depassionnee des evenements qui ont marque la Yougoslavie contemporaine. Son objectif, s'il n'est pas d'apporter une reponse definitive aux nombreuses polemiques entourant un theme toujours sensible, est de permettre de cerner les ressorts internes qui ont plonge cet Etat dans le conflit civil, ainsi que ses consequences, au niveau national comme international. L'approche volontairement pluridisciplinaire offre la possibilite d'apprehender les interactions politiques, economiques et sociales dans une tentative de lecture scientifique du drame yougoslave.

Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Conflict, 1990-1995 (review)

Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Conflict, 1990-1995 (review)

Iveković (Ivan), Ethnic and regional conflicts in Yugoslavia and Transcaucasia. A political economy of contemporary ethnonational mobilization,

Directeur de Nase Terne (1980-1981), diplomate, professeur de science politique a l’Universite americaine du Caire, correspondant du Cahier d’etudes sur la Mediterranee orientale et le monde turco-iranien, I. Ivekovic, tout en continuant ses recherches sur les pays africains et leurs mouvements independantistes, s’est penche ces dernieres annees sur l’ancienne Yougoslavie et le Caucase dans une approche comparative et pluridisciplinaire. Son etude est impressionnante : dix ans d’histoire deco...

Depleted uranium residual radiological risk assessment for Kosovo sites

During the recent conflict in Yugoslavia, depleted uranium rounds were employed and were left in the battlefield. Health concern is related to the risk arising from contamination of areas in Kosovo with depleted uranium penetrators and dust. Although chemical toxicity is the most significant health risk related to uranium, radiation exposure has been allegedly related to cancers among veterans of the Balkan conflict. Uranium munitions are considered to be a source of radiological contamination of the environment. Based on measurements and estimates from the recent Balkan Task Force UNEP mission in Kosovo, we have estimated effective doses to resident populations using a well-established food-web mathematical model ( RESRAD code). The UNEP mission did not find any evidence of widespread contamination in Kosovo. Rather than the actual measurements, we elected to use a desk assessment scenario ( Reference Case) proposed by the UNEP group as the source term for computer simulations. Specific applications to two Kosovo sites (Planeja village and Vranovac hill) are described. Results of the simulations suggest that radiation doses from water-independent pathways are negligible (annual doses below 30 μSv). A small radiological risk is expected from contamination of the groundwater in conditions of effective leaching and low distribution coefficient of uranium metal. Under the assumptions of the Reference Case, significant radiological doses (>1 mSv/year) might be achieved after many years from the conflict through water-dependent pathways. Even in this worst-case scenario, DU radiological risk would be far overshadowed by its chemical toxicity.

Estimates of radiological risk from depleted uranium weapons in war scenarios.

Several weapons used during the recent conflict in Yugoslavia contain depleted uranium, including missiles and armor-piercing incendiary rounds. Health concern is related to the use of these weapons, because of the heavy-metal toxicity and radioactivity of uranium. Although chemical toxicity is considered the more important source of health risk related to uranium, radiation exposure has been allegedly related to cancers among veterans of the Balkan conflict, and uranium munitions are a possible source of contamination in the environment. Actual measurements of radioactive contamination are needed to assess the risk. In this paper, a computer simulation is proposed to estimate radiological risk related to different exposure scenarios. Dose caused by inhalation of radioactive aerosols and ground contamination induced by Tomahawk missile impact are simulated using a Gaussian plume model (HOTSPOT code). Environmental contamination and committed dose to the population resident in contaminated areas are predicted by a food-web model (RESRAD code). Small values of committed effective dose equivalent appear to be associated with missile impacts (50-y CEDE < 5 mSv), or population exposure by water-independent pathways (50-y CEDE < 80 mSv). The greatest hazard is related to the water contamination in conditions of effective leaching of uranium in the groundwater (50-y CEDE < 400 mSv). Even in this worst case scenario, the chemical toxicity largely predominates over radiological risk. These computer simulations suggest that little radiological risk is associated to the use of depleted uranium weapons.

The Lessons of Yugoslavia

In 1997, Science for Peace invited experts on Yugoslavia to Toronto for a conference to discuss the lessons learnt from the Yugoslav conflict and eventual break-up of the former country. Although each expert addressed a specific range of problems, there was also a surprising degree of consensus. Before this book was ready for publication, war broke out in Kosovo and therefore additional papers were invited to analyse the Kosovan conflict. The resulting review of the Yugoslav tragedy is a comprehensive one, representing a variety of perspectives.

Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Conflict, 1990-1995

Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Conflict, 1990-1995

The Clinton Administration and War Powers

The strongest of all governmental powers is the power to engage in war; and the strongest challenge for constitutionalism is to bring the war power of the state under meaningful control. The 1787 Constitution allocated some military powers to the Congress and others to the President as part of the scheme of constitutional checks and balances. To this day, however, the distribution of authority between the branches remains contested and uncertain. The Clinton Administration has had substantial opportunity to contribute to the evolution of constitutional practice concerning war powers, by virtue of numerous occasions of combat deployments, cruise missile strikes, and other forms of military engagement since January 1993. In broad outline, the constitutional practice of the Clinton Administration concerning war powers is similar to that of previous administrations in the sense that sweeping claims of executive authority have been tempered through pragmatic political accommodation. The legal opinions issued to explain the constitutional and statutory rationales for executive military initiatives embody some subtle differences from those of other administrations. This article compares the record of the Clinton Administration with those of its predecessors, after first briefly locating U.S. war powers practice in the context of crossnational comparisons. The subject of the Clinton Administration and war powers can be addressed from a crossnational perspective, along the lines of the comparative constitutional research on war powers I have been pursuing in other writing. In relation to the military intervention in Kosovo, for example, how did President Clinton's exercise of executive power compare to the authority of the heads of state or heads of government in the other member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that participated in the operation? Were other chief executives constitutionally authorized to commit their forces to a military campaign without reference to their national parliaments, as President Clinton effectively did, or are such decisions shared with parliament in the respective constitutional systems? Crossnational comparisons show variations in the degree to which national parliaments participated in determining the nature of a given state's commitment to the NATO engagement in Kosovo. President Clinton was not the only NATO leader who initiated his country's participation in the Kosovo operation without obtaining explicit authorization from the legislative branch. In the parliamentary system of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Tony Blair may assume support from the House of Commons without necessarily putting the matter to a formal vote. In France's mixed system, President Jacques Chirac operates under Gaullist premises that military decisions belong to the presidential domaine reserve with little scrutiny from the Assemblee Nationale. In other countries, however, parliamentary control is considered a fundamental constraint on executive war-making powers. Germany's postwar constitution broke with the past by renouncing war, but participation in collective defense or collective security organizations is constitutionally permitted, subject to parliamentary approval. Notably, as required by a decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court at an earlier stage of the Yugoslav conflict, the Bundestag had to act affirmatively to approve German involvement in the Kosovo campaign. Polities in transition have looked to diverse constitutional models in developing their own approaches to executive-legislative relations with respect to war powers. The newest NATO members and NATO aspirants had their first tests of constitutional control of war powers in the post-cold war era with the Kosovo crisis. Hungary, a front-line state for this conflict, which borders on Yugoslavia and has close ties to ethnic Hungarians in the Vojvodina region of Serbia, submitted certain critical decisions for the affirmative authorization of the national parliament. Bulgaria and Romania, not yet NATO members but eager to prove themselves to be suitable partners, had parliamentary votes to approve opening their airspace to NATO planes. The remainder of this article focuses on comparisons between the Clinton Administration and its predecessors: Does President Clinton's approach to war powers and other foreign policy problems cohere with that of previous Presidents, or has the present administration forged a new approach in these domains? This general question also addresses the theme of Dawn Johnsen's paper: To what extent has the executive branch under Clinton declined to comply with congressional enactments regarding war powers on the basis of an executive position that the law in question is unconstitutional?