Myth of Ethnic War

P. Gagnon V.

Description

"The wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in neighboring Croatia and Kosovo grabbed the attention of the western world not only because of their ferocity and their geographic location, but also because of their timing. This violence erupted at the exact moment when the cold war confrontation was drawing to a close, when westerners were claiming their liberal values as triumphant, in a country that had only a few years earlier been seen as very well placed to join the west. In trying to account for this outburst, most western journalists, academics, and policymakers have resorted to the language of the premodern: tribalism, ethnic hatreds, cultural inadequacy, irrationality; in short, the Balkans as the antithesis of the modern west. Yet one of the most striking aspects of the wars in Yugoslavia is the extent to which the images purveyed in the western press and in much of the academic literature are so at odds with evidence from on the ground."-from The Myth of Ethnic WarV. P. Gagnon Jr. believes that the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were reactionary moves designed to thwart populations that were threatening the existing structures of political and economic power. He begins with facts at odds with the essentialist view of ethnic identity, such as high intermarriage rates and the very high percentage of draft-resisters. These statistics do not comport comfortably with the notion that these wars were the result of ancient blood hatreds or of nationalist leaders using ethnicity to mobilize people into conflict.Yugoslavia in the late 1980s was, in Gagnon's view, on the verge of large-scale sociopolitical and economic change. He shows that political and economic elites in Belgrade and Zagreb first created and then manipulated violent conflict along ethnic lines as a way to short-circuit the dynamics of political change. This strategy of violence was thus a means for these threatened elites to demobilize the population. Gagnon's noteworthy and rather controversial argument provides us with a substantially new way of understanding the politics of ethnicity.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Ethnic studies
• Eastern Europe
• History of Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801468889
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE MYTH OF ETHNIC WAR

THE MYTH ETHNIC OF WAR

SERBIA AND CROATIA IN THE 1990s

V. P. GAGNON JR.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright ©2004

by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permis sion in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,512East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published2004by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Gagnon, V. P. (Valère Philip), Jr. The myth of ethnic war : Serbia and Croatia in the1990s / V. P. Gagnon Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0801442648(cloth : alk. paper) 1. Yugoslav War,1991–1995—Causes. I. Title. dr1313.g34 2004 949.703—dc22 2004010399

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publish ing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

List of Abbreviations

Acknowledgments

Preface

CONTENTS

1. The Puzzle of the Yugoslav Wars of the1990s

2. Image versus Reality: Misidentifying the Causes of Violence

3. Political Conflict in the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, 1960s–1989

4. Serbia and the Strategy of Demobilization,1990–2000

5. Croatia and the Strategy of Demobilization,1990–2000

Conclusion

Appendix. A Brief Overview of the Literature

Selected Bibliography

Index

vii

ix

xiii

1

31

52

87

131

178

195

201

207

BH

HDZ

ABBREVIATIONS

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Croatian Democratic Community (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica)

HDZBH Croatian Democratic Community of BosniaHerzegovina

SDS

SDSBH

SIV

SKBH

SKH

SKJ

SKS

SPO

SPS

SRS

Serbian Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka)

Serbian Democratic Party of BosniaHerzegovina

Federal Executive Council (federal government) (Savezni izvršni već)

League of Communists of BosniaHerzegovina (Savez komunista Bosne i Hercegovine)

League of Communists of Croatia (Savez komunista Hrvatske)

League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Savez komunista Jugoslavije)

League of Communists of Serbia (Savez komunista Srbije)

Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski pokret obnove)

Socialist Party of Serbia (Socijalistička partija Srbije)

Serbian Radical Party (Srpska Radikalna Stranka)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project has been long in the making, and in that time I have become indebted to many people. I thank the institutions that have funded my research. The U.S. Depart ment of Stateadministered Title VIII (Research and Training Act) Postdoc toral Fellowship in Russian and East European Studies at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University provided me with time to begin thinking about this project. I am also grateful to the Social Science Research Council–MacArthur Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Program on Peace and Security in a Changing World for three years of funding that gave me the opportunity to read deeply in the field of ethnicity, ethnic conflict, and identity. This fellowship also provided me with the chance to meet and inter act with colleagues from disciplines other than my own. The impact of that intellectual exchange was enormously positive and proved crucial to my further development of this project. The SSRCMacArthur fellowship also made it possible for me to spend an academic year in Croatia and Serbia, as well as a follow up year to begin digesting and synthesizing the experi ences and data from my field research with the theoretical literature. Thanks also go to the Sociology Department at the University of Zagreb, and to Vesna Pusić, who was chair at that time, for providing me with an intellectual home and for giving me the opportunity to share my research and thinking on issues of ethnicity. The Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory in Belgrade provided a similar intellectual home in Serbia. I thank Božidar Jakšićfor the warmth and generosity he has shown every time I visit Belgrade.