Natalija Bašić, Freie Universität Berlin, Osteuropa-Institut, Berlin

"Being a Soldier" During the War in Croatia and in BH: Social Identity, Images of the Enemy and the Meaning of Violence

This paper focuses on young men's attitudes towards participation in the so-called national defence ("being a soldier") during the post-Yugoslavian wars (1991-1995) and the ways in which they have been involved and affected by the violence generated by the emergence and transformations of interpretive paradigms prevalent in specific groups and throughout society, which were based on the wartime experiences of these combatants.
Interviews conducted with the young veterans after the wars form the empirical basis of the research. Among the central issues pursued are the following: How did these young men become soldiers and combatants? What new realities emerged, according to their perspective? What does it mean to have fought, killed? What developments led to the establishment of armed bands, leading in turn to armed conflict? How did stereotypes of national purity and essentialist communities become cultural truisms? How did collectively legitimated violence give way to individually practiced violence?
Their biographies demonstrate how perpetrators of violence are formed and how the dynamic of violence is organized. Characteristic trajectories of conflict and typical forms of action also emerge, as well as the simultaneous existence of social and political phenomena and symbols. Small and large groups of people, their co-existence and cooperation in wartime and their actions in a highly militarised society coalesce to form a complex structure of conflicts. Regional, cultural, and national peculiarities, idiosyncrasies in the civilian-military relationship, and special characteristics of male socialization were used as vehicles in these confrontations. The existential experience of violence is communicated together with the postulated existentialist community, so that it becomes directly relevant for the actions of individuals.
From the point of view of former fighters a sense of "military community formation" was created in times of armed conflict. But the interviews also show that even while such existential communities are in the process of being constructed, differentiations and the destruction of former life forms, which result from the war itself, are working to undermine them. When violence is over, new differences have become visible: refugees, traumatized persons, fanatics, criminals, profiteers…

Anton Bebler, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana

On the Causality of the Latest Wars in the Balkans

Since the demise of the former "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" (SFRY) in summer 1991 and its legal dissolution in April 1992 the question has been raised many times how to explain this occurrence. The main thesis of this paper is that the breakdown of former Yugoslavia was not inevitable. The margin between its demise and survival in 1990 was slim. The violent turn in its eventual dissolution was, however, less avoidable, given the position and value-system of the Serbian nationalist-socialist leadership under S. Milošević, which refused for quite a time to compromise on the existence of Yugoslavia and subsequently to accept any non-coercive resolution other than on its own terms. Having been otherwise relatively the weakest among the three homogenous national elites in the three communist multinational conglomerates (USSR, ČSFR, SFRY), the Serbs decided to use as their principal tool in the power struggle almost the sole advantage they had over other national elites - control over the central military potential. The Serbs' relative weakness, wounded and exaggerated pride, obstinacy and propensity to value highly and to use military force unleashed armed violence, first in Kosovo and in August 1990 in Croatia. Since three other national groups did not yield, the initial Serbian and Serbian-"federal" violence degenerated step by step into a local war.
The demise of the second - post 1945 Yugoslavia occurred almost simultaneously and ran a similar course with the upheavals and liberal democratic revolutions in the other, nationally more homogenous East-Central and South-East European countries of the former Communist bloc. The great similarity in symptoms and other characteristics of the crises throughout this region allows us to exclude the ethnic, national and religious cleavages as the cause of the Yugoslav (and, for that matter, the Soviet and Czechoslovak) breakdown. Ethnic and national heterogeneity influenced only one, admittedly important, difference in the outcome, but not the roots of the democratic revolutions and turnabouts. The very different incidence of armed violence in the former Yugoslavia, USSR and Czechoslovakia also confirms this conclusion.
Yet it became very popular, particularly in the West, to brand the Balkan war, which followed the breakdown of SFRY, as ethnic or even tribal conflict. Most proponents of this characterization failed to specify what they meant by ethnicity. And yet, if defined in a narrow sense (as the widely and often erroneously believed common biological origin of a group) ethnicity still could not explain: several decades of peaceful coexistence between practically all ethnic groups in ex-Yugoslavia, the relatively high incidence of intermarriage, the high numbers of ethnically undefined 'Yugoslavs', and since the late 1980s the sudden flood of clashes between some (but not all) ethnic groups of SFRY. Political polarization in the federal state initially ran mostly along ideological, economic, and regional lines, rather than along national/ethnic ones. Clearer national polarization came about as a result, not a cause (let alone the cause) of the ever-sharpening political struggles and armed clashes.
Contrary to the ethnic hypothesis, the epicenter of the Yugoslav crisis laid, as in the other former Communist states, in the central political sub-system. The first symptoms of deep troubles were the economic shortages of 1981-1983. Gradually the crises and disintegration spread, with some delay, to all other social sub-systems - culture, communication, intergroup and interpersonal relations and neighborhoods, schools, places of work, mass media, etc. Only later did the political polarization become correlated with the ethnic, national, religious, cultural, and civilizational fissures in the multinational conglomerate. But fundamentally the Balkan war remained 'a continuation of politics by other means' - to recall the famous dictum by good old Carl von Clausewitz.
The main protagonists of violence in ex-Yugoslavia seem to have had various mixes of motivation. These mixes included: historically conditioned collective memories of past violence; old interethnic and interreligious cleavages; clashes between political ideologies (liberal vs. Marxist, democratic vs. authoritarian, nationalist vs. supranational centralist etc.); conflicting economic interests, incompatible claims to territories, access to sea and natural resources; divergent geopolitical and strategic military considerations and anxieties; pure greed for political power by groups and individuals; base instincts and criminal proclivities, to mention only some.

Martin van Creveld, Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Treading Water: Women in the Military

Thirty something years after the start of the so-called "second wave" of feminism, that feminism has been largely flop. Equality has not been achieved and is not even close to being achieved; today, as ever, even in the most developed societies, the higher one goes up the ladder of power, money and fame the fewer the women one meets. Feminism's attempts to realize its other aims have been less successful still. Amidst the shrill shrieks about "discrimination" on the one hand and "sexual harassment" on the other, who can even remember that, in the early 1970s, many feminist visionaries hoped to build a better, kinder, less competitive and more caring world?
What applies to feminism at large also applies to women in the military. It is true that most of the formal limits on their employment and promotion have been removed and that women now represent as much as fourteen percent of the armed forces of some countries. However, even in those forces various factors have made sure that most women should remain in auxiliary fields, thus limiting their opportunities; as a result, here too the higher one goes the fewer the women one finds. At best, if that is the term, instead of helping bring about a more peaceful world women have turned themselves into peons in men's quarrels, delivering all kinds of services that their masters choose to define as "auxiliary". Instead of transforming the military, those military have turned them into second-rate men; and, very often, into substitutes for the men whom, for one reason or another, they were no longer able to attract.
This paper argues that, inside the military and outside them as well, feminism is both a myth and a cul de sac. And the faster women realize it, the better for them and for men.

Darie Cristea, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Bucharest

The Clash of Categories and the Remaking of Local Prototypes: The
Case of Past Decade Yugoslav Disintegration

This approach to the violent disintegration of former Yugoslavia will be taken from a point of view which is contrary to Samuel P. Huntington's "clash of civilizations". My paper's starting point will be the reality that the sides implicated in the Yugoslav conflicts are easy to identify by the criteria which Huntington uses to define his "civilizations": religion/confession. But I do not see the inter-ethnic and inter-confessional tensions which led to former Yugoslavia's disintegration as border conflicts between civilizations covering the whole planet. In my view they are rather elements of a local phenomenon. I will borrow, in order to facilitate the understanding of this phenomenon, the idea of social categorization from social psychology with its debate regarding crossed-categories and prototypes.
Regarding the Yugoslav federation, especially before the '90s, we could see all its citizens as part of a "Yugoslav" category. The problem resides in the fact that a prototypical Yugoslavian was rather a Serbian than a Croatian, a Slovenian or a Kosovo Albanian. My paper will analyse the psycho-social aspects of the federation's crash: an accent shift, from the central area of the federation to local ones, made the Yugoslavian category lose its importance and it made it definitory only for its once prototypical exponents, the Serbs. The others preferred to belong, not to crossed-categories such as "Croatian Yugoslavian", "muslim Bosnian Yugoslavian", but to simple, prototypical categories. Local prototypes emerged - the Croatian for Croatia, the Albanian for Kosovo etc. So, we have witnessed a clash of categories rather than a clash of civilisations.

Keith Doubt, Sociology Department, Wittenberg University

Reflections on War as Sociocide

As witnessed during the last decade in ex-Yugoslavia, Chechnya, and the Israel/Palestine conflict, war has taken on a twisted orientation. The motive of violent acts has a decidedly demented purpose. Not only are women and children deliberately murdered, but a city itself, her rituals and ways of life. Not only is a community destroyed, but her history and collective memory. Not only is a social system's institutions sadistically attacked, but the society in and of itself. In the first case, the violent act is called urbicide. In the second, genocide. In the third, it is necessary to create a neologism, sociocide.
If the motive of violence is to murder society, the very concern of sociology, it is as imperative for sociologists to draw upon their traditions and analytical resources to explain the problem, critique the deed, and redress the consequences. For instance, in his book about the threat of nuclear destruction, The Fate of the Earth, Jonathan Schell writes:

Evil becomes radical whenever it goes beyond destroying individual victims (in whatever numbers) and, in addition, mutilates or destroys the world that can in some way respond to - and thus in some measure redeem - the deaths suffered.

Sociocide becomes radical evil because it goes beyond the evil of destroying individuals and seeks to mutilate and destroy the world that can in some way respond to and in some measure redeem the deaths suffered. The social is the life-world in which human loss is suffered and acquires meaning for us. As powerful as the term genocide is, it may not fully encompass the terror that was ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia, war in Chechnya, and political oppression in the Middle East. This study develops the explanatory character of the term sociocide for a sociology of war and critiques the way in which the media and popular culture gloss the subject.

Nina Glavina, Zagreb

The Situation with Mines in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty (MBT) prohibits the signatories of the treaty to produce, stockpile, import or export, sell and transport mines. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which is an association consisting of hundreds of non-governmental organizations headed by Ms Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner, played a decisive role in the passing of the treaty. The treaty has so far been signed by more than 140 states and 126 of them ratified it. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) joined the convention on 9th September 1998. The situation in Macedonia and the way the authorities treat the MBT are by no means satisfactory. Macedonian policy on most of the issues can be characterized as discontinuous, disoriented and disorganized, as well as wanting in programs and plans. There are no programs which ban the use of mines so there is no such policy. Macedonia supports the convention completely but at the same time does nothing to implement it. Ever since the ethnic Albanian minority rebelled against the Macedonian Government in March 2001 there have been reports on the use of mines, and especially anti-tank mines. In at least six mine incidents reported by the media three European observers and four Macedonian soldiers were killed and nine Macedonian soldiers wounded. These incidents were caused by detonations of anti-tank mines. The Macedonian authorities have not yet issued any statement confirming or denying the possibility that the Macedonian army used mines in the conflict with the ethnic Albanian minority.

Minska situacija u Bivšoj Jugoslavenskoj Republici Makedoniji

Konvencija o zabrani mina (Mine Ban Treaty, MBT) iz 1997. godine, uključuje zabranu proizvodnje, skladištenja, izvoza/uvoza, trgovine i transporta mina za Države potpisnice. Iznimnu ulogu u procesu donošenja Konvencije imala je Međunarodna kampanja za zabranu mina (International Campaign to Ban Landmines, ICBL), asocijacija više stotina nevladinih udruga s gospođom Jody Williams na čelu (Nobelova nagrada za mir 1997. godine). Konvenciju je do danas potpisalo više od 140 država, a 126 je i ratificiralo. Bivša Jugoslavenska Republika Makedonija (BJRM) pristupila je Konvenciji o zabrani mina (Mine Ban Treaty, MBT) 9. rujna 1998. godine. Situacija u Makedoniji i odnos vlasti prema MBT-u nikako se ne mogu ocijeniti kao zadovoljavajući. Diskontinuitet, dezorijentiranost, neorganiziranost te manjak programa i planova glavna su obilježja makedonske politike prema većini problema. Ne postoji politika zabrane mina jer za to ne postoje programi. Makedonija u potpunosti podržava Konvenciju, no istovremeno ne poduzima ništa u tom smislu. Otkako se albanska manjina pobunila protiv makedonske vlade u ožujku 2001., postoje izvještaji o korištenju mina, pogotovo onih protutenkovskih. Mediji su zabilježili najmanje šest minskih incidenata, u kojima su poginula tri europska promatrača i četiri makedonska vojnika, a devet makedonskih vojnika je bilo ranjeno. Svi ovi incidenti nastali su aktivacijom protutenkovskih mina. Nema saznanja za bilo kakvu izjavu od strane makedonske vlade koja bi potvrdila ili opovrgnula mogućnost da se makedonska vojska koristila minama u sukobu s albanskom manjinom.

Miroslav Hadžić, Faculty of Political Science, Belgrade University

Political (im)potence of the war army

The war origin excludes the central YU-states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and the FRY) from the model of transsocialist transformation of the Central and East European countries. Moreover, it (the origin) aggravates or even makes impossible their comparison. The state mechanisms of force in the ex-Socialist Camp countries, - army, police, secret services - have easily became subordinated to the new authorities. Therefore, their channeling of new needs, no matter how difficult it was, did not at any moment endanger the reforms implemented in their societies. When these countries entered Euro-Atlantic security systems (PfP and NATO), the reforms in which these armies were engaged and the establishment of a democratic civil control over them became irreversible.
On the contrary, in ex-Yugoslavia, military-police cohorts have always been and remained the dominant and dangerous obstacle to the democratic reshaping of the countries originated out of the war. Certainly, they have never stopped being in union with new/old ruling elites. Consequently, one can without being very wrong claim that the Central YU countries cannot become democratic unless they radically change the security sector they inherited, which includes the inherited or war-made armed forces.
We shall test this hypothesis with the example of the FR Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro). For the sake of basic comparison, we shall refer to the processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia too. This analysis will relate to the time and events which started after Milosevic and his regime had been ousted on the elections. Special attention will be paid to the opinion of DOS and of its immediately formed factions regarding reform in the security sector and in the Army of Yugoslavia (VJ). Other political actors in Serbia and Montenegro will also receive necessary attention. All of these should enable a final discussion on the chances the Serbian society has for a final and irrevocable departure from socialism and war.
For this purpose, we shall give an outline of the socio-military profile of the VJ, which will serve as a basic model for estimating its members' tendency/animosity towards democratic reforms in the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro). We shall refer to the other components of the armed forces - police, civil service services, para-police forces - to the extent necessary in order to fully contextualize the analysis.

Politička (ne)moć ratne vojske

Ratno poreklo isključuje centralne YU-države (BiH, R. Hrvatska i SRJ) iz modela transsocijalističkog preobražaja zemalja centralne i istočne Evrope. Štaviše, ono (poreklo) otežava ili čak čini nemogućim njihovu usporedbu. U zemljama bivšeg lagera državni su se aparati sile - vojska, policija, tajne službe - voljno i bez buke prepotčinili novim vlastima. Odatle njihovo privođenje novim potrebama, ma koliko tegobno bilo, ni u jednom trenutku nije ugrozilo reformisanje rodnih društava. Ulaskom ovih država u evroatlantske sisteme bezbednosti (PfP i NATO) procesi su preobražaja njihovih vojski i uspostave demokratske civilne kontrole nad njima postali ireverzibilni.
Nasuprot tome, na prostorima bivše Jugoslavije vojno-policijske kohorte su bile i ostale glavna, a opasna, prepreka demokratskom preoblikovanju u ratovima nastalih država. Dakako, tek i uvek u savezu sa novim/starim elitama vlasti. Utoliko se, bez veće greške, može ustvrditi da društva centralnih YU država ne mogu postati demokratska dokle god radikalno ne izmene zatečeni sektor bezbednosti, pa time i nasleđene ili u ratu stvorene oružane snage.
Valjanost ćemo ove teze proveravati na primeru SR Jugoslavije (Srbije i Crne Gore). Usput ćemo, esencijalne komparacije radi, u nužnoj meri referirati na procese u BiH i Hrvatskoj. Svojom ćemo analizom zahvatiti vreme i događaje začete nakon izbornog izgona Miloševića i njegovog režima. U središtu će naše pažnje biti odnos DOS i njegovih, netom nastalih, frakcija prema reformi sektora bezbednosti i Vojske Jugoslavije (VJ). U nužnoj meri u našem će se zahvatu naći i ostali politički akteri iz Srbije i Crne Gore. Sve bi to trebalo da nam dozvoli završnu diskusiju izgleda srpskog društva za konačan i neopoziv izlazak iz socijalizma i rata.
Za tu ćemo svrhu skicirati vojno-socijalni profil VJ, koji će biti predložak za procenu sklonosti i/ili odbojnosti njenih pripadnika prema demokratskim reformama SRJ (Srbije i Crne Gore). Na ostale komponente oružanih snaga - policija, civilne službe bezbednosti, parapolicijske snage - referisaćemo u meri nužnoj za kontekstualizaciju uvida koji će slediti.

Max Haller, Department of Sociology, University of Graz

War and National Identity

There exists a very close connection between war and national identity. It is a historical fact that most of the modern nations have been born out of wars (Giddens 1985). Nationalism, especially in its more aggressive variants, has itself been the source of expansive wars. Today, wars or the creation of war-like situations often are used by political leaders to enhance their popularity, or to help them gloss over internal disruptions and conflicts by creating external enemies. In the lecture, I start from the question, raised by G. H. Mead between the two World Wars (1929), why national identity and pride still today seem to rely so much on aggressive thinking (especially so among powerful large nations), instead of a peaceful international mind which so obviously seems much more beneficial to mankind. For this aim, I will discuss: (1) examples and types of war in relation to nation-building and their short- and long-term consequences; (2) cases and conditions of the development of peaceful relations between formerly hostile nations (Europe as a particular case in point).

Kruno Kardov, Zagreb

Consequences of War on Social Life in the City of Vukovar

This paper addresses the problem of reconstructing a social community in an area deeply affected by war. Several things make the city of Vukovar an interesting example. First, it is the Croatian city most destroyed in the war and also the city that suffered the greatest number of casualties. Second, its pre-war ethnic structure was relatively heterogeneous. And third, this area was peacefully reintegrated into the Republic of Croatia.
During the post-integration period (since 1998) the return of the population of Croatian nationality resulted in the evident polarization of the city. The author emphasizes two factors that significantly increased the polarization tendencies (national agencies and structural factors of the divided population) and describes the different kinds of division. In Vukovar different peoples are living together, but they are at the same time socially polarized which results in the creation of internal borders and the production of ethnic markers and differences in everyday life. The author shows that such social polarization affects both the understanding and the use of space. City places are defined through processes of marking and colonization thus assuming the characteristics of a territory. In other words, there is an attempt at consolidating differences in a space-territory which turns social polarization into spatial thus disabling inter-group contact and resulting in great obstacles to the process of a reconstructing the pre-war community.
This paper is based on an ethnographic research consisting of a series of half-structured interviews and participant observation in 2001 and 2002.

Posljedice rata na socijalni život u Vukovaru

Rad se bavi problemom rekonstrukcije socijalne zajednice na području s dubokim ratnim posljedicama. Primjer Vukovara je zanimljiv iz nekoliko razloga: to je grad u Hrvatskoj koji je pretrpio najveća razaranja s najvećim ljudskim žrtvama, prije rata je imao relativno heterogenu etničku strukturu stanovništva te se nalazi na području koje je pod pravni poredak republike Hrvatske integrirano mirnim putem.
U postreintegracijskom periodu (od 1998. godine) vidljiva je tendencija polarizacije grada kao rezultat povratka stanovništva hrvatske nacionalnosti. Autor u radu izdvaja dva faktora koji su značajno pridonijeli polarizacijskim tendencijama (nacionalne agencije i strukturni faktori razdiobe stanovništva) te opisuje različite oblike koje podijeljenost poprima. Činjenica da je grad Vukovar danas prostorno izmiješan, no socijalno polariziran ima za posljedicu stvaranje granica te produciranje etničkih markera i razlika u svakodnevnom životu. Takva socijalna polarizacija ima posljedice, kako pokazuje autor, i na shvaćanje i upotrebu prostora. Prostori u gradu se definiraju procesima markiranja i kolonizacije te time poprimaju obilježja teritorija. Drugim riječima, razlike nastoje zadobiti potvrdu u prostoru-teritoriju, čime se socijalna polarizacija pretvara u prostornu što, onemogućavajući intergrupni kontakt, značajno otežava proces rekonstrukcije predratne zajednice.
Rad se temelji na etnografskom istraživanju koje je uključivalo seriju polustrukturiranih intervjua i promatranje sa sudjelovanjem u periodu 2001. i 2002. godine.

Matjaž Klemenčič, University of Maribor, Institute for Ethnic Studies, Ljubljana

Typology of Armed Conflicts on the Territory of the Former
Yugoslavia in the 1990s

Yugoslavia became a nation in 1919 and it ceased to exist as a nation in 1991/92. It was always a problem for a social scientist or a historian to explain to the English speaking audience that there were many "nations" living in Yugoslavia. It was even a matter of pride and courage during the 1980s to say in front of international audiences that one came from Slovenia or Croatia which happened to be in Yugoslavia. The rebellion in Chechnya started as a national uprising, became a war for independence and is today considered by many a terrorist activity. Yugoslavia was a nation in 1991 and so for outside spectators civil war started in Yugoslavia in 1991 when Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. Already, during the ten-day war for Slovenia one could hear journalists speaking on TV that the Yugoslav Army attacked a peaceful land. The armed conflicts in the territory of former Yugoslavia could be considered a rebellion, a civil war when Croats and Serbs fought in Croatia, and it could be considered a civil war from the point of view of the nation of Croatia or a rebellion of Serb rebels.
In my paper the dilemmas of how to name those conflicts will be discussed. In the introduction I shall start with a typology of wars and violence in the territory of the former Yugoslavia from the 19th century onwards and continue into the 20th century. The issues of conflicts that occurred during World War II shall be discussed in brief and then the typology of conflicts on the territories of former Yugoslavia in 1990s which I already mentioned above. At the beginning of the new millennium the conflicts continued in Macedonia and there is conflict over Piran gulf for which we all hope shall be resolved peacefully.

Tonči A. Kuzmanič, Peace Institute, Ljubljana

Their ("Balkan") and Our Wars: Elements of Genealogy

A very serious mainstream attempt at interpreting wars in the area of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia in 20th century as "something typically Balkan" (there is a vast amount of "literature" which argues this line of thinking) represents one of the biggest and most serious problems. This, of course, means that one tries to understand these wars as a sort of "slaughter inherent to those Balkanites", "Balkan tribes", etc, or more precisely, as a slaughter which has nothing to do with a "developed", civilized, cultured, globalized, etc, world or worlds. In short, we deal here with the well-known demonization pattern which functions by assigning binary markers "them" and "us". "We" really have nothing to do with "them" and "our wars" are "in their nature significantly different" from theirs ("Balkan").
In this paper I will try to show that such a (mis)understanding of these wars is interesting (but also dangerous) for two different reasons. On the one hand, the (mis)understanding remains the essential feature of these "Balkan wars". But it is much more than this: such an ideologically extremely effective, common and "scientifically flawlessly based" methodological approach is actually just another name for a continuance of those "Balkan wars" led by "other means" (civilized, cultural and such). In this context I will especially deal with the final scene of "their (Balkan) wars" (or what has so far seemed to be a kind of a finale of the "Balkan wars"). Nato's bombing of part of the area made it one of the participants. Of course, all this is written from the point of view of my time which is the time marked by the war/s following or those which are still to follow the above mentioned Nato's intervention in Kosovo and situation in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., as well as president Bush's foreign policy.
In short, the focus of my paper is not so much on the "Balkan wars" as on those which preceded or followed them. I am primarily interested in the nature of the relationship between "Balkan wars" and those which followed them, and particularly in differentiation between civilized and uncivilized, cultured and uncultured, etc. All this, of course, is considered within the framework of wars and war making.

Njihovi ("balkanski") i naši ratovi: elementi genealogije

Jedan od večih i ozbiljniji problema u vezi sa ratovima na području SFR Jugoslavije krajem XX. stoljeća je sadržan u tome da postoje ozbiljni main-streamerski pokušaji da se ih interpretira kao nekakvu "karakateristično balkansku stvar" (takva "litaratura" je već sada enormna). Dakako, to znači da se te ratove pokušava (samo)razumijeti kao nekakvo "prirodno klanje tamo nekih Balkanaca", "balkanskih plemena"... Točnije, kao klanje koje nema nikakve veza sa "razvijenim", civiliziranim, kulturnim, globalizirajućim… svijetom ili svijetovima. Ukratko, radi se o poznatoj matrici diabolizacije drugih koja funkcionira binarno vrteči se oko "mi" i "oni" oznaka, pri čemu "mi" zapravo nema(mo) ništa sa "njima". Isto vrijedi i za "naše ratove" koji su po "svojoj prirodi bitno drugačji" od njihovih ("balkanskih").
U svom tekstu ću pokušati pokazati da je takvo (ne)razumijevanje tih ratova dvostruko zanimljivo (i opasno). S jedne strane zbog zoga jer je takvo (ne)razumijevanje zapravo bilo (i ostalo) sastavnim dijelom samih tih "balkanskih ratova". Ali ne samo to in ne prije svega to: takav, ideološki inače izuzetno učinkovit, čest in "znanstveno besprijekorno utemeljen" metodološki pristup, zapravo je drugo ime za nastavljanje onih "balkanskih ratova" koji se odvijaju "drugim sredstvima" (civiliziranim, kulturnim i sličnim sredstvima). Posebice ću se u tom kontekstu pozabaviti "finalnim" (barem za sada se čini da je to bilo više-manje finale "balkanskih ratova") prizorom tih "njihovih (balkanskih) ratova" u kojem su svojim bombardiranjem civilizacijskih sudjelovale i sile Nata. Dakako, sve to u eksplicitnom kontekstu vremena iz kojeg pišem, a to znači u kontekstu rata/ova koji su slijedili ili upravo slijede iz pomenute Natove intervencije na Kosovu, što znači u konteksu Afganistana, Iraka… i karakterističke vanjske politike predsjednika Busha jr.
Ukratko, u tekstu se ne bavim toliko "balkanskim ratovima", onima prije njih ili onima koje su se dogodili kasnije. Ponajprije me zanima vrsta ("priroda") veze između "balkanskih ratova" i onih do kojih je došlo kasnije, a posebice razlikovanje između onog civilizacijskog/civiliziranog i neciviliziranog, kulturnog i nekulturnog… Dakako, sve to isključivo na terenu ratova i ratovanja.

Slaven Letica, University of Zagreb

Transitional or Structural Terrorism and Phenomenology of War in Croatia

In this paper the author is starting from the point of view of a modern "terrorist (anti-terrorist) paradigm" and is dealing with a critical analysis and a redefinition of what is in the Croatian public discourse- encyclopaedic, political, legal, scientific and media- known as the "Homeland war".
The author believes that in the late 80s and early 90s of the last century, which was the period of the fall of communism and break-up of the former Yugoslavia, Croatia (and Bosnia-Herzegovina) experienced a very specific kind of a classic state (military) terror which can be dubbed a structural or transitional terrorism. Although many characteristics of such state terror were typically "Balkan" (Great-Serbian), a great part of it resulted from the paradox of a modern world which, although obvious, often goes unnoticed by scientists (sociologists): economic and cultural (informational, technological, aesthetic, as well as globalisation of views of the world) globalisation on one hand and political fragmentation on the other.
World wars and the break of great ideologies- monarchism, fascism and Nazism, imperial colonialism and communism - inevitably resulted in "the break-up of states" and in the enlargement of the UN: in 1871 there were 64 of member states, in 1914 59, in 1946 74, in 1950 89, in 1964 115, in 1990 165, and finally in 1995 192. The peaceful breakdowns of non-democratic, totalitarian, multiethnic states (as the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia was) that necessarily function through a monopoly of force which is then further legitimized by the UN Charter, were exceptions to the rule.
Much like the War against Terror, the Croatian Homeland war is more a handy political metaphor than it is a precise definition of social phenomena and processes that were happening in Croatia and in the "region" in the past ten years. Between 1990 and 1991 there was no war in Croatia (in the sense of an interstate or a civil war), but there was first a spontaneous and later an organized RESISTANCE TO THE MILITARY (Yugoslav National Army-JNA) and STATE (Great-Serbian) TERROR whose goals and strategy were very clear: to take advantage of the break-up of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia in order to conquer and "ethnically cleanse" the largest possible territory (if possible 30% of Croatian and 70% of Bosnian territory).
Not until the moment of its international recognition as a sovereign state (in 1992) did the Republic of Croatia have the formal right (as guaranteed by the UN Charter and the international war law) to go to war and liberate its own territory from the occupying forces (the JNA and the terrorist formations outside Croatia) and the collaborators (the Croats of Serbian origin who supported the occupation and inflicted terror upon the Croats).

Tranzicijski ili strukturni terorizam i fenomenologija rata u Hrvatskoj 1990-1995.

Uzimajući za polazište suvremenu "terorističku (antiterorističku) paradigmu", autor se u izlaganju bavi kritičkom analizom i redefiniranjem "onoga" što se u hrvatskom javnom diskursu - enciklopedijskom, političkom, zakonskom, znanstvenom i medijskom - naziva "Domovinski rat".
Autor smatra da se potkraj osamdesetih i početkom devedesetih godina prošlog stoljeća - tijekom procesa rušenja komunizma i raspada bivše Jugoslavije - u Hrvatskoj (i Bosni i Hercegovini) prakticiran vrlo specifični vid klasičnog državnog (vojnog) terora koji se može nazivati: strukturnim ili tranzicijskim terorizmom.
Iako je taj oblik državnog terora imao mnoge "balkanske" (velikosrpske) odlike, on je velikim dijelom bio posljedica očiglednog, ali vrlo često znanstvenicima (sociolozima) "neprimjetnog" paradoksa suvremenog svijeta: ekonomske i kulturne (informacijske, tehnologijske, svjetonazorske, estetske) globalizacije s jedne strane i političke fragmentacije s druge strane.
Svjetski ratovi i slom velikih ideologija - monarhizma, fašizma i nacizma, imperijalnog kolonijalizma i komunizma - imali su za neizbježnu posljedicu "cijepanje država" i povećavanje broja članica UN: 1871. godine bilo ih je 64, 1914. godine 59, 1946. godine 74, 1950. godine 89, 1964. godine 115, 1990. godine 165 i 1995. godine 192.
Mirni raspadi nedemokratskih, totalitarnih, multietničkih (a takva je bila SFRJ) država - koje, logikom vlastite egzistencije, imaju monopol sile, osnažen poveljom UN - iznimka su od pravila.
Kao i sam Rat protiv terorizma, i hrvatski "Domovinski rat" predstavlja, stoga, više prigodnu političku metaforu, nego li preciznu definiciju društvenih fenomena i procesa koji su se zbivali u našoj zemlji i "regiji" u tih pet godina.
U Hrvatskoj je u razdoblju 1990-1991. nije vođe nikakav "rat" (u smislu međudržavnog ili građanskog rata) već je stvoren spontani, a zatim i organizirani POKRET OTPORA VOJNOM (JNA) i DRŽAVNOM (velikosrpskom) TERORU koji je imao vrlo jasne ciljeve i strategiju: u trenutku raspada SFRJ osvojiti i "etnički očistiti" što je moguće više teritorije -po mogućnosti 30% Hrvatske i 70% Bosne i Hercegovine.
Tek od onog trenutaka kad je Republika Hrvatska međunarodno priznata (1992) kao suverena država, ona je stekla i formalno pravo (zajamčeno Poveljom UN i međunarodnim ratnim pravom) na ratovanje i oslobađanje vlastitog teritorija od okupacijskih (JNA i terorističke formacije izvan Hrvatske) i kolaboracijskih snaga (hrvatsko stanovništvo srpskog podrijetla koje je odobravalo okupaciju i provodilo teror nad Hrvatima).

Peter Liotta, Naval War College, Rhode Island

"The Future of War: It Doesn't Look Good"

Using the example of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, this paper examines shifting frameworks for future war and specifically examines the potential for a "strategy of chaos" as a template for future action. Thus, given that the expectation for failed and failing states to be the locus of future war, the paper suggest that chaos strategists will increasingly target the "Western" (American, European, NATO) national security decision making process, and potentially general populations, as rather than American military force, in order to prevail. The strategist's objective is to induce decision paralysis, and to convince American political leaders that no clear solution, end-state, or political objective (other than the cessation of chaos) exists in the strategist's sphere of dominance. The chaotic strategy, employed by warring parties in the former Yugoslavia and by Saddam Hussein in Iraq, serves to initially discourage yet may ultimately provoke "Western" intervention. Future adversaries, nonetheless, will almost certainly use the leverage of chaos as a strategy for gain. Chaos strategists, such as Somalia's Mohamed Farah Aidid, Serbia's Slobodan Milosević, Iraq's Hussein, or Usama bin Laden (or his successors) may successfully achieve their objectives even in the face of the direct threat of military force.

Edward N. Luttwak, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC

US Interventionism in the Post-heroic Era

1.
Why did the United States not intervene sooner in the wars of the former Yugoslavia? Was it because there was no worthwhile material incentive ("no oil") as some still say? Or was it because the United States -as I believe--was not powerful enough?
Yet everyone keeps saying that the United States is not only the world's only true super-power but also, in relative terms, the most powerful state that has ever existed in history because of its combination of economic capacity, cultural influence and military strength.
Everyone is right in some sense, but "power" is not like electricity, it is not homogeneous in its applicability. Depending on circumstances, the United States can be supremely powerful or virtually powerless.

2.
First there is the internal constraint of public support. That is true of all democracies of course but with a difference: in the American system of governance, Representatives that face re-election every two years convey public sentiments more quickly and more forcefully than Parliamentarians elsewhere with longer terms; and, the US Congress can control the Executive much more effectively than elsewhere., because of its very detailed
"line-item" budgeting, which can be used not only to deny funds to any one of three million items purchased by the government, but also to a specific military campaign, or even a specific kind of operation.
There is also a cultural difference: the American public, just like its British counterpart, always wants the United States to be as powerful as possible and celebrates its military strength with some enthusiasm. But unlike the British, the Americans oppose any actual use of US military strength unless and until they are persuaded otherwise.

3.
Foreign attack on American soil is the most persuasive argument, as in 1941 and 2001. But otherwise every Presidential Administration faces what Walter Lippman called the "solvency" issue: its ability to use the power it theoretically commands for any foreign intervention depends on continuing public support, and continuing funding from Congress. If it is revoked for any given enterprise, as in the case of the Indochina war by 1975, then the theoretical power of the United States becomes irrelevant. It was still enormously powerful when the North Vietnamese entered Saigon, but the Ford Administration was entirely powerless to stop them, because its Indochina intervention had become "insolvent".

4.
Knowing this, and keenly aware of the unlimited political damage that an insolvent intervention can inflict, US Presidents and their advisors tend to be very cautious in evaluating the prospects of continuing public support for any significant military intervention. All may look very promising at the beginning, but solvency is needed throughout, till the end. That is why "open-ended" interventions, in which there is not a highly specific task whose achievement can be described as a success, allowing prompt retreat if desired (e.g. evacuating US students in danger in the 1983 Grenada intervention) are viewed with particular caution. Certainly US intervention in the Yugoslav wars was recognizably "open ended" in the largest sense - indeed it still continues in Bosnia and Kosovo- inducing extremes of cautious hesitations.

5.
Then there are the external constraints. US power is at its maximum when its object has maximum specificity, and wanes to almost nothing as the object is more diffused.
Interestingly, that is just as true of diplomacy as of military strength.

6.
Thus on September 12, 2001 it was enough to send Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to Islamabad to immediately obtain a 180 degree policy change from the highly specific object of US power Pervez Musharraf,: from total support for the Taleban to total support for US military action against the Taleban. By contrast, if Armitage had pressed for, say, better treatment for women by Pakistani men, the same power could perhaps have obtained a one degree change over several years.

7.
The same is true of US military strength. It is at its maximum against highly specific objectives, notably fixed, high-contrast, high-vale (=rare) bombing targets; and it at its minimum against a great number of low-contrast targets, such a guerrillas operating under jungle cover. Again the implications for the Yugoslav wars are obvious. True, there are no jungles as far as I know, and not even guerrillas on the wrong side, but the fighting was mostly done by infantry with not very much artillery or armour support, or by light or irregular infantry which presented very few high-contrast targets at all. Conditions were therefore inherently unfavorable for the application of US military strength.

8.
Of course much more could have been done and much sooner, and arguably strategic air bombardment could have stopped the fighting or most of it, at its source, nullifying the obstacles to tactical applications of US air power. But the systemic factors were certainly unfavorable, and uncaring Presidents who failed to intervene as atrocities continued will not fully deserve the blame that future historians will no doubt cast upon them.

Zvonimir Mahečić, The Military Cabinet, The Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb

Challenges of Reform and Reduction of Croatian's Armed Forces: Politics of Personnel Management as a Consequence of War Events and of the Establishment of Croatia's Armed Forces

When hostilities started the Republic of Croatia did not have its own armed forces, but it gradually created them during the war events of 1991 and later. As a result everybody who volunteered to join first the National Guard Corps (ZNG) and later the Croatian Armed Forces (OSRH) were accepted. Of course, as at the time no pre-formed and well-organized system of personnel management existed, little attention was paid to the criteria usually considered when people want to join the armed forces in democratic and developed countries.
As a result, a part of the OSRH's personnel didn't measure up to the social, technological, operational, intellectual and other challenges which they had to face because of the change in the safety environment, as well as of national security and the defence of the country. As the transition of military personnel into the life of a civilian is very much related to the great organisational, financial and psychological problems, there are great obstacles to a far-reaching reform of the OSRH. Also, one must take into consideration the fact that there was some negative selection of personnel, that the OSRH, or at least a part of it, was politicised, and that the authorities as a rule did not sufficiently understand the specific needs of the armed forces. Therefore it is evident that all of society is faced with a very serious problem, which demands that the approach that all political, as well as other institutions take to finding a solution must be systematic and co-ordinated.
In my paper I will try to give an outline of part of the problem which the OSRH and all of society face when trying to implement reforms of the OSRH and to reduce the number of the OSRH's personnel. Also, I will try to show how these issues and the interests of the OSRH and society at large are affected by the inheritance of the past.

Izazovi reforme i smanjenja OSRH: Politika upravljanja osobljem kao posljedica ratnih zbivanja i okolnosti stvaranja OSRH

Republike Hrvatska nije u trenutku otpočinjanja neprijateljstava imala vlastitu vojsku. Oružane snage Republike Hrvatske stvarane su u hodu tijekom ratnih zbivanja 1991. i kasnijih godina. To je imalo za posljedicu da su najprije u Zbor Narodne Garde a kasnije u OSRH primani svi oni koji su željeli na bilo koji način pridonijeti obrani zemlje. Pri tome se iz logičnih razloga nije vodilo računa o kriterijima koji se za prijem u oružane snage u demokratskim i razvijenim zemljama primjenjuju od strane već formiranih i dobro organiziranih sustava upravljanja osobljem.
To je OSRH dovelo u situaciju da jedan dio njenog sastava u znatnoj mjeri nije sposoban odgovoriti društvenim, tehnološkim, operativnim, intelektualnim i drugim izazovima koje pred njih stavljaju promjene sigurnosnog okruženja i nacionale sigurnosti i obrane zemlje. Ista ograničenja sprječavaju i temeljitu reformu OSRH iz razloga što je prijelaz vojnog osoblja natrag u civilni život povezan sa velikim organizacionim, financijskim i psihološkim problemima. Ako se tome dodaju elementi koji su pogodovali pojavi negativne selekcije u izboru osoblja, politizacije OSRH odnosno berem jednog njenog dijela te u pravilu nedostatnog razumijevanja vojne problematike od strane vodećih političkih institucija, tada postaje jasno da se cijelo društvo suočava sa ozbiljnim problemom koji traži sustavan i koordiniran pristup svih političkih institucija kao i institucija društva u njegovom rješavanju.

U svom izlaganju pokušat ću u najkraćim crtama izložiti dio problema s kojima se suočavaju OSRH i cijelo društvo u provedbi reforme OSRH i programa smanjenja osoblja kao i utjecaj nasljeđa na rješavanje ovih pitanja, a na dobrobit OSRH i cijelog društva.

Vine Mihaljević, Institute of Social Sciences "Ivo Pilar", Zagreb

A Socio-Religious Analysis of the Activities of Military Chaplains

A predominant socio-cultural and religious reality both at the individual and collective level has been destroyed by the war. The breakdown of the social system, jeopardizing lives and threats of being wounded, suffering, fear and death are all the results of war. Pre-war individual and collective experience was not sufficient to re-establish social order and credible social and cultural structures.
The war in general, and especially the stress and anxiety experienced by individuals, contributed to a revival and intensification of a personal, subjective and individual traditional religious experience and commensurate personal religious practices among Croatian soldiers. Next, it led to a revitalization of both a religious family tradition and religious family practices among secularized Croatian soldiers, who not only emphasized their religious belonging to the family tradition, but also initiated their ubjective cognitive acceptance of the religious family tradition and its religious institutions. Finally, both these processes resulted in a retraditionalization of religious tradition and practices.
Religious institutions and authorities (in the Croatian case, the Catholic Church) regained their importance and became not only guarantors of individual and social security but also legitimators of a social reality. These main characteristics of individual and collective experience not only gave kind of a purpose to individuals and to the units that found themselves in a war crisis, but they also enabled the re-establishment of a social and personal order, which, in turn, enabled the overcoming of the chaos (anomy) caused by the war. Activities of military chaplains consisted of gaining control, acceptance and social credibility over such experiences. Military chaplains' "to-be-together" method also includes the following elements: to watch, judge, and ect.

Socioreligijska analiza djelovanja vojnog dušobrižništva

Kaotična ratna situacija razorila je postojeću predominantnu društveno-kulturnu i religijsku zbilju i na individualnoj i na kolektivnoj razini. Narušeni društveni poredak, ugroženi pojedinačni ljudski životi, doživljavanje posljednjih ljudskih iskustava ranjavanja, trpljenja, straha i smrti obilježja su tjeskobne ratne situacije. Postojeće prijeratno pojedinačno i kolektivno iskustvo nisu bili dostatni kako bi se ponovno uspostavio ratom narušeni društveni red, poredak i njegove vjerodostojne društvene i kulturne strukture.
Ratna situacija općenito, a posebice konkretne pojedinačne tjeskobne situacije, pridonijele su oživljavanju i produbljivanju osobnog, subjektivnog, pojedinačnog tradicionalnog religijskog iskustva i primjerene osobne religijske prakse kod branitelja vjernika; zatim do revitalizacije obiteljske religijske tradicije i obiteljske religijske prakse kod sekulariziranih branitelja koji, pored toga što ističu svoju religijsku pripadnost obiteljskoj tradiciji, iniciraju i subjektivni kognitvni proces prihvaćanja i usvajanja iste obiteljske religijske tradicije i njenih religijskih institucija. Oba su procesa na kraju dovela do pojave retradicionalizacije religijske tradicije i religijske prakse.
Reafirmirani su objektivne religijske institucije i autoriteti (u našem slučaju Katolička Crkva) koji postaju pojedinačnom i društvenom sigurnošću kao i legitimacijom društvene zbilje. Ta glavna obilježja pojedinačnog i kolektivnog iskustva ne samo da na neki način osmišljavaju pojedinca i postrojbe u kriznoj ratnoj situaciji, nego postaju jamstvom za uspostavljanje ponovnog društvenog poretka i osobnog reda, a samim time prevladava se kaos (anomija) nastale ratne situacije. Kontrola, prihvatljivost i društvena vjerodostojnost takvih iskustava je vojno dušobrižništvo koje je djelovalo prema metodi "biti zajedno" koja uključuje i ove elemente: promatrati, prosuđivati i djelovati.

Erik Melander, Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University

Forced Expulsion of Civilians in Armed Conflict - The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1992-95

This paper is an early and preliminary report of a project studying forced expulsions of civilians during armed conflict. The report focuses on the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, ethnic cleansing, and other forms of forced expulsion of civilians that took place during that war. The aim is to provide a systematic mapping out of the phenomenon and to suggest a few preliminary hypotheses on what factors explain the substantial variation in time and space in the manner in which different armed actors expelled civilians.

Daniel N. Nelson, New Haven University

Language, Identity, and War

Human conflict begins and ends via talk and text. We generate, shape, implement, remember and forget violent behavior between individuals, communities or states through a specific discourse. The conceptual and logical connections between language, identity, and war are complex and interwoven. I probe these relationships in this essay, offer thoughts about an alternative discourse, and look at suggestive data regarding the tie between violent behavior and threatened identity. I find that the test of identity - one's validity as a member of group, community or nation - is most often adherence to a language of war that supplants and obliterates a language of peace. Peace through strength, deterrence and preparation for war trump any discourse of threat abatement. Language ties war and identity by framing, focusing and transmitting those national fears into a war fever of indignation and xenophobia. Implied by such an observation is that weapons of war will have little effect in uprooting an "enemy" fostered and fed by language, religion and culture. Instead, abating identity threats, in part through identity-affirming discourse, may be a stronger and more lasting tool.

Mirko Petrić, Academy of Arts, Split
Inga Tomić-Koludrović, Faculty of Philosophy, Zadar

The Marriage Of War and the Internet: The Croatian Experience

This paper discusses the interrelation of the war and the Internet. This interrelation is not conceived of in any metaphorical sense, implied by the phrases such as "the Internet wars". In contrast with the approaches focusing exclusively on communication and cultural aspects of an interactive digital medium, this paper approaches the Internet as a technology-in-the-world available in wartime in a specific historical context. Furthermore, rather than focusing on the social dimension of technological systems in a social constructivist manner, the paper attempts to analyse the impact and consequences of Internet use in a specific societal context.
Croatia was the first country that had widespread access to the Internet technology during a period of conflict in which the civilian population was at risk. Topics discussed with regard to the interrelation of the war and the Internet in Croatia in the period between 1991 and 1995 include the emergence of the first national Internet service provider as an expression of civic nationalism (in a context in which ethnic nationalism gradually prevailed); the absence of formal censorship of the messages transmitted over this medium in the war circumstances but the existence of a "panoptic" self-surveillance of the potential users; the differences between BBS and Internet cultures as media of "continuation of war by other means"; and the role of interactive technology as a means of intra-group rather then inter-group communication.

Rat i Internet: Hrvatsko iskustvo

Referat razmatra međusobnu povezanost rata i Interneta. Ova se povezanost ne shvaća u metaforičkom smislu, što ga impliciraju izrazi poput "Internet ratovi". Za razliku od pristupa usredotočenih isključivo na komunikacijske i kulturne aspekte interaktivnog digitalnog medija, ovaj referat pristupa Internetu kao tehnologiji dostupnoj u doba rata u specifičnom povijesnom kontekstu. Nadalje, umjesto usredotočavanja na socijalne dimenzije tehnoloških sustava načinom socijalnog konstruktivizma, referat pokušava analizirati utjecaj i posljedice upotrebe Interneta u specifičnom društvenom kontekstu.

Hrvatska je bila prva zemlja u kojoj je lokalno civilno stanovništvo u ratnim uvjetima imalo širok pristup Internetu. Teme o međusobnoj povezanosti rata i Interneta u Hrvatskoj između 1991. i 1995., koje se u referatu razmatraju uključuju: uspostavu prvog nacionalnog davatelja Internet usluga kao izraz građanskog nacionalizma (u kontekstu u kojem je kasnije postupno prevladao etnički nacionalizam); nepostojanje formalne cenzure poruka prenošenih ovim medijem u ratnim prilikama i postojanje "panoptičkog" samonadzora potencijalnih korisnika; razlike između BBS-a i Interneta kao medija "nastavka rata drugim sredstvima"; te ulogu interaktivne tehnologije kao sredstva unutar-grupne a ne među-grupne komunikacije.

Šime Pilić, Faculty of Science and Education, University of Split

Social Change and the Consequences of War

If war is the turning point in which one thing ends and another begins, and if what precedes and what follows this turning point can be sociologically analysed, then we may find that our subject has great analytical potential.
We may ask if the process of differentiation and fragmentation of the society in which social change occurs as an evolution forms a basis for social changes, and if social change equals the preservation of a social system. Many spheres of a society, however, experience a de-differentiation during war. De-differentiation can also be conceived as a process of devolving, as a regress, a kind of return to the previous level of socio-economic development.
Croatian society experienced not only war, but also transitional changes, which, as a form of social changes, involved clashes between different aspects of transitional and modern Croatian society.
According to a typology of social change in Croatian society, when one talks about social changes one can include different kinds of large-scale changes: (1) socio-economic (in the sphere of production: a privatisation and a "tycoonization" of the economy, changes in large organizations, private ownership of the means of production and distribution of wealth, high unemployment); (2) political (distribution of social power, multiparty system, organization of a territory, changes in inter-ethnic relationships, changes in foreign policy); and (3) cultural changes (in art, cultural landscape, some customs, in the treatment of heritage), as well as other changes.
Since the war social change has occurred in some basic spheres: (a) demographic (decrease in population, falling birth rates, changes in spatial and socio-economic structure); (b) the sphere of social stratification (changes in the structure of strata, significant decrease of the middle class, falling living standards, predominant self-perception of poverty), (c) sphere of education (the change in educational discourse, private schools, tuition fees, de-democratisation of education, introduction of religious education in kindergartens and schools); (d) sphere of religion (the church became the largest investor in the construction industry, expression of religious feelings, the relationship of church and state); and (d) family sphere (a temporary/?/ return of some earlier forms of a family, a deferment of an independent life among the young).
What was the purpose, and what were the impacts of the war? Are the young today preoccupied with "to have" or with "to be"?

Društvena promjena i učinci rata

Ako je rat ona prijelomna "točka" u kojoj jedno završava i drugo počinje i ako je ono što prethodi i što sljedi toj točki podložno sociološkoj analizi, onda naslovljena tema može biti analitički plodonosna.
Je li temelj društvenih promjena u procesima diferencijacije i fragmentacije društva gdje se društvena promjena izražava u evoluciji i jesu li procesi promjena također i procesi održavanja društvenog sustava? Međutim, mnoge sfere društva u ratu doživljavaju dediferencijaciju. Dediferencijacija se može poimati i kao devolucijski proces, regres, kao svojevrsni povratak na prijašnju razinu društveno-ekonomskog razvoja.
Hrvatsko je društvo zahvaćeno, osim ratom, još i tranzicijskim promjenama. Tranzicijske promjene kao društvene promjene sadrže i sudare različitih momenata tradicijskog i modernog hrvatskog društva.
Prema tipologiji društvenih promjena u hrvatskom se društvu radi o promjenama velikih razmjera koje obuhvaćaju (1) socioekonomske (u proizvodnji: privatizacija i tajkunizacija privrede, promjene u velikim organizacijama, vlasništvu sredstava za proizvodnju, raspodjeli, velikoj nezaposlenosti …); (2) političke (raspodjela društvene moći, višepartijski sustav, organizacija teritorija, promjene međuetničkih odnosa, promjene vanjske politike …); (3) kulturne promjene (u umjetnosti, kulturnom krajoliku, u nekim običajima, odnos prema baštini…) i druge promjene.
Došlo je do društvenih promjena od rata naovamo u osnovnim sferama: a) demografskoj (pad ukupnog stanovništva, daljnji pad nataliteta, promjene prostornog rasporeda i socio-ekonomske strukture); b) stratifikaciji društva (promjene u stratifikacijskoj strukturi društva; bitno smanjenje srednjih slojeva, slabljenje kvalitete života, autopercepcija 80 posto stanovnika da su siromašni); c) odgojno-obrazovnoj (promjene obrazovnog diskursa, privatne škole, plaćanje školarine, dedemokratizacija obrazovanja, uvođenje vjeronauka u predškolske i školske ustanove…); d) religijskoj (crkva kao najveći građevinski investitor, izražavanje religioznosti, odnosi crkve i države…); e) porodičnoj (privremeni/?/ povratak nekih ranijih oblika obitelji, odgađanje osamostaljenja mladih).
Što je od svega toga svrha rata a što su njegovi učinci? A što danas prevladava u svijesti mladih generacija: imati ili biti?

Sabrina P. Ramet, Department of Sociology & Political Science, Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU)

Under the Holy Tree: The Inculcation of Neurotic and Psychotic Syndromes as a Serbian Wartime Strategy, 1986-95

This paper will look at some of the recurrent themes in Serbian propaganda 1986-95, examining their operation in inculcating collective neurotic syndromes and noting the relevance of those syndromes for the war against Croatia and Bosnia, 1991-95. The focus will be on five pivotal themes in Serbian propaganda:
Victimization, in which Serbs were constructed as collective victims first of the NDH, then of Tito's Yugoslavia, and more specifically of Croats, Albanians, Bosniaks, and other non-Serbs. It will be shown that the resulting 'victim syndrome' fosters desires for revenge and releases the 'victim' from the normal moral restraints which are vital for civil peace.
Dehumanization of designated 'others', in which Croats were depicted as 'genocidal' and as 'Ustaše', Bosniaks were portrayed as 'fanatical fundamentalists', and Albanians were represented as not fully human. It will be shown that these processes of dehumanization effectively removed these designated 'others' from the moral field, sanctifying their murder or expulsion.
Belittlement, in which Serbia's enemies were represented as beneath contempt. The Serbian propaganda machine circulated stories alleging that the Croats themselves were shelling Šibenik and Dubrovnik in order to embarrass the Serbs, and that the Bosniaks themselves were shelling their own citizens in downtown Sarajevo in order to mobilize world public opinion against the Serbs. In this way, Croats and Bosniaks were depicted as militarily incapable of resisting the Serb forces and reduced to making pitiful attacks on their own citizens.
Conspiracy, in which Croats, Slovenes, Albanians, the Vatican, Germany, Austria, and sometimes also the Bosniaks as well as the U.S. and other foreign states, were seen as united in a conspiracy to break up the SFRY and hurt Serbia. In this way, the Belgrade regime's obstinate disregard for the fundamental standards of international law was dressed up as heroic defiance of an anti-Serb conspiracy.
Entitlement, in which the Serbs were constructed as 'entitled' to create a Greater Serbian state to which parts of Croatia and Bosnia would be attached, under the motto, 'All Serbs should live in one state.' Unexamined was the impossibility of universalizing the notion that any given national group had the right to attach the lands in which its members happened to live to the group's supposed ethnic fatherland. But the promulgation of this notion of unique entitlement was central to the entire Greater Serbian project.
Were we to construct a psychological profile on an individual who viewed himself as a perennial victim of various contemptible 'others' who had sought to overcome their inferiority by uniting in a conspiracy against him and who considered himself 'entitled' to vastly more than was his lot, and who was determined to punish the conspirators and take their possessions, we would say that the person in question was a paranoid schizophrenic with neurotic delusions. We would also conclude that he could be dangerous to those coming into contact with him. This in turn suggests the conclusion that nations setting out on premeditated wars of conquest - and what wars of conquest are not premeditated? - are apt to adopt a calculated policy of inculcating mass paranoid schizophrenia in the public. The media can readily be used to make paranoia mainstream, and as paranoia becomes mainstream, it becomes ever harder for citizens to resist its snares, temptations, and over-simplifications.
A further conclusion may also be inferred, viz., that if one can define collective syndromes which reveal a society's lapses into mental illness, then one can define what characteristics are constitutive of a society's good mental health and outline at least the rudiments of such policies and structures as are conducive to such health.

Jim Sadkovich, A&M Texas University, College Station

Argument, Persuasion, and Anecdote: The Usefulness of History to Understanding Conflict.

The need for thoughtful, analytic histories to balance historical accounts written to persuade, manipulate, and mobilize polities was particularly clear during the dissolution of Yugoslavia. With only a handful of historical works in languages other than Serbian and Croatian, it was difficult for those who did not read the dominant language of the former Yugoslavia (or were comfortable only with the Cyrillic or Latin script) to construct useful models and to formulate sound policies.
During the early 1990s, journalists, academics, and others did publish hundreds of works, from political commentaries to memoirs, policy studies, and histories. But most of these works were derived from the media, personal experience, and a few score, often outdated, monographs, rather than from a large documentary base and an abundant scholarly literature. Consequently, their authors tended toward debate and persuasion rather than toward argument and analysis.
Drawing from research and readings on historiography, the media, World War II, and Yugoslav history, this paper will discuss the usefulness of carefully researched histories to the formulation of policy and the construction of theory. It will also suggest the need for rigorous intellectual historical studies in a period which often elevates personal accounts to the level of thoughtful and informed analysis and which has tended to equate intellectual works for hire whose primary purpose is to advise, persuade, or rationalize with scholarly arguments derived from a comprehensive consideration of available evidence.

Ruth Seifert, Hochschule fur Technic, Wirtschaft und Socialwesen, Regensburg

Gender and the Military in the Aftermath of Conflicts

Post-conflict phases are characterized by shattered communities and identities and post-conflict reconstruction includes shaping these anew. These processes are not apolitical: Since community and identity/gender formation is connected to the political order, many political actors are highly interested in these processes. However, micro-powers in the Foucauldian sense also participate in these developments not following any sharply outlined political objective, but merely pursuing "personal" interests. International military peacekeeping forces are also actors in the identity/gender game. The paper will discuss several examples showing how peacekeeping forces participate in the re-formation of a gendered community and will argue that this participation is ambivalent and cannot be grasped by an easy formula of "repressive versus progressive". In particular, the gender policies of peacekeeping militaries require more political control that takes place at the present time.

J. David Singer, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

The Etiology of Inter-State War: A Natural History Approach

Most research into explaining war tends to be rather historical and anecdotal, with little effort to use well-defined and operational variables. At the other extreme are the formal model studies, in which the author lays out a very elegant mathematical equation and then goes on to deduce from that model certain generalizations, and typically these are non-historical and non-empirical. The "natural history" approach is different, laying out certain hypotheses in disconfirmable language and then testing them against the quantitative historical record.

Tomislav Smerić, Institute of Social Sciences "Ivo Pilar", Zagreb
Ozren Žunec, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb

Croatian Officers' Opinions on Croatia's Entering Politico-Military Integrations

The Armed Forces of the Republic of Croatia (OSRH), founded just over a decade ago under unfavorable circumstances of armed conflict, are now facing the challenge of joining European and Euro-Atlantic politico-military alliances. As preparations for and the actual membership in these organizations, especially in NATO, require a number of significant changes (from those of conceptions and strategies of national security and defense to those of social status of the professional soldier) officer corps' acceptance of these changes is an important factor determining success of the accomplishment of integration processes. Study on a convenience sample of 268 senior and junior officers in the OSRH, conducted in the course of 2001, was an attempt to get insight into their opinions regarding different aspects of Croatia's politico-military integration (from NATO membership to bilateral military cooperation between former SFRJ countries). Results revealed that the majority of the respondents accept entering into politico-military alliances (NATO, military Euro-integrations) as a guarantee of external/military security and as a precondition for technological modernization of the armed forces. At the same time, Croatian officers, almost without exception, think that even after joining NATO, OSRH should keep their capabilities of independent action according to national interests. A degree of skepticism regarding NATO membership is connected to the estimation of potential loss of country's sovereignty, as well as to the relatively unfavorable estimation of the real contribution Croatia's membership in "Partnership for Peace" can make to the country's military security.

Mišljenja hrvatskih časnika o ulasku Hrvatske u političko-vojne integracije

Oružane snage Republike Hrvatske (OSRH), stvorene tek pred nešto više od jednog desetljeća u nepovoljnim uvjetima oružanog sukoba, nalaze se pred izazovom uključivanja u europske i euroatlantske političko-vojne saveze. Kako pripreme za ulazak i članstvo u tim organizacijama, osobito kad je riječ o NATO-u, iziskuju niz značajnih promjena (od promjena u koncepcijama i strategijama nacionalne sigurnosti i obrane do promjena u društvenom položaju profesionalnog vojnika) spremnost časničkog zbora na njihovo prihvaćanje jest važan čimbenik uspješnosti provedbe spomenutih integracijskih procesa. Istraživanje provedeno tijekom 2001. godine na prigodnom uzorku od 268 viših i nižih časnika OSRH predstavljalo je pokušaj stjecanja uvida u njihova mišljenja o različitim aspektima ulaska Hrvatske u političko-vojne integracije (od članstva u NATO-u do bilateralne vojne suradnje sa zemljama nastalim na prostoru bivše SFRJ). Dobiveni su rezultati pokazali da većina ispitanika prihvaća ulazak u političko-vojne saveze (u NATO i u vojne eurointegracije) kao jamstvo vanjske/vojne sigurnosti zemlje te kao pretpostavku tehnološke modernizacije oružanih snaga. Istodobno, hrvatski časnici gotovo bez izuzetka smatraju da i po pristupanju NATO-u OSRH moraju očuvati sposobnost samostalnog djelovanja sukladno nacionalnim interesima. Mjera skepticizma zastupljena u mišljenjima časnika u odnosu na članstvo u NATO-u vezana je uz procjenu mogućnosti znatnog gubitka suvereniteta zemlje, kao i uz razmjerno nepovoljnu ocjenu stvarnog doprinosa članstva Hrvatske u "Partnerstvu za mir" vojnoj sigurnosti zemlje.

Nexhmedin Spahiu, Radio Television Mitrovica, Kosova

Wars in the Balkans and Kosovar Identity

The first postwar elections in Kosova showed that less than 1 % of Kosovar's electorate wants to unite with Albania (program of LKÇK), 12% prefer returning to Serbia (program of Serbian Coalition "Povratak") and over 87% prefer an independent state of Kosova (including here the programs of all non-Serb minorities in Kosova).
Prior to the last war, Kosovar identity existed in the form of cultural identity. The struggle for survival from Serbian regimes forced Kosovar identity towards the political identity.
Although the Kosovars proclaimed the Republic of Kosova since 1968 (official request of the Kosovar Communist Authorities) and 1981 (student rebellion), Kosovar political identity was yet immature.
The failure of financial pyramid schemes in Albania and the collapse of the Albanian state increased political consciousness among the Kosovar elite and ordinary people.
This political consciousness led Kosovars to seek allies rather in Western countries then to its "Motherland" whose army simply disappeared.
NATO intervention and the expulsion of Kosovars to Albania and Macedonia created a feeling that they are "different" from their brothers.
Finally, institution building in Kosova by the international community, primarily by the Western European countries, created a sense of superiority towards their Albanian compatriots. On the other hand, the wars in Presheva valley and Macedonia from which Kosovars lost economically, created a consciousness among Kosovar Albanians that they should accommodate the minorities in Kosova rather than look to Albanians around Kosova.

Ante Vučković, Faculty of Catholic Theology, Split
Gordan Črpić, Centre for the Promotion of the Church's Social Teachings, Zagreb

Religion and Reconciliation at the Level of Rhetoric and Reality

The paper analyses how the acceptance of Christianity at the level of rhetoric and from the point of view of its normative teachings is related to the implementation of Christianity at the level of reality and especially in the sphere of reconciliation and forgiveness, which are the phenomena that make up a substantial part of the Christian message and which are also the desirable practices in this area.
This paper is based on the empirical research Peace in Croatia initiated by the Franciscan Institute for the Culture of Peace and Catholic aid organization "Caritas" as a part of the CROPAX project. The survey was conducted on a sample of 10 023 citizens of the Republic of Croatia between 5 and 15 December 2000. Special attention will be paid to an analysis of the attitudes of both believers and non-believers to the religious communities and their representatives' contribution to the promotion of reconciliation and forgiveness in the area. Attitudes about the possibilities of the development of ecumenicity (ranging from meetings and associations of believers to the meetings of the highest ranking church delegates) in this area will also be analysed. Special attention will be paid to the characteristics the respondents attributed to Christians as desirable. Willingness to reconcile and forgive is nominally also one of these characteristics.

Religija i pomirenje na deklarativnoj i egzistencijalnoj razini

U radu se analizira povezanost deklarativnog prihvaćanja kršćanstva, iz perspektive njegova normativna učenja, i njegove egzistencijalne implementacije, posebno u domeni pomirenja i spremnosti na praštanje, fenomena koji su supstancijalno sadržani u kršćanskoj poruci, a egzistencijalno se nadaju kao poželjna alternativa na ovim prostorima.
Rad se temelji na empirijskom istraživanju Mir u Hrvatskoj, koje je za potrebe projekta CROPAX iniciranog od strane Franjevačkog instituta za kulturu mira iz Splita i Hrvatskog Caritasa. Samo istraživanje provedeno je na uzorku 10023 građana Republike Hrvatske u periodu od 5.-15. prosinca 2000. godine. Mi ćemo posebnu pažnju posvetiti analizi stavova građana, kako građana-vjernika, tako i građana ne-vjernika o prinosu pojedinih vjerskih zajednica i njihovih predstavnika promicanju procesa oprosta i pomirenja na ovim prostorima. Također ćemo analizirati njihove stavove o mogućnostima razvoja ekumenizma na ovim prostorima, od susreta i povezivanja vjernika pa do susreta najviših predstavnika pojedinih crkava. Posebna će se pažnja posvetiti atributima koje bi, prema mišljenju naših građana trebali imati kršćani, a u koje nominalno spadaju i spremnost na oprost i pomirenje.