Resisting the Evil: [Post-]Yugoslav Anti-War Contention (original) (raw)
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This paper draws upon a variety of empirical sources to start critically examining the concept of civil society in the context of both (post-)Yugoslav anti-war and pacifist activisms and the civic engagement stemming from them in the nationally fragmented post-Yugoslav space. I argue that civil society can no longer be meaningfully used for understanding the complex geometry of social, political and personal interactions, cooperations and resistances within the regional civic spheres characterised by appreciable power asymmetries. Its definitional volatility and logical incoherence allow civil society to incorporate ideologically and historically extremely divergent phenomena. Due to its conceptual elasticity, civil society is a cognitively easily available device and a de-politicised theoretical paradigm convenient for masking power networks frequently conditioned by foreign political agendas. This paper points to possible alternative perspectives that might prove more productive for analysing (post-)Yugoslav bottom-up civic engagement.
Anti‐War Initiatives and the Un‐Making of Civic Identities in the Former Yugoslav Republics
Journal of Historical Sociology, 1997
This paper describes the emergence of anti-war initiatives in the former Yugoslavia against the background of the official nationalism of Communist elites and their post-1990 successors. The author argues that anti-war activism in the disintegrating state was a mobilization of the most articulate segment of a widespread, all-Yugoslav, urban, cosmopolitan and genuinely non-ethnonationalistic cultural identity. One of the reasons behind its easy suppression by the official rhetoric of ethnic homogeneity is its purely cultural stance and lack of experience in alternative forms of political organization. Dominant approaches to ethno-nationalism in former Yugoslavia are criticized for essentializing ethnic identities, and contrasted with some interpretive approaches that analyze the structural preconditions of ethno-nationalism as top-to-bottom projects of the ex-Communist middle-to-high ranking functionaries in search of legitimacy and forced to create a 'democratic electorate.'
It was like fighting a war with our own people': anti-war activism in Serbia during the 1990s
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This article discusses anti-war and anti-nationalism activism that took place in Serbia and, particularly, in Belgrade during the 1990s. It analyzes anti-war activism as aiming to combat collective states of denial. Based on fieldwork research conducted in 2004 -05, and particularly on an analysis of interviews conducted with anti-war activists in Belgrade, this text closely analyzes the nuanced voices and approaches to activism against war among Serbia's civil society in the 1990s. The article highlights the difference between anti-war and anti-regime activism, as well as the generation gap when considering the wars of the 1990s and their legacy. Finally, this text emphasizes the role of Women in Black as the leading anti-war group in Serbia, and examines their feminist street activism which introduced new practices of protest and political engagement in Belgrade's public sphere.
(Out)living the War: Anti-War Activism in Croatia in the Early 1990s and Beyond
Unlike nationalism and the wars in former Yugoslavia, which have attracted considerable scholarly attention, anti-war activism has only recently started to arouse interest among academics. Nevertheless, what emerged as a reaction to war and brutality and later developed into a proactive and long-lasting commitment towards core changes in Croatian culture and society requires a scrutiny which transcends “round” anniversaries. By drawing upon some conceptual tools borrowed from social movement theory, the paper analyzes the Croatian anti-war movement, organized around the Anti-War Campaign (AWC) and its subsequent transformation(s). It is argued that, although its first and most important goal (stopping the war) failed, the Campaign outlived the war years by setting up the bases for a long-term influence, which is best visible in the still existing horizontal network of organizations devoted to ideals of non-violence and human rights protection. Keywords: Anti-war activism; Yugoslavia; Croatia; social movement theory; long-term influence
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This article distinguishes nationalist mobilisation from social movement. The analysis of social movements in the territory of the former Yugoslavia involves the analysis of specific factors, especially the fragmentation of the country and inter-ethnic conflicts. The experiences of social mobilisation that emerged during the transition have shown either movements that pursue a nationalist aim (i.e. anti-bureaucratic revolution) or are linked to a political objective but not necessarily a common good (i.e. Otpor!). The article suggests, taking into account Tarrow's definition, that social movements should not only look for a common aim but should also seek a collective good. This requires that the political movement be linked not only to a single national group but rather goes beyond the ethnic identity of its members. The financial crisis of 2008 revealed an opportunity for this new type of social movement.
Between defiance and compliance: a new civil society in the post-Yugoslav space
In the past couple of years, against the backdrop of the dominant liberal model of civil society we have witnessed the rise of new initiatives in the post-Yugoslav space. From the workers uprising, students mobilization to protests for defense of common goods, these initiatives seem to speak to the emergence of a civil society that is critical of neoliberal capitalism and the dominant model of post-socialist transition. In this article I examine one such ongoing initiative, dubbed ’We won’t let Belgrade d(r)own’, against a big construction project on the river banks in Serbia’s capital. By analyzing the discourse and some elements of its practice, such as networking, forms of action, knowledge production and funding, I examine the relationship between this initiative and the dominant transitional discourses and practices of liberal civil society. While this mobilization appears as an attempt to move away from the liberal NGO model and to introduce structural and class issues as notions around which political action can be waged, I show that at the same time it relies on, and draws from, the liberal civil society practice and dominant transitional discourses. I contend that in order to better understand the ‘new wave’ of mobilizations and their emancipatory potential we need to further explore the ambiguities and ambivalences present in their relationship to the liberal civil society and mainstream transitional landscape.
This thesis aims to explore the role of non-nationalist political actors in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1989 and 1991, a period which coincides with the multi-party transition in Bosnia and in the Yugoslav federation. The research pays particular attention to the two main non-nationalist parties, the League of Communists (SKBiH-SDP) and the Alliance of Reformist Forces of Yugoslavia (SRSJ), although other civic, youth and social-liberal organisations will be also analysed. All these movements claimed to represent the interests of all the citizens, regardless of their national belonging, and defended a secular and non-exclusivist concept for Bosnia-Herzegovina. The research aims, on the one hand, to examine the discourses, practices, and mutual interconnections of the non-nationalist actors; on the other hand, to explain the factors that led these actors to suffer such a heavy defeat in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian transition, in terms of political strategy, of popular support and of votes in the 1990 elections, which are the turning point of the whole process. The three nationalist parties (the Muslim SDA, the Serb SDS and the Croat HDZ) obtained an unexpectedly large triumph, securing 84% of seats in Parliament. The ethnification of political and social sphere that began in 1990, and the complete failure of power-sharing agreements between national parties after the vote, are among the leading factors that led to the Bosnian war within the context of the Yugoslav dissolution. However, at that time, such outcome was far from predictable. The SKBiH was believed to enjoy a certain social consensus and still had a considerable organisational structure; the SRSJ counted on an innovative political project based on liberal Yugoslavism, as well as on the huge charisma as the “saviour of the country” of its leader, the Federal Prime Minister Ante Marković, for his role in introducing economic reforms in the country. The apparently high potential of a non-national option in Bosnia-Herzegovina, commonly depicted as “little Yugoslavia” (where positive assessments of inter-ethnic relations and support for the country’s unity, beyond the commonplaces, were revealed by social studies and polls) calls for a re-examination of the 1989-1991 Bosnian context. How did the Bosnian Communists tackle the 1989-90 wave of global and state-wide events, and the consequent dilemmas of democratisation? How did the liberal-reformist option embodied by Marković operate in the Bosnian scenario? What is the role of the civic, non-regime alternatives: what kind of relationship did they establish with the Communist rule, and how did they face the increasing ethnification? What solutions for the Yugoslav crisis, in its various stages, did these actors envision? Did some alleged “polarisation along ethnic lines” occur in Bosnian society and, if so, did it affect the decline of non-nationalist actors, or was it rather the opposite? To what extent did the events and the actors out of Bosnia-Herzegovina influence the path of the transition in the republic? These are some key questions raised by this research, which aims to offer a fresh perspective on two fields which have been understudied in the (yet very extensive) literature about the dissolution of Yugoslavia: the alternatives to ethno-nationalism, and the late- and post- Communist transition in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This work uses a variety of local sources (press reports; political documents issued by non-nationalist actors; selected interviews with former politicians, activists and observers of that political context – journalists, academics - ) which have been either unused or overlooked by scholars until now. These sources have been collected during several long research stays in Sarajevo and shorter stays in other cities of former Yugoslavia.