Ethnonationalist Capitalism & The Illegitimate Legacies of the Yugoslav Wars (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Arts and Social Science, 2020
Criminal morality, nepotism, fear culture, and corruption grow into the general culture, paralysing and stagnating the country. The social pyramid of corruption consists of its massive broad base, everyday corruption whose actors are officials and citizens; the main reason is unemployment and insecurity on which the new bourgeoisie draws power from "legal" spilling public resources. The phenomenon is at least one of the most severe factors endangering the entire system and socio-political relations, influencing unemployment, economic migration, and financial security. Some government elements' systemic absence of political stability, toleration, and organised crime protection further weaken institutions. The main focus after the democratic changes was on protecting political rights, neglecting socio-economic rights, which relates to gaining (ethnoreligious joint) social capital for future prosperity. The Dayton Accords, with massive public administration and complex political organisation, and its Constitution are non-functional and unsustainable in the economic, security, and human and civil rights frameworks. After the conflict, the international community's mistake is "leaving or supporting" war political structures withan ethnonational signature. War accumulation of capital (profiteering), through the privatisation of the 1990s and long after, led to the formation of the power of capital within ethnopolitical authorities (especially war parties). Practice and power-abusive systemic corruption and nepotism on employment structure in the public sector (including higher educational institutions) require systemic legislative reforms within the rule of law discourse. The political stalemate of ethnonational elites diminishes B&H's EU perspective by opening up a dialogue of will and political assessment by EU officials. Therefore, meeting the criteria for the EU, NATO should be considered a transition goal and not just a condition for the EU; it is necessary to focus on the accession process as a (market) transformation key. Three ethnopolitics pursue containment policies; "hybrid conflicts" prevent their significant transition into three political communities, unable to make a functioning rule of law, adversely influencing observed phenomena. Keywords: culture of corruption, ethnopolitics, political crime, criminalised war, causes and risks, systemic corruption, economic crime, criminal morality, EU and NATO, transformation
Organized crime in Serbian politics during the Yugoslav wars
Looking behind the chaotic facade of the atrocious Yugoslav conflict, this article examines the nexus between the organized crime in Serbia and its security apparatus. Path dependency in the mismanagement of violence, ethnopolitical mobilization and abrupt socioeconomic transformation during international isolation contributed to blurring the distinction between the state institutions and the criminal elements in Serbia during the reign of Slobodan Milošević. By showcasing the rise and the fall of a paradigmatic representative, Željko Ražnatović Arkan, the article examines the roots, dynamics and effects of this failed attempt toward sponsoring state mafia.
Florya Chronicles of Political Economy, 2022
The paper presents a theoretical, analytical, and ethical examination of B&H political economy, Constitutional "protection of vital national interests," and its effects on human security- socioeconomic conditions. The phenomenon of vital national interest and a theoretical and practical question focused on a constitutionally conditioned political point of view, not on economic, human security, legislative, peace & conflict dynamics, and normative framework. The paper argues that structurally manipulative and nepotistic ethnopolitical processes and the idiom "protection of vital national interests" demonstrate the institutionalization of postwar ethnoreligious conflict. It reduces the rule of law framework, the country's integrity, sociopolitical, economic, and critical human security progression. The ethnoreligious conflict of "vital national interest" undermines the country's economic system. The narrative of protecting "vital national interests" is the ethnopolitical elites' manipulative instrumentalization and interest that has risen above the state and used for personal objectives. In a "constitutively" manner, the ethnopolitical arrangement is reduced to a struggle over territory. It directly territorializes and divides B&H into ethnoreligious areas. Contemporary Machiavellians use intrigue and manipulation to gain or retain power. It has a character of more deceptive than violent behavior. The Balkan-B&H demonstrates Maciavelism more profoundly than Machiavelli's authentic perspective. Ethical, political behavior and intention can consolidate institutions' capacity, regardless of ethnoreligious disparities and past. The development of civic awareness and plural civic space must articulate responsibility in government through the active participation of citizens in decision-making processes, reducing the recorded and current irregularities/criminalities, and strengthening the rule of law in the public administration. There must be continuing conditions to maintain cooperation between all three ethnopolitics through formal and mutual commitment until the preconditions for stability are met. Thus, the employment sector, especially for well-educated unemployed young people, improving social security and health services, monitored by the honest/ethical government and constructive public administration. Keywords: Western Balkans & Bosnia and Hercegovina, Ethnopolitical & Ethnoreligious Conflict, Vital National Interests, Political economy & Public administration, Ethics, Human Security, Socioeconomics
Ethnogenesis and Socialist Nation: Polemics on O etnogenezi Crnogoraca in 1980s Yugoslavia
In this paper, I will argue on the polemics of a book – O etnogenezi Crnogoraca (On the ethnogenesis of Montenegrins), written by ethnologist Špiro Kulišić in 1980. In this book, Kulišić claimed that the origins of Montenegrin was old Illyrian and Vlach, not Serb. Ethnologists and historians discussed on this theme in the 1980s. In the polemics, both sides blamed each other as “nationalism.” Through this polemics, we can analyze the typical process of nationalization of historiography and ethnology in late Yugoslavia.
Cogent Social Sciences, 2024
Delić, Zlatan and Basic, Goran (2024) “Genocide, joint criminal enterprise, and reconciliation: interactional analysis of a post-war society in the context of legitimizing transitional capitalism”. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) is the historic background of this paper, as produced in the documents presented during international and national trials concerning war crimes committed during this period. A literature review forms the analytical basis and contains various empirical and theoretical studies from the fields of philosophy, war sociology, and social epistemology. The aim of this paper is to analyse the normative orientations and social values that affect (1) the feelings of moral and social understanding (or non-understanding) after the genocide and the joint criminal enterprise in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of legitimizing transitional capitalism, (2) the actions of individuals, organizations, and states as well as the entire social community in the post-war society, and (3) the process of reconciliation and trust in post-war society. The analysis makes evident the usual tendency in a post-war society to deify one’s own ethnic (religious) group, while the consequence of such false self-infatuation with “our” collective is that the “other” that is not ours becomes undesirable. It must be, as evidence of patriotism and unconditional emotional loyalty to “our holy issue”, wiped out for good. Ethnic cleansings, joint criminal enterprises, and genocides thus become a normal means of ethnopolitical—i.e. biopolitical—“management of differences”. At the same time, ethnocorruption and ethnobanditry can erroneously be qualified as the least transparent and, for social and criminological research, the most difficult phenomena (or manifestations) of social pathology. The difficulty lies in the fact that ethnocorruption and ethnobanditry are in many respects related and intertwined with the simultaneous institutional and organizational processes of regulating (or not regulating) the economic and political globalization and transfer of ownership during the transition from socialist self-management to a new type of economy.
Individual & Society Journal of Social Science, Journal of Individual & Society, 2021
The paper analyzes the concepts, causes, and normative solutions of social and political exclusions in Bosnia and Herzegovina within post Yugoslavia’s ethnonationalism paradigm and the Dayton Constitution. War, post-war neoliberalism produced economic destitution and social exclusions. Along with the clerical, ethnonationalism showed diligence as the primary determinant of patriotism, advocating the ideology of exclusion. The radicalization of certain groups became acceptable, as they would stand for homogenous countries. Lack of efficient form with a professional and robust government capable of making autonomous reforms in the economy and social spheres influences phenomena. B&H’s imposed ethnopolitical concept of “constituent peoples” rigidly removes the civic order, the citizen ideal, rights, and freedoms, decreasing political collectivism. The Dayton patterned ethnic-religious exclusivism and the unconstitutional “hybrid” identities. By ethnoreligious criteria, three groups of citizens are given the right to make decisions, generating political representation issues for the “Others.” Although they do not represent a homogeneous group, they have the right to recognize their human rights. With a revised notion (national minorities, non-nationals, Bosnians), “Others” would be given the right to be represented in all state institutions, thus eliminating discrimination. Participation in the state’s formation would reduce their unconstitutionality - decision-making process. The true expression of national freedom lies in the richness of human nature instead of the violent rigidity of ethnonationalism reserve. Overcoming sociopolitical exclusions and the economic necessity by systemic institutional transformation and EU political integration is demanding. “Two schools under one roof” model negates emancipation’s educational process proclaiming systemic exclusion and ethnoreligious discrimination, amplifying security stalemate. Social status and stigma of trafficking-exploitation victims in sociolegal frameworks have substantial victimization dynamics consequences. More critical insight should be recognized as feminist theoretically significant to studying the phenomenon. Keywords: Former-Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, ethnonationalism, social exclusions, political exclusions