The politics, practice and paradox of ‘ethnic security’ in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The international intervention in Bosnia- Herzegovina has intended to support conflict resolution by introducing territorial self- government and power sharing as the foundation for building a governance framework that provides for collective and individual security alignment over time. Instead, it has contributed to the ethnification of security whereby collective security in the form of an ethnified state remains at the forefront of political discourse and political practice. Social acceptance of ‘ethnified state’ as a guarantor of security, despite the fading reality of the ethnic threat in the peoples’ perceptions of what makes life insecure in post-war Bosnia- Herzegovina, has been actively manufactured by the country’s ethnic elites using the very institutional means put in place by the international intervention . The result is an ‘ethnic security paradox’ in which the idea of individual safety, linked to the protection of ethnic identity in the form of an ethnified state, unsettles both collective and individual security alike

Wholly local? Ownership as philosophy and practice in peacebuilding interventions

This paper engages with the theme of local ownership in peacebuilding from a practice- based perspective which suggests that the way in which the external actors reach out and work with local constituencies shows conceptual and practice gaps that limit the applicability of local ownership in day-to-day peacebuilding operations. We examine how, in the case of EU peacebuilding policies, such gaps impair the potential for effective, inclusive and sustainable peacebuilding. Using a Whole- of-Society lens the paper demonstrates how current modalities of EU engagement fail to embrace the diversity of local society and its authentic forms of mobilisation and action in order to pursue peacebuilding objectives that resonate with locally relevant forms of peace. The paper further reflects on how Whole-of-Society perspective can provides pointers for enhancing peacebuilding practices in this area

War economy, governance and security in Syria’s opposition-controlled areas

This paper explores links between the war economy and civilian security by using evidence from the three opposition-held areas in Syria. The study of Eastern Ghouta, Daraa and Atareb shows how different type of behavior by non-state armed groups engaged in criminal war economy, shaped by the broader war economy conditions, impacts on the ability of the local populations to address their security predicaments. Our findings will challenge the assumption prevalent in the scholarship on the war economy that civilian security is unequivocally undermined by insurgents’ criminal war economy dealings. We show that in some local contexts a diverse range of economic choices and actors provide the local population with more opportunities to develop coping strategies by engaging in different parts of the war economy

Mind the gaps: a whole-of-society approach to peacebuilding and conflict prevention

External peacebuilding interventions have moved towards comprehensive strategies to tackle the complex problems of peace, security and development. This paper proposes a ‘Whole-of-Society’ (WOS) approach which seeks to enhance the effectiveness of externally- led peacebuilding and conflict prevention through recourse to the social contexts within which they are implemented. The aim of WOS is to see complexity, both within local society and in the relations between external peacebuilders and local society, as an opportunity to be grasped, as much as an impediment to effective outcomes. A WOS approach adds a practice dimension to debates on ownership, local peace and hybridity, trust-in-peacebuilding and their conceptualisations of local agency and dynamics . It seeks to address the operational gaps that emerge within a societal perspective to peacebuilding, in particular by suggesting ways of achieving appropriate configurations of external and local resources, agency and initiatives

EU in the western Balkans: hybrid development, hybrid security and hybrid justice

This paper analyses multiple policy instruments and their effects in the Western Balkans from a conflict networks perspective, developed by the authors. The conflict network perspective is an agential approach to the effects of networks on peacebuilding outcomes that analyzes relations rather than actors or categories. It allows us to capture an enduring character of relations developed through war-time violence which are sustained and reworked in the context of a local political authority in response to the international peace-building efforts. The three case studies of hybrid development, hybrid security and hybrid justice, demonstrate how the EU policy produces three types of outcomes: subversion, unintended consequences and a qualified success, when it encounters a networked nature of the political authority. We conclude by reviewing the risks for the EU policy in the Balkans and identify policy implications

State-building, nation-building and reconstruction

This chapter explores a new kind of interventionism in the post-Cold War era and challenges faced by global actors in the reconstruction of domestic political authority in the aftermath of conflict. The chapter reflects on the meanings and implications of different facets of comprehensive external involvement in state-building, nation-building and reconstruction, before addressing the theoretical framings of international intervention in terms of (post)liberal peace and its critique. What follows is a review and discussion of dilemmas and contradictions inherent in the outsiders’ project to pursue liberal peace-based interventions by focusing on: sovereignty, legitimacy, ownership and accountability. The chapter turns to hybridity as an alternative conceptualisation of international peacebuilding and concludes with the policy implications on rethinking wholesale reconstruction of state and society by external actors

Drawing on the continuum: a war and post-war political economy of gender-based violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Current understandings of why and how gender-based violence continues beyond the end of conflict remain siloed along theoretical and disciplinary lines. Recent scholarship has addressed the neglected structural dimension when examining the incidence and variation of post-conflict gender-based violence. In particular, continuum of violence and feminist political economy perspectives have offered accounts of gender-based violence during and after conflict. However, these approaches overlook how war and post-war economic processes interact over time and co-constitute the material basis for the continuation of gender-based violence. The war and post-war political economy perspective that we leverage examines critically the distinction, both in theory and practice, between global and local dynamics, and between formal and informal actors in post-conflict societies. Exposing these neglected structural and historical interconnections with evidence from post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina, we demonstrate that the material basis of gender-based violence is a cumulative result of political and socio-economic dynamics along the war-to-peace trajectory. Our findings point to the need to be attentive to the enduring material consequences of interests and incentives formed through war, and to the impact of post-war global governance ideologies that transform local conditions conducive to gender-based violence

‘It’s not just the economy, stupid’. The multi-directional security effects of the private sector in post-conflict reconstruction

Using human security lens, this article explores the interface between transnational corporations (TNCs) and post-conflict, post-crisis societies. It demonstrates how TNCs influence political and economic transition, through impacting the everyday experience of security, creating multiple and ambiguous effects on individuals and communities. Examples of two foreign corporate engagements: carmaker Fiat’s investment in Serbia and steelmaker ArcelorMittal’s takeover in Zenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina are used to illustrate the density of relationships between global companies, host governments, civil society and local communities whose effects extend beyond economics to broader aspects of the conflict space, and have a bearing on the transition and reconstruction agenda. Our findings question the quality of development and industrialisation policies championed by post-conflict reconstruction approaches, and challenge the assumption that economic growth and investment by foreign companies in particular, will necessarily deliver peaceful transition. The article contributes to the scholarly debate about the connection between security and development, and to policy discussions about appropriate means for reviving economies within externally led peacebuilding and conflict prevention initiative