This article examines the social and political effects produced by the most recent wave of emigration in postwar Bosnia, widely understood to be the result of continued political instability and economic decline that followed the 1992–95 war. Drawing on ethnographic research in a deindustrialized Bosnian town and analysis of popular discourses seeking to make sense of this new wave of departures, I show how the phenomenon of postwar exit impacts those staying behind and inspires new forms of reflection that link past histories of violence to more recent forms of dispossession. The emergence of such forms of historical consciousness reveals that postwar migration is haunted both by the memory of wartime expulsions and ethnic cleansing, as well as by the often-unacknowledged violence of postwar economic restructuring glossed as the postsocialist transition. In asking what happens to nationalist regimes, as well as scholarship on nationalist politics, when the “people” leave, I demonstrate the need to analyze the ongoing out-migration both in terms of Bosnia’s historical specificity and global political-economic dynamics. In so doing, I show how absences created by these departures create new vantage points that bring to light and expose unsettling political configurations left behind by the Bosnian war.

Aim to examine users motivation of the Institute for upbringing male children and adolescents Sarajevo to participate in the implementation of resocialization programs from the perspective of social pedagogue.

We interviewed six boys at the Insitute for upbringing male children and adolescents Sarajevo with writen consent of their responsible teachers. This is a qualitative study in which data were analyzed according to qualitative content analysis by Mayring. Research question in this paper was: „Are beneficiaries of the Institute for upbringing male children and adolescents in Sarajevo motivated to participate in re-socialization programs?’

At the Insitute for upbringing male children and adolescents Sarajevo among the users who participated in the survey the motivation for paritcipating in re-socialization programs is present in four juveniles who participated in this study, while one respondent was completely unmotivated

Reasons for this may lie in individual users curiosity and their low time utilization during the stay at the Institute. The complete non-motivation of one user is the result of family factors and environment

Users are mostly interested in taking part in sports and works activities. The participation of users in the current programmatic activities of the Institute is irregularly and insufficiently structured.

Explaining why restraint of violence becomes a strategy for armed groups has recently attracted the attention of researchers, especially political scientists. The emergent literature generally argues by way of macro-level statistical correlation, in which a single factor, such as the desire of armed groups to adhere to international norms about human rights or the existence of high levels of political education among fighters, is believed to explain the presence of restraint. Missing in this approach are close analyses of actual historical episodes of restraint. We thus lack comprehension of how those with ideas about restraining violence translate their thoughts into actions, especially in contexts such as civil wars. This article addresses this weakness by examining the history of a Balkan community wracked by intercommunal violence during 1941 to explain the puzzling practice of restraint in the midst of waves of retaliatory violence. Rather than identify a single factor, this micro-comparative case study reveals that a cluster of mostly endogenous factors, shaped significantly by ongoing violence, explains the successful practice of restraint. Methodologically, this article stresses the need for researchers of restraint to employ microhistorical and comparative methods. They hold the greatest potential to illuminate what remains insufficiently explained in the extant political science literature: the contingent local processes whereby a desire for restraint or escalation of violence—the existence of which may be conditioned by longer-term historical developments—becomes a reality in certain moments.

Nationalism has been one of the domestic constraints to progress on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights, especially in the Balkans that are dealing with multiple postwar transition realities. Ethno-nationalist challenges, often influenced by religion, have been significant in Bosnia-Herzegovina given weak state identity and democracy, competing institutionalized ethno-national identities, and slow Europeanization. Through the lenses of gendered nationalism, the societal security dilemma, and political homophobia, this article analyzes how the politics and discourse of LGBT rights during the past decade in Bosnia reveal tensions between competing and multiple identities and narratives—European, multiethnic, ethno-nationalist, and religious—using the violent response to the 2008 Queer Sarajevo Festival as a key illustration. However, in the past decade, LGBT rights have progressed and antigay backlash to LGBT visibility (in addition to stronger external leverage and other factors) has resulted in stronger activism and change. The public discourse and response to the announcement of Bosnia’s first Pride Parade represents another turning point in LGBT visibility that seems to reveal that ethno-nationalist challenges may be lessening as LGBT rights norms gain strength.

The paper explores forms of sociability and partner relationships among pious young Muslims in Sarajevo with a focus on the emic concepts of Islamic cafés (hospitality establishments perceived to operate according to Islamic moral principles) and Sharia dating (premarital relationships perceived to be sanctioned by Sharia). It draws on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in different spaces of Islamic worship, learning, and sociability. This paper places the renewed interest in Islam within the context of a post-Dayton Bosnia characterized by complex and impractical government structures, lingering post-war grievances, and a brutal transition to a neoliberal capitalist economy. Although it acknowledges the continuing relevance of Islam as a resource for Bosniak nation building, it suggests treating the Muslim faith community as overlapping but distinct from the Bosniak community. By focusing on gendered interaction and partner-seeking strategies, this paper explores how young members of this faith community contextually negotiate their Islamic beliefs with mainstream local expectations of conventional behavior. The paper argues that believers’ varying responses to this predicament can be observed as an example of the localization of Islam, but they do not constitute a return to local, traditional gender roles and marriage practices, nor are they an introduction of foreign cultural patterns.

The peacebuilding and academic communities are divided over the issue of local ownership between problem-solvers who believe that local ownership can ‘save liberal peacebuilding’ and critical voices claiming that local ownership is purely a rhetorical device to hide the same dynamics of intervention used in more ‘assertive’ interventions. The article challenges these two sets of assumptions to suggest that one has to combine an analysis of the material and normative components of ownership to understand the complex ways in which societies relate to the peace that is being created. Building on the recent scholarship on ‘attachment’, we claim that different modalities of peacebuilding lead to different types of social ‘attachment’ – social-normative and social-material – to the peace being created on the part of its subjects.

The history of modern Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) is a history of referenda. The referendum as a tool to shape the political fate and future of a particular society has seemingly always been an integral part of the Bosnian past. The first two referenda in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the beginning of the so-called “democratic era” following the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia marked the beginning of a period of war and violence in the country. The referendum in November 1991, organized by the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and asking participants about the status of BiH within the Yugoslav federation, was the first step toward the formation of Republika Srpska (RS). On the other side, the referendum in March 1992 about the question of independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Yugoslavia, which was attended by Bosnian Muslims and Croats and boycotted by the Serbs, plunged Bosnia into war.

On 17 June 1996, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari submitted by counsel for Radovan Karadžić, the infamous Bosnian-Serb leader indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for various international crimes. Thus, the Court let the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the companion cases of Kadić v. Karadžić and Doe I and Doe II v. Karadžić, stand. The latter was a set of cases brought by Croat and Muslim citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the US courts against Radovan Karadžić after he was duly served process while in New York. The cases will now proceed, however slowly, with a trial on the merits, addressing the plaintiffs' claims concerning Karadžić's responsibility for acts of genocide; war crimes; torture; summary execution; related crimes against humanity; acts of rape; forced prostitution; forced impregnation; other cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment; assault and battery; sexual and ethnic inequality; and wrongful death. As remedies, the plaintiffs seek compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees and, in one instance, injunctive relief.