This paper shows that transitional justice initiatives such as the trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Commission for Srebrenica and the establishment of accurate statistics on deaths during the conflict have had only a limited impact on inter-group reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Popular attitudes towards these initiatives are captured in surveys conducted in 2005 and 2010. The results are not surprising given that the absence, due to the level of external regulation and control, of a politics of post-Dayton state-building means that domestic politics takes place in an arena of dealing with the past. The international community legitimised the three prevalent conflict narratives as a way of achieving a peace settlement in Dayton. These communal narratives were used in the peace-building phase by the local elites to defend concessions gained during negotiations and to oppose changes imposed by external supervisors of the Dayton Peace Accords. This has transformed the debate over the recent conflict from a transitional process of coming to terms with the past to a permanent state of affairs. This process precludes reconciliation in terms of mutual acknowledgment of suffering and a nuanced understanding of the causes and dynamics of the violent conflict

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This article has a twofold aim. First, it discusses the contributions to the scholarly field of conflict knowledge and expertise in this special issue on Knowledge Production in/about Conflict and Intervention. Second, it suggests an alternative reading of the issue's contributions. Starting from the assumption that prevalent ways of knowing are always influenced by wider material and ideological structures at specific times, we trace the influence of contemporary neoliberalism on general knowledge production structures in Western societies, and more specifically in Western academia, before re-reading the special issue's contributions through this prism. Our main argument is that neoliberalism leaves limited space for independent critical knowledge, thereby negatively affecting what can be known about conflict and intervention. We conclude with some tasks for reflexive scholarship in neoliberal times.

IN 1991 YUGOSLAVIA BECAME EMBROILED IN A WAR 1 that resulted in mass violence on a scale that Europe had not seen since World War II. The magnitude of destruction appalled Western intellectuals and gave rise to a number of explanations focusing on the ideological motives for mass killing and the forced expulsions of civilians. 2 Early explanations centred on how nationalist ideology was used to stir inter-ethnic hatred and mobilise various groups for fratricidal war (Cigar 1995; Anzulovic´1999). Without refuting the importance of ideology, this essay aims at exploring a motive for mass violence that has been largely neglected. Drawing on Barry Posen's concept of the 'ethnic security dilemma', 3 it will be shown how the risk of expulsions of civilians was greatly increased by the Yugoslav military system known as 'General People'sWe are indebted to a number of researchers at Uppsala University for their reading of earlier drafts. In particular, we wish to thank Erik Melander and Magnus Ö berg at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research and Kjell Magnusson at the Centre for Multiethnic Research. We also wish to thank Dor de Stefanovic´of Toronto University and two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

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