The Bosnian Conflict, Its Aftermath and Victims’ Demands

Abstract

This chapter explores the Bosnian war and the post-war political conflicts to set the scene for Bosnian victims’ struggle for redress that forms the rest of the book. It introduces three post-war phases that frame Bosnian politics and victims’ struggle. The first phase from 1995 to 1999 was defined by emergency post-war stabilization when victims started forming their associations and organizing first advocacy campaigns under the wider umbrella of ‘truth and justice’. In the second phase that lasted until approximately 2006 centralization efforts and external state-building dominated local politics. This was also a period when victims sought out international and domestic allies to press for dramatic changes in their redress. In the last phase that followed, a ‘two steps forward, three steps back’ pattern of progress could be observed, accompanied by flawed Europeanization and re-nationalization of politics. Victims’ struggle grew into polarizing movements and inter-group animosities. A key goal became the pursuit of a formal ‘status’, i.e. a legal recognition of a victim group as eligible for material and in-kind support. Just like politics, victims’ struggle started to be dominated by nationalism and hierarchies of suffering. This chapter provides a contextual understanding for the following three empirical chapters.