No respect : forging democracy in Bosnia and Kosovo

This paper discusses how international intervention to consolidate new democracies of post-conflict Bosnia and Kosovo interacts with the heritage of Islamic culture in both states. Within a study of specific examples in the context of civil-military relations, it is argued that the approach of authoritarian state-building, which establishes a democratic political culture by imposing international structures and standards, is posited on dismissing local capacities as unreliable, and undemocratic. The valorising of (Edemocracy¹, (Epeace¹, (Ejustice¹ and economic prosperity, creates a (Ecivilisational slope¹ that has potentially conflictual implications for Islam, political stability and a future for democracy in the region.

Islamisation of Bosnia : early Islamic influence on Bosnian society

This Masters thesis examines the process of the Islamisation of Bosnia from the eighth century to the end of the fifteenth century. This era of early Islamic influence has not previously been systematically studied, and remains an area little understood by many medievalists. The major foci of the analysis are the pre-Ottoman era and early Ottoman periods. This thesis raises the following research questions: When and how did the first Islamisation of the Balkan Slavs (including Bosnians) occur? How did Islam influence Bosnian society and culture, and where were the Bosnian Muslim settlements established? This thesis includes a detailed historical investigation that makes use of a range of bibliographic materials. These consist of fragmentary works, archival and administrative documents and other relevant factography collected from a research field trip to Bosnia between June 27 and July 24, 2003. The main findings reveal the complexity of this culturo-religious process in terms of both the early Islamic influence and contemporary cultural diversity. While different theoretical approaches to cultural representation and social space assist in exploring the hybrid nature of Bosniak identity, the primary and secondary data analyses highlight the significance of the phenomenon of the early Islamisation of Bosnia

Construct of power : Bosnia and Herzegovina post-cold war

The thesis seeks to assess the concept of power in relation to Bosnia's experience after the Cold War. It argues that power is best conceptualised as compromising two parts: 'agent power' which involves an ability of an actor to directly influence another and 'impersonal governance' which refers to the indirect effects of power.

Serving in Bosnia made me appreciate living in Bristol: stressful experiences, attitudes, and psychological needs of members of the United Kingdom Armed Forces

Peacekeeping operations form an increasing part of the role of the U.K. Armed Forces. This study identified perceived needs for training before such operations, experiences of stress during deployments, beliefs and attitudes regarding psychological support and debriefing on return, general attitudes toward peacekeeping duties, and positive aspects of the peacekeeping role. Although nearly all peacekeepers were exposed to a variety of experiences, most perceived stress came from professional difficulties and frustrations with the occupational role of being a peacekeeper, rather than from dangerous situations. The exception was a significant fear of land mines. For many, peacekeeping had a positive impact on soldiers' lives, most commonly an appreciation of "things back home." Respondents' opinions about the peacekeeping experience vary greatly. Additional training addressing and exploring potential conflicts between the traditional role of the soldier and the role of the peacekeeper may be useful.

Post-conflict peacebuilding: strategies and lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina, El Salvador and Sierra Leone

Includes bibliography

Learning Democracy Together in School? : Student and Teacher Attitudes in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The principal aim of this study is to examine attitudes and values, through questionnaires, among students and teachers in the last grade of primary school (grade 8) regarding issues related to authoritarianism, democracy, human rights, children rights, conflict resolution and legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A second aim is to explore and analyze the role of the international community in the democratization and education processes in the light of globalization in this country through secondary sources of data, site visits and observations. Analysis of the student sample reveals suspicion towards democracy, especially when democracy was associated with politics and politicians. When the issue of democracy was de-contextualized from Bosnia and Herzegovina realities in the questionnaire, students showed more positive attitudes towards it. Students generally agreed with very strong authoritarian statements. High achieving students were more democratic, more socially responsible, more tolerant regarding attitudes towards religion, race and disabilities, and less authoritarian compared to low achievers. High achievers felt that they had influence over daily events, and were positive towards social and civil engagement. High achievers viewed politics negatively, but had high scores on the democracy scale. High achievers also agreed to a larger extent that it is acceptable to break the law. The more authoritarian students were somewhat more prone to respond that it is not acceptable to break the law. The major findings from the teacher sample show that teachers who agreed with non-peaceful mediation, and had a non-forgiving and rigid approach to interpersonal conflicts, also agreed with strong authoritarian statements and were less democratic. In general, teachers valued students who behave respectfully, have a good upbringing and are obedient. They were very concerned about the general status of education in society, which they felt was becoming marginalized. Teachers were not happy with the overloaded curricula and they showed an interest in more knowledge and skills to help children with traumatic war experiences. When asked about positive reforms, teachers were highly critical of, and dissatisfied with, the educational situation. Bosnia and Herzegovina is undergoing a transition from a state-planned economy and one party system to a market economy and a multi party system. During this transition, the country has become more involved in the globalization process than ever. Today the country is a semi-protectorate where international authorities intervene when necessary. The International community is attempting to introduce western democracy and some of the many complexities in this process are discussed in this study. Globalization processes imply contradictory demands and pressures on the education system. On one hand, economic liberalization has affected education policies —a closer alignment between education and economic competitiveness. On the other hand, there is a political and ideological globalization process underlying the importance of human rights, and the inclusiveness of education for all children. Students and teachers are caught between two opposing ideals — competition and cooperation.

Politiche di sviluppo e questione etnica. La cooperazione italiana IN Bosnia Erzegovina

The globalization process of the last twenty years has changed the world through international flows of people, policies and practices. International cooperation to development is a part of that process and brought International Organizations (IOs) and Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) from the West to the rest of the world. In my thesis I analyze the Italian NGOs that worked in Bosnia Herzegovina (BH) to understand which development projects they realized and how they faced the ethnic issue that characterized BH. I consider the relation shaped between Italian NGOs and Bosnian civil society as an object of ethnic interests. In BH, once part of former Yugoslavia, the transition from the communist regime to a democratic country has not been completed. BH’s social conditions are characterized by strong ethnic divisions. The legacy of the early 1990s crisis was a phenomenon of ethnic identities created before the war and that still endure today. The Dayton Peace Agreement signed in 1995 granted the peace and reinforced the inter-ethnic hate between the newly recognized three principal ethnicities: Serbs, Croats and Bosniak. Through the new constitution, the institutions were characterized by division at every level, from the top to the bottom of society. Besides it was the first constitution ever written and signed outside the own country; that was the root of the state of exception that characterized BH. Thus ethnic identities culture survived through the international political involvement. At the same time ethnic groups that dominated the political debate clashed with the international organization’s democratic purpose to build a multicultural and democratic state. Ethnic and also religious differences were the instruments for a national statement that might cause the transition and development projects failure. Fifteen years later social fragmentation was still present and it established an atmosphere of daily cultural violence. Civil society suffered this condition and attended to recreate the ethnic fragmentation in every day life. Some cities became physically divided and other cities don’t tolerated the minority presence. In rural areas, the division was more explicit, from village to village, without integration. In my speech, the anthropology for development – the derivative study from applied anthropology – constitutes the point of view that I used to understand how ethnic identities still influenced the development process in BH. I done ethnographic research about the Italian cooperation for development projects that were working there in 2007. The target of research were the Italian NGOs that created a relation with Bosnian civil society; they were almost twenty divided in four main field of competences: institutional building, education, agriculture and democratization. I assumed that NGOs work needed a deep study because the bottom of society is the place where people could really change their representation and behavior. Italian NGOs operated in BH with the aim of creating sustainable development. They found cultural barricade that both institutions and civil society erected when development projects have been applied. Ethnic and religious differences were stressed to maintain boundaries and fragmented power. Thus NGOs tried to negotiate development projects by social integration. I found that NGOs worked among ethnic groups by pursuing a new integration. They often gained success among people; civil society was ready to accept development projects and overcome differences. On the other hand NGOs have been limited by political level that sustained the ethnic talk and by their representation of Bosnian issue. Thus development policies have been impeded by ethnic issue and by cooperation practices established on a top down perspective. Paradoxically, since international community has approved the political ethnic division within DPA, then the willing of development followed by funding NGOs cooperation projects was not completely successful.

Rural governance and livelihoods systems diversification in the Western Balkans: comparative case studies of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia

Agriculture is still important for socio-economic development in rural areas of Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia (BMS). However, for sustainable rural development rural economies should be diversified so attention should be paid also to off-farm and non-farm income-generating activities. Agricultural and rural development (ARD) processes and farm activity diversification initiatives should be well governed. The ultimate objective of this work is to explore linkages between ARD governance and rural livelihoods diversification in BMS. The thesis is based on an extended secondary data analysis and surveys. Questionnaires for ARD governance and coordination were sent via email to public, civil society and international organizations. Concerning rural livelihood diversification, the field questionnaire surveys were carried out in three rural regions of BMS. Results show that local rural livelihoods are increasingly diversified but a significant share of households are still engaged in agriculture. Diversification strategies have a chance to succeed taking into consideration the three rural regions’ assets. However, rural households have to tackle many problems for developing new income-generating activities such as the lack of financial resources. Weak business skills are also a limiting factor. Fully exploiting rural economy diversification potential in BMS requires many interventions including improving rural governance, enhancing service delivery in rural areas, upgrading rural people’s human capital, strengthening rural social capital and improving physical capital, access of the rural population to finance as well as creating a favourable and enabling legal and legislative environment fostering diversification. Governance and coordination of ARD policy design, implementation and evaluation is still challenging in the three Balkan countries and this has repercussions also on the pace of rural livelihoods diversification. Therefore, there is a strong and urgent need for mobilization of all rural stakeholders and actors through appropriate governance arrangements in order to foster rural livelihoods diversification and quality of life improvement.

Analisi geochimica ed ambientale di sedimenti ed acque del lago di Veovaca (Vares- Bosnia ed Erzegovina)

Il lavoro svolto nella zona di Vareš, in particolare nella zona del lago di Veovača ha investigato diverse matrici ambientali (sedimenti, suoli, acque) per valutare le loro caratteristiche e la loro qualità. Nella zona è stata presente in passato attività estrattiva e di lavorazione dei minerali estratti, da qui la necessità di questo studio esplorativo. Il lavoro svolto si divide in tre fasi: campionamento, svolto in quattro giorni passati in campagna; analisi dei campioni raccolti e interpretazione dei risultati. Sono state campionate acque e sedimenti in punti interni al lago, altri in corrispondenza delle sue sponde e punti lungo la diga. Sul materiale solido sono state svolte analisi di spettrometria di fluorescenza a raggi X, mentre sulle acque sono state applicate tecniche di spettrometria di assorbimento atomico (AAS), spettrometria di emissione al plasma induttivamente accoppiato (ICP-AES) e cromatografia ionica oltre che a misure di parametri chimico-fisici in campo. Sono stati poi valutati i risultati, attraverso il confronto con banche dati di riferimento ed elaborazioni statistiche e grafiche. Si tratta di uno studio preliminare effettuato su un piccolo numero di campioni e perciò solo indicativo e non in grado di fornire risposte definitive sulla condizione ambientale dell'area. Tuttavia queste prime informazioni consentono di delineare un quadro nel quale future indagini potranno approfondire aspetti e problemi critici per la qualità ambientale.

Geomorfologia del giacimento di orso delle caverne nella grotta di Govjestica, Valle di Praca, Bosnia-Ercegovina

In 2011 the GSB/USB caving group of Bologna has discovered, in the southern fossil branches of Govjestica cave (Valle di Praça, Bosnia) a fossil deposit of vertebrates containing bones of Ursus spelaeus, Capra ibex, Cricetulus migratorius and Microtus. On the basis of the U/Th ages of the bones, teeth and carbonate flowstone covering the fossils (60 ka), datings carried out in the laboratories of U-Series at Bologna, and on the disposition of the bones, a past connection between Govjestica and the nearby Banja Stjena cave is hypothesised. The closure of this passage has occurred suddenly through a collapse that has forced the last cave bears awakened from their winter sleep to stay blocked in Govjestica, and die. The connecting passage has later been covered with calcite flowstones and is no longer visible. This hypothesis is sustained by the rather scarce number of skeletons of cave bears found in Govjestica (a dozen of skulls against the often large amounts of cave bears found in similar caves): Govjestica cave, and especially the Room of the Bones in its southern part, has been used by cave bears only for a couple of centuries before these parts became inaccessible. Furthermore, the entrance of Banja Stjena cave was probably located close to or at the level of the Praça river, that has excavated its thalweg for around 20 metres in the last 60 ka.