Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Treatment of Ethnic-Others During Violent Conflicts

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed research seeks to answer two questions: What explains the different treatment of ethnic-others during violent conflicts between forces split along ethnic lines? Under what conditions does ethnicity affect the different treatment of ethnic-others? To answer these questions, the project will study the patterns of violence in the villages of two municipalities in Bosnia-Herzegovina --Prijedor and Sanski Most-- during the civil war from 1992 to 1995. These municipalities are contiguous, were under the control of Serb forces throughout the civil war, and present similar demographic characteristics. Yet the Muslim and Croat population in Prijedor experienced a much harsher treatment than in Sanski Most, and within each municipality some villages were exposed to harsher measures compared to others. The project has the following intellectual merits. First, it goes beyond the existing literature on civil wars by focusing on the processes of violence once a civil war starts rather than the initial causes of the violence. Second, it problematizes the role of ethnicity in civil wars fought between forces split along ethnic lines. The conventional wisdom in the field of political science so far has been that ethnicity plays a significant role in these contexts. However, the existence of village level variation in the treatment of ethnic- others in areas under the control of one ethnic group raises questions about the significance of ethnicity as a motivation for violence. The proposed project will advance knowledge about the role of ethnicity in violent contexts by both testing it against alternative explanations such as military strategy, and by exploring whether and why the importance of ethnicity varies from village to village. The Co-PI for the project has been learning Serbo-Croat to be able to engage in research in Bosnia-Herzegovina since September 2002 and has conducted exploratory research in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the summer of 2003. The broader impacts of the study are threefold. First, the proposed project will generate data at the level of small units such as villages, which is rare in studies of violence. Thus the project will provide data for other researchers who want to study micro-dynamics of violence. (The results and the data will be shared with the academic community, will be published in academic journals, and presented as part of doctoral dissertation). Second, the study will be the first to engage in field research to study the patterns of violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This type of research is important, as several scholars have used the case to propose solutions to ethnic wars, yet these recommendations have relied on assumptions about the role of ethnicity in Bosnia during the civil war, rather than empirical work. Finally, along with other projects with similar questions, the proposed project would contribute to the accumulation of knowledge on which regions are more likely to be in need of humanitarian aid and intervention during civil wars.