Keywords

By the end of the last century, people in the former Yugoslavia were forced to confront massive destruction and extreme violence that occurred in different regions between 1991 and 2001Footnote 1. The breakdown of the Yugoslavian federal state and the brutal violence that accompanied it generated changes in the economic, political, and familial spheres as well as in the social fabric of everyday life. Dramatic social changes heavily influenced individual life trajectories, and traces of these changes remain visible 20 years after the most tragic events. One symbol of these scars is Mostar , which is a city in Bosnia-Herzegovina that was heavily targeted and destroyed, as were other cities that previously had integrated communities such as Sarajevo, Srebrenica, and Vukovar. Let us consider three different episodes that occurred in Mostar in the critical period between 1990 and 2006 as a preliminary illustration of the main issues that will be addressed in this book.

Most people who have commented on this violence and these crimes have emphasised that the events in Bosnia-Herzegovina constituted an “ethnic war ”. However, as we will argue in this book, this statement was likely truer after the war than before the war. Ethnic groups for many people were emphasised as membership categories and were not central reference groups (Hyman 1942) in daily life before the war (see Chap. 3 by Sekulic). These groups became shared realities as outcomes of the nationalist propaganda and organised political violence (Elcheroth and Spini 2011). The vast majority of people were forced to endure violence and to position themselves within a particular ethnic group, often abruptly, as illustrated by this account of an episode that occurred in Mostar on the 13 June 1993:

Two men knocked at the door of Zlatko Hrvic in the middle of the night and checked for his identity. If he was recognized as a Bosniak he would be taken by force to a camp, if he was identified as a Croat, he would be left in his home. His name and birthplace directed him to the second destiny, even if he could have been identified as a Bosniak. This night, he describes, was the worst of his life. (Broz 2005, p. 157)

This account illustrates how the political violence that occurred so abruptly in the former Yugoslavia cannot be described as a simple and clear instance of intergroup ethnic conflict. For many (if not most) inhabitants of these regions, clear identification with a particular ethnicity was the result of political violence rather than the cause. The systematic nationalistic propaganda and the targeted violence for which the strategic goal was to separate or destroy communities on the basis of their imposed ethnic identity were unfortunately successful in many parts of the countries that emerged from the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. Today, many communities are separated on the basis of their religion or ethnic identity. This book will explore how social or community identities are now perceived by people and how intergroup relationships have crystallised since these collective experiences of massive violence.

A second outcome of the rapid and violent collective societal changes in the region was an additional structural change in the population: the creation of generational historical gaps (Mannheim 1990). When political violence is so substantial that the elements that shape community life (e.g. norms, spaces, and practices) have been systematically destroyed or transformed, collective memories, social experiences and practices may be completely different from one generation to another, as expressed by an inhabitant of Mostar in December 2001:

My generation, 1965–1975, was worse off than any other generation. The largest proportion of those killed and forced to flee were from that generation. The younger ones, who were 10 to 13 years old when the war broke out, tend to go to the other side in large numbers. They don’t know how it used to be, and they are satisfied with how things are now. We, the older ones, when we remember what it used to be like and compare it with what it’s like now, the only thing we can do is cry. Never again will Mostar be as it used to be and have the spirit it used to have, because less than 20 per cent of the old crowd have remained in Mostar on both sides. (Corkalo et al. 2004, p. 154)

This excerpt indicates not only that political violence has been directed at ethnic groups, but that within these groups, there are also collective experiences structured by generational divisions (and by gender). Of particular interest is the generation composed of adolescents and young adults, who became “worse off” at the moment when their adult social identities were supposed to crystallise because people of their age were likely to become soldiers or to be targeted as victims of violence (in particular, a large number of young women were raped or were targets of violence). People in this age group lost or were forced to delay many opportunities to launch the adult lives that they wished to live.

Finally, our book will be concerned with matters of justice within and across communities in today’s international community . The extreme political violence that was experienced by many communities in the former Yugoslavia disrupts the foundations of society, increases the risk of non-conformity, and therefore has deep effects on normative social representations and social practices. Normative social representations (Doise 2002; Spini and Doise 2005) are generated from social interactions and communication: “While interacting with each other, individuals know that their fate will be affected by this interaction, at least in certain domains, to a certain extent, and at a certain cost” (Spini and Doise 2005, p. 21). Normative social representations are anchored in social practices and interpersonal or intergroup relationships (Doise 1993).

In the aftermath of political violence , there are two primary types of social representations . First, communities can transform the ethos of conflict into mistrust and thus generate shared representations of collective victimisation and out-group guilt. Second, people can seek to develop a political framework that will allow them to live separately from their former enemy and create new political entities, especially nations. Both types of social representations imply that relationships and past violence are interpreted based on the classic in-group (good or better)/out-group (bad or worse; the enemy) distinction, in addition to the values and content associated with those categories (Bar-Tal 2007; Worchel 1999). However, the dangers of a normless vacuum and the need for protection against future political violence can also lead to claims to restore justice and trust within and across communities and to punish war criminals. These two paths are not mutually exclusive, and the process is necessarily complex. The context and the involvement of individuals and groups in the violence, in addition to the collective memory , national or community institutions, and the actions of the international community , play key roles on the road to peace, reconstruction, or reconciliation , as indicated by Bar-Tal and Cehajic-Clancy (Chap. 8).

Let us consider another episode related by the Centre for Peace in the Balkans, which occurred in Mostar on 11 December 2005, after the arrest of Ante Gotovina, a suspected war criminal at that time:

About 200 Bosnian Croats took to the streets of Mostar Sunday in southern Bosnia-Herzegovina in a show of support for recently arrested Croatian war crimes suspect general Ante Gotovina. The peaceful demonstrations were organized by Bosnian Croat associations of war veterans. ‘This is a peaceful gathering in support of general Gotovina. We are sure he will finally prove the real truth about the war in Croatia once he appears before The Hague Tribunal,’ Stjepan Matic of the Mostar War Veterans association said. Gotovina’s supporters gathered in smaller numbers in several Croat-dominated towns in Herzegovina and central Bosnia. No incidents were reported.

Depending on partisanship and involvement in the collective experience of violence as well as on the more general climate within and across communities, the perception of justice and human rights can vary widely. In most situations, there are moral or legal norms that may be contradictory. What is deemed right depends largely on the climate of a community. This statement is particularly true for international law and principles if they are opposed to partisan moralities. When are universal rights legitimate in post-war contexts? The climates and collective experiences that favour or hinder the acceptance or refusal of universal rights are not yet well understood, although research has recently begun to focus on these collective processes (Abramowitz 2005; Elcheroth 2006; Spini et al. 2008).

The variety of experiences of victimisation (e.g. forced migration , poverty, and armed violence) in recent years renders the former Yugoslavia a unique context in which to examine the effects of collective experience on normative social representation and practices. In particular, we are interested in studying how political violence and economic difficulties may simultaneously reinforce the negative attitudes of individuals towards other groups and strengthen calls for the need to respect basic human rights (see Voice 2 by Broz, Voice 3 by Hartmann, and Chap. 14 by Elcheroth and Spini). Given this duality, this book examines three new topics in analysing the aftermath of war in the former Yugoslavia: (1) social identity and intergroup relations (Reicher 1996; Tajfel 1984), (2) the life course and collective experiences of the 1968–1974 cohort (Elder 1974/1999; Sapin et al. 2007; Settersten Jr 2003), and (3) normative social representations and collective practices (Doise et al. 1993; Elcheroth et al. 2011).

Using these complementary approaches will enable us to examine the aftermath of war and political violence in an innovative and interdisciplinary manner . This original combination will also allow us to report empirical evidence originating from and concerning a particularly neglected actor in theories on conflict and post-conflict periods: the people. Giving voice to the people is one central contribution of social psychology or sociology in comparison with the more institutional analyses that are characteristic of political or historical science. This chapter is divided into four sections. First, we present an original theoretical perspective on how people and communities strove to cope with the aftermath of violent conflict by adapting their social practices and redefining their worldviews. We show how a community perspective complements previous theories regarding “ethnic” conflict: those focused on primordialism, elite mobilisation, and security dilemmas. Second, we describe how societal changes have different effects on different cohorts or generations. Third, we describe the Transition to Adulthood and Collective Experiences Survey (TRACES), a unique new dataset. This survey has two main components: (1) life event calendar data that were collected from a general sample of people across the former Yugoslavia and (2) extensive data on political attitudes and social worldviews from members of the 1968–1974 birth cohort, whose entrance to adulthood (a crucial phase in the socialisation of individuals) occurred during the main war periods (i.e. they were 16–22 years old in 1990). Most of the empirical chapters in this book present analyses of this survey, which was conducted within an interdisciplinary and international network composed of social psychologists, sociologists, social demographers, and historians. Finally, we will briefly describe each chapter and the organisation of the book.

Between Elite- and Mass-Level Approaches to Ethnic Identity and War: Collective Experiences as the Linchpin of Social Reality

In the scholarly work on the causes and consequences of war in the former Yugoslavia , two opposing paradigmatic perspectives are frequently explored. These two perspectives render the case of the former Yugoslavia as exemplary of the wider theoretical debate in which primordialist theories conceive of ethnic identities as an intrinsic motivating force, whereas mobilisation theories emphasise how these identities are strategically manipulated to serve the interests of particular elite groups. This dichotomy is connected to two more general dualities: realist versus constructivist approaches to ethnic identity and bottom-up versus top-down approaches to mass mobilisation. In this section, we suggest that both types of dualities may sometimes hinder our understanding of the dynamics that lead to ethnic violence and its burdensome legacy for community life more than they help it. As a result, we advocate a third perspective that focuses on how ethnic identity comes to function as a structuring principle for collective experience and shared practices.

Realism: Ethnic Identities Are Hard Facts

As Sekulic notes (Chap. 3), primordialist theories are more prominent outside rather than inside academia, which can be read as a statement on either their external influence or their internal weakness. These theories typically emphasise the major role of bottom-up dynamics and collective emotions such as ancient hatred or resentment between different ethnic groups (e.g. amongst Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, or Muslim Bosniaks; Kaplan 1994; Petersen 2002). As Sekulic et al. (2006) have noted, similar ways of thinking are shared by many experts and non-experts who are obsessed with understanding the motives that supposedly lead the masses to engage in furious violence against “ethnic others”. Such approaches not only take for granted the existence and boundaries of ethnic groups, but also appear to assume that an inherent motivational force rooted in the bonds of ancestry makes people almost naturally prepared to endure great sacrifices or to exercise great cruelty for the sake of their ethnic in-groups.

Security dilemma theorists (Kaufman 1996a, b; Posen 1993) do not hold similarly strong assumptions regarding the intrinsic motivational force of ethnicity. Rather, such scholars contend that people’s pursuit of security compels them to care about the position of their respective groups, especially during periods of societal turbulence and fragile national structures. Security dilemmas can begin when a state does not provide security to ethnic groups (whether based on religion, nationality, or language) and the groups then attempt to provide security themselves (Posen 1993). A security dilemma requires that “the fears of extinction be mutual—that actions taken by one side to avert extinction be seen by the other side as threatening extinction for themselves” (Kaufman 1996a, p. 109).

However, there is one important commonality between the primordialist and security dilemma approaches to ethnic violence : both approaches position ethnic affiliations as a fixed background for their analyses. As Kaufmann (1996b, p. 141) states, “Different identity categories imply their own membership rules (…) Ethnic identities are hardest, since they depend on language, culture, and religion, which are hard to change, as well as parentage, which no one can change”. In this sense, both approaches assume a realist perspective regarding ethnicity: ethnic identity is considered a hard fact that is difficult to alter and unnecessary to question.

However, this simple vision of clearly opposed and internally homogenous groups engaged in cycles of violence in which the members of each community strongly identify with the struggle of “their” ethnic group does not account for the much more diverse and less straightforward realities of some conflicts. As highlighted by Broz’s (Voice 1) and Macek’s (Voice 2) contributions to this book, prompt and unproblematic acceptance of ethnic violence may have been the exception rather than the rule amongst ordinary Bosnians when war and genocidal violence erupted in their country (see also Elcheroth and Spini 2011; Gagnon 2004). Moreover, realist approaches to ethnic identity do not inform our understanding how ethnic communities are both activated and actively transformed by collective violence with long-term consequences.

Constructivism : Ethnic Identities Are Arbitrary and Malleable

Contrary to realist approaches to ethnic identity , constructivist approaches view ethnic identities as fluid, changeable, and often actively contested. From such perspectives, most of the emphasis of the analysis is on the strategic aim of collectively framing ethnic membership and boundaries in a given manner than on individual motives to endorse a given ethnic affiliation. Consequently, elite and mass interests are not assumed to converge, nor are the interests of different ethnic groups assumed to be intrinsically divergent; ethnic conflict and violence can serve elite interests beyond ethnic boundaries and can contradict the interests of the masses on all sides. For example, Gagnon (2004) has shown how ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia assisted both Serb and Croat elites in maintaining privilege and power despite the massive political, ideological, and economic crises of the early 1990s, although this violence delayed popular goals of social progress and political reforms. Thus, elite mobilisation theories explain the origins of mass violence by emphasising power structures and top-down processes that extend from influential elites who strive for political power to the manipulated masses. This perspective suggests that leaders such as Milosevic or Tudjman played major roles in the development of nationalist propaganda and political violence in the former Yugoslavia (Hartmann 2002).

However, it is insufficient to consider only elite activities in explaining how ethnic identities are constructed, maintained, reshaped, and effectively mobilised for political purposes during and after political violence (Elcheroth and Spini 2011). We must also consider relevant social practices, including marital choice, residential arrangements, and community solidarity, if we want to understand how average people (as opposed to the most committed individuals) experience “ethnic identity” as a meaningful reality. We must examine complex systems of shared understanding, beliefs, and values (i.e. social representations) to understand how mutual expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies.

In this sense, the prevailing conflation of the “constructivist” and “elite” approaches appears unfortunate. It is equally important to analyse what leads a critical mass of people to lend sufficient credit to these constructions to enable them to effectively influence collective behaviour. Elite mobilisation and mass support are complementary. Identity entrepreneurs must secure support amongst the masses to cement their interpretation of identity, and the masses require leaders who are ready to enact a version of collective identity that resonates with the people’s collective experience and shared understanding of social reality.

Towards a Process Approach : How Do Ethnic Identities Become Real?

All of the different contributions in this book clarify that ethnic identities are not necessarily either hard facts or arbitrary and malleable: strikingly, they can be both. Most of the authors of this book converge in documenting how the significance of ethnic identities changed dramatically during the war period. Sekulic’s chapter (Chap. 3) demonstrates that pre-existent interethnic prejudice or hostility is an implausible explanation for the outbreak of this violence. However, according to this book, across former Yugoslavian post-war communities, ethnic identity does function as a deeply constraining and structuring principle of social reality that cannot easily be dismissed (see Chap. 8 by Bar-Tal and Cehajic-Clancy). Thus, the more relevant question becomes the following: under which circumstances and by which processes can such malleable and arbitrary things as ethnic identities become “hard” social facts—hard to ignore and hard to change?

An interesting facet of security dilemma theory (Kaufmann 1996) is the suggestion that ethnic identity is not primarily a problem of subjective identification. The treatment that a person is likely to receive from others depending on how they view his or her ethnic identity is of significantly more pragmatic importance in the context of violent conflict than the private feelings of this person regarding his or her own identity. In this sense, people’s markers of ethnic identity can become strong predictors of actual behaviour, and ethnicity can become clearly defined. However, unlike in realist approaches to ethnic conflict, we must understand such clarity as a contingent development rather than as a universal given. Frequently, before a given conception of ethnic identity can have real consequences, many people must assume that this identity is already perceived by relevant others and that it will orient their behaviour towards ethnic in-groups and out-groups. Thus, the starting point of this book lies in the aspiration to document and analyse how social representations and social practices are reshaped by collective violence in the context of ethnic or nationalistic discourse. What are the effects of political violence on people’s lives, and what are the effects of collectively experienced victimisation on societal norms, attitudes, and collective beliefs? In this process, we will emphasise that mass violence plays both de-structuring and re-structuring roles in manifold psychosocial processes and in social life within and between communities.

Our combined top-down and bottom-up approach illuminates how most people in the former Yugoslavia had to endure and cope individually and collectively with wartime and with various types of dramatic societal change while also distancing themselves from, resisting and sometimes overcoming the logic of ethnic rivalry, violence, and segregation (see Voice 1 by Macek and Voice 2 by Broz). This approach enables us to depart from the perspectives that depict most people in the former Yugoslavia as either blind followers of ethnic war entrepreneurs or as intrinsically attracted to violence by deep-rooted intraethnic loyalties and interethnic animosities. We argue that the majority of people in any conflict, either individually or collectively, are active agents embedded in collective dynamics that create specific contexts with their own logic and consequences.

Life Courses in Social Contexts: Collective Experience and the Formative Years of Generations

The collapse of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s also generated dramatic societal changes for the former unified federal communist state, which had featured a unique structure that included relatively autonomous political entities (the latter of which became newly independent states). Although the political transition unfolded without bloodshed in some cases, the process sometimes involved mass killings, systematic ethnic cleansing , and actions that eventually resulted in the displacement of 3 million people from their homes (Gagnon 2004). The socialisation of different cohorts or generations in these different political and economic environments heavily influenced the social representation of justice (see Chap. 12 by Fasel and Spini and Chap. 14 by Elcheroth and Spini) and perceptions of other ethnic groups (see Chap. 9 by Corkalo Biruski and Penic and Chap. 11 by Penic, Corkalo Biruski, and Elcheroth). Today, such ethnic communities are most often divided, especially in the cities that were targeted by ethnic cleansing and systematic crimes such as Mostar, Sarajevo, Srebrenica, and Vukovar (see Ajdukovic and Corkalo Biruski 2008; Elcheroth and Spini 2011, and Chap. 7 by Morselli and Passini).

Examining another critical period of history, the great economic depression of the 1930s , Elder (1974/1999) has shown the major influence of collective events (the depression itself as well as enlistment in the army and service during World War II and the Korean war ) on the life trajectories of the youngest cohorts transitioning to adulthood during that period. There is clearly a “before” and an “after” in such circumstances, each of which is marked by changes in the manner in which people live individually or collectively. However, as illustrated by the short quotation from an interview at the beginning of this chapter, different cohorts had different experiences during the social and political changes in the former Yugoslavia . Young adults had to attempt to appropriately position themselves during the conflicts and had no or little ideological or identity-based orientation before the conflicts, when Tito’s socialist regime was in power and peaceful relations were the norm. How did these social and political changes affect the life course of these cohorts?

Life course experiences are related to time and location (Settersten Jr 1999). People from different regions of the former Yugoslavia have had varied experiences depending on where they lived and when. The tragic events have not affected all of the regions of the former Yugoslavia and all of the newly established communities within these regions with the same intensity. Wars, similar to other collective experiences, are marked by events that occur in a given period of time and that individuals encounter at a certain age. Living in 1993 in Ljubljana, a relatively safe and wealthy city, or in Mostar, a city devastated by war and by economic difficulties, meant living in different worlds—and the same is true today. Geography generated different sets of opportunities and constraints for individuals, most notably young adults, on different levels (e.g. in terms of economics, material possessions, security, and freedom; Shanahan 2000).

Such contextual structural constraints have a major influence on life trajectories (see the discussion of marriage choices in Chap. 4 by Le Goff and Giudici and the discussion of migration trajectories in Chap. 5 by Gauthier and Widmer). These constraints also influence attitudes towards important societal issues and affect well-being. Adolescence and young adulthood are critical periods in which social identities crystallise around life decisions that often have long-term consequences (e.g. decisions regarding marriage, insertion in the labour market, and ideology; Erikson 1968; McAdams 1993; Schuman and Scott 1989; Scott 2000). The collective memory of an entire generation is affected when individuals enter adulthood when their nation, community, and family life are threatened or destroyed; when the levels of economic and political insecurity are high; and when their material security and social identity are threatened (Elder 1974/1999; Ellwood 1982). What, then, are the consequences of wartime on the life trajectories, social attitudes, beliefs, and well-being of young adults who need opportunities and plans for the future (Shanahan 2000)? How do these young adults develop the individual and social resources that they need to overcome massive collective violence and economic difficulties? Some regions of the former Yugoslavia such as Macedonia were already experiencing economic difficulties; in such cases, do war events actually generate different life courses and change forms of social representation other than economic exclusion? To what extent are basic assumptions regarding society, other people and communities, or justice shattered by violent collective events?

Once we seriously consider the notion of collective experience as a major explanation for political and moral attitudes, this consideration raises a number of fascinating methodological challenges that have not yet been definitively addressed by social scientists. A major issue is the need to define the boundaries of the specific social context in which a single event is likely to be relevant (i.e. to contribute to the shaping of collective experience for a particular community). For example, if we view national indicators as predictors of political attitudes, then we implicitly assume that in any location within one country: (1) all other events within the same country contribute equally to the shaping of collective experience at that location and (2) all events that occur outside of the country’s boundaries do not contribute at all to this process. In other words, we implicitly assume a dichotomous relationship between social context and collective experience: a given event is located either inside or outside of the relevant context.

Clearly, this assumption is unrealistic for many social phenomena. The circulation of knowledge pertaining to war events does not stop at national boundaries, nor does the circulation of collective beliefs or values. Furthermore, as the case of the former Yugoslavia vividly illustrates, national boundaries are neither static nor necessarily consensual. For these reasons, we have turned our attention to concepts and methods that allow us to identify a continuous rather than a dichotomous relationship between events and social contexts. Rather than wondering whether an event should be considered depending on its location (because it is located within or outside of the relevant context), we ask how much an event should be considered given its location.

In previous applications developed by human geographers (e.g. Fotheringham et al. 2002), location has generally been understood literally as a set of coordinates within a physical space, whereas our approach to collective experience extends the use of spatially weighted context data by considering other types of “locations” that are relevant to the structuring of social reality and by incorporating them into multilevel modelling (see Elcheroth et al. 2013, for a comprehensive introduction to this novel methodological approach). Meters are not the only unit of measurement that can be used to describe the distance between two individuals (or communities). Alternatively, social proximity can be expressed as a function of the relative positions within social networks, within institutional structures, or within “imagined communities”, which are reflexive social entities composed of individuals who share some attributes that are relevant to their identities (for two applications of spatially weighted context data to collective war experiences, see Chap. 11 by Penic, Corkalo Biruski, and Elcheroth and Chap. 14 by Elcheroth and Spini).

TRACES: A Multilevel Survey Used to Identify Individual and Collective Dynamics

The aim of articulating individual and collective dynamics provoked by exposure to war and societal transformation might appear ambitious in some regards. Even those who tend to find this theoretical objective compelling may still be discouraged by the requirements posed by the data collection and analysis for such a project. However, the research that is reported in this book represents a collective effort to overcome some of these data-related limitations in on the study of political violence in the former Yugoslavia and its effects on communities. In 2006, we began to generate a new, unique data set that was intended to open new avenues to social scientists seeking to examine collective experience in the former Yugoslavia: the Transition to Adulthood and Collective Experiences Survey (TRACES) (Spini et al. 2011).

This survey has two main components: first, life event calendar data that were collected from a general sample of people across all of the former Yugoslavia and, second, extensive data on the political attitudes and social worldviews of the members of the 1968–1974 birth cohort, who entered adulthood during the recent war period. Most of the empirical chapters in this book present analyses of this survey, which was conducted within an interdisciplinary network that was primarily composed of social psychologists, sociologists, and social demographers.

Traces of Wars

To address our primary question, we implemented a large-scale survey between May and June 2006 and conducted complementary interviews in Kosovo and Serbia in December 2006 (for a detailed description, see Spini et al. 2011). This data collection process yielded responses from two samples: the general adult and cohort samplesFootnote 2. The general adult sample is composed of individuals who were randomly selected from across the entire former Yugoslavia and were born in 1981 or earlier. The members of this sample completed a questionnaire that included biographical questions and two life course calendars: one calendar covering the period from 1990 (before the beginning of the wars) to 2006 (the year of data collection) and one calendar covering each person’s transition to adulthood (the period from 15 to 30 years of age). The two calendars covered different types of events. The first calendar contained events related to war , political, or economic victimisation (e.g. being wounded; experiencing property damage; carrying or using a weapon; being homeless, unemployed, or discriminated against). The other calendar included markers of the transition to adulthood (e.g. education, labour market participation, relationships, and parenthood). Each person’s residential trajectory was also recorded in both calendars. The cohort sample included was only the 1968–1974 cohorts because this selection enabled us to obtain more information on the individuals who had transitioned to adulthood during the 1990s. In most cases, this second sample (which was largely nested within the general sample) completed the same initial questionnaire as the general sample as well as an additional questionnaire that included attitudinal questions and various standardised instruments.

Both samples were generated using a random sampling strategy stratified in 80 areas covering the entire former Yugoslavian territory. These areas were defined according to state boundaries, regional or historical subdivisions within state boundaries, and the boundaries of different political entities (i.e. the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina/ Republika Srpska; Serbia Proper/Montenegro/Vojvodina/Kosovo ). The numbers of inhabitants in particular areas were also considered to ensure that they did not vary dramatically, especially within one political entity; such variation was allowed only in the six urban areas whose population was more numerous. For the general sample, 50 individual respondents were selected from each of the 80 areas (which yielded an expected total sample of 4,000); for the cohort sample, 30 respondents were selected for each area (for an expected total sample of 2,400). Table 1.1 provides the final net sample size for each TRACES field team (corresponding to the political entities of the former Yugoslavia that we have considered as the basis for our study and divided into smaller areas). The total size of the general sample is 3,795, and the cohort sample includes 2,254 individuals. The two samples partially overlap, with 625 individual respondents included in both samples, because 15.7 % of the members of the general sample were born between 1968 and 1974 and were also willing to complete the longer version of the survey questionnaire.

Table 1.1 Population size, number of survey areas and net sample sizes by field team in 2006
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Collective Victimisation Across Areas

The wars in the former Yugoslavia varied in intensity in different zones. If Bosnia-Herzegovina , Croatia, and Kosovo (labelled as Serbia in Table 1.2, although the collective experiences of these territories must be distinguished from one another; see Appendix 1; Table 1.4) have been heavily influenced by these armed conflicts, then Macedonia and Slovenia have been spared by comparison (see Table 1.2). The case of Serbia, which has actively participated in the conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina , Croatia and Kosovo, which NATO bombed and which has hosted many refugees, is somewhat distinct. Macedonia was one of the poorest regions in the former Yugoslavia , whereas Croatia and Slovenia were the wealthiest, as indicated by the human development index (HDI) worldwide rankings (see Table 1.2); in fact, Slovenia was amongst the wealthiest nations in the world, Croatia occupied a more moderate position in the rankings, and the ranks of the other countries were between 65th and 76th.

Table 1.2 Comparative situation of the countries on socioeconomic, conflict and insecurity-induced movement, and war indicators (2006/2007)
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The two following figures display the war and socio-economic victimisation indicators that were computed using the TRACES general sample (see Appendix 2 for a description of how these indicators and their weights were calculated and how the maps were generated). Figure 1.1 displays the risk of war victimisation weighted by geographical proximity, which was determined by following a procedure described by Elcheroth et al. (2013). A darker colour indicates a greater number of victims of war. The risk of war victimisation appears to be significantly greater near war zones. For example, the human consequences of the Kosovo war were largely limited to the borders of Kosovo. A different situation is apparent for the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina , in which the risk of victimisation appears to have extended from the centre to all of the surrounding areas, even crossing national borders.

Fig. 1.1
figure 1

Indicator of risk of war traumatisation weighted by geographical proximity across 80 areas

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The map depicting the risk of social and economic deprivation (e.g. homelessness, unemployment), similarly weighted by geographical distance (Fig. 1.2), shows a lower effect of the localisation of war events. This result confirms the disparities between the northern and western parts of the former Yugoslavia and its southern and eastern regions. The level of risk was lowest in the northern part of the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia) and increased closer to the south, with the maximum level in FYR Macedonia and some higher levels in zones affected by war.

Fig. 1.2
figure 2

Indicator of risk of social and economic deprivation weighted by geographical proximity across 80 areas

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As shown in Elcheroth and Spini’s contribution to this book (Chap. 14), this picture changes greatly when subjective indicators of proximity (e.g. identification) or geographical distances are used as weights.

Experiences of Victimisation by Cohorts

As previously stated, one means of examining the influence of collective events on the young adults who experienced the collapse of the former Yugoslavia involves comparing this specific cohort to others (Chap. 4 by Le Goff and Giudici and Chap. 5 by Gauthier and Widmer). In Table 1.3, we report the frequency of war victimisation for four cohorts defined a priori by their birth years: 1918–1950, 1951–1967, 1968–1974, and 1975–1981.

Table 1.3 Design-weighted war victimisation indicators by cohorts
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Table 1.3 presents the design-weighted cumulative indices of victimisation experiences that were collected from the life calendars covering the period from 1990 to 2006. These indicators were calculated based on the entire database, which includes the cohort and the general sample. Different types of war victimisation have been reported, in addition to social and political exclusion as well as participation in combat. War victimisation includes six war-related events: being forced to leave one’s home, being imprisoned, having a member of one’s family killed, being wounded, having one’s property damaged, and having one’s house looted. The negative event index includes eight experiences: a lack of resources, homelessness, unemployment, a lack of significant relationships, being treated as unimportant, being discriminated against, not being allowed to express one’s opinions, and being threatened. The two indicators for combat are carrying a weapon and using a weapon.

The results generally confirm that the 1968–1974 cohorts were particularly victimised during the war years, as they have the highest means for the three reported indicators. The 1968–1974 cohorts were victimised the most, more so than the older generations. Only the youngest cohorts exhibit similar levels of war victimisation . The index for social and political exclusion indicates even more dramatically that the 1968–1974 cohort experienced extreme difficulties, as these participants exhibit the highest level of social and political exclusion, especially compared with the results for the older (1918–1950) cohorts. The younger cohorts and the 1951–1967 cohorts exhibit intermediate levels of social and political exclusion. Finally, young adults and middle-aged adults were often combatants; only the youngest and oldest cohorts were less likely to have served as soldiers. In the violence in the former Yugoslavia, as in most conflicts, men (m = 0.44) participated in combat much more than women (m = 0.04; t (2167.21) = 20.39; p < 0.001). In other words, 97.8 % of women and 74.8 % of men did not carry or use weapons. There is also substantial variation across regions, with the males in Slovenia being the least engaged in combat (9.4 %) and those in Bosnia and Herzegovina the most likely to have been soldiers (45.1 %). Overall, these results validate a posteriori our focus on the 1968–1974 cohort as a group that was particularly targeted during the wars.

Organisation and Content of the Book

To address the different issues raised in this introduction, the next chapter presents an historical overview of the period of interest. In this chapter, Tvrtko Jakovina describes the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, a story that has previously been related by different analysts (Gagnon 2004; Hartmann 2002; Ramet 1999; Wilmer 2002). However, Tvrtko Jakovina succeeds in providing a fresh outlook by presenting an inside perspective on this period. His access to the personal archives of Josip Vrhovec, Budimir Loncar, and Milka Planinc and his interviews with the latter two individuals provide essential insight. Jakovina’s account will certainly assist readers in understanding the political context that led to the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia .

The remainder of this book is organised in two main parts. In the first part, after an illuminating chapter by Dusko Sekulic on how the contact hypothesis should be reinterpreted in view of the former Yugoslavia case and the available survey data (Chap. 3), three chapters that present findings from the TRACES survey are devoted to social practices and their relationship to collective violence. These social practices are migration (Chap. 5 by Gauthier and Widmer), the transition to marriage (Chap. 4 by Le Goff and Giudici), and contact and interactions between ethnic groups (Chap. 7 by Morselli and Passini).

The second part begins with an introductory theoretical chapter by Daniel Bar-Tal and Sabina Cehajic-Clancy on the theoretical frameworks for understanding collective victimisation and the paths to social reconstruction (Chap. 8). In this second part, the findings focus on the effects of collective victimisation on social representation, including beliefs regarding collective guilt (Chap. 9 by Corkalo Biruski and Penic), out-group blame and the logic of mobilisation (Chap. 11 by Penic, Corkalo Biruski, and Elcheroth), well-being and beliefs regarding justice in the world (Chap. 12 by Fasel and Spini), and public reactions to human rights violations (Chap. 14 by Elcheroth and Spini).

Moreover, three inserts give voice to three privileged observers who provide new insight into the primary focus of this text based on their first-hand experience with different types of struggles: the moral struggle to resist the logic of ethnic violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Voice 1, by Broz), the daily struggle for survival during the siege of Sarajevo (Voice 2, by Macek), and the political struggle over the prosecution of crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (Voice 3, by Hartmann). These insider perspectives extend the theoretical and empirical chapters based on TRACES data and help to validate the main arguments and orientation of this book. The concluding chapter by Elcheroth, Corkalo Biruski, and Spini summarises the main lessons learnt from the different contributions and discusses implications for our understanding of violent ethnicisation and for future studies of collective trauma in the social sciences.