Dinka Čorkalo Biruški

Caught between the ethnic sides: Children growing up in a divided post-war community:

The war-related process of disintegration of a highly integrated and multi-ethnic community is described using a series of studies done in the city of Vukovar (Croatia) as a case example. After analyzing the key points of the community social breakdown , the three roots of ongoing ethnic division are explored: the feelings of being betrayed by important others at life-important situations; massive suffering and traumatization; and lack of compassion and acknowledgment of the victimhood. These also influence the inner dynamic of the divided community in which the strong social norm is not to cross the ethnic lines in public. When the schools became divided after the war so that the Serb and Croat children started going to separate schools, opportunity to meet each other across the ethnic lines became and remained severely limited. The implications for children that grow up in an ethnically divided community are documented in a study of childrens and parental inter-ethnic attitudes and behaviors. The study included 1,671 students aged 12 to 16 and their parents. It showed that the children had more out-group biases and negative attitudes, and were more likely to choose discriminative behaviors towards their peers from the ether ethnic group. Consequences for the future community inter-ethnic relations in the post-war societies and life limitations the children face are discussed.

When the world collapses : Changed worldview and social reconstruction in a traumatized community

Background Traumatic experience can affect the individuals basic beliefs about the world as a predictable and safe place. One of the cornerstones in recovery from trauma is reestablishment of safety, connectedness, and the shattered schema of a worldview. Objective This study explored the role of negatively changed worldview in the relationship between war-related traumatization and readiness for social reconstruction of intergroup relations in a post-conflict community measured by three processes: intergroup rapprochement, rebuilding trust, and need for apology. It was hypothesized that more traumatized people are less supportive of social reconstruction and that this relationship is mediated by the changed worldview. Method The study included a community random sample of 333 adults in the city of Vukovar, Croatia, that was most devastated during the 1991–1995 war. Six instruments were administered: Stressful Events Scale, Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Changed Worldview Scale, and three scales measuring the post-conflict social reconstruction processes: Intergroup Rapprochement, Intergroup Trust and Need for Apology. Results Mediation analyses showed that the worldview change fully mediated between traumatization and all three aspects of social reconstruction. Conclusions In a population exposed to war traumatization the worldview change mediates post-conflict social recovery of community relations.

Lessons Learned from the Former Yugoslavia: The Case of Croatia

Corkalo Biruski presents a socio-psychological model to explain the destruction of interethnic harmony in Croatia through analysis of the community of Vukovar. Research surveys in this city are analyzed to create a picture of prewar and postwar interethnic relations. Theories are applied to the processes of change and offered as a means to reestablish a cohesive society.

Traumatised Selves: Does War Trauma Facilitate In-Group Bonding and Out-Group Distancing?

This chapter discusses the role of communities in attributions of responsibility for the traumatising experience of war. A major challenge for post-war reconstruction is posed by the assignment of collective guilt to entire ethnic groups. The study presented in this chapter explores the level of traumatisation in two groups that were recently in conflict – the Croats and Serbs - their perception of collective guilt and their present inter-group relationships. On the basis of the existing literature, the authors expected to find a positive link between the level of traumatisation on the one hand and social distance towards the out group or nationalism on the other hand. The authors then wonder to what extent this relation is mediated by group-oriented processes, such as identification with one’s own ethnic group and group-based emotion of collective guilt assignment. Their findings show that the relationship is not as straightforward as one might have expected. War trauma appears to instigate a complex pattern of inter-group attitudes and emotions ; whereas it is directly related to negative out-group attitudes, trauma also influences the interpretation about the other group being responsible as a whole for the personal and collective hurt. Although there are somewhat different patterns of strength of selected mediators in Croatian and Serbian samples, findings about the importance of one specific group-based emotion - collective guilt assignment - is fairly firm and well grounded. The results show that this emotional response, either partially or completely, mediates the association between war-related traumatic experiences and (negative) out-group attitudes. Therefore, these results could have important implications for future intergroup relations of the antagonised groups and for the processes of social reconstruction.

Threatened powers : When blaming "the Others" grows out of internal instability and protest

Once we have established that social and psychological functions of collective out group blame vary across contexts, it becomes important to explain the role of contextual factors more precisely. Two central questions are further investigated in this chapter: Under what circumstances are people prone to resent other groups for past wrongdoings? How is out-group blame related to in-group protest? In both cases, the authors propose an argument that completes or qualifies traditional perspectives on intergroup relations and social conflict. These tend to stress the importance of past victimisation. As a complement to this work, the authors show here that adverse societal circumstances can lay the ground for public mobilisation against out groups, even when these conditions are not a direct consequence of past victimisation caused by external enemies. In the first part of the chapter, the authors focus on the context of the new Croatian nation-state. Levels of social and economic deprivation in Croatia range from relatively low to moderate and are largely connected to direct consequences of ethnicised war. Findings show how these structural particularities have created an opportunity to demobilise system critical opposition: higher levels of social and economic deprivation here lead to stronger out-group blame but not to increased internal protest. Lower levels of popularity of the main left-oriented oppositional party in the most deprived areas partially account for this pattern. In the second part of the chapter, analyses are presented that show that, contrary to findings for Croatia, at a larger scale, internal protest is highest within those regions of the whole former Yugoslavia that have endured the highest level of social and economic deprivation. Furthermore, the highest levels of assignment of collective guilt to other groups can similarly be found in the most deprived regions. Furthermore, the individual-level relationship between internal protest and out-group blame varies significantly between contexts: with increasing rates of social and economic deprivation, these two dimensions of political attitudes become increasingly unrelated. These findings provide an illustration of the way in which societal circumstances of system threat can provide both an opportunity to mobilise the public towards domestic reforms and an impetus for elites to mobilise out-group blame.

Parallel Worlds of Divided Community: Time Does Not Make Much Difference

Violent conflict can drive a wedge between individuals and ethnic groups that once used to be highly integrated, leaving the community divided in the post-conflict era. The members of two groups stay apart for a long time if there are no systemic efforts to repair social ties that make a community stable and functional. Schooling system has such a potential. After the 1991–1995 war, Croat and Serb children in the city of Vukovar in Croatia, started to go to separate schools. Language of teaching became the major line of division and the ground for perusing demands for minority education, making the issue of schooling highly controversial for those who advocate school integration and those who oppose it. We measured attitudes towards school integration and interethnic attitudes, contacts and discriminatory tendencies of Croat and Serb children in elementary and high schools in 2001 (N = 718) and in 2008 (N = 703). We demonstrated that without purposeful efforts that can bring the two groups closer, their polarized interethnic attitudes and behavioral intentions towards the outgroup stay basically unchanged over time, even when controlled for children’s age and gender. Implications for further post-conflict interethnic community relations are discussed with emphasis on the role a school may have in this process.

Prejudice toward National Minorities: Exploring the Role of Different Forms of National Attachment

The aim of this study was to explore relative contribution of several dispositional (right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation) identity (national identity, nationalism and cosmopolitism) and situational antecedents (perception of intergroup threat) of subtle and blatant ethnic prejudice, along with multigroup moderation effect of national identity. The participants were 582 undergraduate students of University of Zagreb. Research has shown that high and low national identifiers significantly differ in all measures, except on orientation on social domination. Path analysis of composite results on latent variable has proven significant role of symbolic intergroup threat and dispositional factors in prediction of prejudice toward national minorities, whereas national attachment and national identity strength did not have strong impact on prediction. Implications of these results, namely limited possibilities for predicting subtle prejudice with this set of predictors, will be thoroughly discussed in this paper.

Complexity of Risk: Mixed-Methods Approach to Understanding Youth Risk and Insecurity in Postconflict Settings

In settings of intergroup conflict, identifying contextually relevant risk factors for youth development is an important task. In Vukovar, Croatia, a city devastated during the war in former Yugoslavia, ethno-political tensions remain. The current study utilized a mixed-methods approach to identify two salient community-level risk factors (ethnic tension and general antisocial behavior) and related emotional insecurity responses (ethnic and nonethnic insecurity) among youth in Vukovar. In Study 1, focus group discussions (N = 66) with mothers, fathers, and adolescents of age 11 to 15 years old were analyzed using the constant comparative method, revealing two types of risk and insecurity responses. In Study 2, youth (N = 227, 58% male, M = 15.88, SD = 1.12 years) responded to quantitative scales developed from the focus groups, discriminate validity was demonstrated, and path analyses established predictive validity between each type of risk and insecurity. First, community ethnic tension (i.e., threats related to war/ethnic identity) significantly predicted ethnic insecurity for all youth (β = .41, p < .001). Second, experience with community antisocial behavior (i.e., general crime found in any context) predicted nonethnic community insecurity for girls (β = .32, p < .05) but not for boys. These findings are the first to show multiple forms of emotional insecurity at the community level; implications for future research are discussed.

Determinants of post-conflict trust: the role of ethnic identity, personal and collective victimization and intergroup emotions

Intergroup conflict is the strongest form of in-group identity threat that violates intergroup trust intensely and with long-term consequences. This is especially true if the conflict happens within a community where currently antagonized sides lived peacefully and harmoniously before the conflict. In such circumstances, intergroup conflict is an ultimate form of violation of trust. In this chapter, we discuss determinants of post-conflict trust, by using empirical data collected in the war-torn community of the city of Vukovar, Croatia. We analyzed how the war experiences of two major ethnic communities—Croats and Serbs—have shaped their post-conflict interethnic trust. We hypothesized that individual and collective trauma would be important predictors of the post-conflict intergroup (dis)trust, together with the strength of ethnic identity around which formerly antagonized groups continue to build their social living. Furthermore, we also assumed that specific emotional responses toward an out-group, both positive and negative, would additionally contribute in explaining post-conflict intergroup trust. Our results showed that intergroup emotions were the most important predictors of trust. In discussing the findings, we acknowledge how differences in war experiences of the two groups have determined their post-conflict trust and we address the possibilities for improving the intergroup relations.

Conclusion-War and Community: What Have We Learned About Their Relationship?

The last chapter summarises the empirical findings and theoretical accounts provided in the book by making a statement that the former Yugoslavia experiences have clearly shown an illuminating pattern of societal destabilisation, destruction and restoration; while the old political structures were decomposed fairly rapidly and new ones were established with the same speed, the communal and community life of people went through a long period of disbelief and despair, caused by massive violence, ethnic cleansing and unimaginable atrocities committed very often by a neighbour or a schoolfellow. Moreover, the suffering of many individuals and communities are still vivid and salient even 20 years after the war, witnessing not only immediate but also hard and long-lasting consequences of war violence on people’s everyday life. These consequences are most notable in the slow and painful processes of social recovery of once highly integrated communities. Many empirical findings in the book show that former everyday practices of interethnic contacts, friendships and mixed marriages have been profoundly changed and replaced by external identity labels as ultimate elements of social exchange. Indeed, most empirical findings in the book speak loudly against the widespread notion about ethnic intolerance and even hatred as a cause of the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Rather we would argue that it was not ethnicity by itself but the politically instigated processes of ethnicisation that sowed the seed of social distancing, violence and post-war distrust. The FY examples teach us how fragile communal ties can be when faced with belligerent politics and that past communal experiences, although highly affected by the war, could also provide a solid ground for feasible social reconstruction.