Transcript One view of the war - University of California, San Diego

One view of the war . . .
• “It’s really a tragic problem . . . The hatred
between all three groups – the Bosnians, the
Serbs, and the Croations – is almost
unbelievable. It’s almost terrifying, and it’s
centuries old. That really is a problem from
hell.”
- Warren Christopher, Secretary of State under
President Clinton
Geography and Demographics
• 6 republics: Slovenia,
Croatia, BosniaHerzegovinia, Serbia,
Montenegro,
Macedonia
• 2 autonomous regions
in Serbia: Vojvodina and
Kosovo
Geography and Demographics
• Many ethnic groups: Serbs, Croats, Slovenes,
etc.
• Serbs largest in country, but not majority
• Complications: boundaries of ethnic groups
not the same as boundaries of republics!
Geography and Demographics
Geography and Demographics
Ancient History
• Prior to WWI: Area dominated by AustroHungarian (in NW) and Ottoman (in SE)
Empires.
• No history of fighting, groups not enemies.
• At times, groups cooperated to oppose foreign
occupying powers.
First Yugoslav State
• Formed at the end of WWI.
• Marriage of convenience, entered into
willingly by all parties.
First Yugoslav State
• BIG challenges:
– Economic
– Political: what would this new state look like?
• Serbs: wanted strong, centralized state to protect Serb
minority populations in other regions.
• Others: wanted decentralized state to protect against
Serb domination.
First Yugoslav State
• Solution: a strong, centralized state
– Serb preferences won out (this time).
– Other groups not happy, but try to work together
to iron out problems.
WWII
• Hitler invades Yugoslavia in 1941
– Installs puppet regimes in Serbia and Croatia.
• Croat state (Ustasha): cleanse Croatia of Serbs.
• Serb paramilitaries (Chetniks) organize and fight
Ustasha.
– Horrific fighting, bitter memories. Irony: Ustasha
not popularly chosen.
WWII
• Tito and the Partisans
– Communists.
– Integrating force.
– Fought with Allies
– Fought civil war against Ustasha and Chetniks
– Won, took power at close of WWII
Tito’s Yugoslavia
• Inherited a tough situation:
– Economic devastation
– Bitter memories of civil war
– Demographic snake pit: what to do about Serbia?
Tito’s Yugoslavia
• Use the CP as an integrating force.
• Promote ideology of growth and development.
• Stomp out nationalism.
• Not a democracy. Dissent and opposition not
tolerated. CP only game in town.
• Rely on personal popularity and charisma.
Tito’s Yugoslavia
• Give republics autonomy over own affairs,
veto power over central decisions.
• Make Vojvodina and Kosovo autonomous
regions, give them veto power also.
• Consociationalism: keep the power of the
largest group (Serbs) in check.
Tito’s Yugoslavia
• Happy Days:
– Country experienced economic growth into the
1970s.
– Peace!
• But: costs of stifling alternative political
voices, vacuum when Tito died.
Post-Tito
• 1980s: Economic slowdown, population
distressed, unhappy.
• CP bureaucrats paralyzed by crisis:
– What was good for one region was bad for
another.
– Regions used veto in Federal Presidency to block
any policy that hurt them.
– Stalemate!
Post Tito
• Political crisis also:
– Serbian leaders unhappy about status of Kosovo
and Vojvodina.
– Tried to address problem legally, but were blocked
by veto power of other republics.
– Deadlock!
Moves by Serbia
• Serb politicians look for way around the
deadlock: appeal to Serb grievances in Kosovo.
– Kosovo: historical significance to Serbs.
– Serbs a minority in Kosovo (largely for economic
reasons), felt discriminated against.
– Politicians: Serbs are being run out of their
homeland! (exaggerated claim, but effective).
Moves by Serbia
• Enter Slobodan Milosevic
– 1988: President of Serbia, Ivan Stambolic, sends
Milosevic to Kosovo to hear out the complaints of
the Kosovo Serbs
– Was supposed to stick to CP anti-nationalist line.
Moves by Serbia
• Instead, took the side of
the nationalists.
• Famous words,
addressing crowd:
“You will not be beaten
again.”
Moves by Serbia
• “Rallies for Truth”
– Orchestrated by politicians
– Demanded end of autonomy of Vijvodina and
Kosovo
– Dramatized situation of Serbs in Kosovo
• Non-Serb leaders continue to refuse to
negotiate with Milosevic.
Moves by Serbia
• Milosevic topples leaders in Vojvodina,
Kosovo, and Montenegro, installs men loyal to
him.
• Radical effect on balance of power in
Yugoslavia: Milosevic now controls 4 out of 8
votes in the Federal Presidency.
Response of Slovenia and Croatia
• Leaders of Slovenia and Croatia very nervous,
set about trying to weaken the federal
authority of Yugoslav state.
• Slovenia:
– Backed Albanian resistance in Kosovo
– Refused to allow rally for truth
– Pulled out of Yugoslav CP
Response of Slovenia and Croatia
• Croatia:
– At first: try to broker compromise, preserve
Yugoslavia
– Strategy changed abruptly with election of Franjo
Tudjman in May 1990.
Response of Slovenia and Croatia
• Tudjman and cronies:
provocative nationalists.
– Checkerboard flag.
– Serbs: secondary
minority status.
– Talked big about taking
Croatia out of
Yugoslavia.
Escalation
• Serb minority in Croatia: scared. Fears played
up by Serb politicians.
• Summer 1990: Serbs in Krajina (area of
Croatia) armed themselves and declared selfrule.
• Tudjman: formed own paramilitaries
Escalation
• June 1991: Slovenia and Croatia declare
independence.
• Serbia lets Slovenia go without fight.
Escalation
• Not so Croatia. Serbia, plus Yugoslav National
Army (JNA), fight to keep it in.
• Large-scale war erupts in Croatia. Fighting
spread from there to Bosnia.
Implications for Ethnicity Theories
• Contrary to expectations of Primordialism, war in
Yugoslavia not the result of ancient hatreds. Peace,
not conflict, was norm.
• And yet, the population responded quickly to the
provocations of politicians. Hard for instrumentalism
to explain why.
• Also difficult for instrumentalism: the brutality and
emotion of the fighting.
Implications for Conflict Theories
• Yes, grievances existed. However, they were
nothing new. Why did they suddenly flower
into conflict? Societal explanations important,
but insufficient.
Implications for Conflict Theories
• Politicians played a critical role: whipped up
emotions, initiated conflict.
• At national level, change in political leadership
important: Tito suppressed nationalism, his
successors encouraged it.
Implications for Conflict Theories
• But also key: the weakness of the Yugoslav
state after Tito.
– Communist Party: unable to cope with challenges.
– Veto power of republics => deadlock.
– State unable to contain nationalist politicians,
gave them critical window of opportunity.
For the rest of the course…
• How do we explain democratic stability? Why
is democracy the “only game in town” in some
countries but not others?
• Different answers:
– Level of economic development
– Culture
– Institutions
And culture is?
• Political culture = the set of attitudes, beliefs,
and norms held by a population toward
politics.
And culture is?
• Attitudes = dispositions towards politics
(political leaders, events, institutions,
governments, policies, etc.).
– Examples: support for the government, tolerance
for opposing view points, trust in political
institutions, feelings of political efficacy and so on.
And culture is?
• Beliefs: cognitive ideas about cause and effect.
– Example: the “domino theory” in the 1950s.
And culture is?
• Norms: evaluative ideas about the world,
judgments about good and bad.
– Example: “Democracy is good.”
Liberalism
• Liberalism arose in Western Europe response to
feudalism, which was very hierarchical and involved
very little social mobility.
• Feudalism = individuals at the mercy of the social
hierarchy.
• Liberalism = individuals over social hierarchy.
Liberalism’s Key Norms
• The protection of individual rights from powerful groups and
governments.
• Competition and disagreement versus harmony and
consensus.
• Tolerance of dissent rather than unanimity.
• Egalitarianism over hierarchy.
• Society should have a separate, protected realm from the
state.
Liberalism and democracy
• Historically, liberalism was a precedent to
democracy in Western Europe and the US.
• This has lead some to see liberalism as a
necessary condition for democracy.
Liberalism and democracy
• Why?
• Norms like egalitarianism and tolerance of
dissent may improve the quality of
competition.
• Emphasis on individual rights may make
majority rule less frightening for minorities.
Huntington’s cultural argument
• Samuel Huntington: liberal norms are
associated with some religions (Protestantism)
but not others (Catholicism, Confucianism,
Islam).
• No democracy where these “non-liberal”
religions are found.
Huntington’s cultural argument
• Catholicism: hierarchical, emphasizes a single,
collective good. Values harmony and consensus.
• Confucianism: authority, hierarchy, responsibility,
harmony. Sees conflict as dangerous. Merges state
and society.
• Islam: rejects separation of religion and state.
Huntington’s cultural argument: problems
• Religions and cultures are dynamic, not static.
• All religions have aspects that conform with liberal
norms and others that contradict them.
• Consensus building may be as important to
democracy as competition.
• And the empirical record is bad!
Liberalism and Democracy
• Do we throw the baby out with the
bathwater?
• Even if we do not buy Huntington, perhaps
specific liberal norms – eg. tolerance – nonethe-less matter for democratic consolidation?
Political Tolerance in Great Britain, the United States, Russia, and South Africa
Great Britain
United
States
Russia
South Africa
Enemy should
be allowed to
hold a public
rally
34
33
6
15
Enemy should
be allowed to
make a public
speech
51
50
10
25
Liberalism and Democracy
• But what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Democracy or liberalism, liberalism or
democracy? Can living in a healthy democracy
teach people to be liberal?
• More generally: correlation is not the same as
causation! Just because x and y are often
found together, doesn’t mean x causes y.
Maybe y causes x?
The Civic Culture: Almond &Verba
• Two components:
– A participatory attitude toward politics.
Individuals value participation and become
involved in their communities (not just their own
narrow self interest). Communities therefore have
a rich associational life.
– Trust in other people and a willingness to
cooperate.
The Civic Culture: Almond &Verba
• In contrast to “Amoral Familism.”
– All loyalty and trust is centered in the family.
– People are not public-spirited: they don’t participate in
community life, are not informed about politics, etc.
– No trust of “outsiders,” no willingness to cooperate.
– Maximize material, short-run advantage of family.
– Communities lack much associational life.
The Civic Culture: Almond &Verba
• Hypothesis:
– Civic Culture => Stable Democracy
– Amoral Familism => Unstable Democracy
The Civic Culture: Almond &Verba
• Test:
– Measure civic culture in 5 countries that vary in
their level of democratic stability
– Prediction: Civic culture high in US and GB, low in
Mexico and Italy, moderate in Germany.
• Results: hypothesis confirmed!
• Conclusion: culture => democratic stability
The Civic Culture: Almond &Verba
• BUT: Couldn’t the relationship run the other way?
Perhaps high levels of civic culture are an effect of
stable institutions, not their cause!
• AND: Perhaps both cultural values and democratic
stability are caused by something else, namely,
economic development?
• In general: correlation is not the same as causation!!!
The Civic Culture revisited: Putnam’s
Making Democracy Work
• Why does democracy work well in some
places but not others?
• The Italian experiment: 15 identical regional
governments situated in different economic
and cultural contexts. Would they perform
differently? If so, why?
The Civic Culture revisited: Putnam’s
Making Democracy Work
• In fact: performance has been quite varied.
Government in the north = good; government
in the south = not so good.
• The institutions are the same but their
performance varies. WHY?
Explanations for the difference between
the North and the South?
• Explanation One: Economic development. The
North is rich, the South is poor.
• Explanation Two: Culture. Civic culture is high
in the North, low in the South.
• So which is it? And what causes what?
Explanations for the difference between
the North and the South?
• Putnam: Culture.
• Why? Because the cultural differences
observed in Northern Italy emerged first,
before the economic differences, and long
before the political ones.
The historical argument . . .
• Medieval Italy: a time of great violence and
anarchy. Insecurity was a constant fact of life.
– In the South: the solution was to strengthen the
power of the king, who could then secure the
area. Cost: community autonomy.
– In the North: the solution was self-governance
and mutual aid and defense.
The historical argument . . .
• These different solutions had a long-lasting impact
on the cultural traditions of the areas. A rich
associational life flourished in the North, atrophied in
the South.
• Furthermore, these cultural traditions emerged well
before economic differences became entrenched.
• Thus, culture preceded politics and economics.
Okay, so why?
• Rich associational life (“social capital”) =>
Solves collective action problems.
– Rich associational life means people interact
repeatedly with one another, which helps them
identify and punish free-riders.
– Rich associational life also promotes “norms of
reciprocity.”
Questions and Problems
• Cooperation might be good or bad for
democracy.
• Not all associational life is created equal.
Associational life has a dark side too.
• Trust may not be all it’s cracked up to be.
Liberalism: good government is founded on
distrust!