Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to present and evaluate three alternative hypotheses to one such puzzling political incident in the Balkans. Two former Yugoslav republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, with very similar linguistic, political, economic, religious and cultural backgrounds had considerably different experiences throughout the 1990s as war erupted in Bosnia-Herzegovina but not in Macedonia.
A series of bloody conflicts characterized the Yugoslavian experience of the 1990s. First, the Serb-dominated Yugoslavian National Army poured briefly into Slovenia, then into Croatia and finally into Bosnia-Herzegovina and was met with significant resistance in the latter two cases. Several years later, the same army started a campaign against the Albanian minority in the autonomous region of Kosovo in Southern Serbia and brought on itself the wrath of NATO in 1999. This conflict marginally spilled over into Macedonia, bordering Kosovo to the South in 1999 and again in 2001 to top a decade of stormy relations in former Yugoslavia.
The first hypothesis claims that the distribution of political entitlements to minority groups is a major factor for the mobilization along ethnic, religious and other cultural lines. The second hypothesis is an economic one in which conflict is explained as a function of the malperformance of the economy. The third and most in-depth inquiry is in the “Across the Border” hypothesis which examines the conditions which vary from case to case, to find the sufficient condition for the escalation of conflict to a high level that leads to war. This hypothesis looks at the interplay of two external political factors and one geopolitical factor. The three intervening variables are the intervention of the country where the majority of the population belongs to the same ethnicity as the minority that revolts in the troubled state; the intervention of international forces; and the adjacency of the minority to the country where that same ethnic group is a majority.
It is puzzling why peoples that have very similar linguistic, religious, cultural and even political and economic heritage would dramatically split along certain social cleavages that would ultimately lead to war in one location and not in a neighbouring one. Why did Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina erupt in ethnic violence while Macedonia and particularly Slovenia remained almost entirely untouched by such conflict? Admittedly, Macedonia experienced ethnic turmoil after 1999, as the Albanian minority mobilized in response to Serbian action in the region of Kosovo, neighbouring Macedonia. Still, the point remains that there was no war in Macedonia and even though tensions have not been completely quelled, the atmosphere is peaceful at present. Macedonia is now on track to future EU accession.
Why did war not erupt in different parts of what used to be the same country? The importance of this question is substantial because it demands an explanation to an issue involving almost identical inputs, which produce dramatically different outcomes with the end result being war and the lack thereof. This, in turn, will have both regional and universal implications in explaining conflict. The potential normative and policy effects of being able to recognize the degree of the interplay of international, communitarian and nationalistic forces are significant.