1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910457158803321

Autore

Pickering Paula M (Paula May), <1966->

Titolo

Peacebuilding in the Balkans [[electronic resource] ] : the view from the ground floor / / Paula M. Pickering

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca [N.Y.], : Cornell University Press, 2007

ISBN

0-8014-6346-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (252 p.)

Disciplina

949.703

Soggetti

Peace-building - Bosnia and Hercegovina

Return migration - Bosnia and Hercegovina

Bosnians - Ethnic identity

Yugoslav War, 1991-1995 - Refugees - Bosnia and Hercegovina

Electronic books.

Bosnia and Hercegovina Politics and government 1992-

Bosnia and Hercegovina Ethnic relations

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Errata sheet inserted.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: The view from below -- Below the surface -- Self-understandings versus power -- The dilemma of migration -- Sites for building bridges -- The plague of politics -- Implications for Eurasia.

Sommario/riassunto

After suffering years of war, Bosnia is now the target of international efforts to reconstruct and democratize a culturally divided society. The global community's strategy has focused on reforming political institutions, influencing the behavior of elite populations, and cultivating nongovernmental organizations. But expensive efforts to promote a stable peace and a multiethnic democracy can be successful only if they resonate among ordinary people. Otherwise, such projects will produce fragile institutions and alienated citizens who will be susceptible to extremists eager to send them back into war. Paula M. Pickering challenges the conventional wisdom that common people are merely passive recipients of peacebuilding projects. Instead, in Peacebuilding in the Balkans, she shows how ordinary people, particularly minorities in Bosnia, understand elite rhetoric and actively shape reconstruction.Pickering's years of fieldwork-direct observation,



interviews, and analysis of many surveys-has yielded a precise understanding of how ordinary citizens react to and influence peacebuilding programs in their neighborhoods, workplaces, municipal agencies, and other real-life social settings. The evidence suggests that international efforts to rebuild an inclusive Bosnia will be futile unless they pay sufficient attention to citizens' varying ties to ethnic groups, indigenous forms of civic activity, and the development of nondiscriminatory employment and responsive political institutions. Pickering's insights from reconstruction in the Balkans have important implications for peacebuilding elsewhere in Eurasia.