Robert M. Kunovich

Research Incentive Grant 2002-03

Proposal

Robert M. Kunovich, Ph.D.

Department of Sociology

Description of the Research Project

Title:Attaining Justice in Post-conflict Societies: An Exploration of Strategies in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, andSouth Africa.

Project description:

In this research project, I will explore strategies of attaining justice in three post-conflict societies including Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. I will identify what attempts have been made by ethnic and racial groups, the state, and international actorsto achieve justice in several forms – 1.)restorative justiceby means of rehabilitating victimizers and victims while upholding the rights of both groups, 2.) retributive justice by means of punishing perpetrators of ethnic and racial violence, and 3.) distributive justice by means of addressing group differences in economic, political, and culturalresources. The proposed research is exploratory and will provide a foundation for the development of a larger project on justice in post-conflict societies.

Objectives:

The major outputsof this research project will be: 1.) a case study of strategies for attaining justice in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and South Africa and 2.) grant proposals seeking external support for additional travel to and research in these post-conflict societies. I will submit the case study for publication to a peer-reviewed journal. The case study will provide a foundation for the development of external grant proposals. An additional objective is to establish links to scholars working on this general topic as well as area specialists in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. To achieve this objective, I will identify and contact scholars during spring 2003 and visit one of the post-conflict societies – Northern Ireland – during summer 2003.

Is this a project intended to be completed within the project period or is it part of a larger project?

This research is part of a larger project. I will complete the case study and submit external grant applications during fall 2003 and spring 2004. These activities are a first step in the development of a new research agenda on justice in post-conflict societies. My ultimate goal is to conduct survey research and in-depth interviews in several post-conflict societies. Through

this research I will address many questions including:

  • How do people in post-conflict societies define justice? What do they expect and from whom (e.g., from the state, from the UN, etc.)? How do definitions of justice differ within and across societies?
  • How do people negotiate the meaning of justice? How are strategies to attain justice selected? How does group power affect the negotiation process and the implementation of specific strategies?
  • How do people’s expectations for and assessments of justice affect mental health, social integration, and,ultimately,the healing of society?

Significance of the research project:

Justice is a fundamental prerequisite for the stable functioning of societies and for realizing the full potentialof individuals within these societies. Results from the case study and the research project, more generally, will identify possible strategies to create a lasting peace in societies devastated by ethnic and racial conflict.

Relation of the research project to my other research:

The proposed project is closely related to my other research and grew out of my course on global ethnic conflict and a paper exploring social integration, experiencing violence, and mental health in Croatia. My substantive research interests are comparative ethnicity and political sociology. More specifically, I am interested in prejudice; ethnic and national identity; conflict, justice, and community redevelopment; and democratization. I have examined the sources of ethnic and anti-immigrant prejudice in Bosnia and Croatia and across Europe. I have also examined the role of social integration in mediating the effect of traumatic war-related events on mental health. My research in political sociology centers on democratization in Eastern Europe.

Relations and significance of the research project to sociology:

Through this research, I will make substantive and theoretical contributions to the discipline of sociology, especially to the areas of racial and ethnic relations, conflict resolution, group mobilization, and democratization. First, my research counters a tendency among sociologists to focus on the sources of prejudice and group conflict rather than on workable solutions after conflict has occurred. Second, I focus on the attainment of economic, political, and cultural justice, the rehabilitation of victimizers and victims, and the punishment of perpetrators of ethnic and racial violence. Thus, I argue that we must consider multiple dimensions of justice. Third, I will focus on attempts to achieve justice by ethnic and racial groups, the state, and external actors (such as the United Nations) while focusing on contested definitions of and attempts to achieve justice. Fourth, I focus on the process of attaining justice and incorporate differences in group resources and power.

Likelihood of publication:

There is a high probability that the proposed research will result in publications as I have established a strong record of publishing my previous research in top peer-reviewed journals in sociology, such as Social Forces, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and The Sociological Quarterly. Several journals stand out as possible outlets for the case study includingEthnic and Racial Studies, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, and International Journal of Comparative Sociology. I anticipate that I will be successful publishing the results of the case study as well as future research on the topic because of the importance of the findings.

Is the project a preliminary investigation that has potential for subsequent extramural support?

The proposed project is a preliminary investigation. It has great potential for subsequent extramural support. I am anticipating seeking funding from a variety of sources, such as the United States Institute of Peace (which has a general mandate of funding research on conflict resolution), Ford Foundation (within their Peace and Social Justice Program), International Research and ExchangesBoard, and the MacArthur Foundation. With additional funding I will conduct in-depth interviews and survey research. The Research Incentive Grant will provide me with the resources necessary to develop strong proposals for these and other funding agencies.

Relation to my long-term goals:

My long-term goals are to establish myself as an international expert on strategies for dealing with ethnic conflict, to involve graduate students in cutting-edge research, and to bring this research (at various stages of completion) into the classroom to expose undergraduate and graduate students to the complexities and challenges of our modern world. This research is closely related to a core course I currently teach on global ethnic conflict and to two courses I am developing on justice in post-conflict societies and nations and nationalism.

Description of the Substance of the Research project

Research question

Recent decades have seen a resurgence of ethnic and racial prejudice, mobilization, and conflict. Scholars have estimated that between 11 million and 20 million people have died as a result of ethnic and racial conflict since 1945 (Topor 1992; Williams 1994). Above and beyond the death and destruction suffered and endured by individuals, conflictdamages societies themselves. Through discrimination, intimidation, and violence, whole societies have been gravely injured – a process labeled “sociocide” by Keith Doubt (2000).

A great deal of scholarly effort has been dedicated to uncovering the sources of prejudice (Allport 1954; Blumer 1958; Bobo and Kluegel 1993; Kunovich and Hodson 1999, 2002; Quillian 1995, 1996; Taylor 1998), ethnic and racial political mobilization (Hechter 1975, 1978; Medrano 1994; Nagel and Olzak 1982; Neilsen 1980, 1985; Ragin 1979; West 1995), and conflict (Olzak 1992;Olzak and West 1991). However, there is considerably more research on the sources of ethnic and racial prejudice, mobilization, and conflict than there is on finding workable solutions to the conflicts once they have occurred.

The purpose of my research is to address this deficiency by exploring what attempts have been made to achieve justice in three post-conflict societies – Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Justice is a fundamental prerequisite for the stable functioning of societies and for realizing the full potentialof individuals within these societies. I hope to identify strategies that may allow a lasting peace in societies devastated by ethnic and racial conflict. We must learn how best to address ethnic and racial conflict so that the “future is not overwhelmed by the past” (source unknown).

Economic, political, and cultural inequality are key sources of ethnic and racial conflict (Brown 1993; Brown et al. 1997). Sociologists have long been interested in the topic of justice and inequality(i.e., in distributive justice– how resources should be distributed within society). Prior to the International Social Justice Project (ISJP – see Kluegel, Mason, and Wegener 1995), most scholars relied on either rational or moral arguments (e.g., based on equality, merit, or need) to justify one perspective or another. Since the development of the ISJP in the early 1990s, however, scholars have increasingly been analyzing the responses of individuals to economic, political, and cultural inequality, emphasizing justice at both the individual and society levels, and examining both the sources and consequences of distributive justice attitudes.

There is a growing literature on justice in post-conflict societies (Rotberg and Thompson 2000). Within this literature, scholars focus on restorative justice and retributive justice. Restorative justiceseeks to address the past by rehabilitating the victimizers and victims while upholding the rights of both groups (Crocker 2000). Retributive justice, on the other hand, seeks to address the past by means of punishing those responsible for ethnic and racial violence. Punishment is seen as cathartic for both victims and victimizers. This growing literature resembles the distributive justice literature that precedes it in that few scholars are exploring the attitudes of individuals in post-conflict societies. Rather, debates on the usefulness of truth commissions, the punishment of violators of human rights, and other methods of attaining justice center on either rational or moral arguments with little concern for the perspectives of individuals within these societies. In addition, the issue of distributive justice is typically neglected. This is surprising given that economic, political, and cultural inequality are root causes of most ethnic and racial conflicts.

Through my comparative case study of Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, I will explore what attempts have been made by ethnic and racial groups, the state, and international actors to achieve justice in several forms – restorative justice, retributive justice, and distributive justice. I conceptualize the attainment of justice as a process – a process that is negotiated by competing groups with different resources and power within specific national and international contexts (i.e., within specific “opportunity structures”). All of thisinfluences how justice is defined and determines which strategies are ultimately employed.

The comparative case study is an opportunity for me to start a new research agenda and to become a contributor to a larger discussion on justice in post-conflict societies. By immersing myself in these three cases and making connections to other scholars researching this topic, I will develop the tools necessary to receive external funding, which will allow me to conduct research at the micro level – that is, conducting in-depth interviews and survey research to better understand how people in post-conflict societies define justice, how people negotiate the meaning of justice, and how people’s expectations for and assessments of justice affect mental health, social integration, and,ultimately, the healing of society.

Methodology

I will conduct a case study to explore approaches to attaining justice in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Using a case study approach, scholars typically compare and contrast a few cases (e.g., post-conflict societies) that are selected for specific theoretical and/or substantive reasons. Because of their emphasis on detail and historical accuracy, case studies are particularly appropriate for exploratory analyses (Bradshaw and Wallace 1991). The goal of most case studies is to explain diversity in outcomes across cases (Ragin 1987, 1991) – for example, to explain why different post-conflict societies have selected different strategies for dealing with the past.

I have selected Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and South Africafor several reasons. First, each of these societies is in a post-conflict phase – that is, violence on a large-scale has ended and each society is in the process of dealing with the past in the attempt to develop stable societies. Second, the three cases differ in theirattempts to achieve justice – for example, the major instrument in Bosniais external (i.e., the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal) while major instruments in Northern Ireland and South Africaare internal (i.e., the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission). Third, the cases differ in the degree to which power shifted to victimized groups after the conflict – for example, in Bosnia the Bosnian Serbs were able to maintain territorial gains from war and hold a large section of partitioned Bosnia(the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina);while, in South Africa, the new government is dominated by the African National Congress, the main opposition group during Apartheid.

Because of the exploratory nature of the proposed research and my selection of the case study method, I will emphasize depth of knowledge and accuracyfor each case – focusing on the concrete, individual sequence of events in each country. However, I am ultimately interested in uncovering general strategies of achieving justice that are useful in multiple post-conflict societies. Ragin (1987) and other comparative/historical researchers argue that case studies (even one-country case studies) are useful for generalization when the cases are selected for sound theoretical reasons and can be validly linked to research in other contexts.

References

Allport, Gordon. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. New York: Doubleday.

Blumer, Herbert. 1958. “Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position.” Pacific Sociological Review 1: 3-7.

Bobo, Lawrence and James R. Kluegel. 1993. “Opposition to Race-Targeting: Self-Interest, Stratification Ideology, or Racial Attitudes?” American Sociological Review 58: 443-464.

Bradshaw, York and Michael Wallace. 1991. “Informing Generality and Explaining Uniqueness: The Place of Case Studies in Comparative Research.” Pp. 154-171 in Issues and Alternatives in Comparative Social Research, Edited by Charles C. Ragin. New York: E.J. Brill.

Brown, Michael E. (Editor). 1993. Ethnic Conflict and International Security. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Brown, Michael E., Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller (Editors). 1997. Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Crocker, David A. 2000. “Truth Commissions, Transitional Justice, and Civil Society.” Pp. 99-121 in Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions, edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Doubt, Keith. 2000. Sociology After Bosnia and Kosovo. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Hechter, Michael. 1975. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536-1966. Berkeley: University of California Press

Hechter, Michael. 1978. “Group Formation and the Cultural Division of Labor.” American Journal of Sociology 84: 293-318.

Kluegel, James R., David S. Mason, and Bernd Wegener. 1995. Social Justice and Political Change: Public Opinion in Capitalist and Post-CommunistStates. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

Kunovich, Robert M. and Randy Hodson. 1999. "Conflict, Religious Identity, and Ethnic Intolerance in Croatia." Social Forces 78: 643-674.

Kunovich, Robert M. and Randy Hodson. 2002. “Ethnic Diversity, Segregation, and Inequality: A Structural Model of Ethnic Prejudice in Bosnia and Croatia.” The Sociological Quarterly 43, 2 (Spring): 185-212.

Medrano, Juan Diez. 1994. “The Effects of Ethnic Segregation and Ethnic Competition on Political Mobilization in the Basque Country, 1988.” American Sociological Review 59: 873-889.

Nagel, Joane and Susan Olzak. 1982. “Ethnic Mobilization in New and Old States: An Extension of the Competition Model.” Social Problems 30: 127-143.

Nielsen, Francois. 1980. “The Flemish Movement in Belgium After World War II: A Dynamic Analysis.” American Sociological Review45: 76-94.

Nielsen, Francois. 1985. “Toward A Theory of Ethnic Solidarity in Modern Societies.” American Sociological Review 50: 133-149.

Olzak, Susan. 1992. The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press.

Olzak, Susan and Elizabeth West. 1991. "Ethnic Conflict and the Rise of Ethnic Newspapers." American Sociological Review 56:458-74.

Quillian, Lincoln. 1995. “Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe.” American Sociological Review 60: 586-611.

Quillian, Lincoln. 1996. “Group Threat and Regional Change in Attitudes toward African-Americans.” American Journal of Sociology 102: 816-860.

Ragin, Charles C. 1979. “Ethnic Political Mobilization: The Welsh Case.” American Sociological Review 44: 619-35.

Ragin, Charles C. 1987. The Comparative Method: Moving Beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ragin, Charles C. (Editor). 1991. Issues and Alternatives in Comparative Social Research. New York: E.J. Brill.

Rotberg, Robert I. and Dennis Thompson (Editors). 2000. Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Taylor, Marylee C. 1998. “How White Attitudes Vary with the Racial Composition of Local Populations: Numbers Count.” American Sociological Review 63:512-35.

Topor, G. 1992. Review of JG Kellas (1991) The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity. Journal of International Affairs 45: 645-648.

West, Elizabeth. 1995. "OrganizationBuilding in the Wake of Ethnic Conflict: A Comparison of Three Ethnic Groups." Social Forces 73:1333-63.

Williams, Robin M. Jr. 1994. “The Sociology of Ethnic Conflict: Comparative International Perspectives.” Annual Review of Sociology 20: 49-79.

Recent Publications

Articles

Kunovich, Robert M. and Randy Hodson. 2002. “Ethnic Diversity, Segregation, and Inequality: A Structural Model of Ethnic Prejudice in Bosnia and Croatia.” The Sociological Quarterly 43, 2 (Spring): 185-212.

Kunovich, Robert M. 2002. “Social Structural Sources of Anti-immigrant Prejudice in Europe: The Impact of Social Class and Stratification Position.” International Journal of Sociology 32, 1 (Spring): 39-57.