POTENTIALS OF DISORDER New Approaches to Conflict Analysis Series editor: Peter Lawler, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Department of Government, University of Manchester Until recently, the study of conflict and conflict resolution remained compara- tively immune to broad developments in social and political theory. When the changing nature and locus of large-scale conflict in the post-Cold War era is also taken into account, the case for a reconsideration of the fundamentals of conflict analysis and conflict resolution becomes all the more stark. New Approaches to Conflict Analysis promotes the development of new theoretical insights and their application to concrete cases of large-scale conflict, broadly defined.Theseriesintendsnottoignoreestablishedapproachestoconflictanalysis and conflict resolution, but to contribute to the reconstruction of the field through a dialogue between orthodoxy and its contemporary critics. Equally, the series reflects the contemporary porosity of intellectual borderlines rather than simply perpetuating rigid boundaries around the study of conflict and peace. New Approaches to Conflict Analysis seeks to uphold the normative commitment of the field’s founders yet also recognises that the moral impulse to research is properly part of its subject matter. To these ends, the series is comprised of the highest quality work of scholars drawn from throughout the international academic community,and from a wide range of disciplines within the social sciences. M. Anne Brown Human rights and the borders of suffering: the promotion of human rights in international politics Karin Fierke Changing games, changing strategies: critical investigations in security Tami Amanda Jacoby and Brent Sasley (eds) Redefining security in the Middle East Deiniol Jones Cosmopolitan mediation? Conflict resolution and the Oslo Accords Helena Lindholm Schulz Reconstruction of Palestinian nationalism: between revolution and statehood David Bruce Macdonald Balkan holocausts: Serbian and Croatian victim-centred propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia Jennifer Milliken The social construction of the Korean War Ami Pedahzur The Israeli response to Jewish extremism and violence: defending democracy Tarja Väyrynen Culture and international conflict resolution: a critical analysis of the work of John Burton Potentials of disorder Edited by Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher Manchester University Press distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave Copyright © Manchester University Press 2003 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed exclusively in Canada by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 0 7190 6241 1 hardback First published 2003 111009080706050403 10987654321 Typeset in Photina by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd, Midsomer Norton CONTENTS Notes on contributors –– vii Acknowledgements –– ix Introduction: potentials of disorder in the Caucasus and Yugoslavia Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher 1 1 Discourses, actors, violence: the organisation of war-escalation in the Krajina region of Croatia 1990–91 Hannes Grandits and Carolin Leutloff 23 2 Non-existent states with strange institutions Kristóf Gosztonyi 46 3 A neglected dimension of conflict: the Albanian mafia Xavier Raufer 62 4 Land reforms and ethnic tensions: scenarios in south east Europe Christian Giordano 75 5 ‘Freedom!’: Albanian society and the quest for independence from statehood in Kosovo and Macedonia Norbert Mappes-Niediek 91 6 Why is there stability in Dagestan but not in Chechnya? Enver Kisriev 103 7 Civil wars in Georgia: corruption breeds violence Pavel K. Baev 127 8 The art of losing the state: weak empire to weak nation-state around Nagorno-Karabakh Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher 145 9Conflict management in the Caucasus via development of regional identity Olga Vassilieva 174 10 Bringing culture back into a concept of rationality: state–society relations and conflict in post-socialist Transcaucasia Barbara Christophe 193 11 Reconciliation after ethnic cleansing: witnessing, retribution and domestic reform John Borneman 208 12 Intervention in markets of violence Georg Elwert 219 13 Institutions and the organisation of stability and violence Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher 243 Index –– 267 v NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Pavel K. Baev is Senior Researcher at the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo. John Borneman is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. From 1991 to 2001 he taught at Cornell University and has been guest professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Stockholm, Bergen and Senior Fulbright Professor at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Barbara Christophe is researcher and lecturer at the University of Frankfurt in the department of Political Science. George Elwert is Professor of Social Anthropology and director of the Institute of Ethnology at the Free University, Berlin. Christian Giordano is Head of the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Interfaculty Institute of Central and East Europe (IICEE) at the University of Fribourg. Kristóf Gosztonyi works with the Return and Reconstruction Task Force of the Office of the High Representative of the United Nations for Bosnia and Hercegovina OHR. Hannes Grandits is lecturer and researcher at the Department for Southeast European History at Graz University and the Center for the Study of Balkan Societies and Cultures. Enver Kisriev works in the Department of Sociology at the Russian Academy of Science, Institute of History,Archaeology and Ethnography in Makhachkala, Dagestan. Jan Koehler is researcher at the Institute for Ethnology and Social Anthropology at the Free University, Berlin. Carolin Leutloff is a PhD candidate at the Max-Planck Institute for Social Anthro- pology in Halle/Saale, Germany. Norbert Mappes-Niediek is a journalist who has worked for a number of influential newpapers including Die Zeit and Freitag. Xavier Raufer is Professor at the Institute of Criminology, University of Paris. Olga Vassilieva graduated from the Moscow Physical Technical Institute. She is an expert on inter-ethnic conflicts in the post-soviet space. Christoph Zürcher is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Institute of Eastern European Studies at the Free University, Berlin. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people and organisations have contributed to this book. We are grateful to the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, Berlin, for supporting a first conference on the subject, held in Berlin in June 1999. We are also grateful to the Free University, Berlin and to the Institute of Eastern European Studies of the Free University, Berlin for their support. We gratefully acknowledge the help of Sybill De Vito-Egerland. Gesa Walcher and Miriam Abu-Sharkh did a marvel- lous job with the conference organisation. Graham Stack and Erica Richardson mastered the Sisyphus work of language editing nine contributions of non- native speakers. We would like to thank Akhmed Tikhomirov for inspiration, Horst and Karin for the shelter; Kristóf Gosztonyi, Hannes Grandits and Georg Elwert have contributed to this volume much more than just their chapters. Finally, we would like to thank Holm Sundhaussen. The inspiration for this project is his. ix Introduction: potentials of disorder in the Caucasus and Yugoslavia Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher Conflict after empire - violence has been linked to primordial instincts, to the struggle for power and profit, to the ambitions of ethnic entrepren- Oeurs, and most often to uncertainty and fear. Here violence is linked to institutions. It is asked which institutions foster violence, and which institutions, on the contrary, provide for procedures that turn ‘either-or-conflicts’ into ‘more- or-less’ conflicts. It is asked which institutional arrangements lead to societal fragmentation, and which can integrate society even when state power is virtu- ally absent. The implosion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Federal Yugoslav Republic provide ample material for this endeavour. Judging by historical and contemporary evidence, the collapse of multi- ethnic empires is almost inevitably a conflict-prone process. The implosion of the central state and its hierarchies turns imperial peripheries into peripheries without empires.The former centrally administered society fragments into multi- ple societies, which have to (re-)build state administrations, (re-)draw boundaries and (re-)invent loyalties. They have to establish new institutional arrangements forself-regulationinordertoensuresecurity,politicalparticipationandeconomic development after empire. These institutions have to be inscribed into a political space, whose boundaries are often ill-defined and contested. And there has to be an understanding of who is legitimately in charge of designing these institutions,