Justice Beyond Borders? the Politics to Democratize Human Rights in the Post-Conflict Balkans
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Montclair State University Montclair State University Digital Commons Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works Department of Justice Studies 1-1-2012 Justice Beyond Borders? The Politics to Democratize Human Rights in the Post-Conflict Balkans Arnaud Kurze Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/justice-studies-facpubs Part of the Growth and Development Commons, International Relations Commons, and the Law Commons MSU Digital Commons Citation Kurze, Arnaud, "Justice Beyond Borders? The Politics to Democratize Human Rights in the Post-Conflict Balkans" (2012). Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 58. https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/justice-studies-facpubs/58 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Justice Studies at Montclair State University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works by an authorized administrator of Montclair State University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JUSTICE BEYOND BORDERS? THE POLITICS TO DEMOCRATIZE HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE POST-CONFLICT BALKANS by Arnaud Kurze A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of George Mason University in Partial Fulfillment of THe Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Political Science Committee: Director Department CHairperson Program Director Dean, College of Humanities Social Sciences Date Spring Semester 2012 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Justice Beyond Borders? The Politics to Democratize Human Rights in the Post Conflict Balkans A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of tHe requirements for tHe degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University By Arnaud Kurze Master of Arts FernUniverstität in Hagen, 2006 Bachelor of Arts Sciences Po, 2003 Director: Jo-Marie Burt, Professor Department of Public and International Affairs Spring Semester 2012 George Mason University Fairfax, VA UMI Number: 3506226 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent on the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 3506226 Copyright 2012 by ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346 CopyrigHt 2012 Arnaud Kurze All RigHts Reserved ii DEDICATION My work is dedicated to tHose wHo suffered and still bear tHe scares of tHe past conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My fascination witH tHe Balkans dates back to the early 1990s wHen the conflict first broke out and many families from the region fled to the area where I lived in Southern Germany. I was only a teenager then and I was fortunate to become friends witH several of tHe refugee kids from these families. At tHe time, tHe violence tHat spread across tHe former Yugoslavia seemed incomprehensible to me, and I decided to Help collect and send aid packages with the local German Red Cross to the war-torn region. WHile in High school and as an undergraduate student, I tried to study and understand tHe roots of tHe conflict, tHe gross human rights violations and the aftermath. A decade later, I eventually travelled to Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina to visit a friend, Jasmina Viteškić. I had met her a few years earlier in San Francisco, before she moved back to Her Hometown to work as a trial monitor for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). My visit turned out to be physically and emotionally overwHelming. I witnessed not only the beauty of a city surrounded by the Dinaric Alps in tHe Sarajevo valley witH lavisH forests and tHe Miljacka River, but also the deep social, political and economic scars of a war that ravaged the city and region for many years. THese experiences in tHe Balkans and tHe recent conflict fueled my interest in further studying accountability efforts in the former Yugoslavia and pursuing this topic as part of my Ph.D. program. My dissertation took sHape molded by tHese experiences and motivated by a desire to better understand how people in the Balkans understood the cataclysmic events of the past two decades and used a variety of transitional justice mechanisms to address the legacies of the conflict. As a Ph.D. student in Political Science at Mason, I Had many opportunities to conduct research on post-conflict and transitional justice in the Balkans. THe Human Rights and Global Justice Working Group at tHe Center for Global Studies in particular was a great space and platform to interact with like-minded scholars to discuss how transitional societies across the world coped with the legacies of violence. Under the direction of the working group leader, Dr. Jo-Marie Burt, I also Helped organize over Half a dozen events related to accountability and transitional justice, including conferences on “Human RigHts Tribunals in Latin America: the Trial of Fujimori in Comparative Perspective” (2008), “Accountability After Mass Atrocity: Latin American and African Examples in Comparative Perspective” (2009) and “Arts after Atrocity: Global Human Rights and Local Representations of Violence and Resistance” (2012), among others. This scholarly exposure, together with my long-held interest in the Balkans, helped shape my ideas and develop my research. iv In this context, I would like to thank my dissertation advisor Dr. Jo-Marie Burt from the Department of Public and International Affairs (PIA) at Mason for Her continuous support, availability and flexibility wHile researching and writing my dissertation. I am indebted to the other members of my committee as well, Dr. JoHanna Bockman from tHe Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mason and Dr. Peter Mandaville from PIA, wHose timely and constructive feedback helped clarify my ideas and shape my argument over the years. Moreover, I greatly appreciate Dr. L. Earle Reybold’s advice, from the College of Education and Human Development at Mason, inspiring me to use a combination of different qualitative methods to find adequate answers to my research puzzles. I am also grateful to the institutional and financial support from Department of Public and International Affairs at Mason—with its past and current Department Chairs and Program Directors of tHe PH.D. in Political Science. Several travel grant awards by PIA and tHe Mason Graduate Student Travel Fund offered me the opportunity to present my work at various conferences including the International Studies Association (ISA) annual convention, the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) annual convention and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) general conference. A multiyear research fellowsHip at CGS at Mason as well as a dissertation completion grant awarded by the Office of the Provost provided additional support to complete my research in a timely manner. Outside the Mason community I am appreciative of a Foreign Language and Area Studies grant, allowing me to enroll in an intensive Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian language class in the summer 2009 at Indiana University in Bloomington; as well as an American Council of Learned Societies grant to conduct preliminary fieldwork in tHe Balkans in tHe fall 2009. In this context I would also like to thank Dr. Lidija Cvikić, a linguistic professor from the University of Zagreb who helped me get settled in Croatia. Additionally I was offered a visiting scholar fellowship from 2010-2011 at tHe Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales (CERI) at Sciences Po Paris, France, thanks to Professor Didier Bigo and its current Director, Dr. Christian Lequesne; and a visiting scholar fellowship from 2011-2012 by the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Zagreb, wHicH provided me witH institutional support to conduct my research wHile I lived abroad. Many colleagues of mine deserve to be mentioned Here as well, and even if I was unable to list their names here, I am indebted because their insights, help and advice was tremendously valuable to my success, including Dr. Tvrtko Jakovina, Viktor Koska, Dr. Vjeran Pavlaković, Maria Tum, Iva Vukusić and Dr. Guy Ziv, among many otHers. A special thanks goes to my partner Allison SHerrier, Esq., for Her patience, encouragement, and tHougHtful editorial suggestions during tHe many hours tHat I dedicated to tHis project. Last but not least I could not Have finished my dissertation in such a brief period of time witHout tHe generous support of my family and friends. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Tables .................................................................................................................................viii List of Figures..................................................................................................................................ix List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................x Abstract .........................................................................................................................................xii Chapter 1 Introduction ...............................................................................................