Premium
The shadow of heroes: former combatants in post‐war Bosnia‐Herzegovina
Author(s) -
Bougarel Xavier
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international social science journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.237
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1468-2451
pISSN - 0020-8701
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2451.2007.00646.x
Subject(s) - combatant , bosnian , population , victory , social democratic party , political science , law , political economy , communism , sociology , democracy , shadow (psychology) , politics , demography , psychology , philosophy , linguistics , psychotherapist
The combatant population (former combatants, disabled ex‐servicemen, and the families of fallen soldiers) has a key position in post‐war Bosnian society, both numerically and symbolically. During the war, the three existing armies set up new systems to care for combatants and their families and to redeploy military models inherited from the Communist period. The emergence of the combatant population as a specific social group accelerated in the first years of the postwar period and can be explained by a combination of its experience of violence, its legal and symbolic status, and its integration into various association networks. At the end of the 1990s the decline in the material well‐being of the combatant population and its gradual loss of prestige led to a serious identity crisis. In 2001–2002, following the electoral victory of the Social Democratic Party in the Croat‐Bosniak Federation, the associations of former combatants supported the vague secessionist intentions of the Croatian Democratic Community and strongly opposed reform of the military pension system. But former combatants also participate more informally in the evolution of Bosnian society and can even play an important role in inter‐community mediation.