Back to the beginning"Ethnic Conflict as Demobilizer: The Case of Serbia"
V.P. Gagnon, Jr.
This paper has attempted to show the limited power of the concepts of ethnic outbidding and political mobilization based on ethnic solidarity to explain this case of violent conflict. Of course people can be and are mobilized in an active sense by appeals to injustices defined in ethnic terms. But there seem to be very real limits to mobilization based on such appeals. Indeed, the Serbian case clearly shows that there was no automatic mobilization of ethnic sentiment, no rising up en masse of the Serbian nation, and no endless ethnic outbidding, even in conditions of war and ethnic violence, even with images of egregious injustices and genocide. While ethnic mobilization works up to a certain point, beyond that point, when policies move in to the realm of violent conflict, the phenomenon is no longer one of mass mobilization.
But while violent conflict along ethnic lines was not a means to mobilize the population, nor was it the result of popular mobilization on ethnic issues; indeed, if most Serbs had an accurate picture of how the violent conflict began and the actual behavior of guerrilla forces acting in the name of Serbdom, they would most likely move even more firmly against those responsible.[38] A similar dynamic seemed to be at work in Croatia, where public exposure of the atrocities carried out by Croatian forces against Muslim civilians in Bosnia-Hercegovina resulted in a strong popular backlash against the hard-line nationalist faction within the ruling HDZ, which was responsible for those policies.[39]
What then is the link between ethnic sentiment, political mobilization and violence along ethnic lines? Part of the answer lies in the fact that non-ethnic interests remain salient even at times when ethnic issues are at the center of political discourse. Concern with ethnic issues in no way precludes simultaneous concern with non-ethnic issues. This simple fact seems to account for the failure of ethnic outbidding to work as an engine of violent conflict in conditions of political competition. In other words, ethnic solidarity is no more of an all-powerful determinant of behavior than is class solidarity.
Rather than being either the result of, or a means to, popular mobilization, violent ethnic conflict in fact has in this case been started as part of a purposeful strategy, as a means to frame and structure political discourse and thus political competition. An image of egregious injustices in terms of life and death cannot be created out of thin air. Thus the provocation of conflict, the instrumentalization of real grievances of the Croatian and Bosnian Serbs and the purposeful exacerbation of their situation, combined with placing events into a context defined in terms of historical precedents, all served as a way to construct this image.
When the regime actually needed to mobilize people, they appealed not to ethnic solidarity, but to the everyday concerns, both cultural (ethnic) and economic. The creation of violence along ethnic lines, rather than a means to mobilize people, was instead a way of defining the limits of political discourse in periods when the political arena’s participants are limited to political elites.
In power terms, the regime’s goals in non-election periods was to prevent anti-regime mobilizations while carrying out policies meant to enhance its own hold on power. In the Serbian case, these two goals were intimately linked. On the one hand, violent conflict was a means to achieve a long-term strategy of consolidating control over territory, expelling non- Serbs in order to maintain the effectiveness of conflictual strategies based on ethnically defined issues as well as to eliminate a disgruntled "minority" population which would make up 40 to 50 percent of the population. In addition, the Serbian-held regions of Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia were for the most part underdeveloped regions where some elites benefited enormously under the statist system Belgrade was attempting to preserve, and who were thus very useful counterweights to the more liberal-leaning elites centered in Serbia itself. The language of injustice was a way of achieving these goals without having to reveal how they were being achieved. But that was not the only goal; indeed, the timing of events shows a very clear link to the short-term goal of preventing popular anti-regime mobilization in Serbia.
The image of ethnic injustice was given the highest priority, and was portrayed as most egregious, between elections. This prevented opposition elites from criticizing the regime's long-term strategy; but more importantly, it prevented an exclusive focus on non-ethnic issues. It limited the agenda, and indeed marginalized other important issues, issues that could have served to mobilize the population against the regime. In effect, conflict and images of injustice were used not to mobilize the wider population, in the sense of getting their active support, but rather in order to prevent popular mobilization against the regime. This strategy of ethnic conflict thus seems to have been one of demobilization, in that it kept opposition elites from organizing anti-regime mobilizations, and it limited the ability of popular discontent to manifest itself in organized behavior.
Violent conflict along ethnic cleavages was thus not a natural outgrowth of ethnic differences, nor was it a natural step in the process of political mobilization along ethnic lines. Indeed, the limits of ethnic mobilization are particularly clear in this case. Rather, it was part of a strategy which constructs political discourse, and thus frames political action, in terms of egregious injustices along ethnic lines. Its main goal thus seems to have been to demobilize political opposition which in the absence of this image of threat would have been able to mobilize the wider population against the regime on the basis of other issues. In short, the existing structure of power faced severe and serious threats from challenger elites. The issues around which challengers sought to mobilize could not be opposed directly by the regime. Instead, the regime bought time to reposition itself by creating an image of threat and injustice, not in order to mobilize the population, but rather to silence them, to prevent challenger elites from using other issues. This time, in turn, was used by the regime to reconsolidate its control over the structures of domestic power, to reposition itself structurally so that it could survive in new domestic and international conditions that had been militating for radical changes in the domestic arena. And while this is certainly so in the case of Serbia, it seems quite likely that similar dynamics are at work in other cases of "ethnic conflict" as well.
Back to part 4, Effects of ethnic appeals
This page last revised 10/20/99