Description

The Social Construction of Conflict & Reconciliation in the Former Yugoslavia

Franke Wilmer provides an account of the Yugoslav conflict and an analysis of its cognitive implications, employing some strategies associated with a social constructivist orientation. She critiques the limits of a conflict resolution perspective by engaging it with the way in which conflict, and the structural context of conflict, are cognitively constructed by practitioners and participants. She also raises questions about the basis and breakdown of civility by referring to the construction and movement of group moral boundaries, arguing that the main weakness of conflict resolution without a reconciliation perspective is its failure to account for the cognitive construction of civility and conflict. Wilmer concludes by considering the potential for international and domestic interventions to facilitate reconciliation processes aimed at achieving a stable peace.

war — peacekeeping, world politics, Yugoslavia — politics and government

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 25, No. 4 (1998): 90-112