On the determinants of inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina

We provide empirical evidence on the determinants of income inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the civil war. To do this, we use a an ordered probit approach and take advantage of the first post‐war household survey for the country which sheds some light on the influence of regional differences as well as household characteristics on income quintile determination. With respect to the former, we find large income differences between the two entities in the country, the Federation and Republika Srpska. Such income differences are also noticeable inside entities. On the latter, there are some signs that education, experience, and employment, among others, may help reduce the probability of income decline. Our results are robust to changes of specification as shown by applying a formal sensitivity analysis. JEL classification: O15, O10, I30.     

Bosnia's Third Space? Nationalist Separatism and International Supervision in Bosnia's Brčko District

This article analyses how the strategic Bosnian locality of Br?ko emerged as a distinctive geopolitical space during the post-war period. This resulted from the struggle between separatist nationalisms and the international community over the status of displaced persons in Bosnia, but this struggle played out differently in the municipality of Br?ko as its status was unresolved at Dayton and for years afterward. Post-war nationalist rivalry to determine Br?ko's status through the manipulation of displaced persons provoked the creation of the Br?ko District as a territorial condominium nominally shared by Bosnia's two entities but under direct international supervision. Drawing upon fieldwork in Bosnia, we develop a critical geopolitical account of Br?ko from wartime through the post-war period to the present. The article concludes by considering whether Br?ko as a third geopolitical space holds potential to offer Bosnia a third space, overcoming the oppositional binaries of the war.     

Regional Developmental Problems of the Rural Settlements in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The paper considers developmental problems of the rural settlements in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are results of long-term disparity in the regional development in the period 1991-2012. In this paper it is considered the recent migration from rural to urban areas and the depopulation of the rural areas. The result of these trends reflects the development of the new infrastructure and tertiary activities. In these investigations, statistical data processed and geovisualised in GIS were used. The obtained data indicate extremely unequable regional arrangement of the population in the rural areas and socio-economic development.     

Conflict displacement and labor market outcomes in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina of the early nineties displaced 1.3 million people. This study uses longitudinal data to document the effects of this displacement on labor market outcomes. To account for endogeneity in displacement, I exploit the fact that the level of violence affected the decision to leave and that pre-war economic performance is orthogonal to local violence levels. I find that displaced Bosnians are less likely to be working relative to the people who stayed. Displaced men experience higher unemployment levels, and displaced women are more likely to drop out of the labor force.     

Does violence against civilians depress voter turnout? Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina

We investigate the effect of violence against civilians on voting. Using data from elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1990 and 2014 and exploiting variation in war intensity across municipalities, we estimate a negative impact on voter turnout. The effect is stable and persistent over twenty years after the war resolution. Our results are robust to the inclusion of pre- and post-war socioeconomic and political characteristics, to instrumental variable estimations based on terrain ruggedness, and to restricting the sample to voters who were too young to be selectively targeted. Distinguishing between civilian and military victims, we show that violence against civilians drives the negative effect. Next, we examine different mediating mechanisms including forced migration and demographic selection, ethnic composition, physical capital damage, post-conflict reconstruction, and labor market conditions. Our results support the hypothesis that violence affects voting through a “moral” dis-utility from showing allegiance to politics and the society by casting a vote. Using survey data, we show that respondents in more affected municipalities report lower generalized trust, trust in institutions, and voting.     

Confidence in formal institutions and reliance on informal institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article uses survey data to investigate the relationship between citizens’ confidence in formal institutions and reliance on informal institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). We find an endogenous substituting relationship and that the different institutional structures currently existing in the two entities in BiH are significantly linked to respondents’ confidence in formal and reliance on informal institutions. In addition, perceptions of higher indirect costs of institutions and a lack of their improvement are associated with a lower confidence in formal and a greater reliance on informal institutions; the minority ethnic groups in each region are less confident in formal and rely more on informal institutions compared to the majority group; and more reliance on informal institutions is found amongst males and respondents from urban areas.     

From free oil to ‘freedom oil’: terrorism,war and US Geopolitics in the Persian Gulf

Oil has been a major driving force behind foreign interests, regional and domestic balance of power, and territorial conflicts in the Persian Gulf. As a result of the ‘9/11’ terrorist attacks debates on oil and the United States' security agenda have significantly shifted. If on one side, those opposing US military interventionism have argued that the ‘war on terror’ provided one more convenient cover for a renewed ‘imperialist oil grab’ in this region; on the other, links between oil and terrorism pointed at problems of governance in oil-producing countries. As the ‘war on terror’ became justified as a ‘war of liberation’ against oil-funded dictators, the US portrayed its foreign policy as shifting from ensuring free access to oil for the world market, to ensuring that oil is delivering ‘freedom’ to local populations. Although engaging the crucial issue of oil governance, there is yet little evidence given the number of war victims and potential vested interests that a US policy shift from ‘free oil’ to ‘freedom oil’ is genuine and viable.     

Securitising the Unconscious: The Bush Doctrine of Preemption and Minority Report

Using Minority Report as its interpretive guide, this essay considers how the securitisation of the unconscious is performed in primarily fiction (film) but also ‘fact’ (US foreign policy). The essay makes two general arguments. Implicitly, it argues that American moralities and what I call US moral grammars of war are not only formulated in traditional realms of politics but in geopolitical moral imaginaries in which US foreign policy intersects with popular (often filmic) imaginaries as well as with narratives about the family. Elaborating on this final point about the family, the essay explicitly argues that the feminine is the keystone of the US moral grammar of war in the war on terror because it is the foundational figure upon whom a specific articulation of a moral US ‘we’ is constructed. What this means is that as the US ‘we’ looks ahead to who a future moral American US ‘we’ might become (which is the theme of Minority Report and a theme in everyday post-11 September American life), it ought to begin by understanding how the feminine both secures and insecures the complex relationship between justice and security, particularly as it functions in relation to the present-day Bush administration’s policies of securitising the unconscious.     

Micro-Geopolitics: Capitalising Security in Laos’s Golden Quadrangle

Enclosure, dispossession and displacement loom large in current debates about the recent boom in transnational farmland deals, and about Chinese agribusiness for export in particular. Often under-examined, however, are the ways that legacies of geopolitical conflict shape the inevitably uneven distribution of enclosure, dispossession and displacement. This paper constructs a case of these ‘micro-geopolitical’ legacies by examining a Chinese rubber planting ‘promotion’ project in northwestern Laos’s emerging ‘Golden Quadrangle’ development region. It argues that longstanding concerns about security inform the ways that local authorities deploy investment projects that are otherwise seen as examples of ‘foreign’ land grabbing. Further, it shows that while the geographical aims of foreign agribusiness mesh with state-mediated resettlement efforts (a darker spin on the narrative of ‘win-win’ cooperation), these activities often precede current land deals rather than result from them. Chinese agribusiness in Laos’s upland interior thus appears less as a driver of displacement than a means for attempting to secure in place a particular (if precarious) configuration of population and security.     

An investigation into the credibility of currency board arrangements in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria

Currency Boards are usually argued to increase the credibility of the monetary authority, although this effect ultimately depends on the economic, political and institutional circumstances in the specific country. Few studies have previously been able to address this issue empirically. Using a novel database, the analysis conducted in this paper finds that, other things being equal, the credibility of the monetary authority is likely to be higher in those European transition countries with currency board arrangements, namely Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. The results also suggest that currency board arrangements are more likely to increase the credibility of the monetary authority in countries with a low level of trust in government and a weak economy. These findings imply that the maintenance of currency board arrangements in recent years in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria may have been advantageous.     

Re-Examining Sovereignty Claims in Changing Territorialities: Reflections from ‘Kosovo Syndrome’

Current legal and normative doctrine forbids de jure recognition to those territorial units whose political leadership has been resisted by metropolitan central authorities. Recognition on the basis of uti possidetis juris makes the self-determination of people a territorial issue. This paper presents a framework for conceptualising and analysing the impact of ‘indivisible sovereignty’ and territoriality dilemmas on self-determination claims, resonating most strongly in the recent Kosovo campaign for independence. It then re-examines seceding motivations and birth-giving processes in Northern Cyprus, Transnistria and Republika Srpska, all which could be defined as self-proclaimed post-conflict entities deemed to gain international recognition. Finally, the paper illustrates the impact of ‘Kosovo syndrome’ on the preservation of status quo while concluding that the immediate reactions to Kosovo independence diverged from case to case to the extent where Turkish Cypriots found new stimulus for reunification, Transnistrians advocated a new model of conflict resolution and Bosnian Serbs increased their bargaining power.     

Overcoming Bordering Practices Through the Arts: The Case of Young Syrian Refugees and their Danish Counterparts in Denmark

ABSTRACT

During 2014, Denmark received nearly 15,000 asylum seekers, almost twice the number from the previous year as more people fleeing Syria’s war fled to Europe. By 2016, Denmark succeeded in making the country highly unattractive as a destination for refugees fleeing war torn countries. The country introduced a controversial ‘jewellery bill’, placed adverts in a newspaper in Lebanon dissuading refugees from contemplating a trip to Denmark, and cut assistance benefits for refugees by half. These state bordering practices aimed at securing some kind of ‘Danishness’. This article aims at ascribing agency to young Syrian refugees in Denmark, who have experienced these bordering practices and who seek to counter these practices by participating in meaningful social interactions with their Danish counterparts. The empirical focus is an artistic enactment–a weeklong dance workshop that brought these youngsters together as a distinct form of practice that brings about the conditions of possibility for meaningful integration. Conceptually, it draws upon Arendt’s theory of action and notion of ‘plurality’ to frame how such encounters come about.     

Economic transition,gender bias,and the distribution of earnings in China*

Market‐oriented economic reform, which accelerated after 1992, has brought substantial changes to the Chinese economy. This dramatic economic transition was raised two important questions: ‘How are women faring in the transition from a planned economy to a market economy?’ and ‘Are some women faring relatively better than other women’? We use data from the Chinese Household Income Projects for the years 1988 and 1995, a standard earnings equation, and quantile regressions to estimate and decompose the earnings gap. Our findings suggest that while the earnings gap has increased, the fraction of the gap ‘unexplained’ by differences in human capital variables such as education and experience has declined over time. This result is particularly pronounced for low earning women.     

Euro-Crafting at Border Zones: The Case of the Greco-Turkish Border and the Question of a European Union ‘Beyond the State’

The European Union is often conceptualised as an entity that is profoundly different from that of the modern state. Through a reading of the recent humanitarian crisis precipitated by large-scale migration into Greece, the paper challenges the understanding that the crafting of the European Union (‘Euro-crafting’) is qualitatively different from the crafting of the modern state. Conceptually, the paper proposes that Euro-crafting should be thought through in relation to practices of statecraft, instead of a priori postulated as qualitatively different from such practices. Putting such an understanding of Euro-crafting to work, the paper explores the recent humanitarian crisis precipitated by large-scale migration into Greece and demonstrates how practices of Euro-crafting mirror the major desire-driven practices of modern statecraft; practices of ordering, bordering, and identification.     

Global monitor

Until recently, theories of war in Africa and other underdeveloped social formations have foundered on notions of ‘poverty=war” and vice versa. Newer thinking, however, asks questions in line with classical Marxist perspectives veering away from dependencia, relating war in the ‘dark continent’ to issues of class formation and (“primitive”) accumulation. Christopher Cramer's Civil War is not a Stupid Thing in particular raises historically and comparatively grounded questions about the relationship between coercion and ‘development’ that challenge both dependency and liberal thinking. Yet, as assessments of contemporary writing on similar issues (including ‘post-conflict studies’) illustrate, the quality of this type of thinking in no way guarantees its intellectual hegemony.     

George Shackle and uncertainty: a revolution still awaited

It is argued that Keynes consciously sought incomes policy, first, in 1925, and, secondly, during the second world war. The first occasion concerned the need to keep costs down in the wake of the revaluation of sterling. The second instance concerned the difficulties of financing the war effort that would arise from a chronic excess demand for labour leading to greatly increased wages. Keynes came to recognize that cost push wage inflation was a serious potential threat to the maintenance of full employment. However despite his specific proposals then it is uncertain what he would have advocated for contemporary circumstances, as he increasingly came to view this as a ‘political’ rather than an ‘economic’ problem.     

Spatial and economic patterns in life expectancy among US States

This study investigates the determinants of gender-specific life expectancy across US states over the period 1995–2007. We employ a production function specification where life expectancy depends on health expenditure, income, education and lifestyle variables, allowing for spatial effects. Empirical results suggest that education attainment and health expenditure are the main factors behind improving longevity, whereas smoking bears a strong negative influence. For robustness purposes, we also use health spending as well as education criteria, apart from geographical ones to model interstate spillovers. In the former case, states with similar health expenditure are ‘neighbors’ and affect positively the life expectancy process. If education is applied instead of health spending together with geographic proximity, the spatial correlation is insignificant, i.e. education ‘neighbors’ do not affect life expectancy. Our findings do not imply significant gender differences regarding health production. The results suggest that health care policy will have to focus on wider economic and social considerations, like education and lifestyle changes, except medical care provision in order to exploit the full potential for life expectancy improvements of the US population.     

‘Factivism’: A New Configuration of Humanitarian Reason

New actors and ideas about poverty management and humanitarian assistance have arisen in recent years. The underlying context of this shift includes a growing awareness of the limitations and failures of both military forms of humanitarian intervention and unfettered market-based solutions to aid and development. This paper explores the particular form that global humanitarianism is taking in this millennial context. I argue that a new configuration of humanitarian reason is emerging that draws on both neoliberal and pastoral rationalities of governance. The former can be associated with efficiency, transparency, and quantitative evidence, while the latter is articulated with individual compassion, devotion, and Christian duty. Using the celebrity humanitarian Bono and his rhetoric of ‘factivism’ as an illustrative example, the paper explores the way that this message is transmitted through geosocial discourses and networks. It indicates some of the ways that the personal and media dissemination of this new ideology of charismatic, yet rational care helps to weave pastoral rationalities into forms of political authority.     

Psychological War in Vietnam: Governmentality at The United States Information Agency

ABSTRACT

The United States Information Agency (USIA) has received little sustained scrutiny from critical military geographers, despite the major role it played in waging the Cold War. This article outlines the USIA’s role in waging psychological war in support of the US mission in Vietnam, notably its establishment in 1965 of the Joint United States Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO). Through an analysis of USIA operations, this article argues that psychological war can be understood as a governmental strategy to exert power over the people and territory of Vietnam. Through an examination of problems related to evaluating and conducting research for psychological war, this article questions the extent to which the United States succeeded in establishing this power, concluding that the effects of psychological war in Vietnam were, at best, inconclusive, and offer little evidence to support contemporary strategies to ‘win hearts and minds’.