This is the first book to offer a comprehensive analysis of the emergence, nature, and function of Serbian paramilitary units during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. The book investigates the nature and functions of paramilitary units throughout the 1990s, and their ties to the state and President Slobodan Milošević. The work relies on the archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, which conducted dozens of trials relating to paramilitary violence, and records from judicial proceedings in the region. It discusses how and why certain important paramilitary units emerged, how they functioned and transformed through the decade, what their relationships and entanglements were with the state, the Milošević regime, and organized crime. The study thus investigates the interrelated ideological, political, and social factors and processes, fueling paramilitary engagement, and assesses the impact of this engagement on victims of paramilitary violence and on the state and society for which the units purportedly fought. It argues that coordinated action by a number of state institutions gave rise to paramilitaries tasked with altering borders while maintaining plausible deniability for the sponsoring regime. The outsourcing of violence by the state to paramilitaries led to a significant weakening of the very state these units and their sponsors swore to protect. The book also analyzes differences between the units and how they attacked civilians, arguing that the different forms of violence stemmed not only from the function they fulfilled for the state but also the ways in which they were set up and operated. The final chapter brings the different strands of the argument together into a coherent whole, suggesting avenues for further research, in the former Yugoslavia and beyond. This book will be of much interest to students of ethnic conflict and civil war, war crimes, Balkan politics, and International Relations in general.

This is the first book to offer a comprehensive analysis of the emergence, nature, and function of Serbian paramilitary units during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia. The book investigates the nature and functions of paramilitary units throughout the 1990s, and their ties to the state and President Slobodan Milošević. The work relies on the archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, which conducted dozens of trials relating to paramilitary violence, and records from judicial proceedings in the region. It discusses how and why certain important paramilitary units emerged, how they functioned and transformed through the decade, what their relationships and entanglements were with the state, the Milošević regime, and organized crime. The study thus investigates the interrelated ideological, political, and social factors and processes, fueling paramilitary engagement, and assesses the impact of this engagement on victims of paramilitary violence and on the state and society for which the units purportedly fought. It argues that coordinated action by a number of state institutions gave rise to paramilitaries tasked with altering borders while maintaining plausible deniability for the sponsoring regime. The outsourcing of violence by the state to paramilitaries led to a significant weakening of the very state these units and their sponsors swore to protect. The book also analyzes differences between the units and how they attacked civilians, arguing that the different forms of violence stemmed not only from the function they fulfilled for the state but also the ways in which they were set up and operated. The final chapter brings the different strands of the argument together into a coherent whole, suggesting avenues for further research, in the former Yugoslavia and beyond. This book will be of much interest to students of ethnic conflict and civil war, war crimes, Balkan politics, and International Relations in general.

Memory politics as a space of state-sponsored as well as civic activities has been at the heart of inquiries in critical peace and conflict studies. This book investigates the study of memory activism and memory of activism, emerging after conflict, as a political civic action. It examines the appearance and growth of memory activism in Serbia amid the legacies of unwanted memoriesof the wars of the 1990s, approaching the post-Yugoslav region as a region of memory activism and tracing the alternative calendars and alternative commemorative practices of memory activists as they have evolved over a period of more than two decades. By presenting in-depth accounts of memory activism practices, on-site and online, Memory Activism and Digital Memory Practices after Conflict: Unwanted Memoriesanalyses this evolution in the context of generational belonging and introduces frameworks for the study of alternative commemorations and commemorative solidarity.

Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction is the most wide-ranging textbook on genocide yet published. Designed as a text for undergraduate and graduate students from a range of disciplines, it will also appeal to non-specialists and general readers. Fully updated to reflect the latest thinking in this rapidly developing field, this unique book: Provides an introduction to genocide as both a historical phenomenon and an analytical-legal concept, including the concept of genocidal intent and the dynamism and contingency of genocidal processes. Discusses the role of state-building, imperialism, war, and social revolution in fueling genocide. Supplies a wide range of full-length case studies of genocides worldwide, each with a supplementary study. Explores perspectives on genocide from the social sciences, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science/international relations, and gender studies. Considers the future of genocide, with attention to historical memory and genocide denial; initiatives for truth, justice, and redress; and strategies of intervention and prevention. Highlights of the new edition include: New case studies of the Uyghur genocide in the People’s Republic of China, the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, and Muslims in India. The historical and archaeological legacy of genocide. New and vivid testimonies of survivors and witnesses to genocide. This significantly revised fourth edition will remain an indispensable text for new generations of genocide study and scholarship. An accompanying website (www.genocidetext.net) features a selection of supplementary materials, teaching aids, and Internet resources.

This prescient Research Agenda offers an in-depth understanding of the increasing trend of far right-inspired political violence. As domestic extremism becomes a critical priority for governments worldwide, editors Rohan Gunaratna and Katalin Pethö-Kiss scrutinize the threat landscape and analyze far-right groups in countries of the greatest concern.

Half a century after the Holocaust, on European soil, Bosnian Serbs orchestrated a system of concentration camps where they subjected their Bosniak Muslim and Bosnian Croat neighbors to torture, abuse, and killing. Foreign journalists exposed the horrors of the camps in the summer of 1992, sparking worldwide outrage. This exposure, however, did not stop the mass atrocities. Hikmet Karčić shows that the use of camps and detention facilities has been a ubiquitous practice in countless wars and genocides in order to achieve the wartime objectives of perpetrators. Although camps have been used for different strategic purposes, their essential functions are always the same: to inflict torture and lasting trauma on the victims. Torture, Humiliate, Kill develops the author’s collective traumatization theory, which contends that the concentration camps set up by the Bosnian Serb authorities had the primary purpose of inflicting collective trauma on the non-Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This collective traumatization consisted of excessive use of torture, sexual abuse, humiliation, and killing. The physical and psychological suffering imposed by these methods were seen as a quick and efficient means to establish the Serb “living space.” Karčić argues that this trauma was deliberately intended to deter non-Serbs from ever returning to their pre-war homes. The book centers on multiple examples of experiences at concentration camps in four towns operated by Bosnian Serbs during the war: Prijedor, Bijeljina, Višegrad, and Bileća. Chosen according to their political and geographical position, Karčić demonstrates that these camps were used as tools for the ethno-religious genocidal campaign against non-Serbs. Torture, Humiliate, Kill is a thorough and definitive resource for understanding the function and operation of camps during the Bosnian genocide.

Between April 1992 and December 1995, more than 100,000 people were killed in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The terrible atrocities committed in this period have been much discussed and studied and many prosecuted as acts of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity. But so far, the academic scholarship has focused on the role of the military in these events. This has come at the expense of considering the police's role, which Nielsen here demonstrates as crucial. Nielsen traces the origins of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the police and associated paramilitary groups. Nielsen makes this ground-breaking case by drawing on a host of confidential archival sources, academic research and practical experience as a widely cited expert witness in the most notorious of the war crimes tribunals. His innovative new history sheds light on wider issues regarding the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the Balkan wars and the region today.