CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Eminagic, Emin |
|---|---|
| Title | Overcoming Ethnicity- Student Protests, Nationalism and New Solidarities |
| Summary | In 1991, with the declaration of Independence of Croatia and Slovenia, the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia starts to disintegrate, which yields in ethnic conflicts, which later will define the demographic and political constitution of its successor states. The most drastic and obvious example of course would be Bosnia and Herzegovina. Namely, with the emergence of ethic conflict, i.e. violence, and the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina was to become a consociation democracy, which is best in its terms described by the Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart, whose model I will follow in this thesis. Due to the nature of a consociation democratic system a reification of ethnic identity emerged, it is safe to say that the importance of ethnicity, or in this case nationality was not reinvented but rediscovered. This is not true only for Bosnia and Herzegovina but also for its neighbor to the west, Croatia. If we observe the voting statistics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we will see that each of the constituent peoples will vote for the representative of a certain ethnicity . Even more so, given that there is a great Diaspora of Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina with Croatian citizenship, but residency, or even citizenship in the former country, they are entitled to voting rights in both countries, thus having a substantial influence on the election outcomes. This results in, as Boris Buden points out, a widespread cynicism and general lethargy, another text that was used as the foreword for the Occupation Cookbook , he says: Öthey are fighting this very difference, that is to say the hegemony that forces us do differentiate the world in such a manner. Solidarity is neither the prerequisite nor the product of this struggle, but its actual form. Here he claims that solidarity is not to be neglected, and that this should not only be applied to particular struggles, but to society in general. Here I wish to turn to the case study I am going to be looking at during this thesis, and how such an act can aid in overcoming ethnic cleavages, thus generating new solidarities amongst people, not only on a transnational basis, but very much so, as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on a local one. I am talking about the student protests in Zagreb, Croatia in the spring of 2009, and how they were transposed to a university in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. We will see how exactly through the dynamics of acts such as these student protests, and their decision making model, which they denominated as the Students Plenum, the importance of things like ethnicity or nationality will be rendered unnecessary, thus yielding in the creation of an unified and to a great extent egalitarian public sphere. |
| Supervisor | Pelinka, Anton |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/eminagic_emin.pdf |
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