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Bosnia-Herzegovina has recovered slowly from the war of 1992–1995 partly due to the fact that the Dayton Accord that ended the war created a consociational state segmented by the three majority ethnic and religious groups, the Bosniaks, the Serbs, and the Croats. These “constituent peoples” live in divided spaces, rule the country separately, and have not yet reconciled their differences, impeding the creation of national identity. Women’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and women peacemakers are working toward reconciliation and peace through the construction of an alternative narrative to that of the government’s and creating an increasingly influential civil society. These NGOs, comprised of women “victims” who became “empowered leaders,” are fostering reconciliation and peace through the promotion of the human rights of five groups: (1) deceased victims of the war; (2) surviving victims of the war; (3) minority groups; (4) marginalized groups; and (5) women. By the construction of liminal space through civic art, psychosocial healing, and political action, these groups are creating a new future and building the momentum to push the country forward to a reintegrated society. Leadership of the groups is dispersed throughout the country and comprised of many ethnic groups who collaborate to meet the needs and demands of their followers, who, in effect, have created the leaders and lead inclusively with them. The chapter provides an interesting study of the power of women, who turned victimhood into social action, to build a grassroots civil society that is fostering reconciliation and peace.

Purpose – This paper updates a review of research on crime among migrants in Switzerland, published in 1997.

Methodology – Review of national survey data and statistics published since 1997.

Findings – Recent statistics as well as surveys (of victimization and self-reported delinquency) show disproportionate levels of offending among migrants. Data from victimization surveys further show that victims do not report offences more often to the police whenever they suspect the offender being a foreign national. Self-report surveys show that delinquent involvement is, particularly for violent offences, higher among migrant youths than among Swiss-born juveniles. According to comparative international survey data, offending among migrant youths from Balkan countries is far more common in Switzerland than among adolescents living in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Implications – The conditions of socialization within the immigration context may be more important than cultural factors.

Value – Combining statistics, victimization surveys and self-report studies at the national level, with survey data from areas where migrants come from.

This chapter contains a case study analysis on a song by the Spanish heavy metal group Desafío or ‘Challenge’. The lyrics of the song are treated as a poem, and I will thus progress toward a linguistic and poetic analysis (Leech, 2013). Songs include many poetic devices, such as personification, metonymy, paradox, tautology, antithesis, and hyperbole (cf. Hewitt, 2000, p. 189). During the aforementioned linguistic and poetical analysis, it will be seen that the song Muerte en Mostar ‘Death in Mostar’ abounds with poetic features. The song begins with personification, for example: ‘The moon reflects in her face the shadows of evil’. Liturgical lexis and bellicose vocabulary also proliferate. Especially active in the song is the notion of an almost religious crusade. For example, one liturgical aspect found in the chorus is where an unnamed protagonist is described within the context of an almost holy war: ‘To his squadron's flag he promised his loyalty / His heart of love would be called by God’. The song goes on to recount the subsequent events and, therefore, this song in fact seems to be a mini-narrative. Finally, I will show how so much literary allusion reveals, in the end, that the song is not about Spain at all but about events that took place during the war of Bosnia–Herzegovina.

This chapter presents a theoretical argument that looking at how some grand matters of politics are simplified for practical use on the street is necessary to adequately understand how ordinary Serbs and Croats (and to a limited extent, Muslims) were transformed into enemies of their neighbors, workmates, and covillagers in the havoc wrought in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Locals’ shifting attitudes toward consanguinal identity, expressions of greeting, and dressing patterns are found to be examples of everyday practices through which perceived differences in civilization, competitive ideas of statehood, and macroconstructions of group identity produce ethnic conflict. A broad conclusion is that attention to localized manifestations of the macropolitical will yield more comprehensive understanding in analyses of ethnic conflict.

Reports from the Bundeswehr Institute of Social Sciences (SOWI) (Biehl, Keller, Kozielski, Reinholz, & Tomforde, 2004; Biehl, vom Hagen, & Mackewitsch, 2001) about the motivation of German soldiers in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo have already clarified that no longer only patriotism, political ideas, the identification with an ideology or charismatic leaders count as motivating factors for soldiers to risk their lives in combat or in peacekeeping missions abroad (see also Moskos, 1968). Also, it is not – as long proclaimed within military sociology – only cohesion between comrades, which will motivate soldiers to fight (see Segal & Kestnbaum, 2001). Instead, factors which concern the soldier as an individual, such as family support and the soldier's social environment influence greatly whether or not a soldier is willing to risk his or her life, or less drastically speaking, whether or not, he or she is willing to endure the hardships of peacekeeping missions.

Similar to other countries of former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is still regarded to be a transitional economy, both from the social, political, and economic perspectives. In this regard, it is important to note that political agendas and economic strategies are still not satisfactory for the development of entrepreneurial activities. There are serious deficiency issues in regard to entrepreneurship ecosystem in BiH. This chapter describes 10 elements of the entrepreneurial ecosystem (EES) and their implications on the EES outlook of BiH.

Slovenia has joined the club of peacekeepers in 1997. The decision was made under pressure of foreign expectations that a country which strives for NATO membership should prove its willingness to co-operate in common defence efforts. First military units, sent to UN-led peacekeeping operations, comprised volunteers on an ad hoc basis and were very small (platoon level). There were also a few policemen who joined missions abroad, first under WEU leadership in Albania. The governmental need ‘to show the flag’ in many operations increased the number of soldiers needed for peace operations and the number of policemen. Currently, there are around 200 soldiers and 30 policemen in different operations abroad. In the period 1997–2001 all soldiers and policemen entered the missions on a voluntary basis. In 2002, there was the first contingent of Slovenian SFOR soldiers that used its home military structure (infantry motorised company) in a peace mission. It marked the end of ad hoc units, comprised to serve the goals of the mission only, and the start of more organised, and also more ordered co-operation of soldiers in missions. They could still refuse participation in the mission, but that would have led to risks of losing unit cohesion. In the transition from voluntary peacekeepers to peacekeepers on duty, or by order, the Slovenian Army realised the need to understand what helps soldiers to fully accept the terms of operations abroad.

Al-Qaeda is conventionally portrayed as a monolithic, hierarchical organization whose activities – coordinated by the network's leader Osama bin Laden – are the source of international terrorism today. Al-Qaeda is considered a radical tendency within the broader Islamist Salafi movement, legitimizing its terrorist operations as a global Islamist jihad against Western civilization. Al-Qaeda's terrorist activity today is considered, “blowback” from long finished CIA and western covert operations in Afghanistan.

The conventional wisdom is demonstrably false. After the Cold War, Western connections with al-Qaeda proliferated around the world, challenging mainstream conceptions of al-Qaeda's identity. Western covert operations and military – intelligence connections in strategic regions show that “al-Qaeda” is a network whose raison d’etre and modus operandi are inextricably embedded in a disturbing conglomerate of international Western diplomatic, financial, military and intelligence policies today. US, British, and Western power routinely manipulates al-Qaeda through a complex network of state-regional and human nodes. Such manipulation extended directly to the 9-11 hijackers, and thus to the events of 9-11 itself.11This paper advances an original argument based partially on research in Ahmed (2005), supplemented here with significant new data and analysis. Also see Ahmed (2002).

The breakup of Yugoslavia and the development of conflict and massacres from 1991 to 1993 was widely reported in the West, in contrast with prior patterns of denial, concealment of evidence, lack of recognition, misperception, and avoidance of massacres and genocides since World War II. The chapter addresses reasons why bystanders did not intervene to stop the genocide and check war crimes by asking how the situation was framed by an influential segment of the press. An intensive content analysis in nine leading U.S. newspapers revealed that a majority of articles conformed to moral obligation and rational choice models. The study concludes with a critique of political will for action and the position that it was not the direct influence of the media, which reflected rather than refined perceptions and the recognition of genocide.

The aim of this chapter is mainly to explore the gastronomic offer of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a special emphasis on Bosnian cheese varieties, as well as the potentials and opportunities for the advancement of gastronomy in tourist offer in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Several studies have shown gastronomy to be the main reason for visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina. An important part of gastronomic offer is the variety of Bosnian cheese. The most popular types of cheese in Bosnia and Herzegovina are Livno and Vlašić cheese.

Livno cheese belongs to the group of the most popular autochthonous cheese in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Livno cheese is produced in the town of Livno and its surrounding areas, such as Kupres, Glamoč and Tomislavgrad. Originally, it was made of sheep's milk but nowadays, it is mostly made from a mixture of sheep's and cow's milk. Vlašić cheese is a white cheese which matures in brine. Traditional Vlašić cheese is made with raw sheep milk. It is produced in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the Vlašić Mountain.

The goal is to discover how Livno and Vlašić cheeses can be included in the gastronomic offer of Bosnia and Herzegovina and to discover how to use gastronomy for the purposes of tourism development in Bosnia and Herzegovina.