Contemporary Ethnic Politics and Violence

Abstract

This chapter offers a perspective on the relationship between ethnic politics and violence that applies lessons from discourse theory and the recent findings on the role of emotions in human cognition. It proceeds by discussing the intersection between discourse theory and the literature on affective cognition, outlining a discursive-affective analytical framework, and applying it toward an understanding of ethnic politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first part of the chapter analyzes the processes that led to the Bosnian War by exposing the role of nationalist parties in producing emotional polarization that culminated into armed mobilization. It then argues that the War’s emotional legacy decisively shaped contemporary politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, maintaining deep ethnic cleavages and potential for future violence. By emphasizing the role of nationalist agents and discursively mobilized emotions in producing homogenized ethnic groups primed for armed mobilization, the discussion challenges groupist and rationalist approaches to ethnically framed conflicts.