The Road from Dayton to Brussels? The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Politics of War Crimes in Bosnia

Abstract

The tenth anniversary of the massacre of 7–8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995 set in stark relief the continuing salience of war crimes in the political life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the country now firmly on a path ‘from Dayton to Brussels’, dealing with the war crimes legacy is critical to its future development. Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is a non-negotiable condition for further progress toward membership of the European Union and NATO's Partnership for Peace, while in the long-term, dealing with the legacy of war crimes is crucial to establishing lasting peace in Bosnia and in the region. This article examines the potential contribution of the ICTY to the restoration of peace in Bosnia in the context of debates about the role of post-conflict justice in societies in transition from war to peace and in the context of the international community's use of the war crimes issues as a political bargaining tool. It will be argued that the two are inextricably linked as short-term pragmatic advantages brought by cooperation work in tandem with longer-term goals of peace and reconciliation.     

Failures,downsizings, and mergers among community development corporations

Abstract

Over the past 30 years, community development corporations (CDCs) have become increasingly important actors in low‐ and moderate‐income communities. One prominent view of CDCs is that they have experienced uninterrupted growth since the 1970s. Despite their growth and productivity, however, many are facing serious challenges to their continued viability. When confronted by such challenges, CDCs are likely to respond in one of three ways: go out of business, downsize, or merge with one or more other groups. The major goal of this research was to assess the causes of these failures, downsizings, and mergers.

First, we found that these changes do not appear to be isolated instances; rather, they are prevalent across the country. Second, we identified a number of contextual and organizational factors leading to CDC failures, downsizings, and mergers. Finally we suggest a series of actions CDCs, support communities, and policy makers can take in response.     

dystopia as liberation: disturbing femininities in contemporary Thailand

Despite the stereotypical, outsider view of Thailand as a thriving hub of international sex tourism, traditional and local constructions of Thainess instead privilege the position of the ‘good’ Thai woman—a model of sexual propriety, demure physicality and aesthetic perfection. This is the image of femininity that is heralded by Thailand’s Tourist Authority and by government agencies alike as a marketable symbol of cultural refinement and national pride. But this disturbing ‘utopian’ construction of femininity might for some be considered a dystopia shaped by forms of power centred on elite urban rule. In mainstream definitions of Thainess, the monstrous and grotesque inverses of ‘good’ womanhood are located in the ‘dystopian’ visions of rural-based folk traditions that abound with malevolent female spirits and demons, and in the contemporary Thai horror films that draw on these tropes. Adopted by Thai feminists and by street protestors in Bangkok at times of recent political unrest, portrayals of a ‘monstrous-feminine’ have been adopted as central to a carnivalesque strategy of response and resistance to elite discourses of control. Such forces serve to symbolically disturb and destabilise middle-class constructions of a utopian vision of Thainess with Bangkok as its cultural core. This paper examines instances of how and why the counter-strategy of primitivism and monstrosity has developed, and the extent to which it translates ‘dystopian’ expressions of female sexuality in new imaginaries of ‘dystopia’ as a space of liberation from stultifying cultural and political norms.     

Depressive Symptoms and Sexual Experiences Among Early Adolescent Girls: Interpersonal Avoidance as Moderator

Building on the growing body of research that supports the relationship between depressive symptoms and sexual activities in adolescence, we examined how individual differences in interpersonal avoidance and anxiety might moderate this association. Data were collected from 71 early adolescent girls (M age 13.45 years; SD = 0.68; 89% Caucasian) concurrently and 1 year later. Results indicated that greater depressive symptoms predicted a greater frequency of sexual intercourse both concurrently and 1-year later, particularly among more interpersonally avoidant girls. However, greater depressive symptoms predicted a greater frequency of non-intercourse activities 1-year later among less avoidant girls. Implications for understanding how individual differences in interpersonal style may serve as risk or protective factors in dysphoric girls’ sexual experiences are discussed.     

Les échevins et la formulation des politiques: Note méthodologique

Sommaire. Cet article examine la question du rǒle des échevins dans la formulation des politiques municipales, tout particulièrement les aspects méthodolo-giques de la question. Dans une première section, nous démontrons que la plupart des études qui ont analysé le rǒle des échevins n'ont pas réussi à ex-pliquer l'output municipal. L'échec s'explique par le fait que ces études privi-légient à peu près exclusivement les attitudes des échevins et n'accordent que peu de place aux comportements et au contexte objectif et concret dans lequel les échevins travaillent. Dans une deuxième section nous démontrons, à partir du cas de Hull, comment une étude des conditions concrètes de travail des échevins peut nous éclairer sur la formation des politiques municipales. Cette etude des ‘ faits matériels » du monde des échevins souligne l'importance des administrateurs municipaux. Les décisions du Conseil municipal ne relevent que très peu de considérations abstraites et ces décisions sont prises dans un cadre donné, un cadre en bonne partie façonné par les administrateurs municipaux. En somme, la principale conclusion qui nous semble émerger de l'étude, c'est l'importance, pour bien saisir le rǒle de l'échevin dans la formulation des politiques, de situer ce rǒle dans sa pratique quotidienne. Abstract. This article examines the question of the role of municipal councillors in the formulation of public policy, with particular emphasis on the methodological dimension of this question. In a first section the authors show that most of the studies that have examined the role of municipal councillors have not succeeded in explaining the municipality's policy output. This failure can be explained by the fact that these studies look principally at the attitudes of the councillors and give very little attention to behaviour or to the real environment in which the councillors work. In a second section we attempt to show, based on the example of Hull, how a study of the concrete working conditions of municipal councillors can illuminate the process of policy formulation. This study of the councillors' ‘real world’ illustrates the importance of the municipal administrators. Council decisions are not taken in the abstract, they emerge from a specific context or framework and this framework is largely structured by the municipal administrators. The major conclusion that emerges from the study is the importance, in order to understand the role of municipal councillors in policy-making, of situating this role in the context of the day-to-day work of the councillors.