Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Case Study into the Role of Ethnicity within the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina

<p>Many of the conflicts fought in the world today are fought internally between rival ethnic groups. Although the cause of the conflict may differ, the violent and often brutal nature of these conflicts makes them a threat that the international community cannot ignore. This thesis will analyse the progress of defence reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina - with specific attention to the role of ethnicity within the armed forces. The thesis discusses the challenges and actions taken by the international community to establish a united, state level defence force under a single chain of command. The political situation in the Balkans highlights the fact that ethnic issues are crucial in the security of the region. The central argument of this thesis is that in ethnically divided countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, abolishing ethnically segregated defence forces in favour of one unified force is crucial to the creation of state viability. The thesis hypothesises that ethnic segregation and lack of integration within the forces today contributes to ongoing instability within Bosnia. As a serving member of the New Zealand Defence Force, the author participated in the post–conflict stabilisation process in both Bosnia and Kosovo. Having witnessed first hand the effects of ethnicity in the Bosnian defence forces and the wider community, the author now seeks to analyse the pace of defence reform within Bosnia and Herzegovina which has been challenged by ethnic phenomena since the cessation of hostilities in 1995.</p>

Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Case Study into the Role of Ethnicity within the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina

<p>Many of the conflicts fought in the world today are fought internally between rival ethnic groups. Although the cause of the conflict may differ, the violent and often brutal nature of these conflicts makes them a threat that the international community cannot ignore. This thesis will analyse the progress of defence reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina - with specific attention to the role of ethnicity within the armed forces. The thesis discusses the challenges and actions taken by the international community to establish a united, state level defence force under a single chain of command. The political situation in the Balkans highlights the fact that ethnic issues are crucial in the security of the region. The central argument of this thesis is that in ethnically divided countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, abolishing ethnically segregated defence forces in favour of one unified force is crucial to the creation of state viability. The thesis hypothesises that ethnic segregation and lack of integration within the forces today contributes to ongoing instability within Bosnia. As a serving member of the New Zealand Defence Force, the author participated in the post–conflict stabilisation process in both Bosnia and Kosovo. Having witnessed first hand the effects of ethnicity in the Bosnian defence forces and the wider community, the author now seeks to analyse the pace of defence reform within Bosnia and Herzegovina which has been challenged by ethnic phenomena since the cessation of hostilities in 1995.</p>

The impact of ethnic segregation on neighbourhood-level social distancing in the United States amid the early outbreak of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has been argued to be the ‘great equaliser’, but, in fact, ethnically and racially segregated communities are bearing a disproportionate burden from the disease. Although more people have been infected and died from the disease among these minority communities, still fewer people in these communities are complying with the suggested public health measures like social distancing. The factors contributing to these ramifications remain a long-lasting debate, in part due to the contested theories between ethnic stratification and ethnic community. To offer empirical evidence to this theoretical debate, we tracked public social-distancing behaviours from mobile phone devices across urban census tracts in the United States and employed a difference-in-difference model to examine the impact of racial/ethnic segregation on these behaviours. Specifically, we focussed on non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic communities at the neighbourhood level from three principal dimensions of ethnic segregation, namely, evenness, exposure, and concentration. Our results suggest that (1) the high ethnic diversity index can decrease social-distancing behaviours and (2) the high dissimilarity between ethnic minorities and non-Hispanic Whites can increase social-distancing behavior; (3) the high interaction index can decrease social-distancing behaviours; and (4) the high concentration of ethnic minorities can increase travel distance and non-home time but decrease work behaviours. The findings of this study shed new light on public health behaviours among minority communities and offer empirical knowledge for policymakers to better inform just and evidence-based public health orders.

A New Embassy from Taiwan: The Zheng Regime as Extraterritorial Arbiter of Ethnic Peace in Manila, 1662–1683

In 1662, shortly after conquering Taiwan, Zheng Chenggong wrote to the Spanish governor of Manila, threatening to invade the Philippines if the Spanish did not swear vassalage to his new regime. Although the Spanish refused, Chenggong died before he could carry out his threat, and his successor Zheng Jing wrote a second letter offering terms for peace. These exchanges provide some of the only surviving direct recordings of the Zheng leaders’ beliefs regarding the rights, responsibilities, and boundaries of “Chinese” identity, in particular the relationship between Sangleys and Chinese rulers. Both Zhengs claimed rulership over Manila’s Chinese, but where Zheng Chenggong stated a right to direct rule over this population, Zheng Jing compromised by requesting changes to the Spanish laws which governed his “subjects” in the Philippines. These demands recall modern notions of citizenship and extraterritoriality, and provide a rare contemporary Chinese perspective on colonial Manila’s policies of ethnic segregation. The Zheng state’s active pressure, by contrast to Ming and Qing emperors’ customary disinterest in overseas Chinese, forced the Spanish to reduce their oppression of and reliance on the Chinese, but this also involved expelling thousands of migrants and enforcing long-ignored legal limits on immigration. I argue that this period of conflict clarified the Spaniard’s notion of where chinos fit into their empire’s particular ethno-legal system. This episode thus shows how the Chinese experience in the Philippines was shaped not just by European attitudes, but also by the nature of the Sangleys’ political links to China.

Social Exclusion and Ethnic Segregation in Schools: The Role of Teacher's Ethnic Prejudice

Using data on primary school children and their teachers, we show that teachers who hold prejudicial attitudes towards an ethnic group create socially and spatially segregated classrooms. Leveraging a natural experiment where newly arrived refugee children are randomly assigned to teachers within schools, we find that teachers’ ethnic prejudice, measured by an implicit association test, significantly lowers the prevalence of inter-ethnic social links, increases homophilic ties among host children, and puts refugee children at a higher risk of peer violence. Our results highlight the role of teachers in achieving integrated schools in a world of increasing ethnic diversity.

Ethnic Segregation and Inter-Ethnic Relationships in Hungarian Schools

We investigate the extent of the segregation of Roma students in the Hungarian primary school system and discuss its consequences for actual inter-ethnic relationships within schools. Drawing on results from our previous research, we show that more exposure to members of the other ethnic group (less segregation) leads to more inter-ethnic friendships but also to more inter-ethnic hostility. Importantly, we show that Roma students with above-average academic achievement experience a lot more inter-ethnic friendship relationships than hostility without losing friends from their own ethnic group, and thus the positive effects of more exposure to non-Roma peers far outweighs its negative effects. We conclude that policies that aim at improving the academic performance of Roma students can bring additional benefits by improving their relationships in school.