Why combatants fight: the Irish Republican Army and the Bosnian Serb Army compared

This article investigates what motivates combatants to fight in non-conventional armed organizations. Drawing on interviews with ex-combatants from the Army of the Serbian Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the article compares the role of nationalist ideology, coercive organizational structures, and small group solidarity in these two organizations. Our analysis indicates that coercion played a limited role in both armed forces: in the VRS coercion was relevant mostly in the recruitment phase, while in the IRA its direct impact was only discernible during armed operations. We also find that although both organizations are seen as being highly motivated by nationalist ideas, the picture is much more complex and nationalism is less present than expected. The study demonstrates that nationalism played a relatively marginal role in combatants’ motivation to fight. Instead our research indicates that individualist motivations, small group solidarity, and local networks dominate.     

Pension policy in the European Union: Responses to the changing division of labor in family life

In this articles the authors analyze pension rights in the national pension schemes of the European Union countries from a gender perspective by using the mainstream regime-type framework based on the work of Esping-Andersen. An important aspect of pension benefits is the extent to which they allow individual claims for benefits or ‘family’ recipients through derived benefits or household means testing. Individual pension rights refer to a person's own insurance record or residence-based rights whereas derived rights are based on a spouse's insurance record. From the gender perspective, the authors examine how policymakers have responded in pension policies to challenges due to changes in the gender division of labor and the reshaping of the family institution.     

Gender Equality Policies and Practices in Croatia – The Interplay of Transition and Late Europeanization

This article contributes to understanding change in gender regimes in post‐communist countries. Using Croatia as a case, it juxtaposes the observed change in key indicators of the position of women in various walks of life with the context of the European gender agenda and the positions of actors involved in the national political arena and policies introduced throughout the transition period. The article reviews the previous enlargement waves and indicates that the gender agenda was added to the negotiation process rather late – primarily via the EU accession conditionality requirement. Although narrow in scope and often limited in impact to just ‘paper compliance’ with EU legislation, it opened discussions in the gender equality area in post‐communist countries and empowered women's organizations. In all the countries, the implementation of the European agenda was heavily influenced by the power and discourses of the main actors involved. The article provides a map of social actors involved, together with gender‐related policies as they have changed in three distinct periods in Croatia. The final analysis of observed practices and structures indicates very slow change and the crucial impact of structural and institutional developments as well as economic cycles, but little association of observed developments with dominant discourses or policies implemented over the past two decades.     

Forging the Nation-centric World: Imperial Rule and the Homogenisation of Discontent in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1878–1918)

Historical sociologists have questioned the idea that nationalism and imperialism are mutually exclusive phenomena. In contrast to traditional historiography that depicted empires as ‘the prison houses of nations’ contemporary scholarship emphasises the structural and ideological ambiguities that characterised the 19th century European imperial projects. Hence instead of ‘popular longings’ for national independence the focus has shifted to the experiences of ‘national indifference’. In this paper I aim to go beyond this dichotomy by questioning the role of (nationalist) agency in the collapse of imperial order. Drawing on the primary archival research I zoom in on the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the Austro-Hungarian rule (1878–1918). The paper contests the view that the imperial state was severely undermined by the presence of strong nationalisms. I also challenge the notion that the majority of Bosnian population remained ‘nationally indifferent’ during this period. Instead, I argue that understanding the character of the Austro-Hungarian rule is a much better predictor of social change that took place in this period. Rather than stifling supposedly vibrant nationalisms or operating amidst widespread national indifference the imperial state played a decisive role in forging the nation-centric world through its inadvertent homogenisation of discontent.