In Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes, Denisa Kostovicova considers how best to achieve reconciliation in post-conflict societies, focusing on case studies from the Balkan region. Arguing for a process-oriented, dialogic and empathetic approach, Kostovicova reimagines conventional transitional justice mechanisms, writes Ajla Henic.

Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes. Denisa Kostovicova. Cornell University Press. 2023.

As Kalyvas suggests in The Logic of Violence in Civil War, violence is better understood as a process than a discrete act; it follows that reconceptualising reconciliation as a process rather than an ultimate objective is vital to our understanding of post-conflict dynamics. In order to be meaningful, transitional justice mechanisms aimed at achieving recognition and reconciliation must consider this ongoing process comprehensively, as Denisa Kostovicova shows in Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes.

Kostovicova, an outstanding scholar in post-conflict reconstruction and post-conflict justice processes in the Balkans, raises questions and reflections regarding societies navigating the post-conflict transformation. In conflicts characterised by identity aspects, violence often serves to further solidify these identities, perpetuating an ethnonationalist understanding of post-conflict society. The prevalence of polarisation, a stark reality in societies institutionally divided by peace treaties, further complicates the journey towards reconciliation.

Kostovicova introduces ‘reconciliation by stealth’, an emancipatory concept within transitional justice processes that foregrounds the necessity for discursive solidarity. By analysing how people talk about war crimes, we can subtly advance the idea of reconciliation as a process.

Kostovicova introduces “reconciliation by stealth”, an emancipatory concept within transitional justice processes that foregrounds the necessity for discursive solidarity. By analysing how people talk about war crimes, we can subtly advance the idea of reconciliation as a process. The author is acutely aware of the various pejorative interpretations of this complex concept, ranging from moral relativism to the potential belittlement of suffering, foreign imposition, instrumentalised usage by local authors, and scholarly scepticism (126, 127). However, the author convincingly contends that truth commissions in the Balkans have failed in their purposes, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia could not function as a post-justice reconciliation mechanism, but rather as a criminal justice-seeking body with little influence on ethno-nationalist politicians.

Contrastingly,  the RECOM Reconciliation Network – an initiative established in 2008 – which Kostovicova examines, introduced a consultation mechanism in transitional justice. Forming a coalition, RECOM assembled approximately 2,000 human rights groups, including victims themselves, and introduced a victim-centric, fact-based, and regionally focused approach to the human rights violations perpetrated during the Balkan wars (24,25). Over 6,000 individuals from various ethnic backgrounds who were involved in the conflicts took part in the RECOM consultation process from 2006 to 2011. Herein lies the strength of Kostovicova’s work – the operationalisation of transitional justice and reconciliation, drawing from empirical insights, and employing mixed-methods approaches to understand the potential of deliberation in divided societies.

The book is grounded in a strong theoretical framework that aligns with the empirical chapters. By operationalising the concept of “deliberative democracy” and drawing on Habermas’s theory of communicative actions and Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition, Kostovicova extends a discourse-based approach to understanding solidarity and recognition in interethnic interactions within a transitional justice framework. Chapter Two focuses on the normative qualities required to deal with mistrust and polarisation in divided and post-conflict societies, as these factors could hinder “the development of an inclusive public sphere” (36). The deliberative process, even without arriving at a final decision and without the necessity for decision-making, has the potential to restore interethnic relationships (37).

Beyond examining how people discuss war crimes, the book considers how individuals express their ethnic identities in the process of deliberation. The role of identity becomes significant in addressing the legacies of violence.

Kostovicova’s theoretical advancements centre around examining the influence of ethnic identities during the process of deliberation (39). Drawing on the concept of identity from contact theory, she demonstrates a profound understanding of the region under study, enabling the exploration of ethnic division lines through the adaptation of a social interactional perspective on identity. This move aims to leave aside an essentialist and deterministic understanding of identity common in scholarly discourse. Beyond examining how people discuss war crimes, the book considers how individuals express their ethnic identities in the process of deliberation. The role of identity becomes significant in addressing the legacies of violence (49). Given that solely focusing on civic identities may not fully capture the dynamics of the (post) conflict, and recognising that ethnic identities are post-war constructs solidified by the violence, the analytical task is to accommodate this tension.

Contrary to expectations, Kostovicova finds that ethnically mixed consultations exhibit higher deliberative quality than ethnically homogeneous ones.

Thus, the research presents the factors that predict the high quality of deliberation in transitional justice consultation, such as ethnic diversity, gender, polarisation or subjectivity in rational justifications, amongst others. The quality of deliberation, while simultaneously identifying the legacies of violence, shows that identity matters during deliberation. To measure deliberation, the study employs the Discourse Quality Index adapted for transitional justice as the dependent variable;  and two independent variables are developed to measure identity in discourse: first, subjectivity in rational justification, and second, storytelling positionality (78).  Contrary to expectations, Kostovicova finds that ethnically mixed consultations exhibit higher deliberative quality than ethnically homogeneous ones. The findings challenge the notion that in a divided society, approaches should centre on a nonethnic discourse; it also underlines the possibility for victims – and survivors – to express their feelings of justice in post-conflict settings, launching a critique on the “monopolisation” of victims’ agency (83,84).

Kostovicova demonstrates that deliberation in divided societies encourages questioning the hegemony of ethnocentric collective identification, which strengthens a collective narrative of victimhood.

Chapter Five discusses the empirical approach of interactivity as an attribute of the deliberative process. Operationalising interactivity allows us to move beyond post-conflict power-sharing division. Due to the macro-level divisions, we expect a pattern of isolation or confinement of identity, labelled in the book as “ethnic enclavisation” (99). However, contrary again to expectations, agreement and respect along inter-ethnic lines in addressing the legacies of war crimes are prevalent. She demonstrates that deliberation in divided societies encourages questioning the hegemony of ethnocentric collective identification, which strengthens a collective narrative of victimhood (106). This means that deliberation advances the unlinking or disconnection between collective identities, contributing to the achievement of individuality for oneself and seeing the ‘other’ separated from their group.

Addressing the legacies of war is not only about engaging with former adversaries but also about understanding one’s own multi-layered identity during and after conflict.

Kostovicova’s work finds that deliberation also occurred along intra-group lines. This shows that addressing the legacies of war is not only about engaging with former adversaries but also about understanding one’s own multi-layered identity during and after conflict. This analysis brings clarity to the insufficiently understood causes and dynamics of violence and their relationship with identity, and also on the poorly comprehended legacies of mass violence and their connection with identity, self-categorisation, and victimhood.

Balkan scholars face the enormous challenge of scrutinising identity and ethnicity, aware of their intricate constructions, the influence of violence in shaping them, and the role of identity politics in their perpetuation. They must also construct an analysis that avoids replicating the conflict solely as ethnic while considering other causes of violence and its legacies, – or, better said, how to study identities in cases where, according to Brass as cited in Fearon and Laitin, violence is “socially constructed as ethnic.” With this, I aim to highlight literature (Vukosic and Kalyvas, cited in Malesevic, for example) on violence where communal  violence, even if described as such, on the ground or locally, can have other motivations, such as economic ones..

The book develops a theory centred on a “discursive perspective on solidarity in interethnic interactions, a theory that places emphasis on empathy and the acknowledgement of the “ethnic Other” with the aim of bridging gaps between deliberators (46). I’m uncertain whether this approach presents a rigid understanding of identity if the source of agency or deliberation specific to individuals (victims or survivors) is linked with abstract entities like ethnic or political groups, an analysis that Balcells advanced in the micro-level explanations of the occurrence of violence. A closer and more extended theoretical examination of intra-ethnic dynamics would have enriched the analysis, further challenging collective notions of identity and victimhood in post-conflict societies.

Max Berghoz states that, “Perpetrators may imprint ethnicity onto victims through acts of violence; victims, in turn, may internalize this externally imposed ethnic categorization and, through acts of revenge, imprint ethnicity onto the initial perpetrators and those associated with them.” This raises a crucial question: when we study victims, are we truly delving into their sense of identity? This question does not aim to undermine the agency of victims but rather emphasises the need for researchers to maintain a critical distance. As Kostovicova notes, mentioning Aida Hozic, delving into the understanding and interpretation of violence in post-conflict polities “can serve the interests of those who committed genocide” (33). Hence, it is relevant to point out that this tension regarding how we analyse identity through the victim’s perspective remains unresolved.

[The book] underscores the notion that irrespective of the duration, sustained dialogue paves the path towards reconciliation.

The book is a humane work that positions empathy and acknowledgement as epistemological guidance. Kostovicova’s endeavour to dissect and operationalise the neglected concept of reconciliation is a brave one. Her work is an essential advancement of reconciliation and can be used within academia without compromising the integrity of the Balkan region’s history. It underscores the notion that irrespective of the duration, sustained dialogue paves the path towards reconciliation.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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In Global Language Justice, Lydia H. Liu and Anupama Rao bring together contributions at the intersection of language, justice and technology, exploring topics including ecolinguistics, colonial legacies and the threat digitisation poses to marginalised languages. Featuring multilingual poetry and theoretically rich essays, the collection provides fresh humanities perspectives on the value of preserving linguistic diversity, writes Andrew Shorten. This blogpost originally appeared … Continued

In The Infrastructural South: Techno-Environments of the Third Wave of Urbanization, Jonathan Silver explores infrastructural evolution in the Global South, extrapolating from case studies in urban sub-Saharan Africa. Taking a broad interdisciplinary view, the book effectively shows how technology, inequality, climate change and private versus public investment shape contemporary infrastructural landscapes, writes Dagna Rams.

The Infrastructural South: Techno-Environments of the Third Wave of Urbanization. Jonathan Silver. MIT Press. 2023.

When delving into developmental reports about infrastructure in Africa, one stumbles upon assessments that it is “lagging behind” or “missing”. While it might be easy to point to “infrastructural gaps” and sigh at the scale of what is to be done, it is more difficult to understand what is actually happening, why, and with what consequences. Jonathan Silver’s Infrastructural South: Techno-Environments of the Third Wave of Urbanization is the author’s attempt to conceptualise African infrastructures, focusing on the abundance of processes on the ground. Silver pays attention to the private investment being pumped into the continent, the government’s infrastructural spending, and the multiple individual and collective efforts to make the city work. The book is panoramic, using case studies from sub-Saharan urban Africa to extrapolate to the “Global South”. Its value comes from explaining how key trends such as growing inequalities, climate change and digital economies affect infrastructures, creating new path dependencies embedded in their material networks.

[The book’s] value comes from explaining how key trends such as growing inequalities, climate change and digital economies affect infrastructures

What is “third wave urbanisation” and what forms of infrastructures does it give rise to? What are the “techno-environments”? And how far does the “infrastructural south” reach? The jargon already present in the title foretells the author’s commitment to pair analysis with the coinage of new terms – at least one in almost every chapter. Their persuasiveness depends on their usefulness and ability to travel to other contexts far and wide.

Silver appropriates “third-wave urbanism” for the African context. Geography scholars might associate the term with its use to describe urbanisation propelled by the “knowledge” or “cognitive-cultural” economy – a process that moves cities away from their industrial past towards gentrification, impersonal office buildings and consumption based on lifestyle. Although never fully spelled out, the book tacitly situates the third wave after the colonial city-making which created racial and territorial divisions within cities (first wave?) and the independence-era modernisation and industrialisation that saw the building of some public housing (second wave?). The third wave is characterised by a dizzyingly rapid rise of the urban population amid the demise of the hitherto limited opportunities within the public and industrial sectors. The cities are landscapes of manifest inequality, most starkly between informal labour and the elites connected to extractive industries. Given the preponderance of these urban trends across the continent, the author sets out to explore the infrastructural outcomes they bring forth, or the condition of the “Infrastructural South”.

Private cities of Appolonia City outside Accra and Eko Atlantic outside Lagos […] represent new transfers of capital – from Asia and Russia – and ‘start again’ urbanisation for the ‘middle class’

The “Infrastructural South” is foremost characterised by different “techno-environments,” that is, infrastructural worlds characterised by distinct technological arrangements that alter environments. The most extreme examples of such “techno-environments” are the uncompleted but already materially present private cities of Appolonia City outside Accra and Eko Atlantic outside Lagos. They represent new transfers of capital – from Asia and Russia – and “start again” urbanisation for the “middle class”, promising a lack of congestion and reliable infrastructure. In contrast to these – still only – fantasies, ever more urban residents club to sprawling suburban neighbourhoods where houses precede infrastructure, and the latter is left for the people to figure out. “Techno-environment” is a useful coinage, especially amid climate change, when the extent to which people can harness the environment for their own projects or be exposed to its whims creates new social distinctions and a looming “eco-segregation” (56). Besides these, the book covers other transversal trends such as the development of “corridors” to increase infrastructural efficiency around areas of direct relevance to extractive industries or “disruptions,” that is, infrastructures created by technologies imposing new designs like Uber or harnessing what exists with the aim of making it more efficient like creating an app for booking an existing bus service.

The “Infrastructural South” is a condition that can be found anywhere

Though case studies from sub-Saharan Africa and three cities – Accra, Cape Town and Kampala – form the backbone of this study, the author emphasises that the “Infrastructural South” is a condition that can be found anywhere. To that point, the final pages look at the water pollution in Flint, Michigan and Camden, New Jersey as examples of the “Infrastructural South”. Here, like in other places visited in the book’s pages, much more is happening than a simple lack of money that drives a lack of infrastructure. For example, schools are given funding to buy bottled water for pupils to compensate for polluted tap water, and though fixes such as this are meant to be temporary, they create lasting path dependencies. Only some of the problems get addressed and the outcomes are variable (eg, while at school, kids do not drink polluted water, but may do so at home, especially if their parents are poor). The “Infrastructural South” is thus a condition of half-measures, half-funded, half-improvements that outsource ever more responsibilities onto the people and the private sector, undermining the promise of a “public” commonly associated with infrastructural investment.

The undeniable strength of the book is its ability to identify infrastructural trends and point in the direction of new research paths

The undeniable strength of the book is its ability to identify infrastructural trends and point in the direction of new research paths. Given the book’s reliance on case studies from the anglophone world, and specifically, destinations that attract financial capital such as Accra or Cape Town, there is also an important question about how the trends it identifies play out in other parts of the continent. In addition, the book strikes me as a particularly suitable introduction to the topic of infrastructure in urban Africa for interdisciplinary contexts, especially where students have had less exposure to post-colonial theory or critical urban studies.

Because of the broad scope of the research, the examples it uses – waste companies, public toilets, electricity solutions, private cities, and corridors – are outlined rather than explored in depth. The methodology relies on reports in the public domain and short visits to different infrastructural sites. The author states in relation to each visit whether he gave notice or arrived spontaneously, suggesting that the latter allowed him to pierce through appearances. One aspect in which the book leaves a reader wanting is with regards to the many people – infrastructure users and workers – who populate the pages: they are mentioned by first name alone and we learn very little about them other than the fact that their utterances support the author’s arguments. Given the number of people mentioned, I had a sense that the “Infrastructural South” is populated by crowds from Ablade Glover’s paintings – a multitude who are seen from enough of a distance to appear to be speaking in one voice, which does not chime with the picture of infrastructural inequalities and individualised strife otherwise represented in the author’s theory.

The durability of infrastructure means that it can have the power to define cities for years to come

The durability of infrastructure means that it can have the power to define cities for years to come, just as inequalities solidified in colonial infrastructures have defined contemporary urban fabric. Likewise, decisions made today can alter urban maps in ways that will be difficult to undo – a proposition that is especially consequential in the context wherein climate change preparedness plans emphasise the importance of resilience and adaptability. Infrastructures matter. As Silver’s book warns, it is important to interrogate whether the infrastructures touted, established and planned are meant to connect or disconnect urban populations, whether the material arrangements they create are based on solutions that see into the future of the public or fixes that favour private investment. The resounding worry of the book is that the latter is likelier, and that tendency is not only prevalent in urban Africa or even the Global South, but the world over.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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In the face of soaring wealth inequality, Ingrid Robeyns‘ Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth calls for restrictions on individual fortunes. Robeyns puts forward a strong moral case for imposing wealth caps, though how to navigate the political and practical hurdles involved remains unclear, writes Stewart Lansley.

Watch a YouTube recording of an LSE event where Ingrid Robeyns spoke about the book.

Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Ingrid Robeyns. Allen Lane. 2023.

Ingrid Robeyns’ Limitarianism is the latest in a long line of critiques – such as Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Branko Milanovic’s Visions of Inequality – of the soaring wealth and income gaps of recent decades. Limitarianism focuses on personal wealth, which is much more unequally distributed than incomes, and is arguably the most urgent of these trends. It draws most closely on the United States, where, according to Forbes, nine of the world’s top 15 billionaires are citizens.

Robeyns argues that given the wider damage from the enrichment of the few, with its negative impact on economic strength and on wider life chances and social resilience, we must now impose a limit on individual wealth holdings. Thinkers have been making the case for this “limitarianism” and the capping of business rewards for centuries. The Classical Greek Philosopher, Plato, argued that political stability required the richest to own no more than four times that of the poorest. The Gilded Age financier, J. P. Morgan – one of the most powerful of American plutocrats of the nineteenth century – maintained that executives should earn no more than twenty times the pay of the lowest paid worker.  In 1942, President Roosevelt proposed a 100 percent top tax rate, stating that “[n]o American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year (about $1m in today’s terms).” “The most forthright and effective way of enhancing equality within the firm would be to specify the maximum range between average and maximum compensation”, wrote the influential American economist J. K. Galbraith in 1973.

The Gilded Age financier, J. P. Morgan […] maintained that executives should earn no more than twenty times the pay of the lowest paid worker.

One of the effects of the 2008 financial crisis was to trigger a debate about the role played by excessive compensation packages in banking. Others have argued that the introduction of guaranteed minimum wages – which limits employer freedom over employees – should come with a maximum too. As wealth inequality has deepened in recent decades, there have been growing calls for measures to reduce this concentration, not least among some members of the global super-rich club. Yet there has been perilously little political action. Each year the world’s mega-rich, facing few constraints, carry on appropriating a larger share of national and global wealth pools.

Robeyns sets out a powerful moral case against today’s wealth divide and asks the all-important question: “how much is too much?”. She calls for setting limits to the size of individual fortunes that would vary across countries. In the case of the Netherlands, where she lives, “we should aim to create a society in which no one has more than €10m. There shouldn’t be any decamillionaires.” This, she argues should be politically imposed. She also adds a second aspirational goal, an appeal to a new voluntary moral code applied by individuals themselves: “I contend that … the ethical limit [on wealth] will be around 1 million pounds, dollars or euros per person.”

Although there are many critics who dismiss the philosophical concept as either unfeasible or undesirable, history suggests the idea is far from utopian. Limits operated pretty effectively among nations – including the UK and the US – in the post-war decades and became an important instrument in the move towards greater equality.

War has long proved a powerful equalising force, and the post-1945 decades brought peak egalitarianism.

War has long proved a powerful equalising force, and the post-1945 decades brought peak egalitarianism. States shifted from their pre-war pro-inequality role to become agents of equality. This brought (albeit temporary) upward pressure on the lowest incomes and downward pressure on the highest. These limits operated in two ways: through regulation and taxation, and changes in cultural norms. Nations imposed highly progressive tax systems, with especially high tax rates at the top – that were sustained in the UK until the 1980s – the expansion of protective welfare states, and a shift in bargaining power from the boardroom to the workforce.

These policies were also enabled by a significant pro-equality cultural shift. This brought a tighter check on top business rewards and the size of fortunes. Until the early 1980s, business behaviour became more restrained, and wealth gaps narrowed. The kind of business appropriation that has become so widespread today would, for the most part, have been unacceptable to public and political opinion then. Gone were the public displays of extravagance and the high living of the inter-war years. Up to the 1970s, and the return of what Edward Heath called the “unacceptable face of capitalism”, executive salaries in the UK were moderated by a kind of hidden “shame gene”, an unwritten social code – similar in some ways to Robeyns’ call for voluntary limits – which acted as a check on greed. It was a code that was largely adhered to, partly because of fear of public outrage towards excessive wealth.

Up to the 1970s, and the return of what Edward Heath called the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’, executive salaries in the UK were moderated by a kind of hidden ‘shame gene’

Robeyns is making a conceptual case. She doesn’t give much detail of how limitarianism might work in practice, and doesn’t draw lessons from the post-war experience (though this was the product of the particular circumstances of the time). She recognises the hurdles needed to make the politics of limitarianism a reality. There are plenty of questions of detail that would need to be settled. How, as a society, would we determine the appropriate “rich lines” above which is too much? Would the “undeserving rich” whose wealth is achieved by extraction that hurts wider society, be treated differently from the ‘deserving’ who through exceptional skill, effort and risk-taking, create new wealth in ways that benefit others as well as themselves?

The expectation that the tremors of the 2008 meltdown would trigger a shift towards a more progressive governing philosophy that embraced a more equal sharing of wealth has failed to materialise.

The greatest hurdle is political. The expectation that the tremors of the 2008 meltdown would trigger a shift towards a more progressive governing philosophy that embraced a more equal sharing of wealth has failed to materialise. The pro-market, anti-state politics of recent decades are now largely discredited. International Monetary Fund staff, for example, have called neoliberal politics “oversold”. There are widespread calls for the reset of capitalism, with as Robeyns puts it, “a more considerate, values-based economic system”. Although such a system may yet emerge, there are few signs of the kind of value-shift and new cultural norms that would be a pre-condition for a politics of restraint and limitarianism.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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