ABSTRACT Protests in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2014 sparked newfound interest in the region and in the potential of citizen-led movements to elicit change in transitional societies. However, much of the academic literature in response has explored this episode with a focus on the protesters, their claims, organization, outputs, and potential to create long-lasting impact. On the other hand, elite responses to citizen-led protests are underexamined and undertheorized, particularly in post-conflict societies facing complex governance arrangements with high horizontal concentration of power. This article analyses how political elites in Bosnia and Herzegovina responded to episodes of contentious politics in the country. We explore the different ways protests were undermined by subnational elites in three cases utilizing process tracing and comparative analysis. Elites with higher levels of power concentration are better equipped to address contentious politics, as they are able to manage and control collective claim making, thus suppressing the domestication of competing norms on subnational levels to varying degrees.

The study is the result of research performed by an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers including Dr. Hariz Halilovich, Dr. Jasmin Hasic, Dr. Dzeneta Karabegovic;, Dr. Ajlina Karamehic;-Muratovic, and Dr. Nermin Oruc; under the coordination of the International Organization for Migration, Mission to BiH and the Ministry of Human rights and Refugees of Bosnia and Herzegovina, within the framework of the project "Mainstreaming the Concept on Migration and Development into Relevant Policies, Plans and Actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH): Diaspora for Development (D4D)". The project aims to strengthen the role of BiH diaspora in development processes in BiH. The Diaspora for Development (D4D) is a project of the Government of Switzerland and the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, in partnership with UNDP BiH and IOM BiH. The content of this publication, including the findings presented in this report, do not necessarily reflect the views of the the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, the Government of Switzerland, the UNDP in BiH and the IOM in BiH.

ABSTRACT Education is acknowledged as a component of transitional justice processes, yet details about how to implement education reform in postconflict societies are underexplored and politicized [King, Elisabeth. 2014. From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda. New York: Cambridge University Press]. Local and international actors often neglect the complicated nature of education reform in postconflict societies undergoing transitional justice processes [Jones, Briony. 2015. "Educating Citizens in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Experiences and Contradictions in Post-war Education Reform." In Transitional Justice and Reconciliation: Lessons from the Balkans, edited by Martina Fischer, and Olivera Simic, 193–208. New York: Routledge. Transitional Justice]. The role of the diaspora in transitional justice has been increasingly explored as a participatory transnational actor with influence and knowledge about local dynamics [Roht-Arriaza, Naomi. 2006. The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press; Haider, Huma. 2008. “(Re)Imagining Coexistence: Striving for Sustainable Return, Reintegration and Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ”International Journal of Transitional Justice 3 (1): 91–113; Young, Laura, and Rosalyn Park. 2009.“ Engaging Diasporas in Truth Commissions: Lessons from the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission Diaspora Project.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 3 (3): 341–361; Koinova, Maria, and Dženeta Karabegović. 2017.“ Diasporas and Transitional Justice: Transnational Activism from Local to Global Levels of Engagement.” Global Networks 17 (2): 212–233]. This article bridges academic literature about diaspora engagement and transitional justice, and education and transitional justice by incorporating the role of diaspora actors in post-conflict processes. Using empirical data from multi-sited field work in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and France, it examines diaspora initiatives which aim to influence local transitional justice processes through translocal community involvement in education and youth policy. It argues that diaspora initiatives can provide alternative and intermediate solutions to the status quo in their homeland, with some potential for contributing to transitional justice and reconciliation processes. Ultimately, diaspora initiatives need support from homeland institutions in order to forward transitional justice agendas in post-conflict societies.

Scholarship on transitional justice, transnational social movements, and transnational diaspora mobilization has offered little understanding about how memorialization initiatives with substantial diaspora involvement emerge transnationally and are embedded and sustained in different contexts. We argue that diasporas play a galvanizing role in transnational interest-based and symbolic politics, expanding claim-making from the local to national, supranational, and global levels of engagement. Using initiatives to memorialize atrocities committed at the former Omarska concentration camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we identify a four-stage mobilization process. First, initiatives emerged and diffused across transnational networks after a local political opportunity opened in the homeland. Second, attempts at coordination of activities took place transnationally through an NGO. Third, initiatives were contextualized on the nation-state level in different host-states, depending on the political opportunities and constraints available there. Fourth, memorialization claims were eventually shifted from the national to the supranational and global levels. The article concludes by demonstrating the potential to apply the analysis to similar global movements in which diasporas are directly involved.

There has been excellent academic research, not only on diaspora, but also on postconflict Bosnia and Herzegovina in regards to transitional justice and peacebuilding. However, the factors that play a role vis-a-vis diaspora mobilization and transitional justice have been explored less. Theorizing has been ad hoc. Thus, the guiding question of this thesis is: How do diaspora utilize the political environments in their hostlands when they mobilize towards issues of transitional justice, in what ways and why? I develop a typological theory of diaspora mobilization, focusing on transitional justice claims, to systematize understanding and to develop midrange level explanations. Four types of diaspora mobilization (engaged, involved, reactive, and inactive) are theorized based on three independent variables: citizenship regimes, collective claims, and the presence or absence of ‘translocalism’ within diaspora communities. In particular, the more open citizenship regimes are, the higher the potential for diaspora mobilization will be. The thesis builds on the idea of translocal communities being an important factor in helping to determine the level of diaspora mobilization, along with the presence of collective claims in relation to transitional justice processes in the post-conflict homeland environment. The study is based on a qualitative research design using a unique two-level comparative lens, focusing on three countries in Europe (Sweden, France, and Germany) as well as four different cities within Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Prijedor, and Srebrenica). The research methods include semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and process tracing with multi-sited fieldwork. Thus, transnational, translocal, host country, and homeland influences are incorporated into analysis. The study provides comparative rigor to research on diaspora mobilization that is particular and rare. It establishes diaspora as an important actor to consider in transitional justice based efforts and provides a new perspective on the idea of translocalism.

This article examines diaspora mobilization through transnational cultural production within Bosnian diaspora communities in Sweden and the United States in response to genocide. A discussion of diaspora mobilization in response to homeland politics is underlined with data from interviews and participant observation. An example of transnational cultural production through public performance art between an artist and diaspora is highlighted in particular. Its focus is Srebrenica genocide remembrance. The article argues that diaspora cultural production can be more moderate and aims to move beyond ethnonationalist public political debates evidenced in Bosnia and Herzegovina's postconflict political environment while reaffirming belonging to the diaspora in respective host countries.