Capturing post-conflict anxieties: towards an analytical framework

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes an analytical framework for the study of post-conflict anxieties. The literature has so far been elaborate, both in terms of the analysis of the structural frame underpinning a post-conflict society (political, socioeconomic, spatial, and historical factors) and the experiential frame that determines the ethnic distance in such society (broader setting that underpins interpersonal and intergroup relations). However, both frames have been studied within separate research lines, which has led to limited results in explaining why ethnic distance is challenging to reduce. By making structural and experiential frames mutually reflexive in determining the outcome of interethnic relations in post-conflict societies, an analytical framework suited for analyzing post-conflict anxieties is carved out. In this way, we show how the structural frame that shapes post-conflict societies can create a general sense of unease among people that is not tied to a particular object or situation.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-conflict anxieties
• ethnic distance
• post-conflict societies
• peacebuilding
• theoretical framework

Introduction

The collapse of a political system is usually synonymous with disintegration of the corresponding system that, in some way, gave that system its legitimacy. Suppose the collapse destruction of a political system, which simultaneously means the disintegration of a multinational state. In that case, interethnic relations undoubtedly become – as Šiber¹ argues – ‘one of the fundamental features of the totality of this process’ at the level of institutional, political and societal relations. While the aforementioned collapse and subsequent disintegration can be peaceful (e.g. in Czechoslovakia), a far more common outcome of this process is violence. After the Cold War, the most frequently identified and scrutinised form of this violence was large-scale armed violence (i.e. civil/ethnic wars). The latter generates not only traumas and fear but also anxiety; the latter can be defined as a general sense of unease among people living in a particular context that is not tied to a specific object or situation.²

By characteristics, we refer to the political, socio-economic, spatial, and historical factors – broadly understood as the structural frame – that both ‘give the meaning’ and ‘manage’ the everyday people-to-people relations and discourse in a chosen post-conflict society.³ When characteristics of a post-conflict society are underpinned by anxiety and even generate it – as we argue in this paper – the consequences of large-scale armed violence foster and sustain (high) ethnic distance. The latter, which refers to the ‘degree of acceptance or rejection of social interaction between individuals that belong to different ethnic groups’,⁴ is one of the most important features of peacebuilding studies. One could even argue that crucial research questions in this field aim to explore how to reduce ethnic distance and improve interethnic relations.⁵

In the attempt to find answers on how to understand antagonisms and ethnic distance between opposing groups in post-conflict societies, peacebuilding scholars suggested the so-called ‘turns’ in research scopes; from psychological,⁶ ethnographic,⁷ sociological,⁸ spatial,⁹ historical¹⁰ to economic ‘turns’¹¹ in peacebuilding scholarship. At the core of those ‘turns’ was the determination to refocus peace efforts away from institutional (top-down) approaches and engage more with ‘experiential approaches’ (bottom-up),¹² meaning that scholars advocated for the need to (also) investigate the everyday experiences of people living in post-conflict societies, or, as Mac Ginty¹³ suggests, ‘everyday peace’.

Understanding that those experiences either prevent or encourage the outcome of (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in a post-conflict society (experiential frame)¹⁴ and that experiences as such are affected by the same (social and material) space in which they are unravelling (structural frame),¹⁵ we propose another ‘turn’.¹⁶ But instead of producing yet another research stream – that would again produce limited results in explaining why reducing ethnic distance and improving interethnic relations is difficult to achieve – we strive to rethink the existing peacebuilding agenda integratively, meaning that we propose to simultaneously study both the experiential frame and the structural frame that underpins post-conflict societies. By doing this, we treat the spatial, historical and economic turns as ways to highlight the structural frame that constitutes the societal dimension of space, while the psychological and sociological turns are understood as the experiential frame due to their focus on everyday psychological experiences of the individuals living in such a post-conflict society.

While acknowledging other empirically established emotional precursors of ethnic distance such as hatred,¹⁷ trust,¹⁸ fear,¹⁹ guilt²⁰ and empathy,²¹ this paper will focus exclusively on anxiety. The reasons behind this are at least three-fold. First, this paper focuses on post-conflict societies – characterised by the state’s ‘fragile’ (sub)systems – which do not (yet) offer a predictable structural frame to the individuals exposed to it. Second, because the structural frame is treated as a ‘web’ of factors (i.e. political, socioeconomic, spatial, historical) that impacts the relations on (inter)personal and (inter)group level, meaning that we cannot determine which of the identified factor comes first or has a bigger impact, it is impossible to determine what exactly ‘caused the external danger and/or known threat’ (fear).²² Stemming from this, because the above-mentioned ‘web’ of factors, which constitutes the structural frame, triggers specific appraisals – i.e. (un)certainty, (lack of) control, and (lack of) agency – it, in turn, generates anxieties. Due to the three-fold logic outlined above, the latter are understood as ‘different kinds of anxieties’, namely post-conflict anxieties.

The paper is grounded on a thematic analysis as a method.²³ This means that it employs a semi-systematic review²⁴ to map and synthesise the state of knowledge when it comes to the structural and experiential frame and – via their mutual reflexivity – to create an agenda for further research; the latter being the question of why is it so challenging to reduce ethnic distance and/or improve interethnic relations in post-conflict societies. This paper should thus be understood as a stepping-stone in advancing the peacebuilding research agenda via thinking experiential and structural frames integratively in order to understand how post-conflict anxieties cause and sustain ethnic distance in societies (and vice versa). By doing this, the paper offers two main theoretical contributions: (1) it advances our understanding on the interlinkages between the structural frame and the experiential frame that ‘trigger and sustain’ post-conflict anxieties and (2) it makes new ground for analysing interethnic relations in a post-conflict society full of anxieties.

The paper is divided as follows. The second section, which follows this introduction, introduces an overview of anxiety as an experiential frame to understand how anxiety resurfaces and persists in a post-conflict society. The third section outlines a theoretical understanding of the structural frame that explains how the societal dimension of space either prevents or encourages (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in a post-conflict society. In the fourth section, the study presents possible analytical strategies for investigating structural and experiential frames integratively while engaging with the key tenets of observational and experimental research.²⁵ Based on these discussions, we then present the integrated analytical framework in the fifth section and illuminate how the proposed conceptual apparatus can be methodologically approached in future analyses of the quality of (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in a post-conflict society marked with anxieties. Finally, the paper presents the conclusions and outlines some avenues for further research.

Anxiety, an emotion experienced by individuals, or ‘part and parcel’ of a broader post-conflict setting? Towards an experiential frame

Many people experience harrowing events in their lives, especially those who survive violent conflicts. It is estimated that around 22% of people living in conflict zones have experienced depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety.²⁶ In particular, many social and medical science researchers have long sought ways to alleviate such stress. The scholars’ attempts have led to contextualising anxiety as both a pathological form and an integral part of human existence.²⁷ While the article relies primarily on the notion of anxiety as an integral part of the human condition, it does not neglect the ‘pathological dimension’ of the concept,²⁸ which is based on the scientific attempt to link the psychological and the physiological aspects of anxiety to biological processes involving brain circuits, neurochemicals and genes.²⁹ From this, one could even argue that the pathological form of anxiety is limited to somatic, psychological and behavioural symptoms,³⁰ while anxiety as an integral part of human nature is based on an existentialist premise. If the former can also be linked with the so-called ‘fear of the unknown’,³¹ the latter is primarily understood as concern for one’s place in the world and can involve questions about the meaning of (one’s) existence.³²

It is possible to say that anxiety is, by its nature, ‘a chameleonlike force that exhibits itself through a great variety of physical, mental, spiritual, behavioural, and other manifestations’.³³ In other words, anxiety is often not related to anything specific but is more diffuse and general, while at other times, anxiety emerges in response to some definite object or situation; in the latter case, this usually translates into fear.³⁴ Even though the latter reflects upon the idea that anxiety and fear somehow intertwine – or even stem from/feed one another – one has to emphasise that fear and anxiety differ in their ‘etiologies, response patterns, time courses, and intensities’.³⁵ Furthermore, as Steimer³⁶ demonstrated, ‘they prepare the body for different actions’, as ‘anxiety is a generalized response to an unknown threat or internal conflict. In contrast, fear is focused on known external danger’.³⁷

This has led researchers to seek ways of understanding anxieties, which resulted in establishing three major ‘traditions’ of research, namely³⁸ i) the somatic paradigm of nineteenth-century psychiatry³⁹; ii) psychological vulnerabilities and personality styles⁴⁰; iii) external or ‘society-wide factors’.⁴¹ Those traditions are important not only because they reflect on the potential causes of anxiety, but also because they highlight different emphases on alleviating anxiety. In essence, the responses to mitigate anxieties span from medical (using drugs), religious and spiritual (religion and spirituality as healing power) to cognitive (therapy as a means to perceive anxiety as finite and manageable). However, such responses are always characterised by broader structural settings (i.e. characteristics of society) and cultural symptom pools,⁴² meaning that they differ in whether anxiety is either natural or pathological in relation to society in which these responses emerge.⁴³ Stemming from this, anxiety is perceived as natural in societal settings where people are faced with the most severe anxiety-inducing conditions,⁴⁴ while the pathological form of anxiety is understood in conditions where ‘people are anxious despite having nothing to fear’⁴⁵; the latter (partly) touching upon what Carleton⁴⁶ conceptualises as ‘future-oriented fear’.

Post-conflict societies represent a liminal case on the continuum between natural and pathological. While many people living in such societies were during the war exposed to the severest anxiety-inducing conditions, which created several harrowing consequences that are not easy to remedy, the term post-conflict to a certain extent tends to signal that ‘new reality’ is premised on at least a basic level of safety and certainty. But because postconflict societies are characterised by the state’s ‘fragile’ (sub)systems⁴⁷ and thus do not (yet) offer a predictable structural frame to the individuals exposed to it, the anxiety that emerges in such settings can be understood as natural, as it is part and parcel of the very structure of the post-conflict setting. In other words, because the broader structural frame of a postconflict environment is ‘yet to be’ consolidated, it can generate – at a subconscious level – a sense of uncertainty, lack of control and agency among individuals, which in turn affects (inter)personal and (inter)group relations.⁴⁸ When considering (inter)group relations, one has to reflect on the existing literature that establishes a clear link between anxiety and ethnic distance. Authors such as Tropp and Pettigrew,⁴⁹ Page-Gould et al.,⁵⁰ Jasinskaja-Lahti et al.⁵¹ and Bilewicz et al.⁵² have established that higher levels of in-group centrality generate a higher level of anxiety; while cross-group ties tend to lower it.⁵³ In demonstrating this link, authors show that anxiety stems from a concern about confirming negative stereotypes,⁵⁴ which then culminates in ‘uncontrollable behaviours’ such as physical distancing, fidgeting, and vocal tension.⁵⁵

The experiences of individuals – either controllable or uncontrollable –, which constitute the experiential frame of a chosen society, are in line with the appraisal theory. Researchers⁵⁶ have shown that three appraisals – certainty, control and agency – are the most relevant in terms of generating anxiety, as illustrated in Figure 2. In line with this, anxiety could be understood as an emotional experience, which depends on individuals and the evaluation of the specific situation they encounter. Here, it should be emphasised that to a certain extent, the evaluation depends on the broader discourse (Figure 2) regarding both the general situation and specific event(s), as various actors (e.g. media, political elite) can portray the (current) context in different ways.⁵⁷ Through such framing effects, as argued by Gross,⁵⁸ the nature of the discourse surrounding the developments of the situation evaluated may thus either alleviate or enhance anxiety. This, in turn, affects how individuals form opinions and coping mechanisms to mitigate anxiety stemming from the specific situation and how they enter (inter)personal and (inter)group relations.⁵⁹

In line with the discussion above, we argue that anxieties emerge in a postconflict society via mutual reflexivity between the broader structural frame underpinning the society (and relations in it) and appraisals of the individuals living in it. This mutual reflexivity is subjected to the specific discourse regarding both (inter)personal and (inter)group relations unravelling in society and the structural frame that epitomise them. The discourse can either alleviate or enhance anxieties as it affects – on a (sub)conscious level – an individual’s appraisals through specific framing of either a general situation or specific event(s) that touch upon the society. Such process then constitutes the experiential frame of society, meaning that it transcends the (emotional) experiences of each individual and becomes an inherent part of a broader societal setting that manages (inter)personal and (inter)group relations. If such a societal setting is postconflict, and thus per se based on an unpredictable structural frame, anxieties that emerge could be understood as natural and as an integral part of the human condition. In order to sketch a framework for the analysis of anxieties in postconflict societies, the following section unpacks the conceptual trajectories of the structural frame to understand how the societal dimension of postconflict space alleviates or enhances anxieties and thus prevents or encourages (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in such society.

What shapes individual’s experiences of peace and conflict in their everyday life: towards a structural frame

One of the critical ambivalences of post-conflict contexts lies between continuous tensions and divisions among conflicting groups and persistent attempts of various actors to achieve ‘normalcy’ through peacebuilding efforts. The Western (liberal) peacebuilding paradigm, in a nutshell, tends to rest on four pillars, namely: (i) security; (ii) justice and reconciliation; (iii) social and economic well-being; (iv) governance and participation.⁶⁰ These pillars are important not only because they constitute the framework for (any) post-conflict reconstruction,⁶¹ but also because they serve as a starting point for peacebuilding scholars to discuss the (systemic) nature of antagonisms between hostile groups that in turn influence the micro-level interactions between them.⁶² Indeed, if one starts from the assumption that one of the key research questions in the field is aimed at understanding how to reduce the distance between hostile groups and improve overall relations between them, then one has to shed light on the structuring patterns that epitomise such interactions.⁶³

In essence, when peacebuilding scholars discuss those structural patterns, they tend to refer to the factors that shape them.⁶⁴ Because the focus is on the structural frame that affects individuals’ practices and experiences of peace and conflict in their everyday life on a societal level (experiential frame), the first relevant approach for the discussion is the ‘institutional’ one. This means that institutions underpinning societal life tend to be perceived as a structure that can bring certainty, security and means for distribution of public goods.⁶⁵ In line with this, many peacebuilding efforts have followed the ‘institutionalization before liberalization’ path,⁶⁶ as they have ‘prioritized the building and strengthening the institution(s) over the extension of rights’.⁶⁷ This was also something on which Brewer⁶⁸ reflected from a micro perspective via the so-called ‘axes of postconflict division’⁶⁹ and argued that stable peace processes depend upon “(good) governance, strong economy, effective statebuilding – including territorial integrity that prevents spatial segregation–” the introduction of human rights law and effective reforms that can eliminate root causes of conflict’.⁷⁰ The latter is importantly postulated on historical memory, as (nationalism-inducing) myths often become an inherent part of the root cause(s) of conflict.⁷¹ To sum up, if the elements outlined by Brewer⁷² are met in a postconflict society, then relational closeness – interdependence between hostile groups on both material and non-material levels – on a micro-level can be reached.

Based on the remarks above, the structural frame of a postconflict society should be understood as a ‘web’ of political (i.e. governance and human rights), socioeconomic (i.e. strong economy and opportunities for all), spatial (i.e. territorial segregation) and historical (i.e. historical memory, myths) factors that impact the relations on (inter)personal and (inter)group levels. We treat those factors as a web because it is hard to determine which of the outlined factors comes first or impacts (inter)personal/(inter)group relations more.

In this respect, we start the discussion with the political factor (Figure 2). The latter, when focused on post-conflict societies, tends to be operationalised via the political⁷³ and electoral system,⁷⁴ accompanied by the level of political trust,⁷⁵ which affect the potential for mitigating (violent) conflicts in post-conflict settings. While political system refers to power-sharing mechanisms where warring parties are incorporated in a political system in order to ‘develop vested interests and in turn, enable the possibility of durable peace’,⁷⁶ the electoral system⁷⁷ is understood as a ’tool’ of conflict management because it ‘can reward particular type of behaviour and place constraints on others’.⁷⁸ Both systems, which are deemed to be important variables that operationalise broader political factors, are subjected to political trust.⁷⁹ The higher the political trust, the more it becomes a mechanism of ‘trust-building in general in postconflict societies’.⁸⁰ However, authors such as Askvik et al.⁸¹ and Hutchison and Johnson⁸² show that political trust – defined by Hang Wong⁸³ as ‘evaluative orientation that considers satisfaction with government services as a factor contributing to legitimacy’ – in post-conflict societies can only be built if public services reflect the needs of the people. In other words, this means that people are more likely to trust governments willing to respond to their needs and demands.

The second element of the structural frame is the socioeconomic factor (Figure 2) that to a high degree informs the economic turn to peacebuilding. Socioeconomic factors are primarily focused on how (social) exclusion, lack of economic opportunities and poverty hinder postconflict reconstruction. Authors such as Pugh,⁸⁴ Murtagh⁸⁵ and Peterson⁸⁶ showed how the contemporary economic (capitalist) development that was pursued in postconflict societies did not reach the poorest and the most disaffected groups of people during the economic reconstruction. Murtagh,⁸⁷ for example, showed that the so-called ‘knowledge economy’ in Northern Ireland stayed ‘off limits for the most divided and disadvantaged communities’, pointing out the skills mismatch that, in turn, ‘fed community relations practices through an identitarian frame’.⁸⁸ The consequence of such skills mismatch goes hand in hand with education as a variable that operationalises the socioeconomic factor. Authors such as Hello et al.,⁸⁹ Sekulić et al.,⁹⁰ Lange,⁹¹ Jović⁹² and Gligorijević⁹³ showed how education could promote group violence by strengthening divisions and intercommunal disfavour, increasing frustration and aggression by intensifying competition between the groups. Here, the conclusions reflect that the higher the educational attainment, the lesser the intention to avoid social contact. Finally, an essential dimension of the economic turn in peacebuilding studies is the idea of privatisation as a means to achieve economic reconstruction. Authors such as Barakat and Zyck,⁹⁴ Venugopal⁹⁵ and Peterson⁹⁶ showed how privatisation of public enterprises and introduction of a large-scale private sector bring economic gains for individuals and groups in a ‘fair and neutral way’,⁹⁷ diminishing the possibility that economic resources become a source of violent contestation. However, authors such as Chua⁹⁸ and DeHart⁹⁹ have downplayed such argument(s) by showing how neoliberal development policies in post-conflict countries enable nationalistic strategies and, in turn, increase the distance between the hostile groups.

The ethnic distance between hostile groups discussed above is also a focal point of the third proposed element of the structural frame. The spatial factor (Figure 2), which we analyse through the prism of the spatial turn to peacebuilding, is based on the argument that physical and material conditions cannot explain social action in a causal sense.¹⁰⁰ Such an argument follows the conclusions of Dietz et al.,¹⁰¹ who showed that space should be understood via mutual constituency and relational perspective on the global and local (scale) and vertical and horizontal (place). At the forefront of such a mutual constituency is the interplay between the individual with its social action and practices on the one hand and the political production of space on the other.¹⁰² Kasara¹⁰³ and Björkdahl¹⁰⁴ for example, showed that geographical segregation and spatialisation decrease ethnic trust and in turn, contribute to the process of identity building via ‘Othering’. Murtagh,¹⁰⁵ on the other hand, demonstrated how the ‘physical renaissance’ (i.e. waterfront developments, shopping centres) of postconflict Belfast produced competitive discourses on further spatial segregation between communities.

Finally, the discourses and identity building via Othering inform well the historical factor (Figure 2) as the fourth element of the structural frame. The historical factor, which we interpret via the historical turn to peacebuilding, is primarily invested in explaining how historical memory and myths impede cooperation between hostile groups.¹⁰⁶ In this case, the predominant variables that operationalise the historical factor are focused on the history of violence¹⁰⁷ and the size of the community.¹⁰⁸ Here, the authors have demonstrated that the historical context of relations, which shapes historical memories, leads towards ignorance of the way of life of the Other and in turn, increases social distance between hostile groups. Contrary to this, the size of community as a factor can function in both ways when talking about the distance between hostile groups. Diamond¹⁰⁹ and Dunbar and Sosis¹¹⁰ showed that the perpetuation of historical memories, which lead to the process of Othering, can be downplayed in smaller communities where personal networks are close-knit, and no ‘strangers’ can be found. Here, the bigger the communities (i.e. cities), the bigger the chances for the individuals to live in an isolated personal network(s) that contribute to the process of Othering.

Observational vs. experimental research, or something in-between? Integrating the structural and experiential frame into an analytical framework

As argued by Wagner and Morisi,¹¹¹ the main methodological distinction – when focusing on appraisals and moderating factors that lead to anxiety – is between observational and experimental research. Observational research, in contrast to experimental research, tends to focus on a variable or set of variables to obtain a snapshot of specific characteristics of an individual, group or setting in an uncontrolled manner.¹¹² In essence, scholars that employ observational research usually rely on one of the following types (Figure 1, branch on observational research): i) naturalistic observation¹¹³; ii) participant observation¹¹⁴; iii) structured observation.¹¹⁵ While participant observation is – due to its focus on active participation coupled with interviewing and taking notes – a relatively common method in contextual understanding of local dynamics in (post-)conflict societies¹¹⁶ and intergroup conflict,¹¹⁷ there are other observational research methods used to investigate anxiety scientifically. Here, the two most common ones are the survey method¹¹⁸ and panel data.¹¹⁹ If the former is grounded on associating anxiety with the object that potentially elicits it (economic, political, social situation, etc.), then the latter is used when one tends to repeat the research at different points in time to be more confident that anxiety is indeed associated with the object that potentially elicits it.

Figure 1. Observational vs. experimental research in researching anxiety

Source: Authors’ own synthesis.

Figure 2. Integrated analytical framework on the emergence of anxieties in a post-conflict society

Source: Authors’ own synthesis.

However, as highlighted by Ladd and Lenz,¹²⁰ observational data suffers from potential endogeneity concerns, as well as the difficulty of measuring anxiety via self-stated survey responses.¹²¹ Because of this, participant and/or structured observation are increasingly applied to combine survey data with a systematic observation of people’s behaviour in the environment in which it occurs, or even with techniques for measuring peoples’ body responses (e.g. physiological, thermal).¹²² This is done either via active participation¹²³ or via introducing a specific social situation, for example, in a classroom setting.¹²⁴ In both cases, the methods are used to capture the behaviour in a specific setting that may enhance anxiety. In contrast to observational work, research examining the effects of anxiety increasingly uses experimental approaches (Figure 1, branch on experimental research).¹²⁵ Here, the idea is to capture the complex interactions between cognition and anxiety (as emotion) by inducing the latter.¹²⁶ In doing this, researchers tend to move away from potentially error-prone self-reports by ‘manipulating’ the anxiety via inducement.¹²⁷ Differentiation of incidental anxiety is executed through generic objects and is only later evaluated via specific matter (economic, social and political situation, etc.),¹²⁸ while differentiation of integral anxiety is carried out by relating it to the object examined.¹²⁹

The second research dilemma when a researcher induces anxiety is whether this should be carried out via a bottom-up or a top-down process. When researchers engage in a bottom-up anxiety ‘manipulation’, respondents – as Wagner and Morisi¹³⁰ argue – ‘create their own feeling of anxiety through self-reflective writing’. One example of such writing was used by Albertson and Gadarian,¹³¹ who induced anxiety by asking the respondents to write a brief text in response to a stimulus. Another example is the process of imagining, where respondents were asked to imagine themselves in a situation that would trigger anxiety¹³² or to recall a case that made them anxious.¹³³ In contrast to the bottom-up approach, the top-down process of inducing anxiety is based on the possibility that anxiety can be activated automatically before deliberate assessment.¹³⁴ This was further discussed in the field of implicit attitudes,¹³⁵ where scholars have developed the concept of ‘implicated affect’, defining it as the ‘automatic activation of cognitive representations of affective experiences’.¹³⁶ In other words, the idea is that the respondents rate the extent to which artificial words from a putative artificial language express anxiety.¹³⁷

Before turning to Figure 1, one has to reflect on the ethics and ethical implications of such research. In this respect, both observational and experimental research – particularly because it is executed in postconflict societies – inherently possess potential ethical problems that institutional ethics procedures (e.g. Commissions for ethics/ethics councils) struggle to include in their frameworks.¹³⁸ As argued by Sokolić,¹³⁹ post-conflict societies cannot be understood within the dichotomous nature of ethics procedures (i.e. static pass/fail), as they ‘do not take into account the multiplicity of harms that certain research can cause, the harms that the researchers (can) suffer, and the harms that are left behind in the field’.¹⁴⁰ Authors such as Kostovicova¹⁴¹ and Knott¹⁴² reflected on ethical challenges when researching objects/subjects that are related to trauma and/or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Within observational research, one has to take into the account the potential of ethical implications when employing participant or structured research; traumas can be repressed and individuals may not be aware that they are suffering from them.¹⁴³

The potential of re-traumatisation¹⁴⁴ is even more present within experimental research, where anxieties are induced. Here, the potential of what Knott¹⁴⁵ frames as ‘leaving the harm behind in the field’ is relatively high, as research sites – particularly post-conflict sites – are not ‘static and hermetically sealed’.¹⁴⁶ This means that researchers tending to employ such an analytical framework, particularly within the field of experimental research, have to take into account that preparing a rigorous ethics plan with strategies for mitigating the risks (e.g. re-traumatisation) does not suffice. Instead, they have to think about processes beyond established ethics procedures (pass/fail). A good example is what Sokolić¹⁴⁷ defines as ‘follow-up interaction(s)’, which give the researcher an insight on whether participants were harmed, how they perceived the whole process, and what they missed.

In line with the discussion above, the potential of analytical strategies when investigating structural and experiential frames in an integrative manner lies somewhere between observational and experimental research, depending on the context of relations in a chosen post-conflict setting. For starters, the structural frame of a post-conflict society can benefit from the combined application of note-taking and interviewing. By doing this, the structural frame, which on a systemic level perpetuates the antagonisms between hostile groups, can be grasped in a qualitative (i.e. participant observation) manner. This, in turn, offers an explanation on how operationalised factors sustain ethnic distance in a chosen post-conflict society, as well as perpetuate the anxieties on inter(personal) and inter(group) levels. In contrast to the structural frame, the experiential frame somehow benefits more from experimental research, which is based on the idea of ‘manipulating’ via inducing anxiety. This means that researchers that aim to understand the broader experiential frame that transcends (emotional) experiences of individuals living in post-conflict societies tend to rely on quantitative data. The latter is usually obtained via a survey questionnaire that is based on a top-down inducement of anxiety.

Since (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in post-conflict society can be burdened years after the open conflict is over, the most appropriate way of inducing anxiety lies in employing incidental anxiety. Deriving from this, a researcher examines appraisals that transcend the micro-level by focusing on generic objects (economic, social and political situation, etc.) and only then carving out the macro-patterns (societal frame) that constitute the experiential frame. Finally, an important part of the analytical framework below lies in shedding light on the (specific) discourse, which ‘glues’ the structural and experiential framework vis-à-vis an individual’s appraisals, mainly in part of their mutual reflexivity. To understand the particular discourse regarding (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in a chosen post-conflict society, it is imperative to rely again on the combination of experimental and observational research. Participant research (taking notes and talking to individuals in an unstructured manner) and survey questions via inducement can prove successful in this respect.

Having established the main principles of experimental and observational research that can be used in integrative analysis of the structural and experiential frame, we now present the integrated analytical framework on the emergence of anxieties in a post-conflict society.

According to the figure above, post-conflict anxieties are the result of the impact of a broader structural frame on the appraisals of the individuals living in such a society. More specifically, the lack of a secure structural frame that allows for an (un)equal distribution of public goods that ‘fuels’ the sense of certainty, control and agency – the three most relevant appraisals that generate anxiety. Since the structural frame in a post-conflict society – operationalised by political, spatial, socioeconomic and historical factors – is ‘yet to be consolidated’, it creates space for the experience of anxiety to transcend from the individual to the societal level, which means that it becomes an inherent part of the experiential frame of a post-conflict society. Such transcendence, which then becomes part of a broader societal setting that governs (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in a post-conflict society, becomes subject to the specific discourse (for example, how people perceive and talk about the economic opportunities of the ‘Other’). The discourse is – as Figure 2 shows – not only generated by the political elite that can (also) utilise such discourse as a ‘technique of governance’¹⁴⁸ vis-à-vis its audience (i.e. individuals) and/or the media outlets, but also by the individuals who reflect on both the (un)certain structural frame and the (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in their society. Accordingly, the discourse, which could be understood as part and parcel of the mutual reflexivity between structural frame, individual and experiential frame, can either alleviate or intensify anxieties, as it has the potential to affect individuals’ appraisals through a specific framing of either the general situation or a particular event.

Conclusion

The article has drawn attention to the need to analyse the experiential and structural frameworks simultaneously, in an integrative manner, if we want to better understand how post-conflict anxieties affect ethnic distance. As previous writings on post-conflict societies dealing with either the structural or the experiential frame treated the two frames separately, this paper now proposes a new turn by proposing an analytical framework that enables the analysis of (inter)personal and (inter)group relations by scrutinising a post-conflict society through the lens of mutual reflexivity of the two frames. On the one hand, the structural frame, operationalised through four factors (i.e. political, spatial, socioeconomic and historical), should be understood as a structure that maintains fear, (un)certainty, (in)security and means of (un)equal distribution of public goods. On the other hand, the experiential framework, operationalised through the psychological and sociological turn in peacebuilding, represents a social framework that guides (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in a chosen post-conflict society. Integrated, the analytical framework offers the possibility to analyse the emergence of post-conflict anxieties, where the outcome of mutual reflexivity between the structural framework and individual assessments constitutes the experiential framework of society. The latter, as we argue in Figure 2, goes beyond the (emotional) experiences of the individual and becomes an inherent part of a broader societal framework that governs (inter)personal and (inter)group relations. Discourse, which should be understood as an element that ’glues together’ the experiential and the structural frames, can thus either alleviate or reinforce post-conflict anxieties, as it has the potential to influence individuals’ appraisals through a specific framing of either the general situation or specific events affecting a society.

In this respect, the proposed conceptual apparatus can be used to analyse how post-conflict anxieties affect ethnic distance and how this, in turn, perpetuates antagonism(s) between hostile groups not only at the individual (micro) but also at the institutional (macro) level. In this way, the paper aims to stimulate future analyses of the links between structural and experiential frameworks that capture post-conflict anxieties, and to suggest new ways of analysing interethnic relations in a postconflict society. Through careful use of observation and experimental research, the integrated analytical framework can provide invaluable insights into why ethnic distance is so difficult to bridge in post-conflict societies. The combination of participant observation (i.e. taking notes and conducting unstructured interviews) and surveying (i.e. intentionally inducing anxiety) within the proposed integrated analytical framework can advance the peacebuilding agenda by empirically exposing the limitations of existing lines of research. The latter – whether in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, or any other post-conflict society – would not only empirically inform the proposed conceptual apparatus but could also pave the way for our thinking of existing approaches by actors working to reduce ethnic distance in divided societies.

To conclude, the proposed analytical framework advances our thinking on (inter)personal and (inter)group relations in post-conflict societies in at least two ways. First, the analytical framework consolidates the idea that the elements constituting structural and experiential frame function as a ‘randomly oscillating magnetic pendulum’. By doing this, the proposed analytical framework advances the thinking of interpersonal and intergroup relations in post-conflict societies within a broader constellation of (potential) variables, aiming to solidify the idea – via the pendulum as mentioned above – that ‘we do not know where the magnets are and how strong they are’. We can add that the eventual emergence of new ‘magnets’ that could affect relations in a post-conflict society is not known, which contributes to anxiety, as it always ‘reminds’ people of the unpredictability and fragility of society. Stemming from this, the proposed analytical framework can (re-)frame the existing logic within the practitioner (non-academic) sector, focusing on post-conflict societies and (inter)personal/(inter)group relations. In this respect, the idea of ‘integrated clustering’ (all factors are intertwined so as to grasp the bigger picture) could, in turn, shape future programmes and projects in the field of peacebuilding in order to meticulously address the postconflict reality; the latter from the perspective of how such (postconflict) reality limits the potential of (inter)personal and (inter)group relations, as those relations are underpinned by post-conflict anxieties generated within the mutual reflexivity of both frames.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Anja Kolak and the two anonymous reviewers, who helped us improve the paper with their valuable comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This study has been implemented as part of the project Anxious Peace: Anxieties in cities of southeast European post-conflict societies: introducing an integrative approach to peacebuilding. The project led by Dr Rok Zupančič has been funded by the Slovenian Research Agency (Grant N5-0178). The work was also supported by the Agency’s research programmes P5-0206 and P5-0177.

Notes on contributors

Faris Kočan

Faris Kočan is Assistant Professor at Chair of International Relations, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences. Currently, he is the principal investigator of the University of Ljubljana team in the Horizon Europe project RECLAIM – Reclaiming Liberal Democracy in Europe in the Postfactual Age. He has published, among others, in the Nationalities Papers, Ethnopolitics and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, primarily investing the securitisation of identities in the context of European integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Rok Zupančič

Rok Zupančič is Associate Professor at Chair of Defence Studies, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences. Currently, he is leading the project Anxious Peace: Anxieties in cities of southeast European post-conflict societies: introducing an integrative approach to peacebuilding. His main fields of interest are conflict prevention and peacebuilding in Southeast Europe, in particular how anxiety psychologically, physiologically and neurobiologically affects body-minds of people in postconflict societies.

Notes

¹ Ivan Šiber, ‘War and the Changes in Social Distance Toward the Ethnic Minorities in Croatia’, Politička misao 34 (1997): 4.

² American Psychological Association, ‘APA Dictionary of Psychology’, https://dictionary.apa.org/free-floating-anxiety (accessed January 15, 2022).

³ J. Brauer and R. Caruso, ‘Economists and Peacebuilding’, in Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding, ed. R. Mac Ginty (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 147–59; and A. Björkdahl and S. Buckley-Zistel, eds., Spatialising Peace and Conflict: Mapping the Production of Places, Sites and Scales of Violence (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

⁴ D.E. Georges-Abeyie, ‘Defining Race, Ethnicity, and Social Distance: Their Impact on Crime, Criminal Victimization, and the Criminal Justice Processing of Minorities’, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 8 (1992): 103.

⁵ e.g. J. Brewer, Peace Processes: A Sociological Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010); O. Ramsbotham, T. Woodhouse, and H. Miall, Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management and Transformation of Deadly Conflicts (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012); S. Autesserre, ‘The Crisis of Peacekeeping – Why the UN Can’t End Wars’, Foreign Affairs 98 (2019): 101–16; and R. Zupančič, N. Ioannidis, and F. Kočan, ‘The European Union’s (In)Ability to Address Troubled Past(S): Voices from Eight European Countries’, Annales: anali za istrske in mediteranske študije. Series historia et sociologia 31 (2021): str. 547–60.

⁶ e.g. S. McKeown, ‘Social Psychology and Peacebuilding’, in Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding, ed. R. Mac Ginty (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 117–32; B. Hamber and E. Gallagher, eds., Psychological Perspectives on Peacebuilding (Cham: Springer, 2015); and M.G.C. Njoku, L.A. Jason, and B.R. Johnson, eds. The Psychology of Peace Promotion: Global Perspectives on Personal Peace, Children and Adolescents, and Social Justice (Cham: Springer, 2019).

⁷ e.g. S. Autesserre, Peaceland: Conflict Resolution and the Everyday Politics of International Intervention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); and G. Millar, Ethnographic Peace Research: Approaches and Tensions (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

⁸ e.g. J. Brewer, ‘Sociology and Peacebuilding’, in Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding, ed. R. Mac Ginty (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 159–71; and J.D. Brewer, B.C. Hayes, F. Teeney, K. Dudgeon, N. Mueller-Hirth, and S.L. Wijesinghe, The Sociology of Everyday Life Peacebuilding (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

⁹ e.g. Björkdahl and Buckley-Zistel, Spatialising Peace.

¹⁰ e.g. M. Kaldor, New & Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012); and E. Hutchison, Affective Communities in World Politics: Collective Emotions After Trauma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

¹¹ e.g. M.R. Garfinkel and S. Skaperdas, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); and Brauer and Caruso, ‘Economists and Peacebuilding’, 147–59.

¹² Millar, Ethnographic Peace Research, 4.

¹³ R. Mac Ginty, Everyday Peace: How So-Called Ordinary People can Disrupt Violent Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).

¹⁴ McKeown, ‘Social Psychology’, 117–32.

¹⁵ Björkdahl and Buckley-Zistel, Spatialising Peace; and D. Castañeda López, and H. Myrttinen, ‘Looking Beyond Rape and War – The Need to Take Violence Prevention Seriously in Women, Peace and Security’, Journal of Regional Security 17, no. 1 (2022): 49–64.

¹⁶ This turn should be understood as a gap, which was explored within the framework of the Anxious Peace: Anxieties in cities of Southeast European post-conflict societies: introducing an integrative approach to peacebuilding project financed by the Slovenian Research Agency. The main goal of the project is to answer the question of how to reduce the ethnic distance between the people previously involved in armed conflicts, and, overall, improve interethnic relations in post-conflict societies. This will be done by integrating the two research lines, which are – in this paper – understood as the structural and the experiential frame.

¹⁷ e.g. E. Halperin, ‘Group-Based Hatred in Intractable Conflict in Israel’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 5 (2008): 713–36.

¹⁸ e.g. S. Cehajic, R. Brown, and E. Castano, ‘Forgive and Forget? Antecedents and Consequences of Intergroup Forgiveness in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, Political Psychology 29, no. 3 (2008): 351–67.

¹⁹ e.g. M. Spanović, B. Lickel, T.F. Denson, and N. Petrović, ‘Fear and Anger As Predictors Of Motivation For Intergroup Aggression: Evidence from Serbia and Republika Srpska’, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 13, no. 6 (2010): 725–39; S. Schutte, C. Ruhe, and N. Sahoo, ‘How Fear and Violence Drives Intergroup Conflict? Evidence from a Panel Survey in India’, Terrorism and Political Violence (2021): 1–19. doi:10.1080/09546553.2021.1903439.

²⁰ e.g. E.G. Green, E.P. Visintin, A. Hristova, A. Bozhanova, A. Pereira, and C. Staerklé, ‘Collective Victimhood and Acknowledgment of Outgroup Suffering Across History: Majority and Minority Perspectives’, European Journal of Social Psychology 47, no. 2 (2017): 228–40.

²¹ e.g. M. Hewstone and H. Swart, ‘Fifty-Odd Years of Inter-Group Contact: From Hypothesis to Integrated Theory’, British Journal of Social Psychology 50, no. 3 (2011): 374–86; G. Lemmer and U. Wagner, ‘Can We Really Reduce Ethnic Prejudice Outside the Lab? A Meta-Analysis of Direct and Indirect Interventions’, European Journal of Social Psychology 45, no. 2 (2015): 152–68; and M. Marinucci, R. Maunder, K. Sanchez, M. Thai, S. McKeown, R.N. Turner, and C. Stevenson, ‘Intimate Intergroup Contact Across the Lifespan,’ Journal of Social Issues 77, no. 1 (2021): 64–85.

²² T. Steimer, ‘The Biology of Fear and Anxiety-Related Behaviours’, Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 4 (2002): 231–49; and R. Zupančič, ‘EU Peace-Building in the North of Kosovo and Psychosocial Implications for the Locals: A Bottom Up Perspective on Normative Power Europe’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 21 (2019): 576–93.

²³ e.g. V. Ward, A. House, and S. Hamer, ‘Developing a Framework for Transferring Knowledge Into Action: A Thematic Analysis of The Literature’, Journal of Health Services Research & Policy 14 (2009): 156–64.

²⁴ H. Snyder, ‘Literature Review as a Research Methodology: An Overview and Guidelines’, Journal of Business Research 104 (2019): 333–9.

²⁵ e.g. M. Wagner and D. Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear, and Political Decision Making’, Oxford Research Encyclopaedia. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.915 (accessed January 17, 2022).

²⁶ F. Charlson, M. van Ommeren, A. Flaxman, J. Cornett, H. Whiteford, and S. Saxena, ‘New WHO Prevalence Estimates Of Mental Disorders In Conflict Settings: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis’, The Lancelet 10194, no. 394 (2019): 240–8.

²⁷ B. Rumelili, ‘Integrating Anxiety into International Relations Theory: Hobbes, Existentialism, and Ontological Security’, International Theory 12, no. 2 (2020): 257–72.

²⁸ Anxiety as a pathological form – often referred to as anxiety disorder – can be found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which should be understood as psychiatric view of anxiety [A.V. Horwitz, Anxiety: A Short History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 1]. The DSM, which is based on a medical model in which each disorder is defined by constellations of manifested symptoms, have been at the heart of the entire logic of both defining and studying anxiety. (Horwitz, A Short History, 2).

²⁹ Horwitz, A Short History, 1.

³⁰ A.J. Gelenberg, ‘Psychiatric and Somatic Makers of Anxiety: Identification and Pharmacologic Treatment’, The Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2, no. 2 (2000): 49–54; and A. Bystritsky, S.S. Khalsa, M.E. Cameron, and J. Schiffman, ‘Current Diagnosis and Treatment of Anxiety Disorders’, Pharmacy and Therapeutics 38, no. 1 (2013): 41–4.

³¹ e.g. D.H. Barlow, Anxiety and its Disorders: The Nature and Treatment of Anxiety and Panic (Washington, D.C.: Guilford Press, 2002); D.W. Grupe and J.B. Nitschke, ‘Uncertainty and Anticipation in Anxiety: An Integrated Neurobiological and Psychological Perspective’, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 14, no. 7 (2013): 488–501; and R.N. Carleton, ‘Fear of the Unknown: One Fear to Rule Them All?’, Journal of Anxiety Disorders 41 (2016): 5–21.

³² As Rumelili (2020, 258–259) argues, the existentialist conceptions consider anxiety as an integral part of the human condition, and distinguish it from fear. In essence, existentialists argue that anxiety arises when one experiences ‘the possibility of possibility’ [S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin, trans. and ed. R. Thomte (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 43], or hen the so-called ‘Being is no-thing-ness’ [M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. and ed. J. Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 131]. [P. Tilich, The Courage to Be (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000)].

³³ Horwitz, A Short History, 5.

³⁴ K.E. Vytal, B.R. Comwell, A.M. Letkiewitcz, N.E. Arkin, and C. Grillon, ‘The Complex Interaction Between Anxiety and Cognition: Insight From Spatial and Verbal Working Memory’, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 93, no. 7 (2013): 1–11.

³⁵ Steimer, ‘Biology of Fear’, 233.

³⁶ Ibid.

³⁷ See, for example also the discussion regarding the primal fears vs. existential fears (R.G. Kunzendorf, J. Leskiewicz, K. Hamill, S. McAleer, S. Geoffroy, A. Ciampaglia, D. Pereira, and C. Brito, ‘Dreaming and Daydreaming about Dreadful Possibilities: Primal Fears versus Existential Fear’, Imagination, Cognition and Personality 26, no. 3 (2007): 249–57].

³⁸ Horwitz, A Short History, 9.:

³⁹ i.e. how specific biological malfunctions in the nervous system contribute to anxiety. [e.g. M. Sharpe and A. Carson, ‘“Unexplained” Somatic Symptoms, Functional Syndromes, and Somatization: Do we Need a Paradigm Shift?’ Annals of Internal Medicine 134, no. 9 (2001): 926–30; and A. Jansson, From Melancholia to Depression: Disordered Mood in Nineteenth-Centry Psychiatry (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).]

⁴⁰ i.e. individual dispositions and emotions. [e.g. R. Kotov, D. Watson, J.P. Robles, and N.B. Schmidt, ‘Personality Traits and Anxiety Symptoms: The Multilevel Trait Predictor Model’, Behaviour Research and Therapy 45, no. 7 (2007), 1485–503; and Wagner and Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear’.

⁴¹ i.e. life conditions, patterns of living, social changes, economic insecurities and unfulfilled desires. [e.g. B. Bandelow, ‘Epidemiology of Anxiety Disorders in the 21st Century’, Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 17, no. 3 (2015): 327–35; and P. Rebughini, ‘A Sociology of Anxiety: Western Modern Legacy and the Covid-19 Outbreak’, International Sociology 36, no. 4 (2021): 554–68.]

⁴² The idea of cultural symptom pools is to look for a model of illness to help us amplify and make sense of our own physical perceptions; otherwise, the mind cannot understand what the body is saying [E. Shorter, How Everyone Became Depressed? The Rise and Fall of the Nervous Breakdown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).]

⁴³ Steimer, ‘Biology of Fear’; and Horwitz, A Short History.

⁴⁴ M.J. Clark, ‘Anxiety Disorders: Social Section’, in A History of Clinical Psychiatry, ed. G.E. Berrios and R. Porter (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 563–72.

⁴⁵ S. Freud, The Problem of Anxiety (New York: Norton, 1963), 113.

⁴⁶ Carleton, ‘Fear of the Unknown’.

⁴⁷ D.W. Brinkerhoff, Governance in Postconflict Societies: Rebuilding Fragile States (New York: Routledge, 2007).

⁴⁸ P. Collier, A. Hoeffler, and M. Söderbom, ‘Postconflict Risks’, Journal of Peace Research 45, no. 4 (2008): 461–78; and E.T. Hoddy and P. Gready, ‘From Agency to Root Causes: Addressing Structural Barriers To Transformative Justice In Transitional And Postconflict Settings’, Contemporary Social Sciences 15, no. 5 (2020): 561–76.

⁴⁹ L.R. Tropp and T.F. Pettigrew, ‘Relationships between Intergroup Contact and Prejudice Among Minority and Majority Status Groups’, Psychological Science 16 (2005): 951–7.

⁵⁰ E. Page-Gould, R. Mendoza-Denton, and L.R. Tropp, ‘With a Little Help From My Cross-Group Friend: Reducing Anxiety in Intergroup Contexts Through Cross-Group Friendship’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95, no. 5 (2008): 1080–94.

⁵¹ I. Jasinskaja-Lahti, T.A. Mähönen, and K. Liebkind, ‘Ingroup Norms, Intergroup Contact and Intergroup Anxiety as Predictors of the Outgroup Attitudes of Majority and Minority Youth’, International Journal of Intercultural Relations 35, no. 3 (2011): 346–55.

⁵² M. Bilewicz, M. Mirucka, and J. Olko, ‘Paradoxical Effects of Ethnic Identification on Threat and Anxiety during COVID-19 Pandemic. A Study of Ethnic Minority and Immigrant Groups’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (2022): doi: 10.1037/ort0000647.

⁵³ However, the literature that reflects on the cross-group ties also demonstrates cognitive impairment and negatively-toned emotional and physiological responses during and after intergroup encounters [e.g. W.B. Mendes, J. Blasovich, B. Lickel, and S. Hunter, ‘Intergroup Threat: Challenge and Threat During Social Interactions with White and Black Men’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, no. 7 (2002): 939–52; S. Trawalter and J.A. Richeson, ‘Regulatory Focus and Executive Function After Interracial Interactions’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 42 (2006): 406–12; and H.M. Gray, W.B. Mendes, and C. Denny-Brown, ‘An In-Group Advantage in Detecting Intergroup Anxiety’, Psychological Science 19, no. 2 (2009): 1233–7].

⁵⁴ e.g. C.M. Steele and J. Aronson, ‘Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, no. 5 (1995): 797–811.

⁵⁵ J.N. Shelton, J.A. Richeson, and J. Salvatore, ‘Expecting to Be the Target of Prejudice: Implications for Interethnic Interactions’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31, no. 9 (2015): 1189–202; and P.A. Goff, J.L. Eberhardt, M.J. Williams, and C. Jackson, ‘Not yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization, and Contemporary Consequences’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94 no. 2 (2008): 292–306.

⁵⁶ e.g. E. Cassese and C. Weber, ‘Emotion, Attribution, and Attitudes Towards Crime’, Journal of Integrated Social Sciences 2, no. 1 (2011): 63–97; and A.R. Todd, M. Forstmann, P. Burgmer, A.W. Brooks, and A.D. Galinsky, ‘Anxious and Egocentric: How Specific Emotions Influence Perspective Taking’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 144, no. 2 (2015): 374–91.

⁵⁷ T. Brader, Campaigning for Hearts and Minds: How Emotional Appeals in a Political Ads Work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

⁵⁸ K. Gross, ‘Framing Persuasive Appeals: Episodic and Thematic Framing, Emotional Response, and Policy Opinion’, Political Psychology 25, no. 1 (2008): 169–92.

⁵⁹ K. Gross and L.D. Ambrosio, ‘Framing Emotional Response’, Political Psychology 29, no. 2 (2004): 1–29.

⁶⁰ S. Barakat and S.A. Zyck, ‘The Evolution of Postconflict Recovery’, Third World Quarterly 30, no. 6 (2009): 1069–86.

⁶¹ E. Ikpe, ‘Developmental Postconflict Reconstruction in Postindependence Nigeria: Lessons from Asian Developmental Issues’, Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 16, no. 3 (2020): 318–35.

⁶² R. Mac Ginty, ‘Everyday Peace: Bottom-up and Local Agency in Conflict-Affected Societies’, Security Dialogue 45 (2014): 548–64.

⁶³ e.g. S. Chojnacki and B. Engels, ‘Overcoming the Material/Social Divide: Conflict Studies from the Perspective of Spatial Theory’, in Spatialising Peace and Conflict: Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies, ed. A. Björkdahl and S. Buckley-Zistel (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 25–40; and B. Vogel, ‘Understanding the Impact of Geographies and Space on the Possibilities of Peace Activism’, Cooperation and Conflict 53, no. 4 (2018): 431–48.

⁶⁴ S. Bell, ‘The Power of Ideas: The Ideational Shaping of the Structural Power of Business’, International Studies Quarterly 56, no. 4 (2012): 661–73.

⁶⁵ Mac Ginty, 2013, 4.

⁶⁶ R. Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

⁶⁷ Ibid., 6.

⁶⁸ Brewer, ‘Sociology and Peacebuilding’, 159–71.

⁶⁹ The three axes, which should be understood on a continuum, are the following: i) relational distance/closeness; ii) territorial integrity/spatial separation; iii) cultural capital/cultural annihilation (Brewer, ‘Sociology and Peacebuilding’, 162–6).

⁷⁰ Brewer, ‘Sociology and Peacebuilding’, 164.

⁷¹ Y. He, The Search for Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); A. Oberschall, ‘History and Peacebuilding’, in Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding, ed. R. Mac Ginty (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 171–18; and F. Kočan and B. Udovič, ‘Diplomacija s (kolektivnim) spominom: kako preteklost vpliva na izvajanje diplomacije?’, Annales: anali za istrske in mediteranske študije 30, no. 3 (2020): 457–68.

⁷² Brewer, ‘Sociology and Peacebuilding’.

⁷³ e.g. M. Cammet and E. Malesky, ‘Power Sharing in Postconflict Societies: Implications for Peace and Governance’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 56, no. 6 (2012): 982–1016.

⁷⁴ e.g. B. Reilly and A. Reynolds, ‘Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies’, in International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War, ed. P. C. Stern and D. Druckman (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2000), 420–82.

⁷⁵ e.g. P. Hang Wong, ‘How can Political Trust be Built after Civil Wars? Evidence from Postconflict Sierra Leone’, Journal of Peace Research 53, no. 6 (2016): 772–85.

⁷⁶ e.g. Cammett and Malesky, ‘Power Sharing’, 983.

⁷⁷ When talking about postconflict societies that are divided along the ethnic lines, scholars tend to focus on four electoral systems, namely: i) consociationalism (e.g. S. Wolff, ‘Post-Conflict State Building: The Debate on Institutional Choice’, Third World Quarterly 32, no. 10 (2011): 1777–802); ii) centripetalism (e.g. M. Bogaards, ‘Consociationalism and Centripetalism: Friends or Foes?’ Swiss Political Science Review 25, no. 4 (2019): 519–37); iii) integrative consensualism (M. Jakala, D. Kuzu, and M. Qvortrup, eds., Consociationalism and Power-Sharing in Europe: Arend Lijphart’s Theory of Political Accommodation (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); iv) explicitism (e.g. Reilly and Reynolds, ‘Electoral Systems’, 420–82). In this regard, the liberal peacebuilding paradigm strives towards representation of all societal (ethnic) groups on national level.

⁷⁸ Reilly and Reynolds, ‘Electoral Systems’, 425.

⁷⁹ G. De Luca and M. Verpoorten, ‘From Vice to Virtue? Civil War and Social Capital in Uganda’, LICOS Discussion Paper, 298. https://feb.kuleuven.be/drc/licos/publications/dp/dp298.pdf; J. Cuesta and E. Alda, ‘The Effects of Trust on Victimization in Colombia’, Journal of Peace Research 49, no. 6 (2012): 833–46; A.T. Stoyan, S. Niedzwiecki, J. Morgan, J. Hartlyn, and R. Espinal, ‘Trust in Government Institutions: The Effects of Performance and Participation in the Dominican Republic and Haiti’, International Political Science Review 37, no. 1 (2016): 18–35.

⁸⁰ Hang Wong, ‘Political Trust’, 772–85.

⁸¹ S. Askvik, I. Jamil, and T. N. Dhakal, ‘Citizens’ Trust in Public and Political Institutions in Nepal’, International Political Science Review 32, no. 4 (2010): 417–37.

⁸² M. K. Hutchison, and K. Johnson, ‘Capacity to Trust? Institutional Capacity, Conflict, and Political Trust in Africa, 2000–2005’, Journal of Peace Research 48, no. 6 (2011): 737–52.

⁸³ Hang Wong, ‘Political Trust’, 775.

⁸⁴ M. Pugh, ‘The Political Economy of Peacebuilding: A Critical Theory Perspective’, International Journal of Peace Studies 10, no. 2 (2005): 23–42.

⁸⁵ B. Murtagh, ‘Desegregation and Place Restructuring in the New Belfast’, Urban Studies 48, no. 6 (2010): 1119–35.

⁸⁶ J.H. Peterson, Building a Peace Economy? Liberal Peacebuilding and the Development-Security Industry (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014).

⁸⁷ B. Murtagh, ‘Regeneration and Segregation in Belfast: Rethinking the Economics of Peacebuilding’, LSE BPP, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/regeneration-and-segregation-in-belfast/.

⁸⁸ Ibid., 2.

⁸⁹ E. Hello, P. Scheepers, A. Vermulst, and J. R. M. Gerris, ‘Association between Educational Attainment and Ethnic Distance in Young Adults: Socialization by Schools or Parents?’ Acta Sociologica 47, no. 3 (2004): 253–75.

⁹⁰ D. Sekulić, G. Massey, and R. Hodson, ‘Ethnic Intolerance and Ethnic Conflict in the Dissolution of Yugoslavia’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 29, no. 5 (2006): 797–827.

⁹¹ M. Lange, ‘Social Welfare and Ethnic Warfare: Exploring the Impact of Education on Ethnic Violence’, Studies in Comparative International Development 46, no. 4 (2011): 372–96.

⁹² N. Jović, ‘A Survey of Ethnic Distance in Kosovo’, in Perspectives of a Multiethnic Society in Kosovo, ed. J. Teokarević, B. Baliqi, and S. Surlić (Belgrade, Prishtina: Youth Initiative for Human Rights, 2015), 261–70.

⁹³ M. Gligorijević, ‘A Comparative Review of Past and Recent Surveys of Ethnic Distance Between Serbs and Albanians’, in Perspectives of a Multiethnic Society in Kosovo, ed. J. Teokarević, B. Baliqi, and S. Surlić (Belgrade, Prishtina: Youth Initiative for Human Rights, 2015), 271–85.

⁹⁴ Barakat and Zyck, ‘Evolution of Postconflict’, 1069–86.

⁹⁵ R. Venugopal, ‘Privatization, Private-Sector Development and Horizontal Inequalities in Post conflict Countries’, in Horizontal Inequalities and Post-conflict Development, ed. A. Langer, F. Stewart, and R. Venugopal (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 108–30.

⁹⁶ Peterson, Building a Peace Economy.

⁹⁷ Ibid., 116.

⁹⁸ A.L. Chua, ‘The Privatization-Nationalization Cycle: The Link Between Markets and Ethnicity in Developing Countries’, Columbia Law Review 95, no. 2 (1995): 223–303.

⁹⁹ M. DeHart, ‘Fried Chicken or Pop? Redefining Development and Ethnicity in Totonicapán’, Bulletin of Latin American Research 28, no. 1 (2009): 63–82.

¹⁰⁰ Chojnacki and Engels, ‘Material/Social Divide’, 31.

¹⁰¹ K. Dietz, B. Engels, and O. Pye, ‘Territory, Scale and Networks: The Spatial Dynamics of Agrofuels’, in The Political Ecology of Agrofuels, ed. K. Dietz, B. Engels, O. Pye, and A. Brunnengräber (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 34–52.

¹⁰² D.G. Martin and B. Miller, ‘Space and Contentious Politics’, Mobilisation: An International Journal 8, no. 2 (2013): 143–56; and M. Mayer, ‘To What End Do We Theorize Sociospatial Relations?’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26, no. 3 (2018): 414–9.

¹⁰³ K. Kasara, ‘Does Local Ethnic Segregation Lead To Violence? Evidence from Kenya’, Quarterly Journal of Political Science 11, no. 4 (2017): 441–70.

¹⁰⁴ A. Björkdahl, ‘Republika Srpska: Imaginary, Performance and Spatialization’, Political Geography 66 (2018): 34–43.

¹⁰⁵ B. Murtagh, ‘Contested Space, Peacebuilding and the Post-conflict City’, Parliamentary Affairs 71, no. 2 (2017): 438–60.

¹⁰⁶ He, Search for Reconciliation; Oberschall, ‘History and peacebuilding’, 171–83; and Kočan and Udovič, Diplomacija s (kolektivnim) spominom, 457–68.

¹⁰⁷ e.g. B. Banovac, ‘Imagining the Others – Dynamics of Conflict and Peace in Multiethnic Areas in Croatia’, Revija za sociologiju 39, no. 3–4 (2009): 183–209; and E. Rapti and T. Karaj, ‘Albanian University Students’ Ethnic Distance and Stereotypes Compared with Other Balkan Nations’, Problems of Education in the 21st Century 48 (2012): 127–34.

¹⁰⁸ e.g. J. Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13.000 Years (London: Vintage Books, 2017); and R. Dunbar and R. Sosis, ‘Optimizing Human Community Sizes’, Evolution and Human Behaviour: Official Journal of the Human Behaviour Society 39, no. 1 (2018): 106–11.

¹⁰⁹ Diamond, Germs and Steel.

¹¹⁰ Dunbar and Sosis, ‘Optimizing Human Community’, 106–11.

¹¹¹ Wagner and Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear’.

¹¹² R.S. Jhangiani, C. Cuttler, and D.C. Leighton, Research Methods in Psychology (Minneapolis: Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 2019).

¹¹³ Naturalistic observation involves observing people’s behaviour in the environment in which it typically occurs (i.e. natural environment) (Jhangiani et al., Research Methods, 169–70).

¹¹⁴ In participant observation, researchers become active participants in the group or situation they are studying, where the data that is collected can include interviews and notes based on their observations (Jhangiani et al., Research Methods, 170–2).

¹¹⁵ In structured observation, the researcher carefully observes a specific behaviour in a particular setting that is more structured, and the idea is to gather quantitative rather than qualitative data (Jhangiani et al., Research Methods, 173–5).

¹¹⁶ N. Dzuverovic, ‘Why Local Voices Matter. Participation Of Local Researchers In The Liberal Peace Debate’, Peacebuilding 6, no. 2 (2018): 111–26; and J. Krause, ‘The Ethics of Ethnographic Methods in Conflict Zones’, Journal of Peace Research 58, no. 3 (2021): 329–41.

¹¹⁷ J. Drury and C. Stott, ‘Bias as a Research Strategy in Participant Observation: The Case of Intergroup Conflict’, Field Methods 13, no. 1 (2001): 47–67.

¹¹⁸ e.g. G.E. Marcus and M.B. MacKuen, ‘Anxiety, Enthusiasm, and the Vote; The Emotional Underpinnings of Learning and Involvement During Presidential Campaigns’, American Political Science Review 87, no. 3 (1993): 672–85; and J. Garry, ‘Emotions and Voting in EU Referendums’, European Union Politics 15, no. 2 (2014): 235–54.

¹¹⁹ e.g. M. Wagner, ‘Fear and Anger in Great Britain: Blame Assignment and Emotional Reactions to the Financial Crisis’, Political Behaviour 36, no. 3 (2014): 683–703; and G. Rico, M. Guinjoan, and E. Anduiza, ‘The Emotional Underpinnings of Populism: How Anger And Fear Affect Populist Attitudes’, Swiss Political Science Review 23, no. 4 (2017): 444–61.

¹²⁰ J.M. Ladd, and G.S. Lenz, ‘Reassessing the Role of Anxiety in Vote Choice’, Political Psychology 29, no. 2 (2018): 275–96.

¹²¹ Wagner and Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear’.

¹²² See Colette Rausch, ed., Neuroscience and Peacebuilding (Arlington, VA: Mary Hoch Centre for Reconciliation, 2021).

¹²³ M.R. Mehl, M.L. Robbins, and F. Deters, ‘Naturalistic Observation of Health-Relevant Social Processes: The Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) Methodology in Psychosomatics’, Psychosomatic Medicine 74, no. 4 (2013): 410–7.

¹²⁴ I. Selbin and A. Olsson, ‘Anxious Behaviour in a Demonstrator Affects Observational Learning’, Scientific Reports 9 (2019): 1–9.

¹²⁵ Wagner and Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear’, 6.

¹²⁶ Wagner and Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear’.

¹²⁷ Ibid., 7.

¹²⁸ K. Searles and K. Mattes, ‘It’s a Mad, Mad World: Using Emotion Inductions in a Survey’, Journal of Experimental Political Science 2, no. 2 (2015): 172–82.

¹²⁹ B. Albertson and S.K. Gadarian, Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

¹³⁰ Wagner and Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear’, 7.

¹³¹ Albertson and Gadarian, Anxious Politics.

¹³² Searles and Mattes, ‘Mad World’, 172–82.

¹³³ N. A. Valentino, T. Brader, E.W. Groenendyk, K. Gregorowicz, and V.L. Hutchings, ‘Election Night’s Alright for Fighting: The Role of Emotions in Political Participation’, Journal of Politics 73, no. 1 (2011): 156–70.

¹³⁴ e.g. J.L. Merolla and E.J. Zechmeister, Democracy at Risk: How Terrorist Threats Affect the Public (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019).

¹³⁵ Suhay, E. and C. Erisen, ‘The Role of Anger in the Biased Assimilation of Political Information’, Political Psychology 39, no. 4 (2018): 793–810; and G. Bartoszek and D. Cervone, ‘Toward an Implicit Measure of Emotions: Ratings of Abstract Images Reveal Distinct Emotional States’, Cognition and Emotion 31, no. 7 (2017): 1377–91.

¹³⁶ Wagner and Morisi, ‘Anxiety, Fear’, 7.

¹³⁷ Ibid.

¹³⁸ I. Sokolić, ‘Ethics and the Multiplicity of Harms in Post-Conflict Research’, Globalising Southeast Europe: Research Blog, https://global-sees.org/2020/05/11/ethics-and-the-multiplicity-of-harms-in-post-conflict-research/.

¹³⁹ Ibid.

¹⁴⁰ Ibid.

¹⁴¹ D. Kostovicova, ‘The Question of Ethics’ LSE Department of Government Blog, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/government/2016/03/02/the-question-of-ethics/.

¹⁴² E. Knott, ‘Beyond the Field: Ethics after Fieldwork in Politically Dynamic Contexts’, Perspectives on Politics 17 (2019): 140–53.

¹⁴³ Sokolić, ‘Multiplicity of Harms’.

¹⁴⁴ e.g. D. Kaminer, D. J. Stein, and J. Mbanga, ‘The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa: Relation to Psychiatric Status and Forgiveness Among Survivors of Human Rights Abuses’, British Journal of Social Psychology 178 (2001): 373–7.

¹⁴⁵ Knott, ‘Beyond the Field’, 140.

¹⁴⁶ Ibid.

¹⁴⁷ Sokolić, ‘Multiplicity of Harms’.

¹⁴⁸ e.g. P. Roe, ‘Is securitization a “Negative” Concept? Revisiting the Normative Debate over Normal Versus Extraordinary Politics’, Security Dialogue 43 (2012): 249–66; C.M. Jackson, ‘Bandits, Bondsmen, and Leviathans: Ethnic Groups Contesting Local Security after Conflict in the Western Balkans’, Journal of Regional Security 16 (2021): 215–48; and F. Kočan, ‘How Can “Overall Progress and Development” Fail in Post-Conflict Societies? Securitization of the 2005–07 Stabilization and Association Agreement Negotiations in Republika Srpska’, Nationalities Papers (2022): 1–17. doi:10.1017/nps.2022.29.