Accounting for Symbolic Justice Needs in a Complex Post-Conflict Matrix. Empirical Findings from a Population-based Survey in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH)

Within scholarship focusing on non-judicial forms of transitional justice (TJ), there has been an increasing interest in the use of more symbolic forms of justice (as opposed to concrete or material forms) to help post-conflict societies overcome a violent past. We understand these forms of justice here as those often localized and non-judicial measures that aim at reparation and acknowledgment through the validation of victimization, the recognition of various levels of accountabilities and facts, as well as remembrance. Often included within the category of symbolic reparations, such measures of justice can take on various forms and are often context- and experience-specific. Taking Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) as a case study, we argue that such forms of justice may constitute a key element of social restoration in their potential to symbolically acknowledging individuals’ suffering as well as providing them a voice and status, but also in representing, when targeted towards collectives, a societal recognition of past harm doing. We also take stock of the growing awareness in scholarship that such outcomes may be more likely if they account for the needs and experiences of all those affected by the conflict, especially those representing traditionally marginalized voices. This is particularly significant in BiH, as it constitutes a complex social reality within which various social groups struggle to gain recognition and public visibility for their experiences of the past and contingent justice needs. Such struggles are reflected in the implementation of symbolic TJ measures, which tend to serve as sites of politics of memory and of one-sided interpretations of the past. Yet, such TJ measures have been afforded little in-depth empirical attention in BiH and beyond, especially within the framework of quantitative studies. The existent scholarship on symbolic justice measures has mostly taken the form of ethnographic case studies related to specific initiatives, without any comprehensive analysis of the factors that may ground particular symbolic justice needs. We aim to bridge these gaps in this study. Through the analysis of survey data collected across BiH (n=855), we show how specific profiles of war experiences, beliefs and identity can be related to support for different symbolic justice needs, such as acknowledgment of suffering or voice and information. These findings reveal the complexity and heterogeneity of current justice concerns in BiH. They highlight the key role of personal experiences of the past and their embedding within specific memories and their contingent war-related identities, going beyond the influences of ethno-national affiliations. They also show how perceptions of justice are also shaped by collective understandings of the past and what they mean for justice stakeholders in terms of current politics of victimhood and blame. More generally, they add credence to the necessity that those affected by a conflict participate in the implementation of symbolic forms of justice for these to fit their specific expectations of redress.