While there is no sustainable peace without reconciliation, people in post-conflict societies often resist or even reject reconciliation both as a concept and practice. Engaging with Denisa Kostovicova’s new book, the panellists and the author addressed the paradox of reconciliation in post-conflict societies and its implications for peace-building.
Meet our speakers and chair
Jasna Dragovic-Soso is Professor of International Politics and History at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is also Visiting Professor at LSEE. Professor Dragovic-Soso is the author of Saviours of the Nation: Serbia’s Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism (2002) and co-editor of State Collapse in South-Eastern Europe: New Perspectives of Yugoslavia’s Dissolution. She has published numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on intellectuals and dissent; nationalism, state dissolution and international intervention; and on processes of memory construction and transitional justice in the post-Yugoslav region. She has provided expertise on the post-Yugoslav region to various non-academic stakeholders, including the Common Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the International Commission on the Balkans. Professor Dragovic-Soso is co-editor of the Palgrave book series on Memory Politics and Transitional Justice.
James Gow is Professor of International Peace and Security and Co-Director of the War Crimes Research Group at King’s College London. His numerous publications include Triumph of the Lack of Will: International Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War; The Serbian Project; Slovenia and the Slovenes; War and War Crimes; Prosecuting War Crimes: Lessons and Legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Security, Democracy and War Crimes: Security Sector Transformation in Serbia; The Art of Creating Power: Freedman on Strategy, War, Law and Technology; Impact in International Affairs, and Reconciliation After War: Historical Perspectives on Transitional Justice. He has served as an expert adviser and an expert witness for the Office of the Prosecutor at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he was the first ever witness at an international criminal tribunal, and as an Expert Adviser to the UK Secretary of State for Defence. In 2013, Professor Gow won a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship and since 2016 has been engaged on a series of major collaborative projects, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy on ‘Art and Reconciliation’ focused on the Western Balkans. He was awarded the Fellowship of King’s College London in 2019.
Mary Kaldor is Professor Emeritus of Global Governance and Director of the Conflict Research Programme at LSE. She has pioneered the concepts of new wars and global civil society. Her elaboration of the real-world implementation of human security has directly influenced European and national governments. She is the author of many books and articles including New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era (3rd edition, 2012), International Law and New Wars (with Christine Chinkin, 2017) and Global Security Cultures (2018). Professor Kaldor is highly regarded for her innovative work on democratisation, conflict, and globalisation. She was a founding member of European Nuclear Disarmament (END), a founder and Co-Chair of the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly, and a member of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, established by then-Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson. At the request of Javier Solana, the then EU Foreign Policy Chief, she was Convener for the Study Group on European Security Capabilities, which produced the influential Barcelona report, A Human Security Doctrine for Europe.
Denisa Kostovicova is Associate Professor of Global Politics at European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a scholar of conflict and peace processes with a particular interest in post-conflict reconstruction and transitional justice. She is the author of Kosovo: The Politics of Identity and Space (2005) and Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes (2023). She co-edited a number of volumes, including Rethinking Reconciliation and Transitional Justice After Conflict (2018), Bottom-up Politics: An Agency-Centred Approach to Globalisation (2011), and Civil Society and Transitions in the Western Balkans (2013). Kostovicova’s research has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation, Volkswagen Foundation, the EU's 7th Framework Programme, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, among others. She currently directs a major research programme funded by the European Research Council, titled ‘Justice Interactions and Peace-building (JUSTINT).’ Kostovicova’s research has informed policy making at the EU, UN, and in the UK.
Vesna Bojicic-Dzelilovic is Senior Research Fellow at LSE IDEAS. She specialises in the political economy of war and post-war reconstruction, with a geographic focus on Southeast Europe. She is currently co-directing UN-supported initiative at the London School of Economics and Political Science to develop and mainstream a new framework for the engagement of the private sector in conflict-affected societies and strengthen its contribution to sustainable peace and development.
*Order the book with a 30% discount here. Enter discount code 09BCARD at checkout.
The twitter Hashtag for this event is: #LSEReconciliation
Podcast
Listen to the podcast here.
More about this event
LSEE (@LSEE_LSE ) was officially launched at the start of the 2009-10 academic year as a research unit established within LSE's European Institute. Over the last several years LSEE has developed the School's expertise on South East Europe, drawing on the strength of existing and new academic expertise at LSE.