Does Language Foster Reconciliation? Evidence From the Former Yugoslavia

• Author: Michael Kumove
• DOI: 10.1177/00220027211065416
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Date: 01 May 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2022, Vol. 66(4-5) 783–808

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027211065416

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Does Language Foster

Reconciliation? Evidence

From the Former Yugoslavia

Michael Kumove

1



Abstract

Despite a surge in research on post-conflict reconciliation, the specific factors which

promote reconciliation remain a subject of debate. In particular, the possible role of

shared language in fostering reconciliation has received little scholarly attention. This

paper examines two possible channels through which shared language may facil itate

reconciliation, and tests these using a new survey dataset of 446 individuals from Serbia.

As expected, the results indicated that shared language reduces the negative effect of

conflict on intergroup trust and friendship, two crucial components of reconciliation.

Furthermore, the results suggest that in the former Yugoslavia this effect is generated

by the communication-enabling aspects of a shared language, rather than its other

properties such as acting as a marker of ethnic or cultural identity.

Keywords

conflict, reconciliation, language, Yugoslavia, communication, intergroup contact

Introduction

Post-conflict reconciliation has experienced a surge in scholarly attention since the

1990s within political science and political psychology (Bar-Tal and Bennink, 2004),

possibly due to the ‘ethnic revival’and its associated conflicts which began in that same

decade (Haarmann, 1999: 67). Most researchers agree that it involves some type of

1

School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Corresponding Author:

Michael Kumove, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University, RSSS

Building, Ellery Crescent, Canberra 2601, ACT, Australia.

Email: michael.kumove@anu.edu.au

1

change in intergroup attitudes, with the goal of generating a newfound constructive

relationship (e.g. Staub, 2006;Shnabel and Nadler, 2008). But the factors which

promote reconciliation remain a subject of debate. An enormous range of possible

factors have been proposed, including intergroup contact, effective transitional justice,

non-governmental organisations and ‘inclusive caring’(Gibson, 2004;Rettig, 2008;

Kosic and Tauber, 2010;Staub, 2013), but agreement on their relative importance

remains elusive. Furthermore, one factor appears to have been largely overlooked as a

possible facilitator of reconciliation: the presence of a shared language.

There are two main reasons why shared language would be expected to facilitate

reconciliation. First, shared language is a necessary condition for communication, and

when communication is not possible intergroup contact cannot occur. Existing studies

have already found that intergroup contact promotes reconciliation (Gibson, 2004;Ta m

et al., 2008;Tropp et al., 2017), which is consistent with research from psychology

which demonstrates a link between contact and improvements in intergroup attitudes

(Allport, 1954;Pettigrew, 1998). Another body of research reaches a similar conclusion

through different means, contending that intergroup contact improves attitudes by

providing incentives for trustworthy behaviour (Putnam, 1993;Ostrom, 2003). But

language is not only a tool of communication –it is also a marker of ethnic or cultural

identity (Gellner, 1983;Haarmann, 1999). The second reason why shared language

could facilitate reconciliation is therefore because it acts as a ‘badge’which highlights

this shared identity. Since people prefer to trust and interact with those perceived as

similar to themselves (McPherson et al., 2001), this may encourage feelings of soli-

darity between groups formerly in conflict.

I hypothesise that the ‘communication’channel is the more likely of the two to be

operating in the former Yugoslavia. Operationalising reconciliation as the extent to

which past conflict is reflected in current levels of intergroup trust and friendship, I test

these ideas using a weighted survey dataset of over 2600 trust and social contact

observations derived from 446 respondents in Serbia. OLS and ordered probit mod-

elling revealed that shared language reduces the negative effect of past conflict on

present levels of intergroup trust and friendship, suggesting that it does indeed facilitate

reconciliation. Second, after decomposing the effect of shared language into its

‘identity’and ‘communication’components, I find that the communication component

is the one most strongly linked to improvements in intergroup trust and

friendship. These results suggest that shared language can play an important role in

fostering reconciliation, and that in the former Yugoslavia it does this primarily by

enabling communication between groups formerly in conflict.

Literature Review

Reconciliation is a multifaceted concept, although it is generally agreed to be more than

mere ‘conflict resolution’. Although the latter refers merely to the cessation of armed

hostilities, reconciliation involves a ‘changed psychological orientation toward the

other’(Shnabel and Nadler, 2008: 116). This idea of deep and sustainable change in

784 Journal of Conflict Resolution 66(4-5)