The Socio-Psychological "Infrastructure" of Conflict in Croatian, Bosniak and Serbian History Textbooks - Comparing 1996 to 2017

Abstract

The so-called "socio-psychological infrastructure of conflict" (SPIC, Bar-Tal, 2007), as a shared cognitive-affective repertoire, psychologically prepares groups for participation in the conflict. The same repertoire, however, poses an obstacle for reconciliation after its resolution. Relying on SPIC as an analytical framework, we compared Croatian, Bosniak and Serbian elementary school history textbooks published immediately after the war (1996) and twenty years after (2017). First, we sampled the textbooks, choosing the most widely used ones in each period. In selected textbooks, we identified chapters that mention relations among three ethnicities. We proceeded to split them into paragraphs as units of analysis (N=945). Two independent coders classified each paragraph according to nine categories. Results showed that 1/3 up to more than 1/2 of all the selected paragraphs were indicative of SPIC. Contrary to our expectations, we did not observe a significant decrease in SPIC in post-war textbooks, even when we separately analyzed only the categories identified as key obstacles towards reconciliation. We discuss how SPIC integrated into national historical narratives across ethnicities as its core element and why the societies need to enhance their effort towards developing socio-psychological foundations of peace.