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The Postwar City

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Contesting Peace in the Postwar City

Part of the book series: Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies ((RCS))

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Abstract

Postwar cities, where war is over yet the socio-political ordering of society remains contested, tend to be highly unstable flashpoints in war-to-peace transitions as well as where the starkest continuities of war in peace are located. This often makes them unsafe and problematic for citizens to live in, dysfunctional as cities, and Gordian knots of wider peace processes. Here the principal research problem of this book emerges. “The city” is namely often theorised and historically proven to have great potential to transcend societal divides, bridge communities, and foster coexistence. “The postwar city”, however, fulfils little to none of this potential. This book takes departure from this unfulfilled potential and focuses on why the continuities of war in peace are reinforced rather than transcended in the postwar city. This chapter introduces and contextualises the principal research problem that the postwar city constitutes and provides an outline of the book.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Cities become postwar when they no longer experience systematic use of armed force by groups with political and/or territorial ambitions and cease being postwar when an uncontested order of things has been established. This is elaborated in Chap. 2.

  2. 2.

    Continuities of war in peace refer to the violence, repression, and disorder of war that lingers on in peace.

  3. 3.

    Ethnonationalist groups are here understood as ethnic groups striving for political autonomy and/or sovereignty (see Connor 1994).

  4. 4.

    The city has the potential to do the opposite as well—i.e. create societal divides, separate communities, and undermine coexistence. In this sense it is Janus-faced. Yet while the city’s destructive potential is quite present in the postwar city, its transcending one is not.

  5. 5.

    The selection of these postwar cities is addressed in Chap. 3.

  6. 6.

    Important to note is that these studies often employ the label “divided” rather than “postwar” cities. This divergence is theoretical and semantic. “Postwar” only encompasses the narrow category of cities that have suffered from war and now experience contestation over their socio-political ordering. “Divided” is in contrast less precise as most—if not all—cities experience divisions (see Gaffikin and Morrissey 2011; Rokem and Boano 2017). This makes “postwar” much more apt when depicting cities such as Belfast, Mitrovica, and Mostar. Yet as many “divided cities” studies focus on cities I define as postwar, these studies are nevertheless compatible with this book as the same category of cities are studied.

  7. 7.

    The example of Belfast is illustrative when comparing Mitchell (2011) with Bollens (1999; 2018).

  8. 8.

    I made many interviews in Mitrovica before someone admitted that young people are sometimes paid to stir up tensions ‘when needed’. Yet this revelation came from people I know would never let me interview them, but who over the years started trusting me enough to share previously inaccessible details.

  9. 9.

    Twelve of the interviewees were interviewed twice and three were interviewed thrice. Of those I interviewed only once I had follow-up contact with many. I also had interviews where I interviewed multiple people.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Ivan Gusic

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  1. Ivan Gusic
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Gusic, I. (2020). The Postwar City. In: Contesting Peace in the Postwar City. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28091-8_1

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