Although it is undeniable that numerous foreign actors interfered in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992-1995, according to scientific standards it was primarily a civil war – a violent conflict between members of the three constituent peoples for the territory, organization and identity of the state. The patterns of producing and recruiting political adversaries who engage in violent confrontations show that the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just like in other civil wars, was primarily a “war of acquaintances, not a war of strangers”.

Sometimes, the adversary was a rather specific acquaintance – member of the own family, schoolmate, work colleague, neighbor, friend – and sometimes a figurative acquaintance sharing equal or similar life experiences in the same country. Among their torturers victims recognized their school teachers and students, salespersons and buyers from shops and markets, innkeepers and guests, drivers and passengers of communal buses, managers and workers from factories, first neighbors and their children’s schoolmates. This made the war worse than if the country had been attacked from the outside, because internal conflicts destroy not only political and social institutions but also the very fabric of society – interpersonal relations.

About the author
Mirjana Kasapović is a Croatian political scientist, author or co-author of thirteen books and over a hundred scientific papers published in Croatia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland and other countries. For her books Bosna i Hercegovina: podijeljeno društvo i nestabilna država (Bosnia and Herzegovina: Divided Society and Unstable State), 2005, and Politički sustav i politika Izraela (The Political System and Politics of Israel), 2010, she received the annual science award of the Republic of Croatia.

She recently published books Bosna i Hercegovina 1990. – 2020. – rat, država i demokracija (Školska knjiga, 2020), which is Croatian version of this book with small additions, and Zbogom postjugoslavenstvu! – Prilog demitologizaciji hrvatske politike i društva (Goodbye, Post-Yugoslavism! The Contribution to the Demythologizing of Croatian Politics and Society) (Školska knjiga, 2024).
She has translated nine political science books and numerous articles from German to Croatian.

She has published numerous professional, journalistic, and journalistic works. She served as the chief and responsible editor of political libraries “Politička misao” and “Političke analize”, as well as the journals Anali Hrvatskoga politološkog društva and Političke analize. She is a member of the Croatian Political Science Association and the Society of Croatian Humboldtians..