Division, Reconstruction, Reconciliation: what happens to identity after civil war?

In March 2011, Dr Bill Kissane organised an international workshop on the topic of reconstructing identity after civil wars. The book which followed, After Civil War: Division, Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Contemporary Europe, 1918-2011, was published in November 2014. Edited by Bill Kissane, the book explores both the theoretical and the practical, using case studies on Bosnia, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, the Irish Free State, Spain, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and Turkey to compare reconstruction projects. Three of these case studies were written by members of the Government Department’s Conflict Research Group; Jim Hughes, ‘Reconstruction without Reconciliation: is Northern Ireland a Model?’ Bill Kissane, ‘A Nation Once Again: The Reconstruction of National Identity after the Irish Civil War 1922-1938’and Denisa Kostovicova and Vesna Bojicic- Dzelilovic, ‘Ethnicity Pays: The Political Economy of Post-Conflict Nationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina.’ Here, Bill Kissane considers the book’s findings further, asking what the relationships between reconstruction, nationalism and reconciliation are in post-conflict societies.