The Role of Identity Perceptions on Security: The Western Balkans Case

This thesis tries to provide valuable insight and explain the role of identity perceptions on security as a means to avert conflicts and security threats. The aim is to provide an identity based explanation to security problems. Constructivism and „social identity theory‟ are its theoretical points of departure which help us understand how we construct social identities and have the tendency to be prejudicial towards others. Our prejudices and negative identity perceptions play a major role in security issues. We will use process tracing to find how identity perceptions are constructed and how they affect security. More explicitly we will trace the process of how identities were affected by historical events as well as the ethnocentric interpretation of these historical events. For thorough analysis, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia are chosen as case studies. The findings will hopefully propose better solutions to security problems and built knowledge applicable to other similar security threats.