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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6517-1720
Date Available
4-25-2027
Year of Publication
2026
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
Sociology
Faculty
Janet P. Stamatel
Faculty
Robyn Brown
Abstract
Hate crimes are widely understood as bias-motivated offenses, yet their recognition and enforcement remain inconsistent - particularly in post-conflict societies where ethnic identity continues to shape institutional practice. This dissertation examines how hate crimes are socially constructed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia, with a focus on symbolic incidents such as vandalism and public hate symbols, and the interpretive processes through which such acts are recognized, dismissed, or avoided.
Guided by social constructionism, this research draws on three empirical projects: a discourse analysis of over 9,000 online comments responding to news coverage of bias-motivated vandalism; forty-five semi-structured interviews with citizens across the three countries; and fifteen interviews with criminal justice actors and related professionals.
Findings reveal that hate crime is not a stable legal category but a contested social concept shaped by history, morality, and trust in the state. National patterns diverged meaningfully: Bosnia and Herzegovina exhibited heightened concern about escalation in a fragile post-war environment; Croatia emphasized context, intention, and historical framing; and Serbia produced narratives of desensitization and cynicism toward politicized institutions.
This dissertation demonstrates that hate crime enforcement is shaped as much by meaning-making as by law, contributing to scholarship on underreporting, symbolic victimization, and post-conflict governance.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2026.120
Archival?
Archival
Funding Information
2025 Robert Ladner Research Fellowship
Department of Sociology, University of Kentucky
Recommended Citation
Prskalo, Ena, "The Social Construction of Hate Crimes in Three Balkan Countries" (2026). Theses and Dissertations--Sociology. 64.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/sociology_etds/64
