Out-group help in the time of Covid-19 and intergroup reconciliation in the Western Balkans

Abstract

In March 2021, Serbia made the unprecedented announcement to offer free Covid-19 vaccination to citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and notably to Bosniaks, against whom three decades earlier Serbia had waged a bloody war. How was this policy appraised and, most importantly, did the policy appraisal impact reconciliation? We report here the results of a longitudinal investigation amid a representative sample of Bosniak youth (N = 450). Results suggest that a positive appraisal of this actual, state-level policy, predicted improvement on a series of intergroup reconciliation indicators (e.g., trust in the out-group, forgiveness for past violence, hope for future relationship), particularly so amid those who are strongly attached to their Bosniak in-group.