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

Abstract

AbstractIn 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.