Beyond context: taking political economy seriously in the study of corporate accountability

ABSTRACT The article argues for taking political economy seriously in the study of corporate accountability in transitional justice processes. Corporate actors are now commonly involved in transitional justice (that is, attempts at doing justice in the aftermath of mass violence). However, the literature is still limited by an inclination to treat political economy as context, rather than as a structuring factor intervening both on the war-related or authoritarian violence and on the efforts to make corporate actors accountable. This article proposes three shifts towards a better understanding of the political economy of corporate accountability in TJ: from a focus on the proximate economic causes of war to a genealogical view of pre-war, wartime and post-war economies; towards a more holistic view of conflict financing; and from an emphasis on the political economy of war to the political economy of violence. These shifts allow us to analyse a greater variety of political economies of corporate accountability, address more diffuse responsibilities for violence and injustice, and cover forms of violence that extend over longer periods of time. While holding broader relevance for the field, the arguments are illustrated with reference to the former Yugoslav region and the Bosnian War.


Introduction
Corporate accountability is now firmly established as an important part of transitional justice (TJ) effortsat least in principle (Michalowski 2013, Payne et al. 2020, 2022).Recent studies have also shown that corporate actors have been targeted by TJ mechanisms ever since Nuremberg (Bazyler 2016).However, research on corporate accountability in post-war and post-authoritarian contexts still suffers from some limitations, two of which are particularly concerned with political economy, and are addressed in this article.The first is that political economy has not been sufficiently central in the study of corporate accountability in TJ processes, and has rather been treated as context rather than as a structuring factor intervening both on the war-related or authoritarian violence and on the efforts to make corporate actors accountable.The second limitation is the absence of the former Yugoslav region from much of the comparative literature on this topic, despite recent efforts at mapping corporate accountability processes in various regions of the world.The article shows that the lack of attention to the former Yugoslaviafar from being accidental or due to a lack of relevance of the topic for the regionis indeed the product of a corporate accountability framing that is incapable of dealing with a broader range of political economy structures (such as the complexities of Yugoslav socialism), with diffused responsibilities, and with forms of violence that extend over long periods of time.
Focusing on conflict-affected settings specifically, the article addresses these two problems by proposing three shifts in how we understand and use political economy in TJ research, thus showing how the role of corporate actors and their accountability in conflict scenarios can be read in a more holistic and nuanced way.The first shift is from a focus on the economic causes of conflict to the longer transformation from a pre-war economy into a war economy and postwar economy, which allows for a more nuanced analysis of varied economic structures, including Yugoslav socialism.The second is a shift from a focus on economic resources fuelling conflict to a more holistic view of the power relations they generate, inequalities they entrench and the systems they establish, which are difficult to dismantle post-warthus helping us deal with the question of diffuse responsibilities.Third, the article proposes a shift from a concern with the political economy of war to the political economy of violence itself as a way of better understanding its enabling context and widespread and systematic nature, and its temporal extension over longer periods of time.The potential of these shifts is illustrated with three micro-case studies from the Bosnian Warcovering a longer time arc from the crisis of socialist Yugoslavia to the post-war and post-socialist transition.While not being exhaustive of the relevance of corporate accountability for the whole region, the case studies offer a poignant illustration of the need to analyse the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s as a context where corporate accountability mattered and was mostly evaded.The focus on the former Yugoslavia does more than providing an empirical illustration of the argument, acting instead as theoretically meaningful starting point for extending this line of research to other areas.
Overall, the article therefore argues that taking political economy seriously is necessary to understand how corporate accountability is addressed within TJ contextsthat is, how political economy is not only a structuring factor of war-related violence but also delimits the possibilities for accountability efforts in its aftermath.The first section of the article discusses how current research on corporate accountability encapsulates some crucial questions facing TJ today, while also being constrained by its treatment of political economy as context.It also highlights the remarkable absence of the former Yugoslavia in the comparative literature on the topic.The second section then introduces a way to better incorporate political economy in our frameworks while researching corporate accountability, by proposing the three shifts outlined above.The following section illustrates these shifts with reference to three micro-case studies from the Bosnian War: the Agrokomerc company in Velika Kladuša; the Omarska mines near Prijedor; and the Zenica steel mill.The section concludes by considering how centreing political economy in the analysis of these cases helps us rethink responsibilities and remedies in corporate accountability processes in TJ.

Corporate accountability and/as transitional justice
The question of corporate accountability is now at the centre of some of the most important debates on how countries deal with the aftermath of wartime violence.First, it speaks to questions around the meaning and scope of TJ, and in particular its ambition to present a response to violence and injustice that is meaningful for affected communities.For example, there has been much discussion around whether TJ programmes should or can address socioeconomic violations (Sharp 2013, McAuliffe 2017, Waldorf 2019), or whether we should aim for a more 'transformative' kind of justice or settle for more modest demands, or how broad participation in accountability processes should be (Lambourne 2008, Gready and Robins 2014, Sharp 2019).The question of whether to include corporate actors in TJ efforts is particularly contentious, not only because we lack a 'global corporate accountability norm' (Payne et al. 2020, p. 62), as well as established mechanisms to deal with corporate complicitybut also because of the widespread worry that tackling corporate crimes in TJ processes might scare businesses away and hinder economic recovery.This body of research has, however, presented convincing evidence of the importance of corporate actors in conflict-related violence and in the abuses of authoritarian regimes, and of the salience of these issues for affected communitiesas well as the difficulties in challenging impunity and the need for better accountability mechanisms.
Further to that, scholars have succeeded in demonstrating that accountability for corporate actors has already part of TJ for a long time.Despite a divide within the Allies on the question of whether business activities were to be considered separate from the criminal conduct of the Nazi regime, the list of defendants for the Nuremberg trials included two Economics Ministers (Hjalmar Schacht and Walther Funk) as well as industrialist Gustav Krupp (who was however deemed too ill to attend), as representatives of the 'German capital' pillar of the Nazi regime (Overy 2003).The Krupp case was particularly important because it signalled the Tribunal's (ultimately failed) attempt to punish not only individuals but firms themselves (Clapham, 2003, p. 35).Even in the subsequent 'industrialist trials' at the US Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, which saw Alfried Krupp (Gustav's son) and businessmen from the coal and steel and chemical industries as defendants, the prosecution's case rested on the idea that international law should apply to the actions of businesses.Similarly, IG Farben, well-known for producing Zyklon B for the Nazi concentration camps, was implicated in the conviction of its directors by the Tribunal and was subsequently sued for reparations by victims of slave labour (Clapham, 2003, p. 46).The industrialists' trials served as the basis for several subsequent reparation claims brought against firms and banks that had been complicit with Nazi crimes.Many of these claims were only brought decades later against Swiss, German and French companies, with several of the cases brought in the United States (mostly resulting in settlements rather than court decisions, also thanks to the involvement of powerful political actors) (Bazyler 2016).
In the post-Nuremberg era, corporate accountability in TJ has been addressed in some cases through proceedings in foreign courts (mostly civil, and in a few cases criminal trials).Civil cases in the United States have been more common and held under the framework of the Aliens Tort Statuteat least until the shift towards a more conservative interpretation of its scope with the US Supreme Court Kiebel (2013) and Jesner (2018) decisions ( Van Ho, 2013).More commonly, corporate accountability has been pursued through domestic trials in countries in the Global South, with slightly better chances at success (Payne, et al. 2020).In Argentina, for example, after the repeal of the amnesty law in 2003, several cases have been brought against corporate actors for their role in the crimes of the dictatorship.In Brazil, the Truth Commission recommended judicial investigations to deal with corporate complicity.Multinational corporations like Fiat and Volkswagen have been involved, with the latter recently coming to an agreement with prosecutors to pay 5.5 million euros to victims' associations and other social projects. 1As evident by the detailed appendix in Payne et al. (2020) outlining the location and outcome of corporate complicity cases in TJ contexts since Nuremberg, TJ literature should rightfully analyse corporate accountability efforts not as an expansion of TJ but as an already existing phenomenon to be better understood.
Finally, the literature on corporate accountability in TJ often focuses on the 'forefront' cases of TJ processes, where civil society actors and human rights practitioners have been pushing for the inclusion of corporate actors within the remit of TJ mechanisms.In Colombia, hearings of paramilitaries carried out within the framework of the Justice and Peace Law brought to light evidence of the involvement of business actors.This was then used within the ordinary justice system to attempt their prosecution, not without significant obstacles (Wesche 2019).Subsequently, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace was given jurisdiction over business actors who voluntarily accepted to present themselves to the prosecutors (Wesche 2019, p. 469-99).In addition to the now vast research on Colombia, scholars have studied the innovations and future possibilities of TJ mechanisms in addressing corporate crimes in other contexts, such as Myanmar, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, just to name a few (Bohoslavsky and Opgenhaffen 2010, Bohoslavsky 2013, Atteberry 2019, Aguirre and Pietropaoli 2021, Saad-Diniz 2021).
Blind spots: political economy as context Nevertheless, this body of work has some limitations in its disciplinary outlook and regional scope.Much of the literature focuses on somewhat narrowly-defined corporate complicitycontributing to, or collaborating with perpetrators of, crime (Bohoslavsky and Opgenhaffen 2010)and specifically on complicity for violations of physical integrity rights, as the most comprehensive studies on the subject do, looking at economic actors' direct complicity in criminal violence, including labourrelated violence such as slave labour, the financing of repression or crimes against humanity, or involvement in illegal activities that profit from violence.This definition is justified on the grounds that most scholarship examines the extent to which specific TJ mechanisms such as trials and truth commissions have addressed corporate responsibility.However, such focus on corporate complicity and direct physical violence has the drawback of leaving political economy to be treated as mere 'context', 2 rather than a structuring factor intervening both on the war-related or authoritarian violence and on the efforts to make corporate actors accountable. 3Paradoxically, even when addressing corporate complicity directly, a focus on legal mechanisms that treats political economy as context risks (re)producing the kind of 'invisibility' of the 'economic' in TJ already identified by Miller (2008).
This inevitably leads to a limited implementation of reparative measures that does not undermine the structures that prop up corporate violence in war and authoritarian contexts.Attempts at assessing corporate responsibilities through a predominantly legal lens overlook the way in which even the possibility to pursue accountability is linked to political economy, including power differentials between states, corporate actors and poor or isolated communities (Newell 2005), and the willingness of international organisations and powerful states to back accountability efforts against corporate actors.In a post-conflict or post-authoritarian setting, the problem may be even more accentuated.While recent volumes have sought to bring political economy closer to TJ in studying corporate accountability (Basualdo et al. 2021), they have not yet properly integrated analyses of justice strugglesthat is, seeing accountability processes through an explicit political economy lens.
At the same time, it is interesting to note that the former Yugoslav region is largely absent from the literature on corporate accountability.This is despite the region being cast as a 'laboratory' for the international community's TJ programmes (Dragović-Soso et al. 2010), which included the establishment of the first international tribunal since Nuremberg (alongside the ICTR), as well as a host of trials held in domestic courts across the region to deal with the violence that marked the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. 4This is also despite the activism of civil society and grassroots groups in the former Yugoslavia, spanning from attempts at establishing a regional commission to the Women's Court, to efforts at addressing the violent and unjust socioeconomic legacies of war (Bonora 2014, O'Reilly 2016, Kostovicova 2017, Lai 2020a).There is no scarcity of evidence on the role of economic actors in the Yugoslav wars, but their role and links to the war economy and post-war transition has seldom being linked to the question of post-war justice (Lai 2020b).Given the large body of evidence on the use of factories, mining complexes and work sites more generally as prison camps where war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed, it is not possible to maintain that debates on corporate accountability are not relevant for the former Yugoslav region.Lastly, one could postulate that the different political economy characterising the former Yugoslavia might have led researchers to avoid the region as a case study.Rather than being a reason for its exclusion, however, this should in fact compel scholars to put the region at the centre of their analyses.Moreover, the other examples discussed by the literaturefrom Nazi Germany to Latin America or Cambodiapresent varying configurations of the relationship between the state and the economy.In fact, the Nazi regime's relationship with the corporations whose officials ended up on trial in Nuremberg was precisely one of the reasons why various US officials advocated at various points for their inclusions in the trials, as a 'third pillar' of the Nazi regime.This article will therefore address this double blind spot: on the one hand, by proposing three shifts to better incorporate political economy in TJ analysis; on the other hand, deploying these three shifts in examining corporate accountability in the former Yugoslav regionwith reference to the Bosnian War specifically.

War economies, violence and transitional justice: shifting perspectives
Within TJ, political economy is thus not necessarily ignored, but treated as contextual.Here I argue not only that political economy is in fact a structuring factor of both war-related violence and of the efforts to make corporate actors accountable, but also show how it can be brought to the forefront in our analyses.Without claiming to be fully exhaustive, this section proposes three shifts in how we approach the question of war and transition economies in the context of TJ, and specifically with respect to efforts to deal with corporate accountability.In doing so, the section also paves the way for exploring this empirically in the next section, using three micro-case studies from the Bosnian War.
First, addressing a broader range of political economy structures necessitates a shift from an analysis focused on the proximate causes of war and motivations of armed groups to a more genealogical approach that considers the functioning of war economies, their origins and legacies into the post-war period.Traditionally, scholars have placed importance on economic issues as important factors underlying conflict itself.Much scholarly attention towards the political economy of conflict was, early on, directed at determining whether 'grievances' (political or economic) or 'greed' motivated conflict (Collier and Sambanis 2002, Collier and Bank 2003, Stewart 2008) In fact, and aside from all the other shortcomings of such literature, such dichotomous construction could not adequately capture the interplay between greed and grievances, nor the possible presence of underlying issues underpinning both (Berdal 2005, Keen 2012, p. 771).While critical and feminist strands of IPE have recognised the need to shift the focus on the workings of war economies, (Pugh et al. 2004, 2016, Elias and Rai 2019, McLeod and O'Reilly 2019, Hozić 2021) TJ as a field would benefit from a more explicit engagement with this tradition.
With respect to corporate accountability, such genealogical view would allow for a better understanding of the role of corporate actors from when war economies are established (in the transition from socialism, for example) to the aftermath of conflict.At the most basic level, conflict changes the functioning of the economy: economic assets and infrastructure can be seized by the army or other armed groups; they can be destroyed, or converted for war purposes, either to produce equipment or for military use (including as camps and sites of violence).At the same time, the establishment of war economywhether centred around illicit trade, exploitation of natural resources, hijacking of humanitarian aid, and subsistence activities by civilianscreates beneficiaries that resist its dismantling in its aftermath.Corporate actors, which are present through this war and post-war system, might be able to continue working through the conflict, even while subject to political or military attacks, political or military pressure.The end of the conflict might allow other firms to re-start their activities, or foreign corporations to take over through privatisation processes.In doing so, these actors intervene on the evolution of the economic system from the war to the post-war period; locally, they might be arriving at a former site of fighting or war crimeswithout necessarily being alert to the implications of this and the complex situation on the ground.Conflict-affected communities might then have justice demands that clash with corporate actors' expectations of their role in that community.TJ processes dealing with corporate responsibility should be thus sensitive not only to corporate actors' complicity in wartime violence, but also to their positioning within the war and post-war economy.
Second, in order to better account for diffused responsibilities, the article proposes broadening our outlook from how economic resources fuel conflict dynamics (Le Billon 2001, Le Billon 2008) to a more holistic view of the power relations they generate, inequalities they entrench, the systems they establish that are difficult to dismantle post-war, and their long-term consequences.Much of the attention towards corporate accountability in TJ processes has gone towards identifying corporate complicity in the extraction of natural resources used to finance rebel groups, such as diamonds or oil.However, conflict financing involves a larger set of actorsfrom state actors to corporations, and armed groupsand a broader set of activitiesfrom taxation to dispossession and external assistance (Wennmann 2007).From the point of view of corporate accountability and TJ, it is also important to look beyond the question of how conflict is financed to identify the power relations established by patterns of accumulation, including the gendered division of labour or inequalities that might be generated in the process.The gender balance of workers shifts due to the composition of the military during conflict, while the end of the conflict generates economic needs to address the needs of victims and support for veterans, which often come in competition (Barton-Hronešová 2020).Corporate actors operate within this system, during conflict by having to negotiate their presence and role within the system of conflict financing, and after the war when the economic system is being reformed while some of its wartime actors might still be operating.Economic interventionsby private firms and international actorsare commonly aimed at promoting economic growth and tend to leave equality or justice considerations to the side.This context is important for understanding the role of corporate actors, the more diffuse responsibilities that wartime violence might generate, and the implications this has for post-war justice processes as well as political and economic reform.
The third shift is from focusing on the political economy of war to that of violence, which has received comparatively less attention within TJ, while it is an established area of research in Feminist IPE (Elias and Rai 2019; see also Richani 2005).TJ processes aim to remedy the consequences of violence specifically (rather than war more broadly), and there is considerable debate over what types of violence or crimes they should address.While that debate is outside of the scope of this article, a focus on the political economy of violence is useful to highlight the different functions that violence plays in conflict, and also in the economic and political transition towards peace.This includes the use of violence against civilians to facilitate military gains, but also the gender-based nature of military violence, and violence to facilitate dispossession or accumulation.It also means analysing how violence against civilians can prevent future recovery, or modify social relations in the long term as well, for example by pushing women to withdraw from formal work, or promoting the redistribution of scarce state resources towards maintaining the army or veterans.Again, to understand how corporate actors become involved in TJ processes, it is necessary to see them as operating in a situation where violence is not individualised nor circumscribed to specific phases of the conflict, but understood as structural element that characterises war as well as reverberating in its aftermath.

Corporate accountability and political economy: three micro-case studies
This section discusses three micro-case studies from the Bosnian War of 1992-95 to illustrate the importance of political economy for corporate accountability in TJ contexts.It illustrates the three shifts proposed above in a temporal sequencemoving from the period leading up to the war, through the war and then in its aftermath, and highlighting how they help us better deal with different political economies (such as Yugoslav socialism), with the question of diffuse responsibilities, and the extension of violence over long periods of time.
The socialist Yugoslav economy was hit by global shocks such as the oil crisis in the 1970s, and was more exposed to international events because of its higher level of integration with Western economies compared to the Eastern European states of the communist bloc.The poor economic situation in Yugoslavia translated into unemployment, rising inflation and declining standards of living throughout the 1980s (Woodward 1995a(Woodward ,1995b)).This also led to strikes and protests across the country, especially on the part of industrial workers (Lowinger 2009, Archer et al. 2016).The country was pushed into greater reliance on international help, and entered into agreements with Western international financial institutions (IFIs) like the IMF that entailed liberalisation, spending cuts and a restructuring of the economy (Woodward 1995b).With persisting high inflation and the plummeting value of the Yugoslav dinar, workers kept striking and people relied (even more than previously) on informal economic activities and personal networks to get by.In Socialist Yugoslavia, firms were socially-owned, rather than state-owned, which meant that workers sharedat least theoreticallya degree of control over the operation of firms (Uvalić 1992).In practice, this was often limited, and large companies especially were often subject to political influence.This also meant that workers' discontent for missed or low salaries could not be easily decoupled from discontent against the political system as a whole.The push for free market reforms and shock therapy (Sachs 1990) exacerbated some of these pressures in the late 1980s.
Once the war started, the newly independent Bosnian state nationalised economic assets, providing workers and citizens with vouchers (which would soon be worth very little) for their shares in businesses or socially-owned flats.At the same time, a war economy took hold that was characterised by the destruction of infrastructure, industries and homes, as well as dispossession and looting, and trafficking and the hijacking of aid.Economic crimes were amnestied alongside desertion, so there were no prosecutions related to these after the war ended.The wartime nationalisations and post-war process of privatisation effectively dispossessed workers of socially-owned assets, while also leaving them in a precarious situation with respect to their employment and welfare benefits (Vaša Prava 2016).Protest movements after the war coalesced around labour and welfare issues on several occasions, most famously in 2014 and in the case of the Dita Factory in Tuzla, which was occupied by workers who rejected the owners' decision to shut down the plant (Kurtović 2015, 2020, Mujkić 2015, Milan 2017).These features of the political economy of late socialism in Yugoslavia, the war and its aftermath are key to understanding the situation of corporate impunity, the blind spots of TJ processes, and the reluctance to broaden or rethink their mandate.The three micro-case studies are set against this background, and have been selected to cover three temporal phases (lead up to war, war and post-war) and different kinds of substantive questions on corporate accountability and justice.While representing a less well-known dimension of the Bosnian War, the cases speak to issues faced by post-industrial communities across the former Yugoslavia. 5  From socialist mismanagement to war economy: the case of Agrokomerc In the difficult economic and political context of late socialism in the late 1980s, the agro-industrial complex of Agrokomerc was hit by a scandal, one that is now often regarded as emblematic of Yugoslavia's final crisis.I argue that this case is also emblematic of the importance of corporate actors in the war and post-war justice processes, andcruciallyof the importance of political economy in understanding this.
From a small agricultural cooperative in the post-World War Two period, Agrokomerc became a huge agro-industrial company employing 13,000 people at its peak during socialism (Magaš 1993, p. 111), and making a mark on the development of the whole area around the town of Velika Kladuša in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).The scandal broke out in 1987 when news became public that Agrokomerc had been financing its activitiesfrom factory operations to building and infrastructure projectsthrough false promissory notes issued to various Yugoslav banks.This was not uncommon in socialist Yugoslavia, where enterprises were socially-owned and political influence over the economy allowed politicians to cover up potential financial losses through public funds (Andjelic 2003, p. 56).What changed in this case was the scale of the problemwhich Andjelic (2003, p. 55) characterises as an amount close to 'the profit of the entire Bosnian economy for two and a half years'and crucially, the political and economic context.
In the context of tensions between the republics and the Federation, disagreements within the Bosnian political establishment, and generalised economic discontent, the scandal was handled more harshly.Fikret Abdić, who directed the company over the previous decades and had significant local support and influential political connections, lost his political positions (bringing down other prominent politicians with him), was dismissed by the Workers' Council of Agrokomerc and expelled from the League of Communists, and arrested (Andjelic 2003, p. 57-8).In the rapidly changing situation of the late 1980s/early 1990s, Abdić was later released from prison, and joined the newly-established party of Social Democratic Action (SDA), running for, and winning, a seat in the collective presidency in 1990 alongside Alija Izetbegović. 6Agrokomerc was an essential business to the area around Velika Kladušaits crisis generated dramatic hardship, and Abdić was able to count on a strong support basis for its attempts to save it.In the early stages of the war, however, he entered into political conflict with the rest of the SDA leadership, left Sarajevo and used his economic and political power to establish the Autonomous Province of Western Bosniaa breakaway state with its capital in Velika Kladuša, establishing a local armed force under his control against the BiH army.Abdić was convicted of war crimes by courts in Croatia and served a prison sentence until 2012.Following this, he made a political comeback as mayor of Velika Kladuša, a position he has now held since 2016, having been reelected in 2020, while also being accused of corruption (Naegele 2002, Dizdarevic 2020).
The article's proposed shifts towards a longer temporal arc and a more holistic analysis of power relations established through war economies is necessary to make sense of the complex questions of justice and responsibilities in this case.The case of Agrokomerc is in fact illustrative of how the mismanagement of such a large agro-industrial company was instrumental for the accumulation not only of financial means, but also of economic and political influence that, within the socialist system, were closely linked.
Once the war started, such power was mobilised by Abdić to secure his position in the Bihać area, fuelling conflict by establishing his Autonomous Province, and taking advantage of its strategic position, at the border with Croatia and near Croat-and Serb-controlled areas, to accumulate wealth through trafficking and deals with Croat and Serb forces.It also enabled war crimes for which Abdić served a prison sentence.In the case of Agrokomerc, analysing the political economy of conflict in its full temporal evolution (from socialism to the war), and going beyond root causes of violence to look at the functioning of war economies, allows for of a more nuanced account of the diversity of corporate actors at play in war, including those operating within non capitalist economies, the different problems of accountability they raise, and potential pathways to justice.Abdić was convicted for war crimes, but it is not against the law for convicted war criminals to run for public office in BiH once they have served their sentence.He was democratically elected twice by the citizens of Velika Kladuša.His accumulated political and economic power was instrumental to wartime violence and constrained possibilities for wartime justice.
While most literature in transitional justice has missed out on nuanced analysis of the political economy of corporate accountability, this case also shows the importance of analysing the financing of conflict not as an isolated economic activity, but alongside political powerlooking at the interconnections of politics and economics in different types of political economies, and their repercussions during war and in its aftermath.

Socialist mines, wartime prison camps: the Omarska mines
The area of Prijedor, in the Bosanska Krajina region of BiH, also developed economically during socialism, with its largest industry being the mining of iron ore.At the beginning of the conflict in 1992, the Bosnian Serb crisis staff took over the control of the town and began excluding Bosnian Muslims and Croats from public life.This included an order to dismiss them from work, rapidly followed by the onset of widespread violence aimed at the 'ethnic cleansing' of the area.One of the policies enacted by the Bosnian Serb political and military elite was the conversion of industrial facilities and other sites into prison camps where civilians were interned, tortured and killed (Lai 2020b).Of the four camps that were set up around Prijedor -Keraterm, Manjača, Omarska, and Trnopoljeone of them, in Omarska, was located at one of the sites of the mining company Rudnik i Željezne Rude, which employed around 8,000 people in the area. 7The case of the Prijedor mines shows the importance of focusing on the political economy of violence itself, and of tracing the changing roles of corporate actors through war and in its aftermath.
After the Crisis Staff ordered the dismissal of non-Serb employees and other discriminatory policies (such as the wearing of a white armband when out in public, cutting telephone lines and limiting movement within the municipality), the violent 'ethnic cleansing' of the area also began.Within a short period of time, the city of Prijedor was virtually emptied of Bosnian Muslims, some of whom managed to flee to safety, and some of whom were forcibly moved to the camps mentioned above.Omarska had been the place of work of many Prijedor citizens, and was now repurposed for the imprisonment, torture and killing of its citizens.Several cases at the ICTY dealt with the crimes committed at Omarska and the other camps, which were classified by the Tribunal as crimes against humanity for their widespread and systematic nature. 8The industrial heritage of Prijedornot only in Omarska, but also at the Keraterm camp, a former ceramics factorybecame a key component of the political economy of violence through which the Bosnian Serb elite sought to achieve its military goals.
When the war ended, with Prijedor remaining under Bosnian Serb control in the Republika Srpska entity, the political economy of the transition shaped accountability processes.While the situation for those who were displaced and wished to return to Prijedor and its surroundings remained hostile, the return process (not in any linear or straightforward fashion) started soon after the end of the war (Belloni 2005, Sivac-Bryant 2016).However, returnees could not count on much support for regaining employment, or more generally for their re-inclusion in the socioeconomic life of the city, aside from help in recovering their home (a right enshrined in the Dayton Peace Agreement).Intervening onto this situation, internationally mandated privatisation processes also went underway.Some of the local industriessuch as Prijedor's paper millwere never successfully privatised and ended up being stripped of valuable assets and left to decay.Part of the minesthose in the Omarska sitewere instead successfully sold in 2008 to ArcelorMittal, which had bought a majority of the steel plant in Zenica a few years before. 9Differently from what happened in other TJ contexts, the corporation was not directly involved in wartime violence and had no direct responsibility for what happened in the camps.However, the takeover still posed some difficult questions on the role of corporate actors in justice processes.As outlined above, the firing of workers and emptying of the mining complex was instrumental for the violent strategies employed by the Bosnian Serb military.Bosnian authorities, both at state and entity level, were unable to offer meaningful reparation for workers who had been dismissed at the beginning of the war (Vaša Prava 2016).
The corporate actor acquiring the mines would then be involved in a context of injustice and lack of accountability, which would not be as intelligible without a proper appreciation of the political economy of wartime and post-war BiH.First, their retention and hiring policies would be set against the background of the firings and discrimination (and subsequent violence) towards non-Serb employees of the socially-owned predecessor company.While bearing no responsibility for wartime events, the company's decisions regarding the personnel of the revived Omarska mines might have taken some reparatory steps towards those unjustly dismissed, or facilitated the socioeconomic reintegration of returnees in the area.However, the privatisation entailed a further reduction of the personnel, with the staff employed by ArcelorMittal amounting to about one tenth of the 8000 workers once employed at the mine. 10Second, the case of the Omarska mines also raises the question of involving corporate actors in truth and memory processes as part of TJ.Local associations have long called for access to the sites for commemorations, which currently happen once a year, and for the erection of a permanent memorial at the infamous 'white house', where detainees were subject to violent, inhumane treatment (Radio Slobodna Evropa 2022).The case of ArcelorMittal in Omarska highlights the difficulties in meaningfully involving corporate actors in TJ processes, as they seek to establish profitable relationships with local authorities and avoid making moves that might be perceived as accepting responsibilities or duties for their role in the post-war management of a site of mass violence.

Accountable in the long term? Pollution and the Zenica steel mill
In the central Bosnian city of Zenica, the socialist government invested in the already existing steel mill and turned it into one of the largest industrial conglomerates of the republic.Steel production is an energy-consuming and polluting process, which also depends on other natural resources extracted in the region, like iron ore.Zenica therefore benefitted substantially from the economic growth, jobs and new infrastructure that were brought by the steel mill, but at the same time also witnessed growing levels of air pollution.During the Bosnian War, the city remained under the control of the BiH army, but the steel mill's supply chains were interrupted by the fighting, many of its male workers were drafted for the army, and as a result the plant could not continue its pre-war operations.Those workers still employed at the firm were not receiving regular salaries.Others were sent home but required to check in at the firm every now and then to avoid losing their job, which posed a problem for manyespecially women with childrenwho had left to seek safety outside of war-torn Bosnia (Lai 2020b).By the end of the war, the plant had been shut for some time and most of its staff was placed on 'waiting lists', receiving no salary but with a guarantee (often not fulfilled) that pension and health contributions would be paid (Vaša Prava 2016).From a thriving industrial economy, Zenica moved into a war economy and subsequently into an economy of survival, with many of its citizensformerly living comfortably on Yugoslav working-class salaries and benefitsstruggling to access food and other basic necessities at the end of the war.
The question of corporate accountability emerges here in this post-war moment of deindustrialisation and is shaped by new power dynamics involving corporate actors and economically deprived communities.The formerly socially-owned RMK (Rudarsko-metalurški kombinat; mining and metallurgy complex) had been nationalised during the war.After the war, the Zenica steel milljust like the Omarska minewas privatised by seeking foreign investors, and Mittal Steel (later Arcelor-Mittal) acquired it in 2004 and soon restarted production. 11Three things are worth noting about this process.First, the privatisation deal was set up on highly favourable terms for Mittal, benefitting from international financial support as well.Second, when production was restarted, only a fraction of the workers originally employed were kept by the new owners (Slavnić et al. 2013).Third, if during the war citizens had been given some respite from the air pollution while the furnaces had been shut, the steel mill soon went back to producing 80 per cent of its past pollution even with a much lower production output (Lemeš 2021).From a political economy point of view, the transition and privatisation process, far from bringing Zenica back to its past industrial strength, cemented an economy of survivalwhere people get by through meagre benefits or pensions, odd jobs in the informal sector, and subsistence agriculture.
Looking at the trajectory of the steel mill over the pre-war, war and post-war period especially shows how specific patterns of accumulation, changes in property ownership and in the structure of economic activity can alter power relations and establish or reinforce social inequalities and hierarchies.This is important to contextualise corporate accountability questions and justice struggles.Corporate actors are not the only actors operating in this context but they play a crucial role.It is also important to note that while the steel mill changed its ownership structure through time, from the perspective of citizens of Zenica the steel mill has had a material and symbolic continuous presence in their lives, and its importance in the working-class identity of the city has not necessarily shifted with the change of ownershipwhich creates a divide between the expectations of Zenica's citizens and those of the steel mill's shareholders.While a small proportion of workers remained employed by ArcelorMittal, older workers and workers with disabilities were often retired, many other lost their jobs with little compensation.Zenica, formerly a city with a strong working class identity, now had high levels of unemployment and low levels of economic activity, in the context of a post-war state that was struggling with widespread material destruction and legacies of mass violence.
While the positive economic impact of the steel mill was severely reduced compared to socialist times, the city began struggling again with pollution and its adverse health consequences.Citizens successfully campaigned for an air monitor to be displayed in the city centre.Campaign groups and NGOs have long sought commitments from the local authorities and ArcelorMittal to address the levels of air pollution, while the corporate owners have sought to avoid taking responsibility by minimising the links between the levels of air pollution and the operation of the steel mill. 12Questions of environmental justice, alongside socioeconomic justice have been at the forefront of citizen demands in Zenica after the war (Arsenijević 2022).
Corporate accountability in such a case does not relate to wartime physical violence but to the long-term legacies of violent conflict, which include life-threatening conditions linked to pollution in Zenica.The question for TJ is whether corporate actors operating in such contexts have social, if not legal, responsibilities for setting up environmental reparation schemes.For example, Sánchez (2013) outlined the idea of transformative reparations that aim at redistributing wealth and provide communities with the means to transform their current circumstances.Transformative reparations can then be established depending on the degree of responsibility of the actors involved and the kind of evidence available of their responsibilities (Sánchez 2013, p. 123).Applying this kind of reasoning requires a nuanced examination of economic and social transformation proposed in this article, which sets the actions of corporate actors in their political and economic context.It is also open to a range of reparatory mechanisms, calibrated on the factors mentioned above, ranging from direct financial compensation to tax reforms and solidarity mechanisms.Corporate accountability issues in TJ cases do not pertain exclusively to cases where corporate actors are direct perpetrators of violence or complicit with the perpetrators of physical violence.Rather, conflict-affected communities might expect a broader examination of the social responsibilities that firm haveeven while changing ownership through time.

The political economy of responsibilities and remedies
The three micro-case studies discussed in this section illustrate the implications of rethinking corporate accountability in TJ by taking political economy seriously.The framework widens the scope of corporate accountability research by accounting for varying models of ownership and political economies, and their evolution through pre-war, wartime and post-war economies.By analysing the functioning of the war economy and the social and power relations established by it, as well as their longterm legacies, it also enhances our understanding of the roles that corporate actors play within TJ contexts.This framework also allows us to rethink both the responsibilities of corporate actors (from a more systemic point of view, accounting for community perspectives as well), and the broader set of remedies that can be part of justice processes in these contexts.
First, the section shows how a political economy analysis framed through the three shifts proposed in this article allows us to identify and formulate new sets of issues regarding corporate accountability in TJ contexts, which were previously muted in the literature.This includes questions as to whether corporate actors have responsibilities for taking over companies that were sites of atrocities, benefitting economically without taking responsibility; whether corporate actors have responsibility towards the local environment for going through the costly but polluting process of restarting a steel plant while cutting staff in the difficult economic circumstances of a post-war city; and whether corporate actors or institutions have responsibility for the long term economic consequences of transition failure or democratic breakdown in war affected regions.The argument here is that these are relevant questions that must be raised and debated as part of TJ processes.
As to the remedies, the case studies above show the need to think about justice in its various dimensions.Crucially, they show the need to conceive remedies within the political economy of the war and post-war transition, in relation to the local context and to address the contextual needs of the local community.Hence, democratic accountability and participation should be understood within the context of the changes in economic activity caused by the post-war deindustrialisation, and the challenges to participation that are posed by the institutional system or by emigration driven by the long-term legacies of injustice.
Corporate participation in truth and memory processes might be particularly important in contexts where political authorities are engaged in the denial or relativization of atrocities, and therefore where political and economic power jointly contributed to the victimisation of a community.Lastly, transformative environmental reparations should be understood as a remedy for the harmful effects of pollution, as well as alleviating the effects of a privatisation process that redrew social relations to the favour of private investors and at the expense of workers.

Conclusion
The article suggests that political economy not only structures the kind of violence that occurs during war, but also affects what sort of justice can be done in its aftermath.It often leads to a wide gap between the needs and expectations of communities affected by conflict on one side, and the perspective and commitments of corporate actors operating in these contexts on the other.A lack of appreciation of political economy thus also results in a poor understanding of the disappointing outcomes of corporate accountability processes: why or how such TJ processes involving corporate actors (do not) work, and what role various actors play in advocating for or hindering such processes.Ultimately, this missing link between political economy and corporate accountability within TJ efforts detracts from our ability to understand how corporate actors operate around conflict in a variety of contexts, with varying conflict dynamics and economic regimes.
As scholars and practitioners display a growing interest towards how corporate actors can be held accountable for their participation in (or complicity with) violence in war or repressive regimes, there is still much left to do to better understand the potential and limitations of such accountability processes.Understanding the political economy of violence and economic regime change over time is an essential task, and one to which this article has intended to contribute.The article has proposed three shiftstowards a longer timeframe in analysing the lead up to war, war and post-war periods, towards a more holistic view of power relations established by conflict economies, and towards a focus on the political economy of violence itself.It applied them to three micro-case studies from the Bosnian War covering a long temporal arc that spans from the crisis of the socialist system to the war and the long tail of the post-war and post-socialist transition.The cases help us broaden our understanding of the kind of corporate actors that can be involved in TJ contexts, as well as rethink notions of responsibility and remedies.While the former Yugoslav region constitutes a theoretically meaningful case for the question addressed by this article, the arguments developed here open new research pathways into other cases of complex conflicts and political and economic transition.
Taken together, the framework and case studies open up a series of questions that could not be properly captured by narrower frameworks focused on corporate complicity: do corporate actors have responsibilities for taking over companies that were sites of atrocities?Or for the long-term economic consequences of corporate mismanagement?Under what circumstances do they owe environmental reparations?While only further research into TJ processes alongside developments in TJ practice can answer these questions, the framework presented here allows us to articulate them explicitly.The analysis has several benefits, including focusing on systems of violence as well as the relationships that constitute this system; highlighting the contrast between the systemic and diffused nature of wartime violence and its post-war reverberations on the one hand, and the limited scope of TJ processes on the other; and identifying the possibilities for justice struggles and the constraints placed by power structures and hierarchies.Some might question whether the expansion of corporate accountability might entail trade-offs at the expense of establishing direct responsibility for serious violence.However, the article does not argue for side-lining accountability efforts for corporate complicity driven by victims.Rather, given the limited success achieved thus far, the article calls for investigating obstacles to justice that lie in political economy systems, and for devising strategies for supporting accountability efforts where complicity in the strict legal sense might not be proven.Alongside analysing the close relationship between political and economic power, and the repercussions this has for the persistence of impunity, the political economy lens proposed in the article might also be applied to other aspects of TJ, such as lack of accountability for the role of armed groups or other non-state actors.Crucially, the article raises the question of whether a narrow view of corporate accountability might effectively serve a legitimising function for the post-war economic order without necessarily redressing the legacies of wartime violence.