Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
1
Failed Ideas for Failed States?
Liberal International State-Building in Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Darragh Farrell∗
Abstract
In state-building attempts, such as those presently being undertaken in the divided
societies of Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, liberal international
interventionism has a number of recommended tools at its disposal. These include
economic reforms, electoral engineering and the promotion of favourable domestic
political elites. This paper examines the international state-building efforts in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, a country which is in many ways the prototype for later, similar
international action, assessing whether the liberal reforms used have been successful
in achieving their aims. The various liberal reforms alone may not be sufficient in
resolving the problems of what are deemed ‘failing’ states by Western liberals. The
paper contends that those same ‘failing’ states must settle fundamental questions
surrounding the “stateness of the state” in order to provide the foundations necessary
to resolve the fractures and ‘failings’ which justified international administration in
the first place.
Keywords
Bosnia and Herzegovina, state failure, international community, liberal reforms,
politics, domestic responsibility.
Writing in June 2008, the BBC foreign correspondent Humphrey
Hawksley lauded Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) for its reforms, citing
the country as a model for the development of other conflict-ridden
states. BiH, according to Hawksley, was ‘evidence of what United
∗
Darragh Farrell. In 2008, Dr. Farrell completed his PhD entitled Democracy
Promotion, Domestic Responsibility and the Impact of International Intervention on the
Political Life of the Republika Srpska in the Department of Sociology at the National
University of Ireland, Maynooth. Affiliated to the Centre for the Study of a Wider Europe at
NUI Maynooth, Dr. Farrell has authored a number of articles on the politics of the Republika
Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is currently undertaking further research in Bosnia
and Herzegovina.
The author can be contacted at [email protected]
2
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
States leadership can achieve, that over time the West’s intervention
has been marked not by failure but success’.1 Coming after it had been
announced that BiH was to sign a Stabilisation and Association
Agreement (SAA) with the European Union (EU), this upbeat
assessment was somewhat understandable. To the casual outside
observer, the SAA locked BiH onto a path of EU membership – the
guarantee of future peace and prosperity.
The first half of 2008 was marked, according to the Steering Board
of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) – the cohort of
international officials who give political direction to the Office of the
High Representative (OHR), the powerful international authority
overseeing BiH – by ‘significant progress’.2 At its annual summit in
Bucharest at the start of April, NATO launched an ‘Intensive
Dialogue’ Programme with BiH, and the country edged closer to full
membership of the military alliance. Also in April, BiH political
representatives, after over four years of negotiations, finally agreed to
a deal on reforming the country’s police structures. The deal on police
reform cleared the last remaining obstacle to BiH signing the
aforementioned SAA with the EU, with the signing ceremony
subsequently taking place in Luxembourg on 16 June. In the EU
accession process, the SAA, as mentioned, is viewed as a key
milestone, obliging BiH to harmonise its legal and economic system
with EU norms, while the EU will provide financial assistance to the
country in support of this process.
Although appearing to have made ‘significant progress’ during the
first half of 2008, the real extent of change as desired by the
international community may be somewhat less than that. On closer
inspection, it is hard to see the deal reached on police reform as
anything other than a fudge. The issue of police reform was largely a
creation of the OHR, during Paddy Ashdown’s tenure as High
Representative, which pushed for the issue to be included in the
conditions during the EU accession process. No other country,
including Serbia, has had to reform its police structures during the EU
accession process.3 As none of the ethno-national political blocs in
BiH would back down on the issue after four years of fruitless
1
2
3
Humphrey Hawksley, ‘Rid of Violence, a Reforming Bosnia Emerges as a Model’,
Bosnia Daily, 18 June 2008 p. 7.
Communiqué of the Steering Board of the Peace Implementation Council, 25 June 2008.
The Russian representative on the PIC Steering Board did not share the views of his
colleagues on the Board and Russia disassociated itself with the Communiqué.
For more details see the European Stability Initiative’s report The Worst in Class; How
the International Protectorate Hurts the European Future of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 8
November 2007.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
3
discussions, the deal reached in April merely basis police reform on
the outcome of future negotiations on constitutional reform, yet to be
scheduled. However, the deal, for all its shortcomings, gave the
international community and the local representatives a way out of the
artificially created impasse, for the moment, facilitating the signing of
the SAA and the appearance of substantive progress. Furthermore,
ethno-national divisions still define the character of the political
dispensation in the country. The usual array of nationalists was easily
victorious at the municipal elections held in October 2008. That same
month, the Serb representatives from the Republika Srpska (RS) entity
reemphasised their commitment to holding a referendum on
independence should they judge that the entity’s authorities and
powers were under threat.4 This move was in direct response to
speeches made by the Bosniak member of the tripartite BiH
Presidency, Haris Silajdžić, to the United Nations’ General Assembly
and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in the
previous weeks in which he severely criticised the RS and its
‘institutions of genocide’.5 In his address to the Council of Europe,
Silajdžić argued against Serb ‘entity voting’, part of the consociational
provisions of the Dayton Agreement, stating
‘and what has this entity voting been used for? Just in the last two years, it
was employed five times to block changes to the Citizenship Law that
would permit dual citizenship… This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is genocide
and ethnic cleansing by other means. The plan calls for eliminating on
paper those who could not be eliminated in person. The weapon of choice
is entity voting’.
The Serb representatives in the RS entity continue to protect the
authorities and powers of the entity, while Bosniak politicians call for
a strengthening of the central BiH state. In contrast, Croat officials
would like to see the creation of a third ‘Croat-run’ entity in the
country. Unemployment continues to be a chronic problem pervading
BiH society while corruption is also a serious issue. The arrest of
Radovan Karadžić in July 2008 was welcomed by the High
Representative as ‘positive for BiH and for the whole region’.6 The
arrest may have represented a positive signal from Serbia on
4
5
6
See Resolution adopted by the RS National Assembly, 15 October 2008.
See ‘Statement by Dr. Haris Silajdžić at the 63rd Session of the General Assembly on
the occasion of General Debate’, New York, 23 September 2008 and ‘Address by Haris
Silajdžić, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe, 30 September 2008.
‘Arrest Offers Fresh Start for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans’, OHR Press
Release, 22 July 2008.
4
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, however, for BiH, the limited
reactions served, if anything, to reinforce the divisions in the country
with the majority of citizens most interested in the intricacies of
Karadžić’s bizarre life in Belgrade. Despite being blessed with huge
powers and resources, the international intervention in BiH has
apparently failed, so far, to build a unified, multi-ethnic and civicbased society to its satisfaction. As recently as October 2008, the
present High Representative, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajčák, has
stated that ‘the Dayton Peace Agreement has ended the war, but its
philosophy of a multi-ethnic society is hard to achieve’.7 Thirteen
years after Dayton, it may be time to appraise the methods used by the
international community in its state-building efforts in BiH, especially
as the likes of Joe Biden has cited the country as a potential template
for the future development of Iraq, for example.8
Liberal Solutions to ‘Failing’ States
The predicament of BiH is often blamed by Western liberals on its
inhibited and subnormal economic development and the presence
among its citizens of primordial hatreds.9 In exasperation, they lament
the lack of ‘European values’ present amongst BiH citizens and their
politicians. The international community10, since 1995, has had
substantial freedom and power to promote Western liberal values in
BiH, and undertake a programme of economic modernisation.
International organisations that have played (and continue to play, in
most cases) an official role in running elements of Bosnian life
include the United Nations, the OSCE, the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development, NATO, the Council of Europe, the
EU, and the IMF.
Economically, BiH was among one of the most underdeveloped and
deprived republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(SFRY), with a reliance on military-related heavy industries that
became obsolete with that country’s disintegration. Although the
7
8
9
10
See ‘Interview with Miroslav Lajčák in DER SPIEGEL: ‘Red Line’’, 13 October 2008,
available from www.ohr.int (Accessed 15/10/08).
See ‘Lessons From Dayton for Iraq’, Richard Holbrooke, Washington Post, 23 April
2008.
See, for example, Kaplan, R. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (New York:
Picador, 1993).
I have used the term ‘international community’ as shorthand for the countries and
international organisations (some mandated by the Dayton Agreement) that significantly
influence the political life of the RS and BiH. It is undoubtedly a problematic term,
however, as it is often used in BiH for the same purpose, I have employed it here.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
5
SFRY enjoyed a higher standard of living compared to other socialist
states of Central and Eastern Europe, in 1952 BiH had per capita
domestic production of only 77 per cent of the Yugoslav average and
by 1970 this had fallen to 66 per cent.11 Unemployment was
consistently high in BiH, a fact not helped by a rising population and
increasing migration from rural areas to urban centres. According to
the European Stability Initiative (ESI), ‘employment in Bosnia always
remained low. Even at its peak in 1990, only 35 per cent of the
Bosnian working-age population was employed, compared to an EU
average of 64 per cent’.12
The tendency to link ethno-nationalist conflict to causal factors of
economic decline and material interests has been noted by the ESI,
who suggest that
‘in the last few years of Yugoslav socialism, the entire economic system
was in deep crisis, threatening to undermine the social advances of the
previous decades. The resulting mismatch between the expectations of a
society which aspired to European standards of living and the harsh
economic realities created an environment which was dangerously
conducive to conflict’.13
BiH, post-war, found itself in an even worse position with industry
operating in 1996 at as little as 10 per cent of its pre-war capacity, and
the continuation in the few surviving industries of ‘inefficient’
practices and management that are synonymous in liberal eyes with
the pre-war socialist system.14 The ‘solution’ to the predicament of
BiH then, according to Western policy makers with influence over the
country, is in part the need for economic reform to counter the dire
economic situation and the potential it causes for ethno-nationalist
antagonism. McGarry and O’Leary, writing on the history of political
violence in Northern Ireland, are critical of liberalism’s response to
conflict, stating it is based on the supposition that ‘if conflict is caused
by backwardness, salvation lies in the bracing free air of modernity’.15
According to Bose, who cites the work of Paris, the ‘basic premise of
11
12
13
14
15
See Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, Separat SR Bosnia I Hercegovina, Jugoslovenski
Leksikografski Zavod, Zagreb, 1983, p. 153.
European Stability Initiative (ESI) Governance and Democracy in Bosnia and
Herzegovina: Post-Industrial Society and the Authoritarian Temptation (Berlin: ESI,
2004). p. 11.
See Note 12, p. 15.
See Note 12, p. 14.
McGarry, J. and B. O’Leary ‘Five Fallacies: Northern Ireland and the Liabilities of
Liberalism’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 18(4) (1995) p. 838.
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Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
liberal-internationalist interventions is that the way to a lasting peace
is ‘to transform war-shattered states into stable societies that resemble
the industrialised market democracies of the West as closely as
possible’.16
Similarly, in BiH post-war, international policy makers have pushed
the agenda of economic reform, including privatisation, often finding
support among domestic politicians for these measures. The then High
Representative, Paddy Ashdown, warned in 2004 that
‘unless we implement reforms now, including privatisation, market
liberalisation, and in particular of the labour market, and bankruptcy laws,
and remove the unnecessary regulations which impede the generation of
new jobs - reforms set out within the Bulldozer process - we would not
have jobs in the future’.17
Reforming the economy was one of six ‘core tasks’ included in the
OHR’s ‘Mission Implementation Plan’ endorsed by the Peace
Implementation Council in 2003.18 The importance of economic
reform was also highlighted by Larry Butler, the former Principal
Deputy High Representative (PDHR), who commented that ‘just as
military intervention without a political settlement wouldn’t have
worked, so the political settlement without a workable economic
strategy would have floundered’.19 Butler’s predecessor as PDHR,
Donald Hays had previously stated that ‘creating a sustainable
economy is as important, over the long term, as depoliticising the
police and getting honest judges on the bench’.20
These reforms have had limited success, however, with the OHR’s
‘Bulldozer’ strategy of abolishing bureaucratic red tape in the
economy coming in for particular derision. Agricultural and other
16
17
18
19
20
Bose, S. Bosnia After Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002) p. 89.
Office of the High Representative, ‘Excerpt from the High Representative’s interview
with FENA News Agency marking the 2nd Anniversary of Paddy Ashdown’s mandate as
High Representative’, 26th May 2004, available from www.ohr.int (Accessed 24/11/06).
Office of the High Representative, ‘Report to the European Parliament by the OHR and
EU Special Representative for BiH, January-June 2003’, 22 March 2004, p.1, available
from www.ohr.int (Accessed 04/01/07).
Office of the High Representative, ‘Remarks by the Principal Deputy HR, Lawrence
Butler at a Conference to Mark the 10th Anniversary of the Dayton-Paris Peace AccordsLessons in Peacemaking: the View from BiH’, 7 December 2005, p.1, available from
www.ohr.int (Accessed 15/12/05).
Office of the High Representative, ‘Keynote Address by Principal Deputy HR Donald
Hays at a Conference on ‘Lessons We Re-Learned in the Balkan Conflicts’, 16th October
2004, p.1, available from www.ohr.int (Accessed 22/01/05).
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
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economic reforms have been met on occasion with protests by
farmers’ unions, and a large number of privatisations in the RS are
being re-examined in the light of corruption scandals and the shoddy
nature in which they were carried out. In September 2008,
Transparency International ranked BiH 92nd out of 180 countries in
its Corruption Perceptions Index, putting BiH last among European
countries.21 As Chesterman et al. note, ‘the experience of Bosnia
suggests that the success of reconstruction is not dependent on funds
alone: far more has been spent per capita there than under the
Marshall Plan, yet the economy remains feeble’.22
Writing in 2005, the aforementioned PDHR Butler commented that
‘the object of reform is to raise living standards - simple as that. And
this object hasn’t yet been met, at least not on the sustained and
substantial scale that is both necessary and possible for BiH’.23 Today,
unemployment and corruption still pervade Bosnian society while
economic reforms have largely failed in bridging the divisions and
ethnic cleavages in BiH (if indeed they were intended to). Entry to the
EU, and the consequential economic benefits, provides a last chance
for this argument of economically driven change to succeed.
However, with EU membership still some distance away, other
solutions to the BiH ‘problem’ have also been required.
Another reason why liberals view BiH as being somewhat impeded
is the importance of ethnicity in the formation and the narrative of the
domestic political elite, and their ‘pre-modern’ characteristics. Their
focus on the national question(s) - calls for referenda on possible
secession and disputing the legitimacy of the RS and/or the BiH state are an annoyance to the international administrators who view those
issues as settled and belonging to the past. The OHR in January 2007,
for example, admonished the RS Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik, after
he called for the Bosnian Croats to be given their own self-governing
entity in BiH. In October 2008, High Representative Lajčák was still
warning BiH politicians, stating that
‘lying to people must stop – politicians are speaking about the
abolishment of the RS, while on the other hand, politicians in that BiH
21
22
23
Corruption Perceptions Index 2008, Transparency International, available from
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2008.
Chesterman, S., M. Ignatieff and R. Thakur (eds.) Making States Work: From State
Failure to State-Building (New York: United Nations University Press, 2004) p. 12.
Office of the High Representative, Economic Newsletter, Vol. 8, Iss. 2., ‘Economic
Reform is about Raising Living Standards’, p.2. available from www.ohr.int (Accessed
28/06/07).
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Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
entity are playing with the idea of RS secession from BiH…these ideas
are
impossible,
politically
unacceptable
and
technically
unachievable….that is deeply immoral and the international community
will never permit that’.24
As seen in other states such as, for example, Georgia, Ukraine and
Serbia, international actors and organisations seek to encourage the
development of domestic political parties that share their values and
have the potential to become their future partners. As argued by
McGarry and O’Leary, ‘if the problem is scheming elites, the solution
is opening the polity to alternative liberal voices. Thus liberals
advocate the formation of liberal political parties to counter ethnic
entrepreneurialism’.25
Manning has outlined the IC’s three main suppositions in using
electoral politics to promote political change in BiH:
‘They can be summarised simply as follows: (1) once elections are
genuinely free and fair and supported by the necessary civil liberties, voter
preferences for moderate parties will prevail. (2) Careful institutional
engineering can change the balance of power within the party system by
adjusting the relative competitive advantages of parties. This might bring
about the change in two ways: by encouraging the emergence of strong
alternative parties; and by providing incentives for the wartime nationalist
parties to change in desired directions. (3) The wartime nationalist parties
themselves can be reshaped and made moderate through direct
intervention by international authorities, who in Bosnia have had the
authority to require alterations in parties’ programmes, policies and
personnel’.26
In BiH, the polity remains extremely segmented along ethnonational lines and while there are liberal voices present, they too are
usually prefixed with ethno-national adjectives. For example, out of
the thirty political parties (including two independent candidates) that
stood for the RS National Assembly elections in October 2006, only
seven did not use an adjective on the ballot sheet that could have
identified them as ‘belonging’ exclusively to one of the three
constituent peoples of BiH. In April 2008, the Oscar-winning film
director, Danis Tanović, established a new political party Nasa
24
25
26
‘M. Lajčák: Abolishment and Secession of RS are deeply immoral’, ONASA, Sarajevo,
12 October 2008.
See Note 15, p. 838-839.
Manning, C. ‘Elections and Political Change in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina’,
Democratization, 11(2) (2004) p. 63-64.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
9
Stranka (Our Party) promising to represent the interests of ordinary
BiH citizens from across the ethno-national divides and break the
stranglehold of the discredited, in many people’s eyes, nationalist
parties. Despite initially attracting a large amount of media coverage,
Tanović’s party has failed to attract in any significant number those
dissatisfied with the political situation in the country. While the OHR
has had the power to remove elected officials and has done so over the
last decade, this form of direct intervention, partly with the aim of
limiting the ethno-nationalist rhetoric of the domestic political elites,
has failed. The dominant ethno-nationalist parties, for example, scored
a comprehensive victory at the municipal elections in October 2008
with Tanović’s party winning in only one single municipality. There
has been no shortage of replacements willing to fill the shoes of
removed officials and ethno-nationalist grandiloquence has continued
to feature, especially in election campaigns. Commenting in the
aftermath of the October poll, for example, the EU’s Enlargement
Commissioner, Olli Rehn, stated that ‘nationalist rhetoric ahead of the
October local elections was a factor in the deterioration (of the
political climate)’. 27
The international administrators have also tried to erode the ethnonationalist vote and encourage moderates and alternatives by accusing
nationalist politicians of corruption. In the run-up to the November
2000 elections, Richard Holbrooke, for example, denounced BiH
politicians as being ‘forces of darkness’, adding that
‘the crooks, the racists and the separatists are still out there, trying to
create hatred for their own personal economic gain. It always amazes me
when I see that the people who pretend to be the nationalists, in fact, are
robbing the very people who follow them into policies which only enrich
the leadership of these extremist groups’.28
This strategy continues with the current PDHR, Raffi Gregorian,
commenting in October 2008 that
‘in the current political system – as different from the constitutional
system - political parties extract wealth from the economy by two
principal means…the first is by placing their cronies on the steering and
27
28
‘EU Claims Bosnia Couldn’t Be Worse’, Balkan Insight, 23 October 2008, Balkan
Investigative Reporting Network.
‘Remarks Following Holbrooke Meeting with Presidency’, Sarajevo, 27 October 2000,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2000/10/waravailable
from
001030-eubih.htm (Accessed 18/08/2007).
10
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
management boards of public companies. The second is by maintaining
control over both construction land and agricultural land…they are more
interested in dividing wealth among themselves than in creating wealth for
the people. The entire political system is structured this way’.29
Given the extent of the culture of corruption in BiH it is difficult to
see how the public are unaware of the shady side of their elected
officials. Regardless, calls such as the aforementioned example from
PDHR Gregorian fail to stir the electorate and Chandler has
questioned the end result of such an approach noting,
‘it seems that the anti-corruption campaigns have promoted political
cynicism rather than a hope in political change, and have backfired on the
international community… It seems that the conclusion Bosnian voters
have drawn from the institutionalisation of anti-corruption into every walk
of life has been that no politicians can be trusted’.30
The prominence and popularity of civil society groupings with a
liberal orientation is also not as extensive as the international
administrators would have hoped for. There is a significant presence
of third sector groups deemed ‘uncivil’ - such as veterans’
associations and former prisoner of war organisations. The ESI note
that
‘in Bosnia, the development of interest-group politics has been slow and
uneven. The most active and influential interest groups in Bosnia today the public administration, industrial workers, veterans - were also the most
important under the old political system… There is however, still little
sign of active political participation from new groups such as smallbusiness proprietors, or traditionally marginal groups’.31
The international community has indicated its desire to see an
amenable and active civil society sector in BiH. Stressing the sector’s
importance, the then High Representative, Christian SchwarzSchilling, in a speech delivered to a meeting of BiH NGOs in Sarajevo
in 2006, noted that their ‘work and the health of the non-governmental
sector in general is critical to ensuring that Bosnia and Herzegovina is
29
30
31
Office of the High Representative, ‘Speech by Principal Deputy High Representative
Raffi Gregorian at the Circle 99’ 19 October 2008, available from www.ohr.int
(Accessed 21/10/08).
Chandler, D. ‘Anti-Corruption Strategies and Democratization in Bosnia-Herzegovina’,
Democratization, 9(2) (2002) p. 111.
See Note 12, p. 6.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
11
equipped to take ownership of its destiny’.32 In December 2004, the
Senior Deputy High Representative, Werner Wnendt, stated that ‘a
strong civil society is crucial to creating the conditions that are
necessary to safeguard the peace process and a viable democracy. A
well developed civil society is an essential requirement for every
modern democratic state’.33 While international representatives in BiH
have espoused the benefits of a vibrant and strong civil society, their
presence, and the actions of international organisations, have
contributed to the decline and neglect of important local voluntary
associations, while the effectiveness and long-term sustainability
(without the support of the international community) of favoured new
NGOs is questionable. As a World Bank report on social capital in
BiH noted, international ‘direct involvement in Bosnian political and
social life also contributes to a feeling of dispossession and
powerlessness, and thus to the weakness of civil society’.34
If wily ethno-nationalist political elites cannot be countered through
accusations of corruption, their direct removal or the promotion of
liberal alternatives, the possibility may exist to at least moderate their
rhetoric through power-sharing and forcing co-operation with parties
representing other ethno-national groups. As McGarry and O’Leary
further note, ‘liberals also advocate electoral systems which facilitate
‘vote-pooling’ to make it more difficult for ethnic entrepreneurs to
win with exclusivist appeals, and to help make ‘moderation pay’’.35
According to Horowitz, ‘the electoral system is by far the most
powerful lever of constitutional engineering for accommodation and
harmony in severely divided societies’, and the OSCE has tried to
construct an electoral system in the RS and BiH post-Dayton that
encourages ‘vote-pooling’ and inter-ethnic vote transfers.36 The
introduction of the Alternative Voting (AV)37 system for the RS
32
33
34
35
36
37
‘Speech by HR/EUSR Christian Schwarz-Schilling at a Meeting of BiH NonGovernmental Organisations’, Sarajevo, 22 September 2006. Available from
www.ohr.int.
‘Remarks by Senior Deputy HR Werner Wnendt at a Centre for the Promotion of Civil
Society Conference on NGO Effectiveness’, Sarajevo, 7 December 2004. Available
from www.ohr.int.
World Bank Bosnia and Herzegovina: Local Level Institutions and Social Capital Study
(Washington: World Bank, 2002) p. 125.
See Note 15, p. 839.
Horowitz, D. A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided
Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991) p. 163.
In a single-winner electoral contest, the Alternative Voting system allows voters to rank
candidates in order of their preference.
12
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
Presidential elections of November 2000 was, as noted by Bose,
intended to encourage transfers across the ethno-national divide and
promote ‘compromise and reconciliation’.38 As Bose suggests,
however, the voters of the RS were substantially aware of the motives
behind this electoral engineering and voted in considerable numbers
for the standard-bearers of Serb ethno-nationalism, the Serb
Democratic Party (SDS), giving them enough first preferences to
almost win the election outright on the first count. This first count
vote for the SDS made transfers across the ethno-national divide
largely irrelevant, thwarting the plans of the OSCE.
Elections in BiH have failed to produce the results desired for by
the international administration. According to Lyons, ‘in Bosnia and
Herzegovina… elections served as an important mechanism of war
termination with only a limited and perhaps damaging relationship to
long-term democratisation’.39 For Lyons, the ethno-nationalist vote is
a rational response by BiH citizens to their post-conflict environment,
stating that citizens often
‘select the most nationalistic and chauvinistic candidate who credibly
pledges to protect the voter’s community. Outside observers often regard
these leaders as warlords or war criminals. But to vulnerable voters they
are seen…as powerful protectors capable of defending the voter from rival
forces’.40
In an attempt to increase co-operation and achieve a modicum of
consensus between the three main ethno-national groups, the Dayton
Agreement advocated a consociationalist approach to power sharing at
the BiH state level. This approach seeks to unite political parties that
represent different social interests, ethno-national in this case, in
government, and has resulted in the three main ethno-nationalist
political blocs, each representing a constituent people, ‘governing’
BiH at state level in coalition together for most of the post-Dayton
period. Consociationalism in BiH has been beset with problems
associated with this form of power sharing in other states where it has
been attempted (such as Northern Ireland, Lebanon and Cyprus).
Firstly, Dayton gave each of the constituent peoples a veto on any
legislation that may threaten their ‘vital national interests’, a
sufficiently vague term that can be invoked against almost any piece
of legislation. Once a veto clause is enshrined in a consociational
38
39
40
See Note 16, p. 221.
Lyons, T. ‘Post-conflict Elections and the Process of Demilitarizing Politics: The Role
of Electoral Administration’, Democratization, 11(3) (2004) p. 38.
See Note 39, p. 39.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
13
agreement, as noted by Large and Sisk, ‘thereafter, governance is
more ‘reactive’ than ‘proactive’, often reduced to applying vetoes to
measures proposed by the ‘other entity’ or ‘constituent people’’.41
Hayden has also elaborated on the problems caused by
‘requirements of consensus’ in consociational arrangements, noting
that
‘if there is no real consent to inclusion in the state in the first place, it is
extremely unlikely that there will be much consensus on issues of
governance within it, and requirements of consensus become tools for
ensuring state dysfunction. After all, a requirement of consensus is not a
mechanism for reaching decisions, but rather one for preventing decisions
from being taken’.42
Politicians in BiH, however, are aware that even if they continue to
delay legislation and use their veto, legislation can still be forced
through and passed by the OHR using its powers. This enables
politicians to then remain blameless to their electorate should a
controversial piece of legislation come into force through this manner.
A second problem with consociationalism in BiH is that it only brings
together representatives from different ethno-national groups at an
elite level and, as Large and Sisk argue, does ‘not seek to build
bridges across the segments of society that are in conflict’.43
Consociationalism accepts and entrenches the view that people in BiH
are Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks or ‘Others’, formalising division and
curtailing the development of multiple identities. This locking of
identity around ethno-nationality contradicts the ethos of the Council
of Europe’s European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms which is in fact enshrined in the BiH
constitution.44 According to Brass, a consociational system is
inherently undemocratic and
‘it violates the rights of those groups in being and those that may develop
in the future whose existence is not recognised by the state. It also fails to
provide protection to and may lead to the oppression of individuals who
41
42
43
44
Large, J. and T. Sisk (eds.) Democracy, Conflict and Human Security: Pursuing Peace
in the 21st Century (Volume 1) (Stockholm: IIDEA, 2006) p. 173.
Hayden, R. ‘‘Democracy’ without a Demos? The Bosnian Constitutional Experiment
and the Intentional Construction of Nonfunctioning States’, East European Politics and
Societies, 19(2) (2005) p. 242.
See Note 41, p. 100.
For more details on the Convention see http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/Que
VoulezVous.asp?NT=005&CL=ENG.
14
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
wish not to be identified with or wish to free themselves from
identification with particular cultural groups’.45
While consociationalism may be a useful tool in guaranteeing
former warring parties a say in a post-conflict environment, the
example of BiH has demonstrated the hindrance this forced
arrangement can provide to enacting legislation, policy development
and good governance. There is now an acceptance amongst the
majority of the international community that certain aspects of the
consociationalist post-Dayton arrangement need to be changed. To
this end, constitutional reform has been touted by the international
officials as a necessity and critical to EU accession. As High
Representative Lajčák stated, ‘we currently need to resolve the issue
of state property, status of Brcko District, the constitutional
changes…those are the issues where I expect the international
community to get more involved’.46 The Council of Europe’s
Parliamentary Assembly and Venice Commission have also, on
various occasions, noted the incompatibility of aspects of the Dayton
Agreement and certain international human rights protocols.47
Constitutional reform, however, will be difficult to attain as Serb and
Croat representatives, in particular, seek to protect their ethno-national
‘group’ or ‘community’ ‘rights’. It should also be noted at this point
that there remains the possibility that without the consociationalist
arrangements a coalition between parties representing different ethnonationalities would still be formed, as was the case after the 1990 BiH
elections - one of a voluntary nature that would have arguably greater
motivation to deliver good governance.
The presence of ethno-national segregation and discrimination, and
the prominence and importance of religious cleavages, have also
facilitated the characterisation of BiH as somewhat backward and premodern. Attempts to alleviate segregation and go back to the pre-war
ethno-national demographic/geographic mix through the return of
internally displaced persons to their pre-war homes have met with
limited success. The RS remains today approximately 85-90 per cent
Serb, while Sarajevo, lauded by international writers for its alleged
pre-war diversity and tolerance, is estimated to have a Bosniak
45
46
47
Brass, P. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (New Delhi: Sage, 1991)
p. 342.
See ‘HR Lajčák’: International Community’s Mission is Still Not Complete’, Dnevni
Avaz, p. 5, 22 October 2008.
See, for example, the report ‘Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Bosnia
and Herzegovina’, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 12 September
2008.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
15
population of at least 80 per cent.48 Discrimination on grounds of
ethno-nationality is constitutionally outlawed, although a number of
loopholes, such as the fact that the RS nominee to the BiH Presidency
must be a Serb, (to the exclusion of Bosniaks, Croats and ‘Others’)
exist. Other rules against discrimination are often just ignored. For
example, the RS government (as of the time of writing), contrary to its
legislation, has not dispensed any compensation to those citizens who
were dismissed from their employment during the war years due to
their ethno-national background.
Elsewhere in BiH, 42 per cent of the pre-war inhabitants of the
district of Ilidža, on the outskirts of Sarajevo, were Serbs, and
according to BiH legislation on civil servants, administrative
institutions must employ a proportionate number of Serbs, Bosniaks
and Croats based on the 1991 census. However, the municipal
authorities of Ilidža in 2006 employed 256 Bosniaks and only 13
Croats and 12 Serbs.49 This pattern continues to be repeated in
municipalities across the country. Citizens also, somewhat rationally,
choose not to accept jobs in areas of the country where their ethnonational group constitutes a minority – a situation similar to that
which developed in Northern Ireland - and discrimination in the
private sector, whether conscious or not, is widespread.50 Figures from
2006, for example, have shown that, despite widespread
unemployment, some 60 per cent of citizens from Bosniak majority
areas, and approximately 70 per cent of those from Serb majority
areas, would not be willing to move to a town where another ethnonational group is in the majority - even if a better job was available to
them there.51 Civil service and public bodies are supposed to fill
vacancies on a quota basis, but these guidelines are often ignored or
else implemented slowly and in a piecemeal and tokenistic fashion.
The leaders of the three main religious faiths in BiH (Roman
Catholic Christian, Islam and Orthodox Christian) continue to receive
significant media attention when commenting on political issues,
although their degree of influence has not been quantified. As
48
49
50
51
Figures are approximations. No official census has taken place across BiH since 1991.
See ‘How Many Inhabitants Does Bosnia Have?’, Dražen Šimić, AIM, 28 April 2001,
available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/balkanhr/message/2158 for more details.
Popovic, Predrag. ‘Serbs Fade Away in Sarajevo’, Balkan Insight, 14 June 2006, Balkan
Investigative Reporting Network.
For details on Northern Ireland see P. Shirlow and Murtagh, B. Belfast: Segregation,
Violence and the City ( London: Pluto Press, 2006) p. 124-142.
United Nations Development Programme, Early Warning System, Quarterly Report
April-June 2006, p. 46.
16
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
religious divisions in BiH follow almost identically the fault-lines of
ethno-national division, the interests of the ‘religious unit’ that
spiritual leaders claim to speak on behalf of can also be interpreted as
the interests of the ‘ethno-national unit’. As noted by Kotlo,
‘national political parties, particularly…the SDA, HDZ, and SDS are
focused on and closely cooperate with religious communities in BiH, on
issues including political ones, particularly at election time. Parties of
civic or formally civic orientation are also, in certain situations,
particularly during pre-election campaigns, prone to flirting with religious
organisations’.52
In the run up to the elections of October 2006, the leader of the
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) 1990, Božo Ljubić, boasted of his
close ties to the Catholic Archbishop of Sarajevo, while the leader of
the Islamic community, Mustafa Cerić, aligned himself with the Party
for BiH (SBiH) led by the aforementioned Haris Silajdžić.53 The
SBiH’s poor showing in the municipal elections of 2008 could be
blamed, in part, on the withdrawal of Cerić’s support for the party in
favour of the rival Party of Democratic Action (SDA). The
international community has encouraged inter-faith dialogue among
the main religions and has tried to moderate religion’s role in politics
to one of a reconciliatory nature. According to former High
Representative Schwarz-Schilling, ‘religion is something that can play
a very important role in BiH when it comes to re-establishing trust.
(However) religious leaders should not constantly assert their differing
opinions on certain issues in the media’.54 A particular case in point of
the latter was when the previously mentioned Cerić incurred the ire of
international officials in 2006 after he came out openly against
internationally backed constitutional amendments that he viewed as
detrimental to the interests of the Bosniak community.55
The ‘failings’ of the BiH state evident during the conflict of the
1990s opened the way for an international community state-building
mission to construct a democracy in the ‘post-conflict’ environment.
While the appetite for liberal international state-building may have
52
53
54
55
Kotlo, R. ‘Democratic Role of Political Parties’ in S. Dizdarević (et al.) (eds.),
Democracy Assessment in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo: Open Society Fund
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2006) p. 178.
Mustajbegovic, Saida and Jelacic, Nerma. ‘Catholic and Muslim leaders have ruffled
feathers by trying to promote new political options’, Balkan Insight, 27 September 2006,
Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
Office of the High Representative, Transcript of HR’s Interview with Vecernji List, 18
May 2006, available from www.ohr.int (Accessed 21/05/06).
See Note 53.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
17
been subdued somewhat recently as a result of the forays into Iraq and
Afghanistan, advocates of intervention have argued that state
weakness is ‘both a national and an international issue of the first
order’.56 The potential crises that a failing BiH could cause, according
to the liberal interventionist argument, justifies the presence of an
international administration that seeks to stabilise the state with the
aim of then transforming it into a functioning liberal democracy. The
economic and consociationalist ‘solutions’ mentioned above are part
of the liberal armoury when attempting to transform states. However,
such measures by themselves are often deemed insufficient in
‘supporting new structures of governance’ in post-conflict states and
societies. As Diamond notes,
‘when we mention the term democracy promotion or democracy building,
we tend to think of a fairly conventional set of tasks – helping to develop
political parties, civil society organizations, representative and legal
institutions, and so on. All of these are important. Indeed, all of the things
that need to be done to promote and develop democracy in a historically
authoritarian setting must be done in a post-authoritarian, post-conflict
setting. However, post-conflict settings are distinctive in terms of the roles
of violence, order and ‘stateness’. If these challenges are not met, all the
others – political, legal, societal, and economic – will fail’.57
Therefore, prior to implementing liberal reforms, issues surrounding
the ‘stateness of the state’ have to be addressed. According to
Fukuyama, ‘before you can have democracy or economic
development, you have to have a state’.58 On a similar note, Pridham
observes that ‘failure to resolve any national identity difficulties will
almost certainly act as an inhibiting force in democratization’.59 As
mentioned previously, the RS has (as laid down in the Dayton
Agreement) a number of political institutions and some trappings of a
state while also under the umbrella of the BiH state and its own ‘joint’
institutions. It is, perhaps, reasonable to assume that the structure of
the BiH state, with various levels of administration, will be rather
complex, not unlike the state structure of other federations. However,
the implementation of the Dayton Agreement (and the later Bonn
Powers, in particular) has allowed the international community to
56
57
58
59
Fukuyama, F. State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2004) p. xi.
Diamond, L. ‘Promoting Democracy in Post-Conflict and Failed States: Lessons and
Challenges’, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 2(2) (2006) p. 101.
Fukuyama, F. ‘‘Stateness’ First’, Journal of Democracy, 16(1) (2005) p. 84.
Pridham, G. The Dynamics of Democratization: A Comparative Approach (London:
Continuum, 2000) p. 257.
18
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
exercise real power in BiH, taking authority away from the domestic
institutions of BiH.
In the BiH context, the international community has exercised
political influence and has attempted to ‘reform’ Dayton in order to
create a strong and ‘efficient’ BiH state-level authority that the EU
and NATO can do business with. By doing so, it runs the risk of
antagonising the RS and the Serb community, which in turn may lead
to an increase in ethno-national tension and jeopardise the BiH state it
seeks to strengthen. International actors undertaking state-building,
according to Diamond, should ‘design and implement a plan for
transition to a self-sustaining and democratic new political order’ and
balance ‘international trusteeship or imperial functions with a
distinctly non-imperial attitude and a clear and early specification of
an acceptable timetable for the restoration of full sovereignty’.60 Well
over a decade after Dayton, it is obvious that the international
community had no clear ‘plan for transition’ (other than the drawn-out
and uncertain EU conditionality process) and the ‘restoration of full
sovereignty’ is still to happen. The international intervention in BiH,
apparently designed to ‘control, contain and face down undemocratic
elements’, may well have crushed local initiative.61 As Igor Radojičić,
a leading light in the largest Serb party, the Alliance of Independent
Social Democrats (SNSD), and chair of the RS National Assembly,
for example has argued,
‘to expect from the government and the opposition - both of them to vote
‘Yes’, not just on big questions like defence or police (reform), but there
are so many smaller problems and every time there is someone from the
OHR, from OSCE, from NATO, from World Bank, IMF or somebody
else who is pushing some stories, some law, some decision without
amendments. It creates a very difficult situation for the government and
the opposition: First you are very passive, you don’t have the ability to
present or project your policy, because the proposal, the law, the project
decision is already done - ‘Take it or leave it’. On the other side, you
cannot present your identity for your voters if you are for all the
important, even less important, decisions. You have to vote the same as
the other parties and this kills the political scene’.62
On the other side of the ethno-national divide, Bosniak
representatives continue to call for a strong international presence in
60
61
62
See Note 57, p. 97;107.
See Note 57, p. 99.
Interview conducted with author in Banja Luka, 13 September 2005.
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
19
the country. The Bosniak Vice President of the Republika Srpska, for
instance, SDA representative Adil Osmanović, has stated that
‘we still believe that the OHR should stay in Bosnia, because we still
need them…We are happy for the SDA to go with the opinion of the
international community. We expect support from the international
community. The international community does have an impact on the
political factors in Bosnia’.63
This position taken by Bosniak representatives, while somewhat
understandable given what occurred during the war, has led to
accusations of particular dependency on the international community,
especially from Serb representatives.
Conclusion
Liberal international nation/state-building techniques in BiH have
tried to identify first the ‘failings’ of the state - a liberal, subjective
assessment - such as economic underdevelopment, the dominance of a
pre-modern, ethno-nationalist political elite, and ethno-national and
religious segregation. The intervening actors have then tried to set
about solving and rectifying these failings through economic and
market reforms, direct and indirect intervention in BiH politics and in
the electoral system, and in encouraging the return process and
insisting on the implementation of human rights laws. If these
solutions are unsuccessful it is perhaps, from this point of view, the
fault of the local population. As noted by Luciak, ‘the most effective
tools are of no value if the environment for their successful
application does not exist’.64 According to Ignatieff, ‘a great deal of
exculpatory moral disgust circulates around the failures of the new
world order, a self-excusing sense that ‘we’ tried and ‘they’ failed’.65
It may be that the policies and approach of the international
community has contributed to BiH’s failure in addressing the
problems which inhibit the country’s development. As noted by Large
and Sisk, an intervention that is even considered legitimate ‘may lose
credibility if the resulting implementation and actions are perceived
by the local population as ineffective. Credibility in the eyes of the
63
64
65
Interview conducted with author in Banski Dvor, Banja Luka, 22 February 2007.
Luciak, I. After the Revolution: Gender and Democracy in El Salvador, Nicaragua and
Guatemala (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) p. 228.
Ignatieff, M. The Warrior’s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience (London:
Chatto & Windus, 1998) p. 99.
20
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
recipient population will be closely linked to effectiveness and
approach’.66
The ‘approach’ of the international community has involved only
nominal levels of domestic responsibility or local ownership, and this
needs to be examined. Despite possessing significant powers, it is
possible that the international community has misdiagnosed the
failings of the BiH state. As McGarry and O’Leary have argued
‘liberals often make the mistake of reducing ethno-national conflicts to
religious, cultural or material differences between the ethno-national
groups. Such conflicts are better understood as socio-psychological,
rooted in historically established collective identities and motivated by the
desire to be governed by one’s co-nationals, both for security and for
collective freedom…when the national nature of the state is at stake, many
see themselves not just as bearers of individual rights but also as members
of distinct communities…. there is…no merit in the smug ‘cosmopolitan’
view that the conflict67 has been caused by unrepresentative and extremist
elites, or by religiously or culturally retarded peoples incapable of the
reasonable compromises allegedly characteristic of moderns’.68
The selection of ethno-nationalist political leaders by the electorate
of BiH, far from being an unreasonable or primitive one, may in fact
be a rational response to worries surrounding group security and to the
uncertainties of the constitutional situation.
The international community has, somewhat belatedly, recognised
that something needs to be altered both in its relationship with BiH
and in the internal political set-up of the country. A document drawn
up for EU foreign ministers by the Union’s Foreign and Security
Policies Chief, Javier Solana, and the Enlargement Commissioner,
Olli Rehn, argues that ‘the status quo is unsustainable and will
probably remain so until the international community is ready to
change the parameters of its presence and approach’.69 The liberal
solutions referenced in this article have largely been unsuccessful in
eroding divisions. This may reflect, as contended above, the need for a
comprehensive constitutional settlement to be in place first, before any
‘state-building’ attempts. In the case of BiH, this more than likely
entails the option of a final division of the country to the satisfaction
66
67
68
69
See Note 41, p. 199.
In this case referring to Northern Ireland, however, in the author’s view, applicable to
present day BiH.
See Note 15, p. 848; 857; 859.
See ‘EU wants greater role in Bosnia’, B92, 7 November 2008, available from
www.b92.net (Accessed 08/11/08).
Center for Southeast Europe Working Paper Series # 1 (2009)
21
of each of the three main ethno-national groups, if possible. This
option, while not entirely impossible, especially in the longer term as
thing stand, does not have the support of the majority of the
international community at present and is not likely to receive it
anytime soon. Alternatively, the domestic representatives of BiH
could reach a ‘settlement’ on a reformed BiH constitution. The carrot
for the RS (and the rest of BiH) would be EU membership while the
RS and the BiH state would have to meet some of the demands for
constitutional reforms pushed by the EU and international community
– a grasp for the elusive middle ground. This would also call the bluff
of the BiH politicians who may, in reality, wish to postpone EU
membership (despite publicly stating otherwise) in order to maintain
their personal stranglehold on the political system.
As many in the RS would choose the preservation of the entity and
its authorities over membership of the EU, the international
community may have to settle for constitutional reforms which
preserve the current RS structure to a significant extent. Too strong a
push for a ‘strengthened’, ‘functional’ central BiH state may
antagonise RS representatives and maintain insecurities on the
constitutional set-up. It is disingenuous of the EU and international
community in demanding a centralised and strong BiH state as a
condition for EU membership when one considers the existence,
within its borders, of challenging and complex constitutional
circumstances such as those in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Belgium and
the Basque country, among others. An intricate internal political
arrangement should, therefore, not be a bar in itself to EU
membership. In the BiH case, it is not so much the need for a Dayton
II, or a brand new and different constitution but rather for a settlement,
a full stop and an end to constitutional whispers, which the
international community, through its constant pushing of various
reforms, contributes to. Any settlement reached in BiH must be locally
driven and agreed to by all the major groups. Rather than
experimenting with liberal state-building through cajoling BiH
representatives and steering reforms, the international community
could best perhaps serve the interests of BiH citizens by offering its
support, where relevant, and by playing a constructive role in
facilitating agreement.
22
Farrell, Failed Ideas for Failed States?
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