State or Nation?
The Challenges of Political Transition
in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Prepared in the framework of the Regional Research Promotion Programme in
the Western Balkans (RRPP), which is run by the University of Fribourg upon a
mandate of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, SDC, Federal
Department of Foreign Affairs.
The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent opinions of the SDC and the University of Fribourg.
1
state or nation?
Impressum
STATE OR NATION?
The Challenges of Political Transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Publisher
Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies,
University of Sarajevo
Editors
Eldar Sarajlić and Davor Marko
Mentors
Stefano Bianchini, PhD, University of Bologna, Italy
Asim Mujkić, PhD, University of Sarajevo, BiH
Dino Abazović, PhD, University of Sarajevo, BiH
Proofreading
Lejla Efendić
Final reading
Heather McRobie
DTP and Cover DesigN
Amir Gutošić and Mensur Muzurović
Cover PHOTO
Amer Tikveša
Print
SUTON, Široki Brijeg
January 2011
CIP - Katalogizacija u publikaciji
Nacionalna i univerzitetska biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine, Sarajevo
323.1:321.7]:342.1/.2(497.6)(082)
STATE or nation? : the challenges of political transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina /
Eldar Sarajlić and Marko Davor (eds.). - Sarajevo: Centar za interdisciplinarne postdiplomske studije = Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate
Studies, 2011. - [181] str. ; 24 cm
About the authors: str. [179-181]. - Bibliografija uz svaki rad ; bibliografske i druge
bilješke uz tekst.
ISBN 978-9958-704-25-3
1. Sarajlić, Eldar 2. Marko, Davor
COBISS.BH-ID 18571270
2
Eldar Sarajlić and Davor Marko (eds.)
State or Nation?
The Challenges of Political
Transition in Bosnia and
Herzegovina
S araje v o 2011
3
state or nation?
Ta b l e o f CT
oa
n tbelnet
o f C o n t e n tS
Preface
Introduction
5
Davor Marko
9
Between State and Nation: Bosnia and
Herzegovina and the Challenge of
Political Analysis
Eldar Sarajlić
PART I 23 External Nation-building: An Outline for
State a Single Politico-strategic Concept
Sead Turčalo
39 The Shifting Contours of International
State-building Practices in Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Mateja Peter
PART II 67 Democratisation against Democracy:
Assessing the Failure of State-building in
society
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Adnan Huskić
93 Building Civil Society in Bosnia and
Herzegovina: Challenges and Mistakes
Ivana Howard
PART III 127 Happy Holidays for Whom: Ethnic
Diversity and Politics of Regulation of
culture
Public Holidays in BiH
Nataša Bošković
151 Religion, Nation and State: The “Holy
Trinity” of Disunity of post-Dayton
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko
About 177
THE authors
4
Preface
This publication is the result of two years of research conducted by a team
associated with the University of Sarajevo’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate
Studies (CIPS). The poor functionality of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
different visions of its structure, the absence of an integrated (national) ideology and
its questionable future were the main reasons we decided to analyze this case.
Modern nation-states were created in the period after the major revolutions of
the late 18th and early 19th century. Accelerated modernization and development
of technology enabled the spread and reproduction of various ideas including, in
particular, the idea of the nation. Some scholars defined nation in primordial or
inheritance terms, while others considered it a construct of human agency. One thing
they all shared is the idea that the nation represents the crucial concept required for
understanding the modern notion of state.
Analyzing the problematic process of nation-state building after the dissolution
of Yugoslavia, many authors have argued that the process was “belated”. Certainly,
post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina represents a special case still spurring
numerous controversies and discussions. The modern foundations of this former
Yugoslav republic’s statehood are based on the ideals and visions of ZAVNOBiH, the
representative body of the people’s antifascist resistance in the Second World War. The
modern Bosnian state was thus created in 1943, as one of six constituent federal units
of the socialist Yugoslavia. Its specificity, as distinct from other Yugoslav republics,
was that none of the three main ethnic groups (Muslims - later Bosniaks, Serbs and
Croats) who shared the country’s living space had a majority that could assume the
status of the titular nation. BiH was the only republic in the former Yugoslavia whose
name did not correspond with the names of the constituent ethnic groups. All of this
was to change with the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the end of socialism. Following
a brutal war and a complete recomposition of the country, Bosnia and Herzegovina
faces new challenges, both to its fragile democracy and to its contested statehood.
The situation today, 68 years after the ZAVNOBiH and 16 years after the Dayton
Peace Accords (1995) which ended the war in Bosnia, and shows a picture replete
with challenges and problems, accumulated by the country’s difficult history but
worth of a serious examination and analysis.
Therefore, the logical questions we asked at the beginning of this project were:
Is it possible to build a state without a nation, without an integrative ideological
matrix, accompanied by economic and human conflict and burdened by a legacy of a
disastrous war? Is this absence of a common ideological/national platform the main
reason for deep political divisions in BiH? Our intention was to investigate some
selected aspects that will help us to decipher the basic post-Dayton traumas and
5
state or nation?
issues that determine the Bosnian political and democratic challenges.
From the very beginning the project was designed as a support to students
from the MA program in Democracy and Human Rights (European Regional
Master’s Degree in Democratization and Human Rights in South East Europe,
ERMA), which is implemented jointly by the CIPS center along with the Institute
for Central and Balkan Europe (Istituto per l’Europa Centro-Orientale e Balcanica),
University of Bologna. According to students’ preferences, and mentors’ and
tutors’ recommendations, a five person group was organized to work intensively
on the project. Students were associated with a mentor and provided logistical
support in the preparation of their research paper drafts and field work. However,
some students were not able to follow the very high standards and criteria set by
the editors. As a result, in certain stages of the project those who failed to produce
drafts of satisfactory quality were replaced by new authors whose performance
and quality of work met the highest academic criteria.
Problems that we encountered during the implementation of this project are
part of the general apathy in the academic community of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
as well as of the neighboring countries, faces. Specific problems in this environment
are huge: slow and research-inefficient public universities, a large number of
students, the lack of quality competition in the private sector and the absence
of proper and intensive (tutorial) work with young people and many others. As
a result, students who completed their graduate studies at these universities
lack many skills and tools necessary to conduct academic research and practice
academic writing. Research methodology is taught in an excathedra manner,
with little reference to techniques of academic writing, citations, referencing
and plagiarism. Our program in Democracy and Human Rights did not have a
sufficiently developed academic writing and research component. Thanks to
the Regional Research Promotion Program (RRPP) initiative and the agility of
the University of Fribourg staff, all participants in this project have gotten the
opportunity to undergo several rounds of training in basic methodological skills
and, through participation in several important conferences and workshops, to
benefit from sharing their experiences with colleagues from all over Europe.
The preparation of this publication was further supported by mentors’ efforts
and contributions. Professor Stefano Bianchini from Bologna University, is one
of the leading experts on the issue of nationalism in Southeast Europe. Asim
Mujkić and Dino Abazović, both lecturing at the Faculty of Political Science in
Sarajevo, are known experts in their respective fields. Thanks to their assistance
our researchers were able to tackle complex theoretical concepts and apply them
within the context of post-Dayton BiH.
As an indirect result of this project, the CIPS center has established a course
6
on academic writing and social science research methods that is now integral
part of our Master’s program,. This course gives an introduction into qualitative,
quantitative and mixed research designs and methods in social sciences combined
with an introduction to the basic principles of academic writing as a tool for
reporting research results. It provides an introduction to the philosophy of
research in the social sciences and also focuses on types of design and available
techniques of quantitative and qualitative research. The general goal of the course
is to improve student knowledge and understanding of social research methods,
foster critical thinking and develop student capacities to undertake independent
research. We designed and developed it together with our colleague Tarik Jusić,
program director of the Sarajevo Mediacentre and lecturer at the Sarajevo’s School
of Science and Technology. My colleagues, academic tutors Federico Sicurella and
Kiran Auerbach have also collaborated on establishing this course.
Networking is another positive aspect of this project from which we all
benefited. At the end of the two year cycle we have established a regional network
of researchers, and strengthened institutional links within countries and across
the boders. In this aspect, CIPS has benefitted from very close and intensive
cooperation with the Human Rights Centre and the University of Sarajevo,
which provided us with significant logistics. I owe special thanks to Ms. Anđela
Lalović who gave her best, including a big dose of patience and useful tips, to
help me coordinate this project. We have established very close partnership with
the Institute for Social Research of the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo,
and with Sarajevo Mediacenter, the leading organization in the region for media
research and for media archive.
Finally, this RRPP initiative proved to be a very positive experience and a
necessary impetus for all the people whose ambition and energy are beyond the
current business and academic standards.
In Sarajevo, January 2011
Davor Marko,
Projector Coordinator and Publication Co-editor
7
state or nation?
8
Between State and Nation:
Bosnia and Herzegovina
and the Challenge of
Political Analysis
Eldar Sarajlić
1. Introduction
Given its prominent place in the analyses of conflict-ridden transitional
societies, Bosnia and Herzegovina seems an easy shot for examination of ethnic
conflict, institutional failure and the hardships of political transition. In an almost
ideal-type fashion, the country appears to embody most of the challenges the
literature aims to understand and face: a difficult transition from socialism to
democracy and the consequent problems in transformation of the social, political
and economic spheres, ethnic diversity and ethnic conflict, revival of religion, low
trust in institutions and an underdeveloped civil society. In all of these domains,
Bosnia and Herzegovina seems to deliver a poor result, eliciting analyses and
criticisms that try to explore the reasons behind this failure and suggest routes for
improvement. Some of these analyses focus on exogenous sources of the problems,
looking at the global and regional circumstances and trying to understand the
wider frames of the country’s malaises, from the global rise of cultural conflicts,
end of the Cold War and demise of socialism to the dissolution of Yugoslavia and
the rise of competing nationalist projects in the post-Yugoslav space. Others aim
to find endogenous sources and look at the particular historical, cultural and
political constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, searching for intrinsic causes
of the country’s failure to succeed in political transformation, or at least, trying
to merge external and internal sources into a balanced and multilayered analysis.
There have been a multitude of books, articles and research reports about Bosnia
and Herzegovina since the end of the war in 1995 and most of them reflect some
of these ways of looking at the country’s social, economic or political issues.
Though seemingly straightforward, if aimed at genuine understanding and
reflection, a responsible scholarshipfaces many challenges when analyzing a state
9
state or nation?
and society such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The plethora of cognitive, epistemic
and methodological challenges pertain not only to those usually associated
with some forms of cultural or historical determinism, which seemed to have
predominated in some earlier works on the Balkans in general, but also to those
often found in more reflexive, constructivist and anti-essentialist accounts, which
fail to conceive of the analyzed subject beyond the prevailing categories of the
nation-state. This is particularly the case with the ways of thinking and researching
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of its geopolitical position, history and
political perspectives, all of which are firmly tied to concepts, trends and influences
of continental Europe. The underlying aim of this book, and the research behind
it, was to try to reflect upon this challenge and examine its different embodiments
in domains of state, society and culture.
2. The Categorical Mold of the Nation-State
The main reason we have chosen to tackle this particular issue was what all of us
perceived as the obvious failure of state building efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Although huge progress was made after the war in terms of rebuilding the basic
institutional infrastructure of the country, most of the country still lingers in the
state of inefficiency, deadlock and ineptitude. Many state institutions are there,
created either through consensus of local powers or imposition by international
representatives, but few of them embody the authority and functionality sufficient
to secure the well-being of the nascent Bosnian democracy. Political power
and social influence still remain firmly entrenched in alternative institutional
circles from political parties and religious communities to various local and
international networks concealed from democratic processes and non-responsive
to democracy’s normative foundations.
However, the reason why the failure of state building was set up as the main
indicator for justification of this research is not our deep respect or adoration
of the state as such. We have been aware that, as a historical form of political
organization, the modern state gradually ceases to have the central role it used to
have in much of the 19th and 20th century. Its authority and functions are being
increasingly delegated to agents within and beyond its boundaries. Both local
governance authorities, such as municipalities, and regional powers, such as the
European Union, gradually diminish the role of the state in everyday citizens’ lives.
The retreat of the state is indicative of many democratic processes that focus on
things more important than the state itself such as human rights, equality, freedom
and prosperity. All of these have an intrinsic value and, if a state is not capable of
delivering them, the justification for its support and authority in a democratic
setting wanes opening the space for other means of social organization capable of
10
Eldar Sarajlić BETWEEN STATE AND NATION
sustaining those values. However, the weakness of the state institutions in Bosnia
and Herzegovina is also indicative of its poor human rights record, low levels
of social inclusion and increasing inequalities in gender, ethnicity and religion.
Therefore, we believe that without institutions responsible to protect human rights
and equalities of citizens, the perspective for democratic development of Bosnia
and Herzegovina will face an uncertain future. The empirical research conducted
by various research organizations in the country seems to confirm these facts1
pointing to what may be interpreted as a significant correlation between the lack
of trust in state institutions and high levels of social exclusion, discrimination
and almost no concern for individual human rights. The reason behind this is
that non-accountable subjects, from party structures to religious authorities,
determine most political outcomes which, almost by default, leads to a situation
that is unfavorable for the basic building blocks of any democracy: free and equal
citizens..
So, with these empirical and normative assumptions in mind, we have ventured
into analyzing the reasons behind the failure of state building in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The first thing we encountered was a conceptual challenge contained
in the fact that any talk about the state inevitably raises the issue of the nation
upon which the state is formed. As a historical fact and a model of sovereignty,
state is inseparable from nation, so every analysis that tries to talk about the state
without accounting for the nation the state is represented and constitutive of is
bound to be superfluous if not inaccurate and misguided. This challenge seems to
constrain not only every analysis of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also every effort
to build institutions of state that will be in charge not only of leading the society’s
political and democratic development, but also in charge of protecting the human
rights and equalities of all citizens in this country. Thus, one of the main reasons
we have recognized as constitutive of the failures of state building in Bosnia and
Herzegovina is the conceptual tension between the notions of nation and state,
which underlies most of the transformation efforts and political conflicts present
in the country. The tension basically reflects two distinct (continental) ways to
think of the relation between the state and the nation, French (civic) on one side
and German (ethnic) on the other and frames state building initiatives and their
opposition. It is this tension that aids political players in rendering almost every
political issue in the country as primarily an issue of identity rather than practical
politics, economy or something else. The pervasiveness of this tension is best
indicated by the fact that all hitherto possible ways to bring about political reform
in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been constrained by its conceptual boundaries,
1
Such as UNDP’s Early Warning System (200-2008), Silent Majority Speaks (2007) or Fidriech
Ebert Stiftung’s Social Trust in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2009).
11
state or nation?
from visions to make the country a republic based on common civic identification,
to those aiming to establish a more consociational arrangement or dissolve the
country along ethnic lines. The logic of this tension also permeates particular
ethnic visions, in which different ethnopolitical agents assume corresponding
and immutable subject positions, perceiving themselves and others through their
preferred nation-state prism. Thus, many Bosniak ethnopolitical agents perceive
the country as the exclusive homeland of their nation, which is understood
to be foundational for the country’s historical existence. Most of the Croat
ethnopoliticians see themselves as belonging to a broader national body and owing
an ultimate allegiance to Croatia as their nation-state, understanding their Bosnian
belonging as much more a matter of micro-cultural specificity (oreven historical
misfortune) than a basis for political subjectivity. Similar perceptions characterize
Serb ethnic agents in Bosnia, with a contingent addition of understanding the
entity of the Republic of Srpska as a nation-state in becoming, as one of several
Serb states in the Balkans. The fact that Republic of Srpska has a predefined
citizenship, framed and legitimized by the Dayton agreement further feeds this
perception, but also makes it different and more legitimate than the Croat case.
In other words, in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina there are no political visions,
projects or reform efforts that transcend the categories of nation-state. All issues of
the political sphere are perceived through the nation-state prism and understood
in categories imposed by the model of national state.
In that sense, all possible arrangements of state building on the table reflect
the logic of the nation-state, from those aiming at more centralization to those
affirming various forms of consociationalism. The prospect of EU integration does
not make things easier either. Being an expanding association of nation-states,
the EU seems to enforce a transformational pattern of countries on their way to
accession that reflects forms of nation-state and its norms of political organization.
The liberal and republican features contained in the normative framework EU
enforces on the accession countries seem to imply the existence of the nationstate as a starting point for ‘de-ethnicized’ integration into a larger, liberal
framework2. I argued elsewhere3 that this type of approach can be discerned not
only at the legislative level imposed by the international and EU representatives
in Bosnia but also at the level of daily and reform politics and negotiations, which
seem to balance between the international (partial and inconsistent) visions of
the Bosnian state and the conflicting nationalist conceptions on the ground.
2
On ‘de-ethnicization’ see: Christian Joppke, ‘Citizenship Between De- and Re-Ethnicization’ in
Arch. Europ. Sociol. Vol. XLIV, No. 3, pp. 429-458, 2003.
3
See: Eldar Sarajlić, ‘A Citizenship Beyond the Nation-State: Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Dilemmas of Europeanization’, CITSEE Working Paper, 2010/09, University of Edinburgh.
12
Eldar Sarajlić BETWEEN STATE AND NATION
The inconsistency of the EU and international community approach, embodied
in sending incoherent messages across the board, requiring at the same time
functional centralization while respecting the consociational and group-based
disintegrative features, indicates that even the representatives of the EU in Bosnia
and Herzegovina have no tools to face the categorical and normative challenge
posed by the underlining nation-state structure of the prevailing political logic of
our time. Although the normative and political aspects of the Europeanisation of
Bosnia and Herzegovina may diverge in significant ways, leaving space for differing
interpretations and obstructions of the democratization efforts, what they have
in common is the impossibility of conceiving a vision of the Bosnian state that
will go beyond the historical experience of European nation-states with mutually
excluding and clashing political alternatives. Both of the dominant visions of the
Bosnian state are unable to produce a result that will be favorable in a normative
and political sense. The ethnocentric organization of the country is obviously not
capable of ensuring a sufficient level of human rights protection. Further ethnic
fragmentation of the country would contribute to the creation of even more
homogenous territorial units, an increase in social exclusion and perhaps even
lead to a more serious deadlock in the functioning of common institutions. The
establishment of republican, civic-based arrangements is also impossible given
the nature of the political cleavages and relations of power, and because strategic
links of this conception with particular ethnic visions aid only one of the Bosnian
groups and marginalize others.
But the tension between nation and state in the country, and the related political
projects relying on different interpretations of that tension, also indicates a much
more serious analytic and practical issue, fundamental not only to the political
perspectives of Bosnia and Herzegovina but also to many contemporary issues
worldwide, namely, can there be a state without nation? In our context, can Bosnia
and Herzegovina be a state without being a nation by any means of the word?
3. Facing the Challenge: the Structure of the Book
This is not an easy challenge to face. Its elements have been built into the very
categorical system we use to think and describe the contemporary political world.
To a certain degree it is even impossible, since both the categorical system and
the development of world history force us to comply with it. In the course of 20th
century history, the nation-state has become the logic of political organization
and the grammar of political analysis. So, how can we talk about Bosnia and
Herzegovina without following the rules of this grammar?
This book attempts to analyze three main domains in which different
embodiments of this challenge have been present since the end of the Bosnian
13
state or nation?
war: state, society and culture. In the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s
political, social and cultural decomposition during the years of conflict, the issues
of reconstruction and rebuilding in all domains have gained currency and have
been established as ultimate priorities. Thus, the issues of state building (and
correspondingly, nation building) have become the most indicative in terms of
different conceptions of the relation between nation and state in Bosnia, reflecting
not only locally understood patterns of relation, but also external perceptions and
efforts at helping Bosnia and Herzegovina complete the path of transition. The
focus on state building and its conceptual and practical relation to nation building
can help us discern how the relation between nation and state was perceived by
different actors of Bosnia’s post-Dayton period, but also in what particular domains
of the country’s re-building efforts this relation had left significant consequences
and contributed to the existing circumstances of the Bosnian political setup.
Aiming to reflect upon not only the categorical difficulty but also its practical
incarnations in various transitional processes, the first part of the book focuses
on issues related to state and features two chapters. The first of those attempts
at clearing the ground for subsequent analyses by focusing on different concepts
of nation building from the perspective of external actors involved in it. By
way of making distinctions and explaining the categorical conflation between
notions of nation building and state building, Sead Turčalo argues that nation
building should be understood as a political and strategic rather than theoretical
concept. Reflecting the role of external actors in developing Bosnia’s post-conflict
institutions, nation building was established as a normative category against
which successes of building the state institutions were to be measured. As such,
it has been understood as pertaining to a much broader process, within which
(re)building of institutions and social integration are supposed to take place. In a
broader sketch, his analysis implies that notions of nation have played a crucial role
in external actors’ perception of the transformation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but
have been significantly avoided in the strategic implementation of activities on the
ground. Turčalo also offers a more detailed analysis of elements of state building
and priorities that external actors have at their disposal when they need to deal
with cases such as Bosnia and Herzegovina including various approaches focusing
on security, socio-economic liberalization, institutionalization and development
of civil society. All of these approaches contain different implementation
challenges and the role of the external actor is to recognize which of them is the
most appropriate to resolve difficult issues in particular cases. He also tackles the
notion of integrative ideology and its role in supporting the ideas and authority
of the state, claiming that “during the process of nation-building external actors
should not consider the actual value of the ‘stabilization’ of the fragile country
as a reference point for their engagement, and they should reject the opinion
that the formation of the organizational ideology and integration of the society
14
Eldar Sarajlić BETWEEN STATE AND NATION
is the exclusive task of the local elite who, as a rule, use such an approach by the
international actors in order to freeze the very process of nation-building”.
In contrast to Turčalo’s normative stance, Mateja Peter’s second chapter gives
an empirical account of different the policies and concepts of state building that
have been present in the country through the agency of different international
representatives. Through a broad stroke of these policies, Peter offers an account of
the ways the international community perceived its role in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
arguing that the “international community came in with a poorly planned strategy.
The policy objective was ‘peace’ or ‘ending a war’, but as Goodhand succinctly
points out, this kind of a broad objective is not enough for a sustainable state as
it does not involve the transformation of the institutions, networks and incentive
systems – regionally, nationally and locally – which caused and perpetuate the
conflict system”. In other words, the ‘strategy’ the international community
employed on the ground in Bosnia and Herzegovina was much more about ad hoc
responding to burning priorities than applying a thoroughly developed strategy.
In addition to an informatively rich (and chronological) account of different
international visions of the Bosnian state, Peter also offers a strong criticism of the
international community, especially the role of successive High Representatives
and their differing state building approaches. An interesting fact both Turčalo
and Peter reveal in their contributions about differing European and American
conceptions of the relation between nation and state, and correspondingly the
conception of Bosnian state since Dayton, may be useful to indicate the conceptual
genealogy of different problems and solutions to Bosnia’s political transformation.
More emphasis on the role society and politics (and thus on issues of identity)
has been certainly preferred by European counterparts during the Dayton
negotiations, while Americans opted for a more minimalist military-based strategy
of consolidation. The shifting relations of power and interest of global (USA and
EU) players in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the subsequent years have certainly
left their mark on the nature of the international efforts in building the state and
democracy in Bosnia and on the very definition of problems and envisioning of
solutions. If Americans opted for a more robust approach that would to a certain
degree disregard local visions of the nation and the state, focusing on the necessity
to build democratic institutions and secure their sustainability with the brute
force if needed, Europeans seemed much more concerned with the nuances of the
local nation and state visions, trying to adapt and balance between priorities of
democracy and the means of democratization.
The second part of the book tries to shift the focus slightly from the strict analysis
of state building towards more ‘softer’ and broader societal domains: democracy
and civil society. In the first chapter, by way of taking up issues raised explicitly
and implicitly in Peter’s work, Adnan Huskić discusses the failure of state building
15
state or nation?
through what he perceives as a process of collision between democracy as a set
of values and democratization as a process driven by agents of the international
community in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In his account, Huskić suggests that
these two “neutralized each other and thus resulted in sluggish progress, lack
of democratic development and finally the ultimate frustration of all the actors
involved”. Analyzing the “sequencing fallacy” in the international community’s
approach to stabilizing the country after a terrible war, he ventures out to show
that one of the most serious mistakes of Bosnia’s political transition has been
the introduction of elections at a very early stage of post-conflict management.
The result of this was the hijacking of Bosnia’s transitional priorities by the local
ethnopolitical agents who infused the political process with their identity issues
and priorities, and thus derailed the progress towards establishment of democratic
institutions. Following other authors from the field, but also overlapping with some
of those within this book, Huskić suggests that establishment of state institutions
is one of the main prerequisites for the development of democracy. Failure to
create strong institutions of the state in Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted in poor
democratic outcomes.
In the second chapter of this part, Ivana Howard analyzes the ways external
‘state builders’ approached the development of civil society in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Although sometimes considered of secondary importance, the civil
society can have a crucial role in sustaining democracy. This role is exemplified
not only in terms of civil watchdog groups and other agents in charge of providing
a critical feedback to political structures but also in terms of providing a forum
for unrestrained public deliberation on issues of public interest and educating the
citizenry about the values of public political participation4. Against these values
of civil society in creating a viable and reflexive democracy, Howard assesses the
record of the international community’s involvement in the development of civil
society in Bosnia along with the main players and their overall impact on a number
of levels. By doing so she provides a detailed and forceful critique of the mistakes
the international agents have made in the course of post-Dayton years and suggests
the possible routes for improvement that can have a significant strategic value for
the existing policy makers in the country.
Part three features two chapters related broadly to the cultural domain. In the
first chapter, Nataša Bošković analyzes the legal regulation of public holidays and
their effect on the politics of cultural diversity and equality of Bosnian citizens.
She focuses on the symbolic reproduction of ethnic differences, criticizes the
prevailing ethnonationalist conceptions for their exclusionary and discriminatory
4
Jean Cohen & Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
16
Eldar Sarajlić BETWEEN STATE AND NATION
values andoffers a fresh normative solution to the existing practice of public
holidays regulation that policy makers might want to consider. In the second
chapter, Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko offer an analysis of the negative
effects of religious communities’ social and political agency on the perspectives
of democracy development in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a detailed and
informed account they present an empirical-based criticism of the three religious
communities‘ interventions in educational and electoral processes. They focus on
examples from textbooks used for religious education classes in Bosnian schools
and messages religious leaders send in election periods to show what kind of
influence religious communities and their leaders exert on two crucial societal
processes. By way of accounting for the reasons religious leaders choose to involve
themselves in politics and education, Ljubić and Marko indicate that particular
conceptions of nation and its relation to the state underpin and drive their public
and political agendas, which ultimately deconstruct the relevance and authority
of state institutions, sustain the status quo and exert a negative influence on the
development of democracy in the country. What they explicitly show with this
analysis is that not only formal political actors engage issues of Bosnian society
on the precepts of continental nation and state visions but also those not officially
in charge for political agency, such as religious communities and their (unelected
and publicly unaccountable) leaders.
4. Radical Democracy: A Radical Alternative for
Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Responding to the categorical and conceptual challenge the nation-state poses
to political analysis is certainly not easy. We cannot say to be sure this research
and the chapters individual authors have written have responded to it successfully.
For sure, the individual chapters differ, not only in quality of argumentation,
scope, complexity, amount of research effort invested but also in the level of
understanding and reflection of the nation-state’s categorical internalization in
analytical discourse. These are student efforts and mistakes are unavoidable, be
they methodological or analytical. However, what they all share, regardless of the
quality of their arguments, is a drive to think about Bosnia and Herzegovina and
examine its issues and problems using a sound, reasonable and reflexive discourse
that aims to communicate with others and contribute to collaborative research
and academic efforts in understanding the world around us. They all aim to
understand Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of the conceptual challenges
the contemporary world, history and political science bestow upon the community
of researchers and its individual members. It is clear that, for that effort, all of the
authors in this volume deserve praise.
17
state or nation?
It is less clear, however, what can be understood as a viable conceptual and
normative alternative to the existing categories of both political analysis and
political practice. Do we have conceptual tools and political means to envisage
Bosnia and Herzegovina beyond the mold of the nation-state? If not, does that
indicate there is no future for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state, or that there can
be no coherent political analysis that can transcend this historical and conceptual
entrenchment? If yes, what those means and tools should be? How can we
conceptualize analysis of a country beyond categories of the European nationstate?
One of the possible ways to conceptualize alternative visions of Bosnia and
Herzegovina as a state and society is to adopt some of the arguments theorists
of radical democracy bring to the fore. One of the most appealing to the case of
Bosnia and Herzegovina could be the issue of plural political subjectivity some
radical democrats envisage as an alternative to both the hegemonizing thrust of
single-subject republicanism and fragmented-subject consociationalism. Namely,
a radical democratic alternative to these would imply a complex and dynamic
understanding of the subject positions agents in the public sphere may or do assume
in everyday political matters. The single-subject conception aims to determine a
single social, political or cultural position agents in the public sphere are ought to
assume if wanted to bring about a social or political change. In a classic Leninist
conception, disposed of by post-Marxist radical democrats in the early 1980’s,
this subject position was exclusively reserved for the proletariat as the ultimate
historical subject.5 This conception is not only normative in terms of requiring
subjects of agency to comply with a predetermined and fixed understanding
of ‘laws of history’, but also hegemonic in a non-democratic sense, preventing
evolution or transformation of subject positions in accordance with the passage
of time or the particularity of the problems at hand. Besides classical Marxism,
which had introduced the hegemony of class struggle and the ultimate subjectivity
of the proletariat to systems of political thinking, analysts and practitioners of the
nation-state adopt the same argumentative structure by believing that national
struggle and the agency on behalf of the nation-state represent the ultimate
historical and conceptual position political agents should assume. This particular
matrix is shared by both camps of the nation-state dynamic: those affirming civic
nationalism as a form of overcoming ethnic differences of the populace through
5
See: Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Verso: London, 1985. Also: Chantal Mouffe, ‘Deliberative Democracy and Agonistic
Pluralism’, Political Science Series, Institute for Advanced Studies: Vienna, 2000; and John Dryzek,
‘Deliberative Democracy in Divided Societies: Alternatives to Agonism and Analgesia’ in Political
Theory Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 218-242, 2005.
18
Eldar Sarajlić BETWEEN STATE AND NATION
constructivist efforts to create a shared political identity, as well as by those who
believe there is only one, ethnic, way of fundamental political identification. Both
of these camps seem to believe that social conflicts, ruptures, tensions stemming
from various forms of identity and subjectivity are reducible through some forms
of identity building, be it essentialist and ethnocentric or constructivist and civic.
However, what contemporary problems of (culturally, politically) complex
societies indicate is that these ways of looking at things are no longer sufficient
to explain nor to resolve the detrimental effects of mounting social conflicts and
tensions resulting from intricate and multilayered relations between various
groups and individuals. Instead, what is required is not only a new way of thinking,
but a new way of acting and understanding action in the political sphere. Such
an understanding would need to accept, internalize and exhibit the dynamic,
processual and essentially open-ended nature of social conflicts that do not have
a predetermined pattern of occurrence nor prescribed roles subjects should
undertake. It would also need to accept that certain social conflicts are irreducible
and irresolvable as such and that the main question to be concerned with is not
how to remove and prevent ruptures and tensions but how to provide them with
democratic means of exhibition and occurrence. This is a challenge social science
in particular needs to face and respond to successfully if it wants to remain both
explanatorily relevant and politically reflexive.
However, in terms of practice, nowhere is this more relevant and urgent than
in today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country paralyzed by immutable subject
positions of ethnic and civic nationalism with entire structures of exploitation and
discrimination atop their conflicting dynamic. This new way of thinking about
politics in this country would need to come to terms with the possibilities of a
plurality of “contradictory and mutually neutralizing subject positions” existing
simultaneously within a common framework, but without intrinsic drives for
mutual annihilation and destruction. This pertains not only to conflicting ethnonational agents but also to all other political and public subjects, from non-ethnic
political parties to researchers and analysts. This would require seeing Bosnia
and Herzegovina not through fixated subject positions but through an open field
in which subject positions are not determined in advance, be they ethnic, civic,
secular, religious or similar, nor reducible to some fictitious visions of multicultural
bliss, religiously-driven tolerance or EU-inspired cooperation of progress oriented
administrators.
The first step towards such an understanding is a shift in political thinking. Social
scientists, researchers, analysts and journalists bear the utmost responsibility in
this regard. They are the first ones who need to transcend the grip of the hitherto
prevailing categories of analysis and practice that have prescribed what agents
19
state or nation?
need to look or behave like if they want to be framed within the corresponding
concepts of political agency. This book might not have made a giant leap in that
direction; it is up to the reader to judge. But its authors and editors are not overly
concerned about the totality of its impact. Instead our aims were much more
modest: we only wanted to open up certain questions, indicate certain problems
and areas in which they prevail, and thus offer the academic, media and research
communities both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and beyond an opportunity to hear
the words of the coming generation of Balkan social scientists and engage in a
fruitful discussion with us.
20
Part I
State
21
state or nation?
22
External
Nation-building:
An Outline for a Single
Politico-strategic Concept
Sead Turčalo
Introduction
Although the concept of external nation-building has experienced its peak over
the past two decades, its roots lie in the process of decolonialization in the 1950s
and 1960s. For the new states, the departure of the colonizers meant: 1) creation
of a fictitious de jure statehood which was obtained through membership of the
United Nations; and 2) collision with the demands modernization, interpreted by
the native inhabitants as a reflection of western (colonial) ideology, as it continued
to insist upon the abandonment of traditional elements of society, placing the
colonial shell as the desired form of a state. These countries, having been defined
territorially, politically and economically by the colonial powers, requested the
engagement of external actors. Hence the concept of such nation-building
represents an important element in the foreign policy strategies of the Western
(colonial) powers in their relationship with the Third World1. However, this concept
was not designed as a form of assistance for the post-colonial countries. Rather, it
represented a form of conflict and a hindrance to the Soviet Union’s influence over
1
Hippler, Jochen. “Violent Conflicts, Conflict Prevention and Nation – building – Terminology
and Political Concepts.” In Nation – building. A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation?,
ed. Jochen Hippler (London: Pluto Press,2005).3-14. Joscha, Schmierer. “Staatenwelt als Medium
der Staatsbildung. Prekäre Staatlichkeit in der postimperialen Konstellation.“ In Prekäre
Staatlichkeit und Internationale Ordnung, ed. Stefani Weiss and Joscha Schmierer (Wiesbaden:
VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007). 13-29.
23
state or nation?
the newly-formed countries. The continuous presence of the colonial powers as
external actors in the process of building the new countries was used as a strategic
element in the containment of the Soviet Union until the end of the Cold War2.
At the start of the 1990s, nation-building became known as an element for the
prevention of conflict or post-conflict recovery. In fact, the recent post-Cold War
history offered the argument that, with the disintegration of a bipolar world order,
history had not come to an end nor had we reached the end of the insecurities that
were instigated by the ideological conflict between East and West. Moreover, the
breakdown of the balance of fear brought about the emergence of new fragile states,
the geopolitical phenomena of which appears to have had a serious destabilizing effect,
not only in the region but also in the wider world context. In scholarly discussions, the
problem of a fragile, deteriorating state was identified as the primary security risk in
international relations. Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, this security risk
was integrated in the National Security Strategy of the USA in 2002, and the European
Security Strategy in 2003, as a source of instability that incorporates other forms of
threats such as transnational organized crime and terrorism.3
The issue of fragile states has brought back into focus the state as a key concept
of international relations, which advocates of globalization have tried to relegate to
a lasting framework of modern social life. Nevertheless, the events in Yugoslavia had
shown that state, territory and nation still had value. They were used as instruments
for ethno-mobilization whose ultimate objective would be the creation of new (great)
nationalist states. Their ideologists considered these valid, and highly applicable to and
highly applicable to the statements of Charles Tilly’s note that state is created by war4.
The circumstances under which this concept appeared and developed caused
nation-building to be formed as a political–strategic category, and not simply a
theoretical category, which often led to the terms state-building and nation-building
being used interchangeably in both lay and scholarly debates. This was particularly
2
Hippler, “Violent Conflicts, Conflict Prevention and Nation – building – Terminology and
Political Concepts.”, 5.
3
The National Security Strategy, September 2002. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.
gov/nsc/nss/2002/ (accessed, 10.09.2010); A Secure Europa in a better World.European
Security Strategy, 12.december 2003. www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.
pdf (accessed, 10.09.2010); Along with this treatment of the fragile state as a “new” security
challenge went hand-in-hand with the debate that the misuse of describing a state as ‘fragile’ and
‘deteriorating’ was a possible excuse for their imperialistic democratization.
4
Tilly, Charles. “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime” In Bringing the State
Back In, ed. Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985). 169-187.
24
Sead Turčalo EXTERNAL NATION-BUILDING
the case among American authors who, due to their historical experience of the
emergence and formation of a cultural-historical identity under the influence of
political institutions, considered the development of a state as the development of
nation. In contrast, Europeans differentiated between the development of a nation
and state, considering state-building as a conscious act while nation-building was
seen as an act that was conditioned by the elements of a common belonging.5
The purpose of this chapter is to offer a review of these concepts from the perspective
of external actors. The traditional understanding regarded them as internal processes,
while the modern perception considers them processes of the development of the
institutional capacities of the state and their use for the creation of a national identity,
which in fragile states is conducted by the international community.6
We begin with the thesis that nation-building is an all-encompassing concept
whose key constituent element is state-building, which can only have a stabilizing
effect if the two other elements – the integrative ideology and the integration of
society – are not present.
In political debates about the concept of nation-building, it is generally common
understanding that it is a process which can transform loosely-knit communities
and groups into a cohesive society and a nation-state over a longer period of time
by creating common values and norms which are founded on political, social and
economical development.7
The three elements which constitute and seal the circle of nation-building are
5
Fukuyama, Francis. Izgradnja države. Vlada i svjetski poredak u 21. stoljeću (Zagreb:Izvori,
2005); Dobbins, James et al.The UN’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Congo to Iraq (Santa
Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005); Dobbins, James et al. America’s Role in Nation-Building:
From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2005)Dobbins, James et al. The
Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2007); Dobbins, James
et al. Europe’s Role in Nation-Building: From the Balkans to the Congo (Santa Monica: RAND
Corporation, 2008); Rotberg, I. Robert. “The Failure and Collapse of Nation States: Breakdown,
Prevention and Repair” In When states fail: causes and consequences, ed. Rotberg I. Robert (
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004). 1-50.; Haller, Gret. Granice solidarnosti.
Evropa i SAD u ophođenju sa državom, nacijom i religijom (Sarajevo:Buybook, 2006), 42-59.
6
Dobbins et al., The UN’s Role in Nation-Building, ;Dobbins et al., The Beginner’s Guide to
Nation-Building,
7
Hippler, “Violent Conflicts, Conflict Prevention and Nation – building – Terminology and
Political Concepts.”,6-7. ;Bürger, Alexandra. “Nation – building und State – building. Zur
empirischen Furchtbarkeit eines politischen Ordnungskonzepts“, In Wenn Staaten scheitern.
Theorie und Empirie des Staatszerfalls, ed. Alexander Strassner and Margarete Klein (Wiesbaden:
VS Verlag,2007). 13-30.
25
state or nation?
of crucial importance; these are state-building, the ideology of integration, and
social integration8.
1. The Fragility of the State and State-building
State theory, international law, and the field of international relations
complement one another with regard to the definition of the state. This definition
considers four elements: a (defined) state territory, permanent inhabitants,
sovereign government, and international recognition. However, these minimalist
de jure elements are not sufficient to make a distinction between a stable and
fragile state. We also need to take into consideration the other key functions of a
state: security, welfare and the implementation of the rule of law.9
The establishment of a secure state requires that the government apparatus has
the ability and capacity to be effectively in charge of the entire state territory and
state borders, to control violence, and to ensure that the state security apparatus can
successfully respond to various security threats.10 Essentially a state has to guarantee
internal and external security by filling the power vacuum that appears in the postconflict period.11 The function of providing welfare12 demands state-wide engagement
in various areas of public policies: social, economic, educational, health, environmental,
8
Hippler, “Violent Conflicts, Conflict Prevention and Nation – building – Terminology and
Political Concepts.”, 7-9.
9
Schneckener, Ulrich. “Fragile Staaten als Problem der internationalen Politik,” Nord-Süd
Aktuell, 18 (2004): 510-524.
10
In order to detect a security deficit within a state, it is important to analyze the following
indicators: the level of control of the entire state territory; the level of control of the state
borders; perpetual violent conflicts (separatist, etc.); the number of and political relevance of
non-state forces; the condition of the state security apparatus; the level and growth of the crime
rate; the threat posed to the physical safety of citizens by the government (torture, massacres,
deportations, etc.) (Schneckener, Fragile Staaten als Problem der internationalen Politik, 513).
11
Seidl, Bernhard. “Failing States. Der Kollaps staatlicher Institutionen und sozialer
Regelsysteme” In Prekäre Staatlichkeit und Internationale Ordnung, ed. Stefani Weiss and
Joscha Schmierer (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007).31-52.
12
Schneckener mentions the following indicators for the malfunction of a state: excluding
certain groups in the population from access to economic resources; a continual economic and
monetary crisis; the level of foreign debt; a growing discrepancy between rich and poor; a high
rate of unemployment, or low level of income; the state of human development; the condition
of the state’s system for delivering social security; the condition of infrastructural, educational
and health systems; the presence of considerable environmental problems (Schneckener, Fragile
Staaten als Problem der internationalen Politik,513).
26
Sead Turčalo EXTERNAL NATION-BUILDING
etc.; ensuring that the rule of law13 is not only related to the quality of judicial and
governing bodies but also includes the character of the political establishment, the
decision-making procedures and the form of political participation.14
The existence of these elements represents an ideal concept of statehood, and
deficiencies in any of these can help us to differentiate a stable state from one that
has collapsed. In the case of a partial or complete absence of any of these functions,
a state may be considered fragile. We can talk about the fragility of a state if it does
not have the “political will and/or capacity to provide the basic functions needed
for poverty reduction, development and to safeguard the security and human
rights of their population”,15 and lacks legitimacy among its citizens.16
By assessing the level of fragility we can differentiate four types of states:
consolidated states or those that are in a process of being consolidated, weak
states, failing states, and failed or collapsed states.17
Consolidated states, or those that are in a process of being consolidated, are
those which can adequately maintain security, provide welfare and the rule of law
for a period of time. In this category we can place mainly states that are in the
process of transformation from authoritarianism to democratization, or those
which have successfully completed that process. Although there are some stable
autocratic and theocratic states, we can still consider them consolidated states.18
13
Indicators for the malfunction of the rule of law include: limited political freedom; limited
political participation; the treatment of political opposition; the scope of election irregularities;
the barring of some groups of citizens from participation in the political process; a disregard for
human rights; the acceptance of the regime, or political establishment; the level of independent
jurisdiction; the state of public administration; the level of corruption (Schneckener, Fragile
Staaten als Problem der internationalen Politik, 513-514).
14
15
Schneckener, “Fragile Staaten als Problem der internationalen Politik,” 513-514.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Concepts and Dilemmas of State
Building in Fragile Situations. From Fragility to Resilience (Paris: OECD, 2008), 16.
16
17
USAID, Fragile States Strategy (USAID,2005).
Besides this classification of fragile states, there are also others, so C.T. Call divides fragile
states into weak ones which have a deficiency in control of all or part of the state territory; divided
states in which there is an essential fragmentation of society drawn along ethnic, religious and
other lines; post-war states which have gone through violent conflicts; semi-authoritarian states
which use force to implement decisions, due to a lack of political legitimacy; collapsed states
which do not perform any key function of a state (Call quoted in Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, Concepts and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile Situations.
From Fragility to Resilience,19).
18
Schneckener, “Fragile Staaten als Problem der internationalen Politik,” 514.; Seidl, “Failing
States. Der Kollaps staatlicher Institutionen und sozialer Regelsysteme,” 40.
27
state or nation?
Weak states show many shortcomings in the area of welfare and the rule
of law, while to a great extent they are unable to guarantee security and
maintain a monopoly of power. According to some authors, the initial indicator
of the weakening of a state is corruption. Corruption creates room for the
fragmentation of society which, in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies,
is often used by the corrupt political elite to create tensions between different
ethnic, religious, linguistic and other groups, with a great risk of future conflict.19
The corruption of the ruling elite and the fragmentation of society causes a
dysfunction of the state and, as a rule, causes the creation of parallel institutions
of power, which can ultimately lead to the state’s implosion. Authoritarian and
semi-authoritarian regimes which lack legitimacy can be categorized as such
states. Nevertheless, if they show deficits in the implementation of the rule of
law and provision of welfare for their citizens, some democratic states can also
fall within this category.
The distinction between a weak and a failing state is often unclear, for
existing tensions can often develop into violence which is then privatized, with
an increase in the number of non-state actors who possess a monopoly of power.
Under such conditions states encounter difficulties in guaranteeing security
within their entire territory. Some formally democratic states and various kinds
of authoritarian states fall into this category, where the monopoly of power is
taken over by organized criminal groups, terrorist organizations or separatist
movements.
We can talk about a failed state if it lacks the capacity and ability to fulfil any
one of the three functions of a state. The internal order of such a state is based
upon and is created by the violence of non-state actors; the state monopoly of
power has completely collapsed and therefore, in the literature, such entities are
known as collapsed states. Besides the collapse of the state apparatus there is also
the disintegration of society, which is the primary generator of cohesion. Thus the
state “… can no longer create, integrate and articulate the supports and demands
that are the foundations of the state.”20
Despite the aforementioned categorization of fragile states, it is very hard
to draw a clear line between a weak, failing and collapsed state, since here we
are dealing with unstable boundaries which often change due to internal state
19
Rotberg, “The Failure and Collapse of Nation States: Breakdown, Prevention and Repair,” 4.;
Troy, Jodok, Staatszerfall (Wien: LIT Verlag, 2007), 37.
20
Zartmann, I. William, “Introduction: Posing the Problem of State Collapse” In Collapsed
states: the disintegration and restoration of legitimate authority ed. Zartmann I. William
(Boulder/London: Lynne Rienner Publisher,1995), 6.
28
Sead Turčalo EXTERNAL NATION-BUILDING
processes and external political influence. In defining the degree of fragility we
often use various indicators. The number of fragile states in the world varies
depends upon the institution or author which is investigating the phenomenon.21
A deficient approach to the classification of a state as a fragile one often prevents
the development of adequate strategies to solve this problem, and there is a failure
to recognize the point at which the international community can use state-building
as a preventive measure.
2. The Phases and Strategies of State-building
Depending on where we place a state on the scale from a weak to a collapsed
one, it is possible to identify three phases of state-building. The first phase is
related to the post-conflict stabilization of existing structures and institutions,
after which we then enter a phase of reformation and transformation of these
institutions and the creation of new ones. The goal of the second phase,
which is the most demanding and longest, is to make state institutions selfsufficient, especially those that can survive the withdrawal of foreign help.22
To a large extent, the third phase overlaps with the tasks of the second phase,
and it involves the development of institutions and structures which did not
previously exist23.
In the realization of the certain phases of external state-building, we encounter
problems among international organizations and various divisions within the
international community (the USA and the EU) “…which explicitly or implicitly
follow different statebuilding strategies…”24. This often leads to the collapse of
various measures and strategies and prevents international actors from carrying
out comprehensive and concerted activities.25
Scholarly literature identifies several different strategies of state-building,
21
There are several indexes which evaluate the level of a state’s successfulness. Some of the
most wellknown are Failed State Index (Foreign Policy/The Fund for Peace), Bartelsman
Transformation Index and Governance Indicator (World Bank), etc.
22
23
Fukuyama, Izgradnja države. Vlada i svjetski poredak u 21. stoljeću,120.
Ibid; Schneckener, Ulrich. Internationales Statebuilding: Dilemmata, Strategien und
Anforderungen an die deutsche Politik (Berlin: SWP, 2007), 9. available at www.swp-berlin.org
24
25
Ibid,15.
Concerning some elements of disagreement about the realization of external state-building
and the role of OHR as a body which implements international activities in building a state,
see the chapter “The shifting contours of international state-building practices in Bosnia and
Herzegovina” of this publication.
29
state or nation?
and among them are four prominent ones. They are: security first, liberalization
first, institutionalization first and civil society first.26 In failed or collapsed
states which have experienced various forms of violence, the international
community applies the strategies of security and liberalization. The strategy of
security is founded on the (neo)realistic theory of international relations which
gives precedence to security as a key interest, and whose reconstruction or
construction must ensure the survival of the state.27 The primary task of external
actors in the construction of the state, and in accordance with the propositions
of the security first approach, is the establishment of security together with
state monopoly of power28. The external actors begin with the premise that a
democratically-controlled, transparent and effective security apparatus should
reduce the possibility of an outbreak or resumption of violent conflict. The key
goal of security sector reform is to transform the security infrastructure of the
state in accordance with those standards demanded by external actors. The
problem that occurs during the process of defining a strategy is determining
the elements and actors that are part of the security apparatus. If, as actors,
we only consider the security elements of states or quasi-states, and security is
reduced to basic physical security, the result may be an inadequately developed
and realized strategy which does not clearly address the questions of the initial
goal of democratic control. On the other hand, a strategy that is set too broadly
and which includes all aspects of security, leads to a program which lacks focus
as well as failure to realize this approach. One of the causes of failure of the
security first approach often lies in the fact that the international community,
by combining liberalization and security strategies, makes liberalization the
primary strategy while security is treated as a secondary one.
Giving priority to liberalization over security is a result of the conviction
that the promotion of political and economic freedom is a guarantee of
peace and stability which is closely connected to the theory of democratic
26
Schneckener, Internationales Statebuilding: Dilemmata, Strategien und Anforderungen an
die deutsche Politik, 15-20; Paris, Roland. At War‘s End. Building Peace After Civil Conflict
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 179-211.; Somit Albert and Steven A.
Peterson. The Failure of Democratic Nation Building (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005);
Klotzle, Kurt, „Internationale Strategien gegenüber prekären Staaten: eine Erweiterung des
Instrumentenbaukastens?“ In Prekäre Staatlichkeit und Internationale Ordnung, ed. Stefani
Weiss and Joscha Schmierer (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007).428-454.
27
Schörnig, Niklas. „Neorealismus“, In Theorien der Internationalen Beziehungen ed. Schieder
Siegfried and Manuela Spindler (Opladen & Farmington Hills, Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2006).
28
Schneckener, Internationales Statebuilding: Dilemmata, Strategien und Anforderungen an
die deutsche Politik, 16.
30
Sead Turčalo EXTERNAL NATION-BUILDING
peace.29 From the perspective of this strategy, the key shortcomings of fragile
states are non-transparency and the impossibility of developing democratic
market structures30, which, in the opinion of its proponents, inevitably have
a pacifying effect on the states that have experienced or are under the threat
of violent conflict. In fragile post-conflict states, during the conflict and
immediately following it, the ruling elite systematically excludes the majority
of citizens from the decision-making process and are oriented towards the
demands of the social groups that support them. In this way, an authority
which is ethnically, religiously, linguistically and culturally exclusive is
consolidated, which in turn ensures the polarization of society. For this
reason, the liberalization strategy demands the transformation of a fragile
state into a democracy based on a free market, through which citizens are
able to become significant actors in the market and the country’s political
sovereignty. Advocates of this strategy see free multi-party elections as the
solution for a fragile state, as well as the deregulation of the market and
the privatization of state companies31. However these advocates neglect the
strategy’s shortcomings, which can be found in a lack of civil society or the
existence of a so-called “bad civil society”32. Such a civil society does not have
the capacity to counterbalance the ruling elite, nor to build social networks
which could transcend divisions within society. Roland Paris mentions that
the “shortcomings” of this approach include the danger that the political elite
could transform elections into a form of destructive competition which would
then polarize the electorate. Under such conditions, the chosen leaders would
sabotage the state-building processes in order to remain in power for a long
period of time. 33 At the same time, economic liberalization which is achieved
through a prompt deregulation of the market and privatization opens up an
opportunity for the economic and political elite to merge and increase their
29
Doyle Michael, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs” Philosophy and Public
Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Autumn), pp. 323-353; Hasenclever, Andreas. Liberale Ansätze zum
“demokratischen Frieden” In Theorien der Internationalen Beziehungen ed. Schieder Siegfried
and Manuela Spindler (Opladen & Farmington Hills, Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2006); Paris, At
War’s End. Building Peace After Civil Conflict.
30
Schneckener, Internationales Statebuilding: Dilemmata, Strategien und Anforderungen an
die deutsche Politik, 5.
31
For more on the consequences of such an approach in Bosnia-Herzegovina, see: Belloni,
Roberto. State building and international intervention in Bosnia (London/New York: Routledge,
2007); Donais, Timothy. The political economy of peacebuilding in post-Dayton Bosnia (London/
New York: Routledge, 2005).
32
33
Paris, At War’s End. Building Peace After Civil Conflict, 160.
Ibid, 159.
31
state or nation?
influence in social life, and brings about further fragmentation of society by
increasing the gap between rich and poor. Under such conditions, the fact
that citizens choose “their own” political group is by no means an indication
of an underdeveloped political culture or democratic immaturity but, rather,
it can be considered a rational act, for their very economic survival depends
on the economic and political powers.34 Research has shown that this strategy
can lead to the failure of a peace process due to the fact that states which are
undergoing a transitional period, and especially ones that have experienced
armed conflict, are prone to regressing to violence. This is because the ruling
elite in transitional countries usually use nationalism and fear of “the other”
in order to promote and fulfill their political and economic objectives.35
Roland Paris believes that premature political and economic liberalization in
post-conflict countries usually results in a weak government based on power
sharing, since it does not possess the political institutions to deal with the
destabilizing effects of liberalization36.
For this reason Roland Paris37 prefers the solution offered in the strategy of
institutionalization, since it integrates the elements of the two aforementioned
strategies. The objective of this strategy is the reformation, strengthening and
creation of new legitimate institutions, beginning with the premise that in the longterm they could bring about change in the behavior of actors, give support to the
collective process of learning and in such a way achieve long-term social effects that
are useful to the authorities and the reputation of the country.38 The institutional
strategy provides the international community with a top-down approach which
includes the creation of an executive, legislative and judicial apparatus, and enables
the development and strengthening of the functions of security, welfare and the
rule of law. However, such a top-down elitist conceptualization enables the ruling
elite, by accepting the establishment of institutions, to represent themselves to the
international actors as powerful allies in order to come to power. Simultaneously,
the newly-formed or reformed institutions remain empty shells which are powerless
to bring about or implement any decisions which could, over a period of time, result
in the citizens’ total lack of trust in these institutions and the international strategy
of institutionalization. Consequently, there appears to be a need to adopt a bottom34
Ehrke, Michael. „Von der Raubökonomie zur Rentenökonomie. Mafia, Bürokratie und
Internationales Mandat in Bosnien“, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, ( 2/2003): 123 – 154.
35
Mansfield D. Edward and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and War” Foreign Affairs 74 (May/
June 1995): 79 – 97.
36
37
38
Paris, At War’s End. Building Peace After Civil Conflict, pp. 173-174.
Ibid,pp. 187-188.
Fukuyama, Izgradnja države. Vlada i svjetski poredak u 21. stoljeću,17.
32
Sead Turčalo EXTERNAL NATION-BUILDING
up approach for building institutions by using the civil society first strategy, which is
based on the conviction that institutions must be founded from within the society.39.
Since this assumes the existence of a political culture, values and norms that are
valid for the majority of citizens in ethnically-fragmented societies, this often brings
about insurmountable differences and the formation of ethnically-defined civil
societies which have a counter-effect on the processes of nation-bulding.40
3. Integrative Ideology and the Integration of Society
The discussion of various strategies of state-building raises questions about
the feasibility of their implementation, especially in the case where, within certain
geographical areas with permanent residents and international recognition, the
idea of a state does not exist. Therefore, how can one implement the idea of a state
if the state does not even exist?
The optimal solution which is offered by traditionalists is building up the idea
of a state and national identity based on ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic
singularity. However, within the diverse social milieu where various ethnic,
religious and other groups must co-exist, the answer, according to several authors,
lies in organized ideology. This is a combination of various ideo-political and
cultural strategies which should define rules for the relations between the ruling
elite and citizens while reconstructing society and policies which will enable the
creation of the final product – a nation.41
Essentially, the creation of the idea of a state is an internal elitist undertaking
which should offer citizens an acceptable conceptualization of a state and its unique
identity. In this context, it is of primary importance that citizens accept the idea
of a state as a framework which could guarantee them welfare, security, a peaceful
future and the equal distribution of all varieties of goods among the different ethnic,
religious and other groups.42 In this case, such a nation-state is used as an inclusive
39
Schneckener, Internationales Statebuilding: Dilemmata, Strategien und Anforderungen an
die deutsche Politik,19.
40
The quoted text in this collection talks more about the application and the degree of success
with this strategy by the international community in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
41
Buzan, Barry. People, States, and Fear: The National Security Problem in International
Relations (Brighton/ Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1983); Hippler, “Violent Conflicts, Conflict
Prevention and Nation – building – Terminology and Political Concepts.”
42
Derichs, Claudia. “Shaping the Nation – Ideological Aspects of Nation – building” In Nation
– building. A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation?, ed. Jochen Hippler (London:
Pluto Press,2005).42-56
33
state or nation?
term which emphasizes the importance of the citizens’ awareness of and loyalty to
the state, which is especially significant in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural states in
which there is a need to conceal differences between nationality and citizenship,
suggesting that the nation could be multi-religious, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, etc.43
To that end, there is a need for the continuous development of rhetoric about the
state to be carried out via school programs, cultural and artistic manifestations
as strategic elements in forming an organized ideology and the simultaneous
integration of society based on values and moral responsibility.
This type of approach is possible if the ruling elite have a minimal consensus with
regard to the norms and values that could be treated as a framework of reference for
the identification of the citizens with the state and thus giving legitimacy to the state.
On the other hand, in states in which conflict has created deep divisions within
society and where, in order to keep power, the elite insist on ethno-nationalism as
a prism through which social events are observed, it is impossible to expect that
ruling structures will be those that espouse an integrative ideology. Under such
circumstances, as a temporary promoter of integrative ideology, it is inevitable
that international actors appear on the scene and that their primary task is to
form and strengthen the idea of the state by deconstructing formal and informal
institutions which are the products of ethno-nationalism. The lack of recognition
of this momentum, and the unwillingness of external actors to assume their role
in nation building, enables the ruling elite to perpetuate a discriminatory division
of power and territorial arrangements which enable the creation of a political
hegemony of a certain ethnic group over all or part of the state for the sake of
consolidating its own political and economic power.
Under such conditions, the aforementioned strategies of liberalization and
institutionalization generate practices which promote ethnic discrimination and which
assist with the narration of rights and the moral and cultural superiority of a certain
ethnic group. In this way, the final positioning of an integrative ideology44 is prevented,
as is the implementation of the vertical and horizontal legitimacy of the state. This
absence of vertical and horizontal legitimacy, as a result of the instrumentalization of
ethno-nationalism by the ruling elite in order to maintain power, opens the bottom–
43
Hejvud, Endru (Haywood Andrew). Političke ideologije, (Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike i
nastavna sredstva, 2005) 170.
44
Integrative ideology does not necessarily have to be national, for it can also serve other
values and concepts if identity which enable nation-building and temporarily or permanently
serve as a substitute for national ideology. Examples of this are secular ideology or the use
of religion as a substitute for ideology (Hippler, Violent Conflicts, Conflict Prevention and
Nation-Building - Terminology and Political Concepts, 8).
34
Sead Turčalo EXTERNAL NATION-BUILDING
up process of the disintegration of the state which the takes the very project of nationbuilding back to the initial phase, which is mere stabilizing state-building.
Conclusion
The success of external nation-building is conditioned by a succession of factors
which initially demand from the international actors that the process be defined
as 1) long-term and complex, and 2) with the potential for further crises and
the dangers of renewed conflict. Since it is being conducted by the international
community, which consists of a myriad of institutions, its acting power is not very
effective in post-conflict states.
Initially, international actors need to define a clear strategy which must take
into account the fact that there cannot be a perfect model for nation-building and
that experiences of forming a nation-state, which key actors of the international
community (the USA and “old” Europe) already have, are not easily transferable to
fragile states, nor should they expect that the “western” experience of democracy will
immediately transform such states into consolidated socio-political communities.
While choosing the strategy of state-building as a constituent element of nationbuilding, it is necessary to employ a variety of concepts with a balanced use of overambitious approaches that are the main characteristics of the liberalization first and
civil society first strategies. An exclusive application of these two strategies requires
a deep incision into a social body which is very sensitive in fragile states, and can
produce conflicts and widen the existing gaps among conflicting social groups.
During the process of nation-building external actors should not consider the
actual value of the “stabilization” of the fragile country as a reference point for
their engagement, and they should reject the opinion that the formation of the
organizational ideology and integration of the society is the exclusive task of the
local elite who, as a rule, use just such an approach by the international actors in
order to freeze the very process of nation-building.
The experience that Bosnia-Herzegovina has had with external nationbuilding, as presented in the works of other authors in this collection, shows that
the partiality of this approach, which in Bosnia-Herzegovina has been reduced
to a stabilizing form of state-building, has resulted in the formation of empty
institutional forms which, according to Roland Paris, are unable to process any
social input to become a form of authoritative output45.
45
Paris, At War’s End. Building Peace After Civil Conflict, 173.
35
state or nation?
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Etzioni Amitai. Security First. For Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy. New Haven/ London:
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38
The Shifting Contours
of International
State-building
Practices in Bosnia
and Herzegovina
Mateja Peter
Introduction
State-building ­– creation of new governance institutions and/or the strengthening of existing ones with an aim to provide citizens with physical and economic security – has been recognized by both practitioners and scholars as one of the main
concerns faced by the international community today.1 Third-party (exogenous)
state-building, as opposed to indigenous (endogenous) state-building, is a relatively
recent practice in international relations, but has been on the rise since the end of
the Cold War.2 A decade and a half of the international community’s involvement in
the post-conflict politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) shows a varied and complex picture of state-building policies as envisaged by the outsiders for this country.
This contribution outlines the broad strokes of this process. While the rest of the
book concerns itself mainly with domestic conceptions of state and nation, this piece
1
cf. Chandler, David, Empire in denial: the politics of state-building (London: Pluto, 2006);
Fukuyama, Francis, “The imperative of state-building,” Journal of Democracy 15, no. 2 (2004);
Paris, Roland and Timothy D. Sisk, The dilemmas of statebuilding: Confronting the contradictions of postwar peace operations (New York: Routledge, 2009).
2
For a good overview of third-party state-building see for instance Caplan, Richard D.,
International governance of war-torn territories: rule and reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005); Wilde, Ralph, The Administration of Territory by International
Organizations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
39
state or nation?
is concerned with international aspects. This kind of focus is crucial for properly
comprehending BiH politics, considering the significant role the international community occupies in it. Local understandings of what a state and what its role is are
formed in a co-constitutive process with international ones. For proper insight into
developments in post-Dayton3 Bosnia and Herzegovina it is therefore imperative to
study both sides of the coin.
This contribution examines what role the international community has
envisaged for itself in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I attempt to answer to what
extent internationals saw state-building as an exogenous and to what extent as an
endogenous process and what were the policy areas that internationals thought
had to be addressed/resolved by them before leaving the country in the hands
of its people. The argument this contribution advances is that the international
community came in with a poorly planned strategy. The policy objective was
‘peace’ or ‘ending a war’, but as Goodhand succinctly points out, this kind of a
broad objective is not enough for a sustainable state as it does not involve the
transformation of the institutions, networks and incentive systems – regionally,
nationally and locally – which caused and perpetuate the conflict system.4 This
was the reality that the internationals were faced with quite quickly. The statebuilding policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina therefore developed on the ground
as a response to local emergencies, without clear advance planning and without
comprehensively addressing the complexities of the situation. Poor planning
and an increasingly complex situation resulted in the international community
gradually expanding its own policy priorities. This mission creep, as it is often
referred to in the literature, tends to be portrayed as something that developed
at an intergovernmental level, among countries involved in the state-building
process. What I argue in this contribution is that the inflation of goals in Bosnia
and Herzegovina occurred both at an intergovernmental level and as a result of
successive High Representatives having new approaches to state-building.
This contribution therefore analyses the international conceptions of statebuilding with a focus on individual High Representatives and their understanding
of the priorities of the international community. Turning our attention to a different
level of analysis provides us new perspective on the developments in international
3
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, initialled in Dayton,
Ohio on 21 November 1995, signed in Paris on 14 December 1995 (Dayton Peace Agreement,
Dayton Accords).
4
Goodhand, Jonathan, “Aiding violence or building peace? The role of international aid in
Afghanistan,” Third World Quarterly 23, no. 5 (2002): 839.
40
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
politics and helps us answer a new set of questions.5 The focus of analysis in this
contribution is therefore on successive High Representatives (HiRep), the highest
civilian authority in the country, and their relationship with institution’s advisory
body – the Peace Implementation Council (PIC). This analysis of their statebuilding views is organised chronologically, so that trends can be discerned.
1. Dayton and the International State-building
Throughout the period leading up to the Dayton proximity talks as well as
during the negotiations themselves the post-war state-building efforts received
only cursory attention. The military ceasefire and territorial settlement were at
the forefront of all discussions and civilian implementation was sidelined. Russia
and local actors were more concerned with military aspects of the settlement and
stayed away from the discussion over the international civilian administration and
its authority and role in post-Dayton state-building.6 Disagreements over the level
of involvement in state-building efforts were mainly between European Union
(EU) representatives and the United States (US).
There were three main contentions between trans-Atlantic partners over
the future state-building effort in Bosnia and Herzegovina: firstly, regarding the
powers of the highest civilian implementer; secondly, over the relation of the BiH
mission with the UN; thirdly, over the relationship between the military and the
civilian part of the implementation effort.
The question of what the powers of the highest civilian implementer of the
Dayton Peace Agreement would prove to be one of the most contentious in
planning the international involvement in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Given
that European countries were to finance the bulk of the reconstruction efforts,
the EU negotiators got a clear instruction from the EU Council of Ministers that
Carl Bildt, a Swedish diplomat that served as a Co-Chairman of the Dayton Peace
Conference, should be appointed as the High Representative.7 Once the chief US
negotiator Richard Holbrooke acquiesced to a European taking the post, the US
5
cf. Rosenau, James N., The scientific study of foreign policy (London: Pinter, 1980), ch. 6; Russell,
Bruce, Harvey Starr, and David Kinsella, World Politics: The Menu for Choice, 9th ed. (Belmont,
California: Wadsworth Publishing, 2009), 15.
6
Goodby, James E., Europe undivided: The new logic of peace in US-Russian relations
(Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999), 126-8; Bildt, Carl, Peace journey:
The struggle for peace in Bosnia (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1999), 108-9.
7
Neville-Jones, Pauline, “Dayton, IFOR and alliance relations in Bosnia,” Survival 38, no. 4
(1996): 50, 53.
41
state or nation?
insisted on granting as little authority to this institution as possible.8
Another disagreement was over the role the United Nations (UN) would play
in the post-conflict reconstruction. Even at early stages of planning the US insisted
that the UN could not hold a leading role in either the civilian or military part of
the operation.9 While the European partners wanted a stronger role for the UN
Security Council, neither side insisted on a central role of the UN Secretariat.
A major point of contention was the relationship between the military and the
civilian parts of the implementation efforts. The US position was that the military
part of the operation was to be under sole command of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), entirely separate, and certainly not subordinate to, the civilian administration. Suggestions for some kind of a political control over the
military operation were emanating most strongly from France, but were thwarted
at Dayton.10
At this early stage we can already see two diverging views of international statebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While the US wanted a quick military stabilisation mission with minimum civilian, i.e. state-building effort, the Europeans wanted
to strengthen the political-civilian component. Several of my interviewees contended that this position merely reflected the strengths each side perceived it had.11
The final agreement was aligned more closely to the US wish to assign the central
political figure, the HiRep, a coordinating rather than a directing role. Military and
civilian components were separated and the UN gained a relatively peripheral role.
The agreement nevertheless allowed some room for European wider endeavours.
Despite not being the main issue of the discussions for a long time, the civilian
annexes ended up comprising five-sixths of the Dayton Agreement. They included
provisions for a wide range of activities in which a considerable number of international organizations and agencies were called upon to assist. At the centre of
international efforts was the institution of the High Representative, who was to
8
Holbrooke, Richard, To end a war: Sarajevo to Dayton: An inside story (New York: Random
House, 1999), 209; Daalder, Ivo H., Getting to Dayton: The making of America’s Bosnia policy
(Washington: Brookings Institute Press, 2000), 157.
9
Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The making of America’s Bosnia policy, 153-4; Neville-Jones,
“Dayton, IFOR and alliance relations in Bosnia,” 51.
10
Holbrooke, To end a war: Sarajevo to Dayton: An inside story, 276; Daalder, Getting to Dayton: the
making of America’s Bosnia policy, 154; Bildt, Peace journey: The struggle for peace in Bosnia, 131.
11
The context of this contribution is informed by personal interviews conducted in Bosnia and
Herzegovina and countries involved in international administration. Due to the sensitivity of
the topic, most of the interviews were conducted in confidentiality.
42
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
“facilitate the Parties’ own efforts and to mobilize and, as appropriate, coordinate
the activities of the organizations and agencies involved in the civilian aspects of
the peace settlement”.12 The Dayton Peace Agreement also made the HiRep “the
final authority in theatre regarding interpretation of this [Dayton] Agreement on
the civilian implementation of the peace settlement”13. This, in essence, gave the
HiRep the ability to interpret its own powers. The British negotiator at Dayton,
Pauline Neville-Jones, later described this provision as a key victory, because it
would allow Europeans to allocate the institution more power if needed.14
The Dayton Peace Agreement also did not resolve the issue of to whom the
High Representative would be accountable. There is only a brief mention that the
appointment was to be consistent with relevant UN Security Council resolutions.15
Because the US was opposed to a greater UN involvement, the London Peace Implementation Conference, organised a week before the signing of the Dayton Accords, provided for alternative structures. The international community agreed to
set up the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), that was to “review progress in
peace implementation” and the PIC Steering Board composed of the key donors
(Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, United States,
the Presidency of the EU, the European Commission and Turkey). The Steering
Board was to have a greater role and provide “political guidance on peace implantation” to the HiRep on a regular basis.16
2. Dayton in Practice
The immediate period after the signing of the Dayton Agreement was marked
with attempts to normalize the situation in the country by ensuring compliance
with military provisions, releasing prisoners of war and ensuring that refugees and
displaced persons have a right to return so that reconstruction could take place.
The initial priority for the civilian part of the agreement was to hold free and fair
elections that would allow BiH to transition from an internationally supervised
territory to a self-governing democracy. The expectation was that the country
12
13
14
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Annex 10, Art. I. 2.
Ibid., Annex 10, Art. V.
Neville-Jones, Pauline, “Rethinking the Dissolution of Yugoslavia, keynote conference speech,
Senate House, Centre for South-East European Studies, School of Slavonic and East European
Studies/University College London, 18 June,” (2004).
15
16
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Annex 10, Art. I. 2.
Conclusions of the Peace Implementation Conference held at Lancaster House, London, 8
December 1995, Art. 21.
43
state or nation?
would then be able to assume responsibility for its future, that the Office of the
High Representative (OHR) would be dismantled and that state-building would
be externally supported but endogenously driven.
The Dayton Agreement entrusted the task of preparing the elections to the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).17 It specified
a very clear schedule for elections and assigned the OSCE to coordinate the
elections closely with the HiRep. All reports of the High Representative to the
relevant bodies in a period leading up to the elections stressed the holding
of democratic elections as a central element of the Peace Agreement.18 In the
conclusions of the PIC meeting in Florence June 1996, the Council noted that in
“the coming period, civilian implementation will involve a wide range of tasks in
which the High Representative will be called upon to play a central role.”19 Yet, t­he
expectation was that after the elections Bosnian officials would take the lead in the
state-building efforts and the HiRep would only assist them. The internationally
supervised transition was planned to end with the elections to state and entity
bodies in September 1996. However, in the run-up to the elections, as it became
clearer that the three main nationalistic parties would secure a clear electoral
victory, the international community started downplaying the importance of the
elections.20 Although the elections were internationally supervised and ratified,
the transitional international administration was prolonged for a further two year
‘consolidation period’.21 While an extended engagement in the country had not
been the plan of the drafters of the Dayton Agreement, the document itself did
not specify any time-frames for international community’s exit from Bosnia and
Herzegovina and so the extension of the mandate was interpreted as falling within
the scope of the Agreement.
After substantial delays in setting up the common institutions of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, especially the Council of Ministers, the first HiRep, Carl Bildt,
convinced the international community that there was a need to become more
proactive in their state-building efforts. While triggered by local implementation
17
18
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Annex 3.
E.g,. Bildt, Carl, “First Report of the High Representative to the United Nations Secretary
General, 14 March,” (1996); “Report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations On
Compliance with the Peace Agreement, 23 March,” (1996).
19
20
PIC Main Meeting, “Florence: Chairman’s Conclusions, 13 June,” (1996).
Chandler, David, “State-building in Bosnia: The Limits of Informal Trusteeship,” International
Journal of Peace Studies 11, no. 1 (2006).
21
PIC Steering Board Ministerial Meeting, “Paris: Conclusions, Guiding Principles of the
Civilian Consolidation Plan, 14 November,” (1996).
44
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
failures, this change could only occur in the light of a new thinking in Washington.
This created the possibility of an enhanced and longer civilian engagement, which
the Europeans were advocating at Dayton.
The Paris Ministerial Meeting of the PIC Steering Board in November 1996
already indicated an international intention to reinforce the position of the
HiRep vis-à-vis domestic institutions.22 The final policy change was confirmed at
the PIC conference in London in December 1996. The decision-making powers
slowly started shifting from the domestic institutions to international actors.
London conclusions approved the HiRep’s Action Plan for the coming year. The
plan mapped out a wider range of efforts that focused on institution building and
future elections, instead of an endorsement of the elections that just took place.
The PIC also confirmed the continuation of the HiRep mandate, with “reinforced
co-ordination structures, including in the field of reconstruction”.23
By the beginning of 1997 Bildt had decided he would step down as the HiRep
by the following summer. This decision was not surprising considering that most
other comparable positions in BiH had seen two or three people holding them in
the same period. His final discussions with the PIC Steering Board were based
around the question of how ambitious the international community in Bosnia and
Herzegovina should be. The main dilemma was how to balance between tendencies
to set up a semi-protectorate and acceptance of local deals, which might not
always be to the liking of internationals.24 At his last meeting as the HiRep, he
presented a draft of proposals for the extension of powers to the position of the
HiRep as well as a limited set of concrete demands on the BiH authorities, coupled
with sanctions if these were not met. This text was then adopted at a PIC Steering
Board meeting in Sintra in May 1997. A year and a half after the signing of the
Dayton Accords, all key international actors were in concord regarding the need
for a broader engagement in Bosnia and Herzegovina and a strengthened civilian
administration able to enforce a wider set of state-building goals.
At a meeting in Sintra in May 1997, the PIC Steering Board nominated a Spanish
diplomat, Carlos Westendorp, to serve as the new HiRep.25 At the same meeting,
the Steering Board countries announced a new set of provisions that allowed the
22
23
Ibid., Art. 6.
PIC Main Meeting, “London: Bosnia and Herzegovina 1997, Making Peace Work, 5
December,” (1996), Art. 8.
24
25
Bildt, Peace journey: The struggle for peace in Bosnia, 343.
PIC Steering Board Ministerial Meeting, “Sintra: Political Declaration, Communiqué, 30
May,” (1997), Art. 90.
45
state or nation?
HiRep to ensure better co-operation of local parties. The HiRep was charged with
pursuing deadlines adopted by the Steering Board and take measures in cases of
non-compliance, i.e. introduce visa restrictions for travel abroad for obstructive
politicians,26 suggest the denial of economic assistance to those municipalities
which continued to tolerate indicted persons in public offices27 and suspend
media networks whose output contravened the spirit or letter of the Dayton Peace
Agreement.28
Not only on paper, but also in practice, the HiRep and the PIC were gaining more
power vis-à-vis local parties. The lengthy discussions in Bosnian state institutions
were seen as an unnecessary delay in policy implementation and the institutions
were judged by the HiRep as being “painfully cumbersome and ineffective.”29 At a
meeting in November 1997 the PIC Steering Board concluded that those in the
common institutions who constantly block progress should be replaced,30 but no
mechanism for this was provided at that point.
In December 1997 the PIC held a conference in Bonn at which it granted itself
and the HiRep an indefinite mandate, a move that was not only legally dubious
but also a little surprising given that the ‘consolidation period’ for which the
international administration had the mandate was only half way through. The PIC
also substantially increased the powers of the HiRep despite previous suggestions
that the international community would gradually give greater responsibility for
state-building to the authorities in BiH. The Bonn Conclusions enabled the HiRep
to pass binding interim legislation, which would remain in force until Bosnian
institutions reached an agreement on it.31 The so-called Bonn powers also gave the
HiRep the power to dismiss public officials who were obstructing the peace process.32
This decision lay at the complete discretion of the HiRep and no appeal process was
established. While these extensions generated a lot of controversy, the PIC and its
Steering Board interpreted them as being granted in the Dayton Accords.
Less than a week after the Bonn PIC meeting HiRep Westendorp passed his
26
27
28
29
30
Ibid., Art. 35.
Ibid., Art. 36.
Ibid., Art. 70.
OHR, “Office of the High Representative Bulletin, No. 62, 11 October,” (1997).
PIC Steering Board and Presidency and the COM Chairs, “Sarajevo: Joint Statement, 6
November,” (1997), Art. 3.
31
PIC Main Meeting, “Bonn: Bosnia and Herzegovina 1998: Self-sustaining Structures, 10
December,” (1997), Part XI. High Representative, Art. 2. b.
32
Ibid., Art. 2. c.
46
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
first binding decision imposing the Law on Citizenship of BiH33 and continued
by passing 23 other interim legislations and enforcing six dismissals from public
office in 1998. The bulk of difficult and controversial legislative work was slowly
shifting away from the elected Bosnian politicians to international administration.
In contrast to the elections in 1996, the international community exhibited less
hope and more caution for the general elections in September 1998.34 Caplan even
argues that the international community’s backing of reformist candidates in 1998
seems to have contributed to their defeat as voters resented the interventionist
politics.35 After the elections, the international community stressed the importance
of the electoral process but saw it only as an exercise in democracy and strongly
reaffirmed its support for the HiRep’s Bonn powers.36
In this early period the international community realized that its initial plan
of a quick stabilisation and exit was not working; the country was still extremely
fragile. Quite early on the scholarly community came to agree with practitioners
on the ground that elections were organised prematurely and that the focus
of international state-building efforts should have been the strengthening of
institution.37 As the state, entity and cantonal institutions were now occupied with
nationalist politicians unwilling to cooperate with each other and often at odds
with the international community, the HiRep’s attempts to negotiate and look
for consensus were failing. What took place instead was substantial institutional
replacement. The High Representative took it upon himself to provide the citizens
of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the basic contours of a functioning state. Among
33
Westendorp, Carlos, “Decision Imposing the Law on Citizenship of BiH, 16 December,”
(1997).
34
cf. International Crisis Group, “Doing Democracy a Disservice: 1998 Elections in Bosnia and
Herzegovina,” in Europe Report No. 42 (1998).
35
Caplan, Richard D., “International authority and state building: The case of Bosnia and
Herzegovina,” Global Governance 10, no. 1 (2004): 39.
36
37
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Meeting, 6 October,” (1998).
McMahon, Patrice C., “Rebuilding Bosnia: A Model to Emulate or to Avoid?,” Political Science
Quarterly 119, no. 4 (2004): 580; Krasner, Stephen D., “Sharing sovereignty: New institutions for
collapsed and failing states,” International Security 29, no. 2 (2004); Chesterman, Simon, You,
the people: the United Nations, transitional administration, and state-building (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005); Fearon, James D. and David D. Laitin, “Neotrusteeship and the problem
of weak states,” International Security 28, no. 4 (2004); Sharp, Jane M. O., “Dayton report card,”
International Security 22, no. 3 (1997): 114; Cousens, Elizabeth M., “From Missed Opportunities
to Overcompensation: Implementing the Dayton Agreement on Bosnia,” in Ending Civil Wars:
The Implementation of Peace Agreements. , ed. Stephen John Stedman, Donald Rothchild, and
Elizabeth M. Cousens (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 2002); Paris, Roland, At war’s end:
Building peace after civil conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
47
state or nation?
others, the 1998 interim laws imposed the flag of BiH, the design of bank notes
and the coat of arms and uniform licence plate system.38 All these decisions were
to strengthen and confirm the international community’s commitment to keeping
Bosnia and Herzegovina as a unified state.
3. Expanding International Priorities
At the end of July 1999 Wolfgang Petritsch replaced Westendorp as the new
High Representative. Petritsch argued for a thorough overhaul of international
community’s engagement in BiH (Solioz and Petritsch 2003:358). His plan was to
minimise the use of Bonn powers to critical matters. For this purpose he presented
the concept of ownership as his guiding principle. The concept meant that the
people of Bosnia and Herzegovina were becoming the owners of their progress
in the implementation of the Dayton Accords and the eventual entry of BiH in
the European institutions.39 This policy shifted the responsibility for progress, and
the eventual blame for the lack thereof, to the local population and politicians.
The High Representative and the international community were to remain as the
guarantors of the Dayton Peace Agreement but state-building would have to be
driven from within. In practice little changed; if anything, the interventions by the
HiRep intensified and diversified. Petritsch later on justified acting as the most
interventionist HiRep to date by explaining that he needed to lay solid foundations
to create the conditions for ownership to take root.40
By the end of 1999 the new HiRep removed from their positions 23 public
officials, almost twice as many as Westendorp in a year and a half since the HiRep
gained enhanced powers in Bonn. Moreover, Petritsch also began removing
officials that were delaying economic reintegration and refugee return. Unlike in
previous cases, where decisions were targeted mainly against obstructing Serbian
and to lesser extent Croatian politicians, this time Bosniak officials also found
themselves under pressure.
Economic reforms, with a special emphasis on fighting corruption and
38
Kaldor, Mary, “Security Structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” in Governing insecurity:
Democratic control of military and security establishments in transitional democracies, ed.
Gavin Cawthra and Robin Luckham (London: Zed Books, 2003), 209.
39
Petritsch, Wolfgang, Bosnien und Herzegowina: Fuenf Jahre nach Dayton: Hat der Frieden
eine Chance? (Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag, 2001), 212-3.
40
Solioz, Christophe and Wolfgang Petritsch, “The fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina: an exclusive
interview of Christophe Solioz with Wolfgang Petritsch,” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern
Studies 5, no. 3 (2003): 361.
48
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
privatization efforts, were one of the main strategic aims of the Office of the High
Representative under Petritsch. The PIC Main Meeting in Brussels in May 2000
confirmed this direction. Bonn Conclusions from 1997 granted the HiRep powers
to pass interim legislation in matters relating to the civilian implementation
of the Dayton Accords as well as to dismiss officials that were obstructing its
implementation and the work of common institutions. Declaration from Brussels
went a step further and the PIC explicitly urged the HiRep to use his authority for
“removing obstacles that stand in the way of economic reform” as well as stated
that a “/d/irect intervention by the High Representative may be necessary in
strategic industries and in cases where the privatisation process [was] suspect.”41
The decision to do so lay solely in the hands of the HiRep and the PIC Steering
Board and no appeal mechanism was provided. The international community was
now also explicitly promoting a liberal state in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Another interesting shift occurred at the Brussels PIC Main Meeting. The
Declaration from Brussels witnesses a europeanization of the political discourse.42
In the Annex to the Declaration, the PIC explicitly referred to the EU Road Map
that was agreed upon in March 200043 and specified 18 conditions that Bosnia
had to fulfil in order to prepare a Feasibility Study that would then form the basis
of negotiations for a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA). Chandler
(2006b) argues that since the Brussels PIC meeting, “the framework used by the PIC
and the OHR has increasingly been shaped by the EU Road Map and subsequent
EU strategies of engagement rather than by Dayton itself ”.44 This finding was
confirmed by several of my interviewees at the OHR, although some have argued
that the OHR was shaping the EU agenda and not the other way around.
After the general elections in November 2000, when “for the first time since the
war those parties committed to BiH European orientation received the majority”,45
the PIC Steering Board had expectations that local authorities would ensure “proper
41
42
PIC Main Meeting, “Brussels: Declaration, 24 May,” (2000).
For an excellent analysis of this process see Majstrović, Danijela, “Construction of
Europeanization in the High Representative’s discourse in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Discourse
& Society 18, no. 5 (2007). Notice also that Europe in this entire discourse is equated with the
European Union, which in itself is problematic.
43
44
PIC Main Meeting, “Brussels: Declaration, 24 May,” Annex.
Chandler, “State-building in Bosnia: The Limits of Informal Trusteeship.” See also Solioz and
Petritsch, “The fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina: an exclusive interview of Christophe Solioz with
Wolfgang Petritsch.”
45
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Brussels: Communiqué, 7 December,” (2000).
49
state or nation?
prioritisation of work”46 and that the state-building efforts would be endogenously
driven. This change was part of a wider positive trend in the region – most notably
the defeat of Slobodan Milosevic in the presidential elections in Serbia and the
nationalist party Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica,
HDZ) in the parliamentary elections in Croatia. The Steering Board nevertheless
remained cautious and urged the HiRep to use his powers to the full extent in
the event of undue delays and obstructionism “aiming to block BiH’s path to
Europe”.47 This seemingly also gave the High Representative powers to push for
the acceptance of criteria set out by the EU in its Road Map. These ‘membership’
criteria covered a wider range of tasks that were set out at Dayton.
Given the fundamentally diverging opinions of local elites on what the BiH state
should look like and what its powers should be, the positive climate did not last
long. The expectation of the international community that pro-European forces
would take over was proved wrong by spring 2001, when nationalistic violence
broke out in both Republika Srpska and Herzegovina.
At the end of February 2002 when Petritsch announced that he would stand
down as the High Representative by the end of May 2002, the PIC Steering Board
designated Lord Paddy Ashdown as his successor. At the same meeting, the
Steering Board also took note of the EU’s intention to appoint the next HiRep
as the European Union Special Representative (EUSR) in Bosnia. This ‘doublehatting’ was to take place with the understanding that the role of the EUSR would
in no way prejudge the mandate of the HiRep.48 Nevertheless this move indicates
that the OHR’s priorities for Bosnia and Herzegovina were becoming identical
to the EU ones. As Ashdown himself noted, although the two jobs doubled his
reporting lines, they were in fact rolled into one.49
4. Intensive State-building under Ashdown
Despite having inherited the problems from previous High Representatives,
Ashdown wanted to outline his own priorities that clearly distinguished his
mandate from his predecessors’. Western diplomats and analysts concur that he
was the best-prepared HiRep when he assumed the office. During the preparations
46
47
48
49
Ibid.
Ibid.
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Brussels: Communiqué, 28 February,” (2002).
Ashdown, Paddy, Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing peace to the 21st century (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2007), 217.
50
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
for his job, Ashdown worked on the assumption that peace and stability were not
going to be a problem and that he would rather focus on state-building itself.50
Ashdown’s speeches and policy proposals at the beginning of his term implicitly
criticised the direction that the international community had been pursuing in
BiH in the seven years before he assumed the office. This implicit criticism is then
openly conveyed in the book he wrote after leaving his position as the HiRep:
Because the international community had thought that elections
were more important than the rule of law, those who had prosecuted the
war and profited from it were now elected as the politicians who ran the
country.51
The establishment of the rule of law should have been our first priority
after the war ended. It hadn’t been, primarily because the international
community didn’t think it would stay there that long. So it would have to
become my priority now [i.e., when he assumed the office].52
Moreover he also thought that economic reform had been sacrificed for
political issues:
Like the rule of law, economic reform should have been one of the
international community’s first priorities in Bosnia. /…/ But since this
hadn’t been a priority at the start, liberalising and reforming the economy
had to be one of mine now [i.e., when he assumed the office].53
In his inaugural speech in front of the BiH State Parliament he outlined his
three priorities: “First Justice. Then Jobs. Through Reform”.54
While justice/rule of law had been on the agenda of all previous High
Representatives,55 Ashdown put it at the centre of his plans. In the inaugural
50
51
Ibid., 216-31.
Interestingly enough his predecessor Petritsch was happy with the results of the elections
in 2000. For comparison see Solioz and Petritsch, “The fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina: an
exclusive interview of Christophe Solioz with Wolfgang Petritsch,” 364.
52
53
54
Ashdown, Swords and Ploughshares: Bringing peace to the 21st century, 222-3.
Ibid., 224.
Ashdown, Paddy, “Inaugural Speech, BiH State Parliament, Sarajevo, 27 May, http://www.
ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/presssp/default.asp?content_id=8417,” (2002).
55
Rule of law featured prominently as a goal during the second half of Bildt’s mandate (after the
September 1996 elections did not yield satisfactory results) as well as during Westendorp’s mandate.
Petritsch’s focus were more economic issues but rule of law never slipped entirely off the agenda.
51
state or nation?
address and during his first meeting with the PIC Steering Board56 he highlighted
several areas in need of reform and put special emphasis on fighting corruption
in the public sector. Economic reform was to remain high on the state-building
agenda, but Ashdown repeatedly emphasised that the OHR would act as a
facilitator rather than a mediator in the economic reform process. With that, he
endorsed the concept of ownership that Petritsch had developed.
His third priority, besides justice and economy, was the reform of institutions
created by the Dayton Agreement. While both the rule of law and economic
reforms could theoretically be imposed by the exercise of the Bonn powers and
their subsequent clarifications, the institutional reform was radically different.
The role of the HiRep was to uphold the Dayton Accords and so his legal powers
stopped at the limits of Dayton; as the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina
forms an integral part of the Dayton Accords,57 any modifications to it would have
to be adopted in the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina and not
by the HiRep. Agreement on any fundamental changes to the concept of state
would therefore have to come from within.
The planning team put together a Mission Implementation Plan (MIP) for
the OHR, which identified the key tasks that each of the OHR’s departments had
to complete before it could be closed down. This was to prevent mission creep,
allowed a focus on what Ashdown thought the priorities for BiH should be and
prevented duplication of work of other international actors. The adoption of a
comprehensive MIP to guide international state-building efforts only in 2002,
almost seven years after the war had ended, was at minimal problematic and
substantially too late. The mission’s agenda had by then expanded to include almost
every aspect of politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, yet even if it were desirable
for the international community to mediate among diverging opinions, the High
Representative had no authority to resolve the fundamental lack of consensus
among local elites over the nature of the state.
In the first six months of Ashdown’s mandate, justice and economy were the
centre of the OHR agenda. In July 2002 the PIC agreed with the BiH authorities
on the targets and necessary steps for economic reform. In September a similar
set of targets were adopted to assist local authorities in strengthening the rule of
law so that criminality and corruption could be rooted out.58 Before October 2002
elections, the first elections that were held in BiH since Dayton under the exclusive
56
57
58
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Communiqué, 31 July,” (2002).
The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Annex 4.
PIC Steering Board Political Directors Meeting, Sarajevo: Declaration, 24 September 2002.
52
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
control of the domestic authorities, the PIC and the OHR were urging the newly
elected authorities to abide by these agreements. In a speech to the BiH House of
Representatives in December 2002, the HiRep emphasised the urgency of reform
once again: “/…/ the choice is not whether to reform. But how fast, how soon and,
above all, who will drive the process of reform – you or me?”59
By the beginning of 2003, it became clear that the OHR had taken two different
strategies to pass reforms in the realm of justice and ones in the realm of economy.
Ideally, local authorities would compromise and pass the reforms; as that had not
been the case, the HiRep had the option of carrying out the threat he had issued in
his December speech and adopt them himself.
Ashdown proceeded to use the ‘stick’ in the area of justice and many rule of law
targets agreed upon in September 2002 were met only because of the imposition by the
HiRep.60 Some of these decisions proved controversial and drew substantial criticism
from both domestic and international actors, e.g., demonstrations in February and
March 2003 against the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils, criticism by the
Council of Europe of vetting and reappointment of all judges and prosecutors.61 In the
summer of 2003, a research institute European Stability Initiative heavily criticised this
approach and their report on how Ashdown was turning Bosnia into a ‘European Raj’
was widely reproduced in the international media.62
Economic reforms were a different story and the HiRep acted as a facilitator of
the reform only, in keeping with his statements at the time he assumed the office.
As the opening of the negotiations on the SAA with the EU was contingent on
passing these reforms, the PIC and the HiRep stepped back to encourage Bosnian
authorities to pass these reforms themselves if they wanted to eventually join the
59
Ashdown, Paddy, “Speech, BIH State Parliament, Sarajevo, 17 December, http://www.ohr.int/
ohr-dept/presso/presssp/default.asp?content_id=28736,” (2002).
60
61
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Brussels: Communiqué, 28 March,” (2003).
Council of Europe, “Comments on the ‘Discussion paper on the Selection Process for
the Interim High Judicial Council’, March, http://www.esiweb.org/pdf/esi_europeanraj_
judicialreform_id_3.pdf “ (2003).
62
Full-length report was later reprinted in Knaus, Gerald and Felix Martin, “Travails of the
European Raj,” Journal of Democracy 14, no. 3 (2003).. The first international media outlet
that picked up the report was The Guardian (Traynor, Ian “Ashdown Running Bosnia like a
Raj,” The Guardian, 5 July, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/05/politics.foreignpolicy
2003.), followed by BBC (BBC, “Karadzic Family Assets Frozen, 7 July, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/
low/world/europe/3051754.stm,” 2003.) and Transitions Online (Perry, Valery, “Bosnia, an
Intellectual Raj,” Transitions Online, 24 July, http://www.tol.org/client/article/10208-bosnia-anintellectual-raj.html 2003.) among others.
53
state or nation?
EU. The idea was to promote state-building with a carrot rather than a stick.
Justice and economy remained high on the agenda throughout Ashdown’s
mandate but it soon became clear that there was another controversial issue that
the HiRep wanted to tackle which was not elaborated in his slogan Posao i Pravda
(Jobs and Justice) – namely, prosecution of war criminals.
At the end of 2002, seven years after the end of the war in Bosnia and the signing
of the Dayton Peace Agreement, in which parties promised to bring to justice
those that had committed the most heinous crimes, several individuals indicted
for war crimes were still at large. These included Radovan Karadzic, the first
president of Republika Srpska, and Ratko Mladic, the Chief of Staff of the Army of
the Republika Srpska during the war. The OHR and the PIC had previously been
urging local parties to cooperate fully with the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) but neither Westendorp nor Petritsch had used
their Bonn powers to pass any decisions relating to individuals indicted for war
crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
The first campaign launched to undermine the support network allowing Karadzic
to evade arrest took place on 7 March 2003. The HiRep designated two individuals
and two companies as being obstructionist.63 In another campaign on 7 July 2003,
Ashdown ordered the freezing of bank accounts of fourteen more people, including
Karadzic’s immediate family, and removed two of them from their official positions
in state and local bodies.64 On 10 February 2004 he continued his sweep by freezing
the bank accounts of ten individuals and dismissing from public office four of them,
but the biggest campaign took place in the space of two days over summer 2004. On
30 June and 1 July Ashdown removed, and conditionally removed, 59 individuals,65
blocked bank accounts of Serbian Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka,
SDS) and required the SDS to establish a single account in order to increase
transparency.66 The targets of these campaigns were Bosnian Serbs, who were also
the most dissatisfied with the international engagement in Bosnia.
63
OHR, “Press Release: High Representative Acts to Undermine Karadzic Support Network, 7
March 2003, http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/pressr/default.asp?content_id=2 9389 “ (2003).
64
OHR, “Press Release: High Representative Announces Further Action In The Fight Against Crime,
7 July 2003, http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/pressr/default.asp?content_id =30230,” (2003).
65
OHR, “Press Release: List of removed and conditionally removed officials by the High
Representative, 30 June 2004, http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/pressr/default.asp?content
_id =32748,” (2004).
66
Ashdown, Paddy, “Decision Blocking All Bank Accounts Held by and/or in the Name of
the SDS and Requiring the SDS to Establish one Bank Account, 30 June, http://www.ohr.int/
decisions/war-crimes-decs/default.asp?content_id=32752 “ (2004).
54
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
This sweeping move to bring war criminals to justice coincided with a wider
international campaign; both the EU and the US had, around that time, also been issuing
blacklists of individuals from Bosnia for whom travel to their respective countries was
banned.67 In statements issued by the PIC Steering Board, failure to cooperate with the
ICTY and the slow progress of defence reform were described as the main obstacles
for Bosnian alignment with NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme.68 Police
reform (together with economic reforms and strengthening of the rule of law) was
deemed to be the main test for the signing of the SAA with the EU.69
In 2005, for the first time, the PIC Steering Board clearly expressed its intention
to close down the OHR and issued a recommendation that the position of the
High Representative be replaced by an EU Special Representative. This step would
have to be endorsed by the UN Security Council. At this time the EUSR would
take over the work of the HiRep but would not have the powers the HiRep holds.
Therefore, the Steering Board wanted to ensure that transition would not happen
before BiH was capable of driving its own state-building policy. According to their
own statements, one clear indicator of this would be the point at which Bosnia
and Herzegovina would qualify for negotiations on the SAA with the EU.70 As
Bosnia started negotiations on 25 November 2005, it was expected that Ashdown’s
successor, Dr Christian Schwarz-Schilling, would be the last person to be doublehatted as the HiRep and the EUSR.
5. State-building without Direction
Even before Schwarz-Shilling was appointed, it was clear that he would take the
OHR in a new direction. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty he
was remarkably open about the difference between him and Ashdown:
RFE/RL: What will be your style?
Schwarz-Schilling: Well, I will listen to the people, I will listen to the
Bosnian politicians. Then I will try to convince them to come to a decision
67
Alic, Anes, “Washington Blacklists Bosnian Nationalists. Transitions Online, 6 September,
http://www.ceeol.com,” 2003.
68
For instance: PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Declaration, 12 June,” (2003).
“Brussels: Communiqué, 11 December,” (2003). “Sarajevo: Communiqué, 1 April,” (2004).
“Sarajevo: Communiqué, 24 June,” (2005).
69
For instance: PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Brussels: Communiqué, 3 February,”
(2005); “Sarajevo: Communiqué, 24 June.” (2005)
70
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Communiqué, 24 June.” (2005).
55
state or nation?
by themselves and then everybody has to follow up that.71
Schwarz-Schilling also underlined that he wished the OHR to be reduced step
by step and expressed his hope that it would be completely dissolved by 2007.72
During the meetings with international officials and in public statements SchwarzSchilling emphasized that supporting Bosnia and Herzegovina’s progress towards
the EU and NATO would be a key priority during his mandate. However, in order
for Bosnia to achieve that, he as the HiRep must take a step back and stop intervening.73
At a meeting with the PIC Steering Board in March 2006, Schwarz-Schilling
emphasized that the OHR would no longer take on new commitments and would
focus instead on meeting existing tasks.74 At the same meeting the HiRep also set
out his plans for new measures to address the status of officials removed from their
positions. On his last day in office Ashdown lifted the ban to hold office for seven
individuals. Schwarz-Schilling’s plan was much more expansive. Besides passing
13 more decisions explicitly allowing individuals to hold public offices and positions within parties by the end of 2006, he also issued two more general decisions
limiting the scope of the ban.75 Both of these decisions allowed individuals that
had previously been barred from running for positions to return again to political
life under specific provisions. Neither of the decisions applied to individuals that
were banned from office for reasons related to non-compliance with the ICTY,
but these pardoned politicians in some way or another contravened international
state-building project at the time when they were removed.
This limited amnesty indicated Schwarz-Schilling’s conviction that BiH citizens themselves would and must make responsible choices about who they would
elect to public offices and who they wanted to be in the driving seat of the statebuilding project. On 24 May 2006, the HiRep identified a set of laws that BiH par71
Agović, Mehmed, “Bosnia-Herzegovina: High Commissioner Candidate interview,” RFE/RL,
Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, 18 November, http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1063074.
html 2005.
72
Ibid.
73
Schwarz-Schilling, Christian “High Representative’s TV Address to Citizens of BiH, Sarajevo,
31 January, http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/presssp/default.asp?content_id=36501 “ (2006).
74
75
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Vienna: Communiqué, 15 March,” (2006).
Schwarz-Schilling, Christian, “Decision further limiting the scope of the ban from public
office in the removal decisions issued by the High Representative, 4 April, http://www.ohr.int/
decisions/removalssdec/default.asp?content_id=36919 “ (2006); “Decision lifting the ban from
office within political parties in the removal decisions issued by the High Representative, 7 July,
http://www.ohr.int/decisions/removalssdec/default.asp?content_id=37615,” (2006).
56
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
liamentarians should had enacted in the hundred days before the October 2006
general elections in order to demonstrate that they were serious about improving
the lives of citizens and that would take Bosnia and Herzegovina further along the
path of Euro-Atlantic integration.76 While the PIC Steering Board welcomed the
conduct of the elections it also noted that not one law of the reform agenda was
passed in the intervening period. By contrast, several bills that undermined the
fiscal stability of the country were either passed or in the process of being adopted.77 Schwarz-Schilling’s plan to give Bosnian politicians a chance to take ownership of their country’s future was failing.
By the end of 2006 a lot of needed reforms were still unfinished but BiH had
managed to secure an invitation to join NATO’s PfP programme.78 Preparations for
the OHR closure were continuing, in line with the PIC Steering Board decision of
June 2006 to close the Office at the end of June 2007.79 But disagreements among key
states over the closure started showing. By the end of January 2007 it was already
clear that Schwarz-Schilling would be vacating his position come June 2007. In an
interview he gave to Der Spiegel around the time he announced his resignation the
High Representative said he was quitting because of disagreements with the PIC
members over the level of intervention needed from the HiRep.80 In a personal interview in August 2009 he acknowledged that this decision was not entirely voluntary and that the US and the UK had made it clear that his mandate would not be
renewed if he continued refusing to use Bonn powers.81 He mentioned in both interviews that the US was the main actor that demanded tougher action. The HiRep also
explained that the US had originally wanted to enable reforms by the end of June
2007, through a policy of stronger intervention, which would have made it possible
for the OHR to finish its mission and close down its activities.
According to Schwarz-Schilling, by January 2007 the Bush administration, largely under pressure from the new Democratic Congress, had come around to agree to
76
OHR, “Press Release: 100 Days to Make History, 24 May, http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/
pressr/default.asp?content_id=37226,” (2006).
77
78
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Communiqué, 20 October,” (2006).
NATO, “Signatures of Partnership for Peace Framework Document,” http://www.nato.int/
pfp/sig-cntr.htm.
79
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Communiqué, 23 June,” (2006); “Brussels:
Communiqué, 7 December,” (2006).
80
81
Der Spiegel, “Zunehmend ungeduldig,” Der Spiegel, 29 January 2007.
“Telephone interview with Dr Christian Schwarz-Schilling, 18 August, Cambridge and
Büdingen.,” (2009).
57
state or nation?
extend the mission and preserve international special powers for one more year.82
Some of my interviewees argued that Schwarz-Schilling’s analysis of US domestic
politics, might have not been the most accurate one, but they concurred that the
High Representative was at odds with the US and the UK throughout most of his
mandate. At a meeting in February 2007 the PIC Steering Board officially decided
to push back the closure of the OHR to 30 June 2008, but did not renew SchwarzSchilling’s mandate. Russia did not join the consensus and has, ever since, publically
expressed the opinion that the OHR should be closed down immediately.
During Schwarz-Shilling’s mandate it became obvious that the consensus
within the international community regarding how the state-building in Bosnia
and Herzegovina should take place broke down. The US and Turkey were pushing for outside intervention and the use of Bonn powers when it came to the key
reforms. Russia thought it was time to leave the process to local politicians. EU
members were scattered somewhere in between both sides, counting on the conditionality of the EU accession process to advance the transition of the country.
At the last PIC Steering Board meeting before Schwarz-Schilling left his office,
the Steering Board noted that since April 2006 there had been a near total deadlock in the peace implementation and the delivery of reforms required for the SAA
with the EU.83
When Slovak Miroslav Lajčák succeeded Schwarz-Schilling it was unclear
from his public positions whether he was going to bring any radical policy change
to the OHR. Unlike previous HiReps who had been quite clear in identifying their
objectives in their first public appearances, Lajčák was more cautious. The sole
indication of a possible change was his affirmation that should it be necessary to
use Bonn powers in the interest of moving BiH forward, he would not hesitate
to do so.84 The new HiRep held a number of meetings with political leaders over
the summer and by September 2007 he was prepared to outline his assessment
of the situation and priorities. He specifically mentioned police reform as his first
priority for Bosnia, followed by constitutional reform, justice and war crimes and
the list of 27 other requirements Bosnia and Herzegovina had been given before it
could sign the SAA with the EU.85 All the priorities were clearly couched in the EU
rhetoric. After BiH parties adopted principles guiding the police reform (Mostar
82
83
84
Ibid.
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Declaration, 19 June,” (2007).
Lajčák, Miroslav, “TV Address to Citizens of BiH, Sarajevo, 2 July, http://www.ohr.int/ohrdept/presso/presssp/default.asp?content_id=40108 “ (2007).
85
Lajčák, Miroslav, “Speech to the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina in
Joint Session, 6 September, http://www.ohr.int/ohr-dept/presso/presssp/default.asp?content_
id=40431,” (2007).
58
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
Declaration on Police Reform), the EU on 4 December 2007 initialled the SAA
with the country.
In February 2008 the PIC Steering Board reiterated that both the transition
from the OHR to the EUSR and local ownership remained the goals.86 In order for
this transition to happen, it agreed that the BiH authorities must deliver on the
most critical issues contained in the OHR Work Plan. For this purpose, the PIC
Steering Board formulated five objectives and two conditions that would need
to be fulfilled prior to the transition. The five objectives were: apportionment
of property between state and other levels of government, resolution of defence
property, Brčko final award, fiscal sustainability and entrenchment of the rule of
law. The two conditions were the signing of the SAA and a positive assessment of
the situation in BiH by the PIC Steering Board--based on full compliance with the
Dayton Peace Agreement. While all the objectives had clearly defined benchmarks
and the signing of the SAA could be ascertained, the assessment of compliance or
non-compliance with the Dayton Accords remained based on the Steering Board’s
perception of the existence of rhetoric or action that would threaten or violate the
Agreement. In contrast to the communiqué from February 2007, which specified
the PIC Steering Board’s plan to close down the OHR at the end of June 2008, the
February 2008 Declaration did not contain a clear timeline for the OHR’s closure
and extended its mandate until the PIC Steering Board was satisfied that the five
objectives and the two conditions were met.
The SAA with the EU was signed on 16 June 200887 and a number of other
progresses were made, but several areas remained of concern for the PIC Steering
Board and the HiRep. By the time Lajčák left for a new post as the Foreign Minister
of Republic of Slovakia, at the beginning of 2009, authorities in Republika Srpska
were still calling for a secession, trying to unilaterally withdraw from previously
agreed reforms and had repeatedly failed to reply to instructions and requests
by the HiRep to secure access to needed documents. The Federation authorities
had disregarded the relevant responsibilities of the state level High Judicial and
Prosecutorial Council and a number of reforms had come to a complete halt.88
Therefore, in March 2009, amid loud complaints -- coming especially from Bosnian
Serb politicians -- the PIC Steering Board appointed Austrian Ambassador
Valentin Inzko as the new HiRep.89
86
87
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo: Declaration, 27 February,” (2008).
Council of the European Union, “Council Regulation (EC) No 594/2008, 16 June, Official
Journal of the European Union L 169/1, 30 June,” (2008).
88
PIC Steering Board Political Directors, PIC Steering Board Political Directors, “Sarajevo:
Communiqué, 26 March,” (2009).
89
PIC Steering Board Ambassadors, “Sarajevo: Statement, 13 March,” (2009).
59
state or nation?
Conclusion
The role the international community played in state-building in Bosnia
and Herzegovina is unprecedented in the post-Second World War world. This
contribution shows that although at Dayton there was no consensus among key
international players on what the scope of external state-building for the country
should be, the mission gradually expanded to include virtually all facets of political
and economic life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Priorities and visions of the
international community therefore greatly circumscribed the opportunities for the
local subjects to translate their visions of state and nation into practice. Moreover,
the lack of initial consensus on the role of external powers meant that the mission
and its own priorities to a large extent developed ad hoc and on the ground.
The role of locally based international implementers was of crucial importance
for the development of international priorities and state-building strategies. Appointment of a new High Representative presented a rupture in external statebuilding, as individuals brought along new state-building approaches and a new
set of priorities. The expansion of the state-building vision was especially evident
during the mandates of Wolfgang Petritsch and Paddy Ashdown, the two High
Representatives that enjoyed the most support from the international community
at large. The honeymoon period for the HiRep and the PIC reached its peak during Ashdown’s time and the Office of the High Representative had an opportunity
to develop a coherent and more aggressive state-building strategy, something that
previous High Representatives would have problems achieving. Subsequent High
Representatives enjoyed less trust from the countries of the Peace Implementation
Council, making it difficult for them to coordinate and manage such an expansive
mission, deliver to their international underwriters and at the same time attempt
to transfer the primary responsibility for state-building to local institutions. Since
Schwarz-Schilling the external state-building has been confronted with obstacles
and as one of my interviewees at the OHR has put it: “During Ashdown’s time the
OHR was above local politics, now we have become a part of it,” implying that the
OHR has lost its power. While external state-building certainly is not the same as
it was during Ashdown’s time, it continues to limit the choices of local actors on
what kind of state people of Bosnia and Herzegovina could live in. Not even the
signing of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement changed that.
60
Mateja Peter international state-building in biH
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64
Part II
Society
65
state or nation?
66
Democratisation against
Democracy: Assessing the
Failure of State-building
in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Adnan Huskić
Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be
recalled and perhaps remedied.
Pearl Buck
Introduction
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is an unconsolidated democracy that
increasingly resembles a failed state. Its failure represents the failure of the
complex democratisation process that undermined the roots of its own raison
d’etre, democracy itself. Bosnia and Herzegovina is in this sense a prime example
of the conflict between the means and the ends.
It has almost become customary when writing about democratisation, transition
and conflict in the post-Cold War world, to cynically cite Francis Fukuyama and his
notion of the “end of history” as a paradigm of the liberal democracy’s ultimate evolution
into the prevailing political ideology. Nevertheless, democracy does represent a widely
accepted norm today and alternatives are considered to be much worse. One of the
most significant characteristics of contemporary liberal democracies is their ability to
adapt to a changing social environment. They seek to reconcile the will of the majority,
uphold the rights of individuals and increase chances for underprivileged groups
within a state. The constitutional system installed in BiH did contain self-contradictory
provisions concerning the primacy of rights but an integral part of the Constitution
is the European Convention of Human Rights. Certain constitutional provisions
67
state or nation?
directly contradict it1 but we can only assume that the architects of Dayton envisaged
the evolutionary process of the Dayton Constitution through gradual adjustments
towards a full-fledged liberal democracy. Therefore, they insisted on including the
most advanced human and individual rights protection mechanisms. It is exactly the
inclusion of these provisions that reveals the form of democracy that BiH was meant
to become - that is - the liberal democracy.
Such an understanding of democracy was used as a readymade model to be
applied through the process of assisted democratisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
as a part of broader post-conflict interventionism methodology.
In this article I shall try to assess the democratisation process that is taking place
alongside the post-conflict stabilisation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. My aim is to
identify the ways in which these processes collided. I suggest that democratisation
and conflict stabilization neutralised each other and thus resulted in sluggish
progress, lack of democratic development and finally the ultimate frustration
of all the actors involved. In this sense, BiH represents a paradigmatic case of a
phenomenon called the “sequencing fallacy”, a democratisation effort which runs
aground due to the absence of a stable and functioning institutional framework to
accommodate it. Post-conflict management comes first and aims to establish the
institutional framework prior to ownership transfer that occurs through elections
at a later stage. Therefore, the most tragic mistake of BiH post-conflict and
democratisation efforts was the introduction of democratic contestation at a very
early stage of post-conflict management. The elections in 1996 represent, in that
sense, the beginning of the fall, and all later attempts to pour in democratisation
assistance concrete over the cracks in the foundations of the states created in 1996
have proven unsuccessful. Over time, the fatigue of the international community
grew and its evident withdrawal from an active role in BiH politics, which started
around 2006, revealed all the deficiencies of an unfinished democracy in BiH.
The problem with BiH’s democratisation sequencing is basically the most
fundamental problem of post-conflict management as such. Who actually
owns the processes and runs the show until elections can be organised and the
legitimisation of local authorities occurs?
1. Democracy and Democratisation
Democracy as an end point of democratisation must be properly defined before I
1
Confirmed by the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the case
Sejdic and Finci v. BiH (27996/06 and 34836/06)
68
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
proceed with my argument. Coustopoulos and Rosanvallon rightfully claim that today
democracy represents the “most desirable type of political regime”2. And indeed,
democracy as a form of government does have flaws but the available alternatives
have even more3. In addition to free, fair and frequent elections based on a universal
suffrage, liberal democracy maintains and upholds the human and individual rights
of its citizens. Ideally, it is a dynamic concept that adapts to the changing societal
circumstances and allows for a degree of flexibility in creating equal starting points
for all groups in society through temporary positive discrimination measures. Robert
Dahl wrote that no modern country fulfils the ideal of democracy, but Bosnian
democracy fails to meet even the most basic criteria, as we will see later in the chapter.
The very concept of democracy has suffered greatly from the perversion of the
concept by power-driven political elites. Robert Dahl argues that:
“(M)ost regimes stake out some sort of claim to the title of “democracy”; and
those that do not often insist that their particular instance of nondemocratic rule
is a necessary stage along the road to ultimate “democracy”. In our times, even
dictators appear to believe that an indispensable ingredient for their legitimacy is
a dash or two of the language of democracy”4
This reductionist perception of democracy puts the very idea in jeopardy of
being invalidated in the eyes of the citizens upon whose acceptance, endorsement
and active participation it ultimately rests. Therefore, introducing an accurate
definition of democracy and its main components is absolutely indispensible
for the argument presented in this article. A term that is directly related is the
democratisation process, or the introduction democracy as a form of government
into a previously undemocratic environment. In this article we shall use the terms
democratisation and democratic consolidation interchangeably.
Finally, we shall benchmark the democratisation process in Bosnia and Herzegovina
2
Philip J. Costopoulos and Pierre Rosanvallon. “The History of the Word ‘Democracy’ in
France”. Journal of Democracy 6, no. 4 (October 1995): 140-154.
3
Dahl’s ”Democracy and Its Critics” offers a comprehensive account of scholarly discussions
on democracy and alternative forms of government. In Dahl’s account, democracy is superior
to alternatives in at least three ways
- it promotes freedom as no feasible alternative can
- democratic process promotes human development
- it is the surest way by which human beings can protect and advance the interest they
share
4
Robert Alan Dahl. Democracy and its Critics. (New Haven and London: Yale University
Press), 2.
69
state or nation?
and attempt at least partially to account for its numerous failures, which ultimately
undermined the stability of the democracy it was supposed to introduce in the first place.
For the sake of argument, this article will focus on two different dimensions of
democracy. First we will review the preconditions for the development of a modern
democracy. Second we will discuss the notion of democracy as a peace-enforcing
and peace-preserving mechanism broadly based on the notion of democratic peace,
an important dimension of the BiH case.
Starting with the Ancient Greeks, the idea was to create a system of rule
which would enable the widest possible participation and legitimacy in the
decision making process which affects the given community. The Ancient Greek
concept involved the participation of all citizens, this model is known as a direct
democracy. Modern states are far too large to enable such level of participation.
Instead, they have moved beyond direct rule and instituted an electoral process
in order to appoint people tasked with decision-making and governance. This was
called representative democracy. The question of demos or people is crucial for
this argument. Even in Ancient Greece the democracy was a business of elites,
namely those who possessed the status of citizen. Women, underage, slaves, nonGreeks and Greeks who did not complete military training were deprived of the
right to participate in the political process. Enfranchising, or extending the right to
vote and stand for office has been at the forefront of democratic evolution for the
past 200 years. The broader the basis, the better it is for the quality of democracy
and the legitimacy of the decision-making process. In this sense, BiH represents
an exception to this rule, since its power-sharing provisions limit passive voting
rights only to three major ethnic groups, a fact which has been confirmed by the
ruling of the European Court of Human Rights from December 20095.
The main feature of Bosnian democracy is the electoral process. Other significant
dimensions of the ideal of democracy have been put aside in the democratisation
process. Electoral democracy has been seen by many theorists and policy makers
as the most important component of democracy. Samuel Huntington argues that
one can define the modern political system as democracy: “… to the extent that
its most powerful collective decision makers are selected through fair, honest,
and periodic elections in which candidates freely compete for votes and in which
virtually all the adult population is eligible to vote”6.
5
The case Sejdic and Finci vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina represents the first judgment of the
European Court of Human Rights finding a violation of Protocol No. 12.
6
Samuel P. Huntington The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century.
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 8-291
70
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
Reducing democracy to an electoral process represents perhaps the most
evident strategic failure of the international community’s efforts in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. If we closely follow Huntington’s argument, the essence of democracy
thus becomes the process, not the substance. Huntington’s further argument is
very illustrative of this approach. He stipulates that “elections, open, free and
fair, are the essence of democracy, the inescapable sine qua non. Governments
produced by elections may be inefficient, corrupt, short-sighted, irresponsible,
dominated by special interests, and incapable of adopting policies demanded by
the public good”7
This line of argument which puts emphasis on the framework rather than
content and gives primacy to the processes of democratisation (understood simply
as a unified framework one has to adopt in order to transit into democracy) was
the guiding principle of post-conflict strategists in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ivan
Krastev rightfully dissects this dangerous oversimplification arguing that:
(I)n our understanding, the controversial aspect of “transition” is its normative character
and teleological nature. All new democracies are supposed to follow one and the same path.
Democracy is analyzed not so much through the relations between leaders and led, but
judged by the level of its institutionalization. In its radical form, the transition paradigm
can be visualized as a global democracy promotion office where all new democracies fill in
their forms and expect to be judged on the basis of how free and fair are their elections, how
independent is their judiciary, how free are their media and so on.8
Critics of the oversimplified concept of electoral democracy, or electoralist fallacy
as defined by Linz and Stepan9, argued that it was precisely this limited notion of
democracy that allowed for the creation of a number of unfinished democracies
worldwide. Writing in the Foreign Affairs magazine in November 1994,10 Fareed
Zakaria coined the term “illiberal democracy”, which accurately describes such
“democracies”. In his article, Zakaria warns that the spread of democracy has resulted
in the proliferation of partial or half-way democracies where the only segment
these democracies share with the true democracies is the process of elections.
Democracy, for him, represents a much more complex interplay of actors, interests
and combination of liberal correctives and representative democracy with the aim
7
8
Huntington, Third Wave, 8.
Ivan Krastev. The Inflexibility Trap - Frustrated Societies, Weak States and Democracy.
National Endowment for Democracy´s commissioned Report, Sofia: DATA Agency, (February
2002): 2-33.
9
Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.
(Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996): 4-86.
10
Fareed Zakaria. “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy”. (Foreign Affairs, November 1997): 2-22.
71
state or nation?
to limit the scope and extent of governmental actions on the basis of protection of
individual freedoms. Zakaria understood the liberal democracies to be beyond the
mere electoralism11 arguing that liberal democracies represent “a political system
marked not only by free and fair elections, but also by the rule of law, a separation
of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and
property”.12
The concepts that Zakaria intertwines, liberalism and democracy, which are
nowadays a commonplace combination, have not always coexisted. Moreover,
some theorists came to a conclusion that these two processes came into being
independent from one another. In Schmitter’s words as quoted by Zakaria
“Liberalism, either as a conception of political liberty, or as a doctrine about
economic policy, may have coincided with the rise of democracy. But it has never
been immutably or unambiguously linked to its practice.”13
Nonetheless, it is commonly accepted wisdom that liberal democracy
represents the norm and the desired form of government today. This model was
meant to be implemented in post-war BiH. Liberal democracy indeed represents
the most advanced form of government and the most appropriate frame for an
accommodation of various interests, but there is another crucial reason why
democracy and democratisation figure prominently in the post-conflict agenda.
Based broadly on the empirical fact that democracies never (or very rarely) go to
war with one another, this proposition known as the “democratic peace theory”14
is an integral part of the Western post-conflict strategy. Notion of democratic
peace or apparent and strong correlation between rare occurrences of war
between democracies found its early antecedents in the eighteenth century work
of Immanuel Kant. In his 1795 essay, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch”,
Kant proposed a specific set of measures to implement in order to achieve lasting
peace in world.15 Kant’s proposition is based on the premise that most people
would chose not go to war unless in self-defence and if they are given the power
to decide, i.e. live in democracy, that in itself would decrease the incidence of war.
11
12
13
14
15
Electoralism represents a limited form of democracy.
Zakaria, The Rise of Illiberal Democracy, 1.
Zakaria, The Rise of Illiberal Democracy, 15
See the work of Michael Doyle “Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs”
“The Civil Constitution of Every State Should Be Republican”,
“The Law of Nations Shall be Founded on a Federation of Free States”,
“The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality”,
Kant, 1795
72
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
Kant did not explicitly refer to democracy as a preferred form of government since
democracy in his context represented direct democracy, which he considered to be
detrimental to individual rights and prone to deteriorate into tyranny of the majority.
This proposition has long been a bone of contention among the theorists and
the statement itself has undergone some serious scrutiny. When talking about the
flawed logic of democratic peace theory, Sebastian Rosato argues that the reasons
for the absence of military conflict between democracies, for which there exist
robust empirical evidence, might actually be due to some other variables:
The causal logics that underpin democratic peace theory cannot explain why democracies
remain at peace with one another because the mechanisms that make up these logics do
not operate as stipulated by the theory’s proponents. In the case of the normative logic,
liberal democracies do not reliably externalize their domestic norms of conflict resolution
and do not treat one another with trust and respect when their interests clash. Similarly,
in the case of the institutional logic, democratic leaders are not especially accountable
to peace-loving publics or pacific interest groups, democracies are not particularly slow
to mobilize or incapable of surprise attack, and open political competition offers no
guarantee that a democracy will reveal private information about its level of resolve. In
view of these findings there are good reasons to doubt that joint democracy causes peace.16
Now, as far as the level of democratic consolidation is concerned, the study
done by Mansfield and Snyder indicated that even though empirical evidence
suggests lack of conflict between mature democracies, it does not make new or
emerging democracies pacific, either externally or internally. On the contrary,
they argue that even though the world of mature democracies might be more
peaceful, countries undergoing democratic transition are substantially more
likely to become involved in wars than even stable autocracies. For global peace
and stability in the long run, they argue, sometimes the better choices are stable
autocracies rather than unfinished and unconsolidated democracies. Applying
this argument to the situation in post-war BiH might seem out of place given
the mainly internal character of tensions. However, the complexity of the BiH
constitutional arrangement and the existence of three different ethnic dimensions
of politics makes BiH the country where the conflict occurs within, with a tendency
to spill over outside into the region.
Assisted democratisation in post-conflict countries has become a widely
accepted model that has heavily influenced policy change with regard to
interventionism. In the United States, both Democrats and Republicans have
wholeheartedly endorsed the democratic peace theory as a guiding principle of
16
Sebastian Rosato, The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory. The American Political
Science Review 97, no. 4 (November 2003): 585-602.
73
state or nation?
their foreign policy strategy. From former President Bill Clinton to George W.
Bush, the spread of democracy was seen as one of the primary foreign policy goals
of the United States. The main reason for employing such a strategy rests with the
notion that democratisation diminishes potential threats to global peace and to
the United States. Consequently, there is hardly any better way to achieve a stable
environment than to spread democracies, which, as we have already seen, almost
never go to war with one another. To further this strategy, the US Senate approved
in 2007 the Advance Democracy Act, which they described as:
A bill to advance and strengthen democracy globally through peaceful means and to assist
foreign countries to implement democratic forms of government, to strengthen respect
for individual freedom, religious freedom, and human rights in foreign countries through
increased United States advocacy, to strengthen alliances of democratic countries, to
increase funding for programs of nongovernmental organizations, individuals, and private
groups that promote democracy, and for other purposes.17
A clear sign that the US will continue pursuing this policy in the future rests
on the fact that two out of four Senators who co-sponsored this Bill were 2008
US presidential candidates, Senator John McCain and President-then-Senator
Barack Obama. In short, democratisation is the key ingredient in post-conflict
interventions. Its presence ensures that a once conflict-prone nation or nations
become less likely to resort to violence again once democracy is in place.
This rather general model of post-conflict management is indiscriminately
applied to any state without taking into account its particularities and complex
internal dynamics. We will show below how these democratisation efforts seriously
undermined democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Broadly speaking, democratisation represents the process of transition to
democracy from any given non-democratic form of government. Democratisation
in BiH can be chronologically divided into two parts separated by the war 199295. The main difference between the two relates to the wider perspective and the
process of ownership. Pre-war democratisation took place as a part of the wave
of communist transitions during the last decade of the 20th century in Eastern
Europe. In terms of ownership, this democratisation was exclusively in the hands
of the local political elites. The post-war democratisation took place as a part of
the post-conflict management with the assistance and active involvement of the
international community and the support of a plethora of international actors.
Some authors argue that democracy as a form of government cannot simply be
17
Full text of Bill is available at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/109-s516/show (last
accessed 24/01/2011).
74
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
exported. Larry Diamond expresses profound scepticism as far as the prospects for
the generic export of democracy is concerned. “Promoting democracy does not
mean “exporting” it. Except in rare instances, democracy does not work when foreign
models are imposed, and many features of American democracy are ill-suited to poor,
unstable, and divided countries. Moreover, a missionary zeal for America’s specific
institutions and practices is more likely to provoke resentment than admiration.“18
He argues that democracy entails a very complex interplay of actors, each of
which adds to the stability and maturity of democracy and provides a basis for
it. The spread of political and economic ideology represents a recursive event
in human history. According to Lasswel,19 nearly every era in recorded history
witnessed the rise of powerful cultures whose ideas about politics, economics and
culture spread across the world and transformed other societies in their wake. He
termed these events the “world revolutions”.
These world revolutions have rarely been painless and smooth. Mansfield and
Snyder explain the frictions which usually accompany the process of transition:
Since the French Revolution, the earliest phases of democratisation have triggered some
of the world’s bloodiest nationalist struggles. Similarly, during the 1990s, intense armed
violence broke out in a number of regions that had just begun to experiment with electoral
democracy and more pluralist public discourse. In some cases, such as the former Yugoslavia,
the Caucasus, and Indonesia, transitions from dictatorship to more pluralistic political
systems coincided with the rise of national independence movements, spurring separatist
warfare that often spilled across international borders.20
The transition process in the former Yugoslavia represented one of the cases where
democratisation processes deteriorated into conflicts and outright war. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the democratisation process was stopped in its tracks by the war leaving
it unfinished and incomplete. The period after the war marked the beginning of the
second phase of the democratisation process, which the next section will try to analyse.
2. Benchmarking the Success of Transition
Choosing the most appropriate tool for assessing the success of democratisation
is a very challenging task. Most importantly, a certain level of generalisation is
18
Larry Diamond, Promoting Democracy. Foreign Policy (Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace), no. 87 (1992): 25-46.
19
20
Harold D. Lasswell, World Politics and Personal Insecurity . New York: The Free Press, 1965.
Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder. Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and
War. International Organization 56, no. 2 (2002): 297-337.
75
state or nation?
required. BiH represents a unique case due to the following facts: it is a case of
assisted democratisation, it takes places in a post-war setting, and the roots of
the conflict and the conflict itself remain interwoven into the very fabric of the
society. It is therefore difficult to place it into any general category. But as far as the
outcomes of democratisation efforts are concerned, the situation is much clearer.
Therefore, we shall use the democratisation benchmarks set up by Juan Linz
and Alfred Stepan in their assessment of the democratic transition. Their scope
of analysis is very extensive and covers five arenas of democracy. The question of
“state” is first at hand and the one Linz and Stepan consider to be the conditio sine
qua non of a functioning democratic regime. As they claimed:
(D)emocracy is the form of governance of the state. Thus, no modern polity can become
democratically consolidated unless it is first a state. Therefore, the inexistence of a state or
such an intense lack of identification with the state that large groups of individuals in the
territory want to join a different state or create an independent state raises fundamental and
often unsolvable problems.21
So “without the existence of a state there cannot be a consolidated democracy”. Let
us first try to see to what extent Bosnia and Herzegovina today resembles a state. If
we take the Weberian22 approach claiming that “state represents human community
that successfully claims monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given
territory” or the notion of the state as sovereign23, “which is the claim to be ultimate
political authority, subject to no higher power as regards the making and enforcing of
political decisions” then Bosnia and Herzegovina can hardly meet these requirements
for it was not the subject but the object of politics since 1995 and the introduction
of stabilisation forces in the country along with numerous other segments which,
despite their objectively positive role, directly challenge the notion of sovereignty. The
most obvious example is the Office of the High Representative. Now, the international
presence in 2010 is significantly reduced and the OHR exists only formally, however it
was the permanent feature of the democratisation process until recently. The intense
lack of identification with the state, which Linz and Stepan also mention, on the part
of a large groups of individuals represents yet another threat to the state. Structurally
speaking, Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of three major ethnic groups, at least one
of which, at the level of its actual political elites, has difficulties identifying with the
state24. Particularly important is the policy concerning the creation of an independent
21
22
23
24
Linz and Stepan, Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 7
Max Weber. Politik als Beruf, address at the Munich University, 1918
Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics, 2003, “sovereignty”
Results of 2010 General Elections indicate that secessionist and pro-independence forces
enjoy significant support in the RS.
76
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
state, a proposition that has basically been the platform some major parties in
Republika Srpska function on. Even if only a propaganda tool devised and applied at
the time of elections, it nevertheless seriously undermines the performance of Bosnia
and Herzegovina in the segment of the “statehood”.
The second aspect is the civil society or “that arena of polity where selforganised groups, movements and individuals, relatively autonomous from the
state, attempt to articulate values, create associations and solidarities, and advance
their interests.”25
Compared to weak properties of statehood, one could say that civil society in
BiH has reached an advanced level, if one would judge by the sheer number of civil
society organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In particular this is the case for
single issue and functional organisations. However, their number is unfortunately
inversely proportional to their quality and impact. Despite their proliferation
the impact of civil society on policy making in Bosnia and Herzegovina remains
comparably low. One of the reasons lies with the fact that their working agenda was
being set by the donors26, predominantly international ones, while the influence
on the policy making processes has never become institutionalised. Civil society
groups also failed to engage in a constructive discussion with the government, not
to mention that there were virtually no attempts to go beyond mere criticism and
create partnerships with the government. Truth be told, the significant portion of
the blame for the lack of coordination and cooperation rests with the government.
Lastly, very many political parties were seeking to promote certain political
actions through “independent” civil society groups making them instrumental in
their political agitation.
The process of transition usually means that civil society becomes the correcting
mechanism and should no longer be controlled by the political elites. This was not
the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and as such the performance in this field also
remains suboptimal.
Political society represents another important arena of democratisation. It is
described as an “arena in which polity specifically arranges itself to contest the
legitimate right to exercise control over public power and state apparatus”27. Here
particular attention should be given to the “contestation” part of the definition to
which we shall return later in the chapter.
25
26
27
Linz and Stepan, Democratic Transition and Consolidation, 8
See contribution of Ivana Howard in this volume.
Ibid
77
state or nation?
Linz and Stepan argue that the important issue relating to the notions of
political and civil society and their role in democratic transition is not just the
distinctiveness between them but also their complementary relation. Consolidated
democracies require a good measure of balance and coordination between the two
and BiH hardly fulfils this requirement.
The fourth arena concerns the working consensus, the practice of constitutionalism
and the rule of law. As Linz and Stepan describe it:
all significant actors – especially democratic government and the state must respect
and uphold the rule of law. For the types of civil society and political society we have
just described, a rule of law embodied in a spirit of constitutionalism is an indispensible
condition.28
For them, three previously mentioned arenas; civil society, political society and
working consensus about procedures on governance, constitutionalism and rule
of law represent the backbone and prerequisites of consolidated democracy. In
this last segment, BiH underperforms again. Independence of the judiciary and
the primacy of law has been subject to continued criticism in particular when it
comes to high profile cases involving prominent politicians. The mandate of the
foreign judges and prosecutors, who have for a long time represented the objective
and professional face of the Court of BiH, has not been extended, thereby severely
handicapping the functioning of the Court and the rule of law in BiH.
The fifth and final arena concerns the economy “or rather an arena we believe
should be called economic society”29. Here, the emphasis is on a market economy
as opposed to a controlled one, and this particular arena is important for the
case of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the extent to which such an arena creates
preconditions for the development of the other four by providing a stable economic
environment. Also, the poor performance in the previous four segments directly
and adversely affects economic development as such.
3. Perils of Democratisation in the Post-Conflict
Bosnian Environment
The process of democratisation of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina has failed
to meet the expectations of its architects. Instead of maturing into a consolidated
state, the fragile democracy of Bosnia and Herzegovina is in a state of arrested
development, unable to adapt to changing circumstances. One of the major
28
29
Ibid
Ibid
78
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
problems of the democratisation process in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the
fact that it shared the time and place with the process of externally administered
post-conflict stabilisation. These processes work in different directions and have
a tendency to collide. They collide more often than not, resulting in permanent
stagnation that constantly threatens to deteriorate and causes frustration on the
part of those involved in it. In the Bosnian case, both the international community
and the citizens of the country were frustated by this stagnation.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, as envisioned in Dayton, Ohio is a complex powersharing arrangement between the three dominant ethno-religious groups. As with
most complex systems, in order for it to function it requires a significant level
of dedication on the part of major actors in the process. In the case of BiH, the
dedication of political elites never materialised. Therefore, James Schear argues
that: “thanks to the Dayton accord, their (...Serb, Croat and Bosniak...) struggles
are now largely nonviolent, yet the resulting gridlock illustrates just how far
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s realities diverge from the lofty goals established in the
agreement”.30
Peace accords, at their essence, have tendency to propel post-war countries
into a form of manic depression with an initial feeling of euphoria generated by
the peace accord itself and the end of hostilities. Later on, argues Schear, further,
large influxes of peacekeepers induce stability and buoy the local economy. “Then,
slowly, psychological deflation sets in. Common crime soars as the disengagement
of armies creates a vacuum that bandits are quick to fill. Unhappy constituencies
such as ex-soldiers, the wounded and displaced populations become more
obstreperous. Multiparty elections spawn tensions. An overabundance of
weapons increases the lethality of civil violence, while land mines reduce
freedom of movement and economic development. Reconstruction lags behind
expectations.”31
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s state of frozen conflict seriously undermines its
democratic potential and makes it unconsolidated. Bosnia and Herzegovina is
characterized by multi-ethnicity and a complex cultural fabric that adds another
layer of difficulty to the process of democratisation. The post-conflict character of
the society further complicates the matter, in particular as the ownership of the
processes of democratisation and post-conflict stabilisation remains dominantly
in the hands of the international community. As a result, Bosnian political elites
never seriously developed a commitment to these processes in the country.
30
31
James A. Schear, “Bosnia’s Post-Dayton Traumas”. Foreign Policy, (Autumn 1996): 86-101.
Schear, Bosnia’s Post-Dayton Traumas, 86
79
state or nation?
Here it would be beneficial to provide a more accurate explanation for the
term “post-conflict” by adapting it to the Bosnian case. For in this case, the term
“post-conflict” means only that major and organised armed hostilities have ceased
while the roots of conflict have not been eradicated or removed. The permanent
presence of dormant and unresolved conflict has profound implications for the
BiH political landscape.
The basic premise presented in this chapter is that BiH underperformed due
to the simultaneous introduction of two mutually exclusive processes which in
turn created two parallel realities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One is post-conflict
in nature and where the actors, predominantly international, are engaged in
removing the roots of conflict, reconciliation, reconstruction and arbitration.
The other is where the political actors entrenched along the lines created during
the war are further solidified and legitimised through the electoral process, and
engage in a somewhat limited exercise in democracy. Simultaneous introduction
of both processes is commonly described as the sequencing fallacy.32
Writing in 2007, Thomas Carothers recognised the danger inherent in the
untimely introduction of democratisation and argued that the sequencing fallacy
will occur when certain preconditions, above all, the rule of law and a wellfunctioning state, have not been put in place before a society democratizes.
In reviewing the processes, it would be natural to start with the process of postconflict stabilisation, simply because this process logically precedes the process of
democratic consolidation or democratisation. The basic feature of post-conflict
stabilisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is an institutionalised presence of the
international community. Its task is to assist and to observe, and to oversee the
military and civil aspects of the Dayton Peace Accord. Roberto Belloni explains
the role of the international community in BiH:
The 1995 Dayton General Framework Agreement for Peace (GFAP) provides legal
foundations for the international community to intervene in practically every sphere of
Bosnian affairs, from organizing elections to supervising local authorities, from human
rights monitoring to implementing regional arms control programs. Even the police and the
judiciary have moved substantially under international control.33
By nature the institutional presence of the international community cannot
be scrutinised or controlled in any way by the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
32
Thomas Carothers. “How Democracies Emerge: The Sequencing Fallacy”. Journal of
Democracy, (2007): 13-27.
33
Roberto Belloni. “Civil Society and Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. Journal of
Peace Research 38, no. 2 (March 2001): 163-180.
80
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
which makes it basically undemocratic. Their legitimacy is derived from the
Dayton Peace Agreement and guaranteed by the neighbouring countries and the
major powers. The Dayton Peace Accord is not limited in terms of time required
for the implementation of its provisions and can be changed or amended only with
broad cross-ethnic consensus of the political elites. The initial idea was to promote
the legitimate political elites through the electoral process. These elites would
then gradually take over processes from the international actors. The “transfer of
ownership” would occur over time with ever decreasing international presence
and involvement.
The Dayton architects’ major concern was to achieve the goals of the Agreement
and for that purpose they installed the indirect channels of influence on Serb and
Croats, two ethnic groups which were initially not supportive of the very idea of
the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by enlisting the support of both Bosnian
neighbours while the United States maintained a strong influence over the Bosniak
political elites (Schear, 1995). In his article for the Foreign Affairs magazine James
Schear argues that “no one at the Dayton talks really believed that the accord
would instantly tear down barriers erected over 42 months of warfare and brutal
atrocities. The hope, instead, was for deliverance through indirection.34”
The Strengthening of informal alternative channels of influence, through
focus on ethnic elites, will soon after the elections in 1996 become the only way
for the international actors to try and influence the democratic arena which
they themselves helped form. The use of alternative channels of influence will
become one of the marking features of the Bosnian political landscape and will
in the end deal the ultimate blow to the emerging democracy which is only as
strong as its institutions are. These channels will remain effective and be used
whenever democracy fails to deliver. We shall come back later in our analysis to
this phenomenon.
Preconditions for a sustainable democratic transition are not present
immediately after the conflict. What is present though is the sense of insecurity and
suspicion, devastated infrastructure, the non-functioning economy and the divided
and ineffective civil society. Democratic transitions under such conditions bring
instability, insecurity and uncertainty, and political struggles, which only makes the
matters worse.
In terms of its involvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the international
administration made several adjustments to their approach. As will be shown,
these changes all point at the obvious lack of overall strategy and coherence in an
34
Schear, Bosnia’s Post-Dayton Traumas, 88.
81
state or nation?
approach to the democratisation process in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But they also indicate the absence of a methodological and systematic approach
to post-conflict management as such, which almost by definition seriously
undermines the peace-making efforts it should ultimately support.
At the very beginning, the approach of the international actors in BiH equated
legitimacy with the elected politicians. Democracy was synonymous with mere
electoralism. And indeed, the legality of the elected politicians is undisputed but
the process through which they arrived at power is questionable, to say the least.
The fact that the elections in 1996 took place so soon after the war and under
tremendously difficult conditions legitimised the local political partners who were
not committed to the stabilisation process. Here it must be said that that a state
with an unfinished conflict, where none of the warring parties in the end got what
they wanted, left enough room for them to attempt to complete their projects
under the new framework. International actors found themselves faced with three
diametrically opposing ideas of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a continuation of the
war by other means.
Almost instantly after the first elections in 1996, which essentially cemented and
legitimised the same political elites that had led the three ethnic groups throughout
the war, the international actors were devising a way around the mess they found
themselves in. After abandoning attempts to influence the outcome of elections by
altering the electoral units to increase chances of their own champions, the Peace
Implementation Council met in Bonn in 1997 to discuss further steps along the way
to a full-fledged democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This meeting gave birth
to the ultimate governing tool that would in time become frequently employed
against the democracy it was supposed to help establish. The set of measures which
vested real authority in the High Representative were dubbed the “Bonn Powers”
and included among other things the possibility to remove from office every public
official (elected or not) for obstruction and to impose any piece of legislation deemed
necessary to foster and advance the peace implementation process. Clearly, these
powers were never used without broad consultations with all PIC member states
and without the pressing need for it. The problem was that they were used while the
democracy in the country was still consolidating. And even though one may argue
that most of the officials which were removed from office deserved to be sacked
and the legislation which was imposed was absolutely essential for the country, it
remains undisputed that this way of dealing with the lack of progress ultimately
damaged the democratic processes.
The second phase was marked by strong support to the civil society and other
alternative channels of influence on the political society. The shift of strategy
occurred following the acknowledgment of the fact that premature elections
82
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
cemented the tripartite ethnic division of the Bosnian political landscape making
any consensus to advance the state virtually impossible.
The third and the most recent shift represents an attempt to broker deals at
all costs, taking into account not normative requirements of democracy but the
realities of power. This strategy can best be described as utter pragmatism or “the
art of the possible.”
4. Focus on the Political Society
The first post-war elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina took place as early as
1996. Insistence upon early elections was supposed to be a clear sign of progress in
the war-torn country, but also an attempt to speed up the pace of democratisation
and enable a quick exit strategy by handing over the responsibility to the local
authorities. This approach bears a striking resemblance to the current situation
in Iraq in terms of the insistence on early elections35. Early elections in the
post-conflict societies threaten to undermine both the democratisation and the
stabilisation process.
The first and immediate results of the elections 1996 made the hopes of those
who believed that the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina would develop a peaceful
society dissolve into thin air. What actually happened is that the elites, which led
the three ethnic groups during the war, received almost plebiscitary support in
their respective ethnic groups. Lederach explains this saying that “where there
is deep, long-term fear and direct experiences of violence that sustain an image
of the enemy people are extremely vulnerable and easily manipulated. The
fears in subgroup identities are often created, reinforced and used by leaders to
solidify their position and the internal cohesion of the group behind them. Deep
polarization and sharp division are, in fact, functional for increasing cohesion,
reducing ambiguity, and decreasing internal criticism of leaders.”36
Discussing the situation in which the first “democratic” elections in BiH after
the war took place, Borden, Drakulic and Kenny argued that “racial conflict,
restrictions on freedom of movement, human rights violations, unchanging
divisions of the state and controlled media make the elections little more than a
35
According to Carothers, it was Iraqis who have insisted on early elections, contrary to the
demand of CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority). This fact, however, does not change the fact
that early elections exacerbate the conflict, rather than providing stabilization to the country.
36
John Paul Lederach. Building Peace - Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies.
(Washington D.C.: United States Institute for Peace Press, 1997), 3-75
83
state or nation?
symbolic exercise”37.
Earlier in the chapter, we mentioned the limited definition of democracy
that perceives democracy solely through the process of elections. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the elections were seen as a basic precondition for democratic
development, without taking into account the atmosphere surrounding the
elections and possible unwanted or unexpected outcomes. Along that line
Carothers argues that “only much farther down the road, when those preconditions
are established, should outsiders push for elections and the other associated
elements of what sequentialists refer to, warily, as “mass political participation” or
“mass plebiscites”.
Elections have had a multitude of negative effects with two being the most
important. Firstly, the warring political elites received legitimacy in the eyes of
the international community through elections, an outcome that will haunt the
internationals for many years to come. At that time, the elected leaders in Bosnia
and Herzegovina entered what could be described as the limited political area38
virtually without any responsibility for their actions. And secondly, the process
of democratisation has suffered in terms of the perception of the people since it
basically legitimised the wartime status quo.
The lack of democratic institutions has left an open space for irresponsible
and power-hungry ethnic political elites to freely pursue the policies of further
demarcation between communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina through systemic
indoctrination in education, rhetoric of fear, and division of institutions according
to the ethnic principle. Nothing stood in the way of this destructive behaviour as
long as an illusion of functioning democracy was maintained. Had democratic
institutions truly been in place, the manoeuvring space of ethnic political elites
would have been severely constrained and the damage done to the development
of liberal democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina would be significantly smaller.
Accounting for this approach, Carothers says that: “pursuing a sequential path
promises to rationalize and defang democratic change by putting the potentially
volatile, unpredictable actions of newly empowered masses and emergent elected
leaders into a sturdy cage built of laws and institutions”.39
And Carothers is not alone in his thinking. Snyder and Mansfield are wary
37
Anthony Borden, Slavenka Drakulic, and George Kenny. “Bosnia’s democratic charade.
(1996 elections in Bosnia).” The Nation, (1996).
38
Limited, because of the institutionalized international presence that assumed the leading
role in making difficult political decisions instead of the local political elites.
39
Carothers, “How Democracies Emerge: The Sequencing Fallacy”, 13.
84
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
of the intention of political elites faced with the prospects of being scrutinised
by the public as is usually the case in mature democracies. Therefore, they
argue, these elites will try to keep control of the business and keep democratic
institutions weak.
Where powerful groups feel threatened by democracy, they seek to keep its institutions
weak and malleable. Thus the practices of many newly democratizing states are only loose
approximations of those that characterize mature democracies. Limited suffrage, unfair
constraints on electoral competition, disorganized political parties, corrupt bureaucracies,
or partial media monopolies may skew political outcomes in newly democratizing states
away from the patterns that coherent democracies generally produce. Although elites
in newly democratizing states need to solicit mass support, the weakness of democratic
institutions allows them to avoid full public accountability.40
The Bosnian war created far too many problematic elements that threatened
democratisation as a process. Unfinished war, the state of frozen conflict without
a clear winner in the war, no consensus on the nature of the conflict in Bosnia and
Herzegovina or the setup of Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war, a pressing need
to move ahead and achieve reconciliation in a country where war criminals and
victims still lived alongside each other, added to the burden of weak democracy.
Such democracies almost inevitably suffer from number of deficiencies
(Diamond, 1992). Diamond further argues that in such conditions:
(L)egislatures are weak, poorly financed, and understaffed. Legal systems lack the training,
resources, and authority to protect human rights and due process. Political parties lack
organization, resources, meaningful ties to interest groups and grassroots constituencies,
and the political skill and experience to govern effectively. Also missing, typically, is the
cultural and civic infrastructure of democracy: a strong commitment to democracy widely
shared among elites and citizens, a variety of democratic associations and interest groups
autonomous from the state, and an independent, pluralistic mass media.41
Clearly, there are no alternatives to pursuing democratisation, which is also
true in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, very few, if any, will argue
that democratic consolidation should not have taken place in post-war BiH. The
argument proposed here, however, begs for a more careful and sensible approach.
Carothers argues further saying that: “a more useful alternative for taking into
account the many complications and risks of democratisation and democracy
promotion is gradualism, which aims at building democracy slowly in certain
contexts, but not avoiding it or putting it off indefinitely”42.
40
41
42
Snyder and Mansfield, “Democratic Transitions, Institutional Strength, and War”, 301.
Diamond, “Promoting Democracy”, 26.
Carothers, “How Democracies Emerge”, 14.
85
state or nation?
However, slowly and gradually were the dirty words for the architects of
Dayton. Slowly would entail longer initially envisaged duration of the civil and
military mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, stronger commitment to the process
of post-conflict stabilisation and later on democratic consolidation. It would also
mean that BiH would be externally administered, which only very few would
accept in the new global context. Protectorate was the word that many used in
the BiH case, yet it always faced outright rejection on the part of the international
administration in the country.
They were right to certain extent. BiH was neither a protectorate, nor a fullfledged democracy. Division of powers between locals and internationals, which
was supposed to be tipped in the favour of locally elected officials, has failed to
materialise.
Bosnia’s future became slave to irresponsible local politicians who emerged
as a direct consequence of fallible and deficient process of democratisation and
premature elections on one side and the overzealous international factor in Bosnia
and Herzegovina which was frustrated by the lack of progress and embarked on
micromanagement of the country on the other side. Effectively, this meant that local
politicians were free to pursue their agendas, which usually had very little to do with
public good, in their own limited realm without having to deal with difficult and
potentially dangerous topics vital for the future of the country, while the international
community did their work. In plain words, local politicians understood that the less
they do, the more will be done by the internationals. The problems would eventually
get solved and they would not have to explain to their electorate why they had to give
in to certain demands. They could freely continue pursuing their ethno-nationalist
rhetoric in a vicious circle of ever-growing irresponsibility.
Lack of success in the process of democratic consolidation and reforms resulted
in frustration from both side of the population and the international community in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Instead of decreasing its role and the direct involvement
in the events in Bosnia and Herzegovina, international administration was forced
to increase its power and employ openly non-democratic tools and methods. One
such method was the “Bonn powers”, vested in the High Representative in Bosnia
and Herzegovina as chief international administrator and the umpire of the Dayton
Peace Accord by the Peace Implementation Council as a supreme regulating
body. Bonn powers enabled the High Representative, among other things, to sack
elected and non-elected officials and forbid their further public engagement, enact
legislation which could later only be revised by the legislative bodies in Bosnia and
Herzegovina after it was adopted as is. The use of Bonn powers, unchecked and
un-scrutinised, is part of post-conflict stabilisation toolbox.
On the other side, the process of democratisation and development of the country
86
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
involved among other things membership in the Council of Europe, the oldest
European organisation. Members of the Council of Europe subscribe to a certain,
relatively high set of standards, in particular in the field of human rights protection.
Moreover, one can use the expertise available in the Council of Europe to seek advice
on certain legal matters. One such matter was exactly the use of Bonn powers,
which became a thorn in the side of some politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
What better way to fight the international community than to batter it with its own
weapons, the advanced catalogue of human rights. The Venice Commission43 is
an expert body of jurists that was tasked with assessing the legality of the Bonn
Powers. Not surprisingly it ruled that: “...that the use of the Bonn powers by the
High Representative was beneficial for BiH and its citizens and a necessity following
a bloody war. However, this practice does not correspond to democratic principles
when exercised without due process and the possibility of judicial control”44.
The Venice Commission did not stop short of offering a very concrete
recommendation, and it “calls for a progressive phasing out of these powers and
for the establishment of an advisory panel of independent lawyers for the decisions
directly affecting the rights of individuals pending the end of the practice.”
This time it was the process of democratisation that threatened the process of
post-conflict stabilisation. The Bonn powers were primarily used as an ultimate
tool of coercion and an unblocking mechanism against the obstructive forces on
the ground in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The way the Venice Commission ruled on
the use of the Bonn powers was not surprising, having in mind the provisions of the
European Convention on Human Rights, the supreme Human Rights protection
mechanism applicable to all the member-states of the Council of Europe. The
problem is caused, again by the introduction of the democratic process at very
early stage in post-conflict process.
Conclusion
On 4 July 2000, the Constitutional Court of BiH announced its ruling on the
constituency of all three peoples on the whole territory of BiH. This decision,
effectively, meant that the exclusivity of the ethno-territoriality was no longer the
43
The European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice
Commission, is the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters. Established
in 1990, the commission has played a leading role in the adoption of constitutions that
conform to the standards of Europe’s constitutional heritage.
44
Opinion on the Constitutional Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Powers of the
High Rrepresentative, Venice, 11 March 2005, (last accessed 24/01/11).
87
state or nation?
norm. Unfortunately, the effects of this decision were watered down in an ensuing
political debate on the implementation of the decision. Instead of insisting that the
decision be properly implemented, the OHR allowed the political elites to take the
decision in a relativist fashion and practically cement the ethnic division of the state.
The growing need for the transfer of ownership over the processes to the local
politicians was apparently more important as a part of the exit strategy of the
international community than the merits of the decision itself.
A few years later, faced with the constant failure of political elites and
frustrated by the lack of progress in this protracted post-conflict engagement, the
international community has once again resorted to a new strategy. This time, they
decided to give up on the democratisation process and focus instead on achieving
the achievable and in the shortest time possible.
Achieving the achievable basically means making sure that the transfer
of ownership to the local authorities takes place, which would represent the
fulfilment of the requirements for the successful “exit strategy” of the international
community. Even so, Bosnia and Herzegovina would, most likely, remain a partially
administered country until its full integration into the European Union.
In order to achieve this former High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Miroslav Lajcak45 started employing realist political methods. One such tool was
the practice of extra-institutional meetings with the heads of the biggest parties in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. This approach was first attempted by the former secondin-command of the OHR, the US diplomat Donald Hays who tried brokering a set
of amendments to the Constitution that was eventually defeated in the Parliament
by a narrow margin in 2006.
By using extra-institutional means the OHR circumvented the official decision-making institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina and consequently damaged the very
structure that the Dayton Peace Agreement, and the OHR, helped create. Years of
state-building efforts are now being declared void by OHR’s extra-institutional
endeavours. Lajcak stood firm against these accusations defending his approach
by saying that BiH progresses as a result of these meetings. Asked to comment in
an interview on the growing criticism of his extra-institutional actions he replied:
It is certainly a good thing, because every meeting we had, resulted with something good for BiH.
45
Slovak diplomat who gained prominence brokering the deal in Serbia and Montenegro,
which led to Referendum and subsequent peaceful declaration of independence of
Montenegro. In December 2010 he was appointed as Managing Director for Russia, Eastern
Neighbourhood and the Western Balkans in the EU’s External Action Service.
88
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
Had it not been for these meeting, BiH would not have had European perspective. There would
be no Mostar Declaration, Sarajevo Action plan. There would be no Stabilization and Association
of Agreement. It is good thing for this country that politicians, who got votes from the citizens,
maintain regular communication. I do not understand the critiques of these meetings. The aim
is to unblock the institutions and not to exercise extra-institutional approach.
The High Representative’s statement reveals some serious inconsistencies and
the complete loss of orientation. In a nutshell, he argues that the meetings serve
to unblock the institutions, which, to begin with, were blocked by the same parties
he was meeting. The only difference is that unlike the transparent discussion in
the formal institutions of the system, no matter how dysfunctional they are, these
meeting serve to obscure the modalities of the agreements reached. Even more
devastating is the fact that the OHR was betraying the institutions of the state,
which indicates broadly the acceptance of the fact that the post-war efforts and the
Dayton structure of the country are obviously not feasible any more.
To say that the post-war efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina brought no good
and that they only represent a sequence of errors would be a superficial and
incorrect assessment. Bosnia and Herzegovina had the unfortunate destiny to be
one of the first post-conflict societies where foreign intervention took place under a
completely new set of rules of engagement and against the background of the intrastate conflict. The process of democratisation and post-conflict stabilization could
hardly coexist under such conditions, let alone serve to reinforce each another.
Sluggish performance in the field of democratisation could partially be attributed
to the neglect of the complexity of post-war identities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In Lederach words: “cohesion and identity in contemporary conflict tend to form
within increasingly narrower lines than those that encompass national citizenship.
In situation of armed conflict people seek security by identifying with something
close to their experience and over which they have some control”.46
The Bosnian case indeed follows this pattern very closely. War-made identities
have now been reinforced through the improper administration of post-conflict
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 2010, 15 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement, BiH is a country with an
uncertain future. Instead of strengthening, the state weakens at the expense of its
entities. OHR is failing to meet the reawakened radicalism by claiming that the
time of the Bonn Powers is behind us and that Bosnians must take the future into
their own hands.
In short, the Dayton failed to live up to its expectations because its architects
46
Lederach, “Building Peace”, 12-13
89
state or nation?
failed to understand the importance of establishing stable institutions and norms
and insisted on the framework, instead. They clearly underestimated the threats
of untimely and hasty democratisation in a country torn apart by the war. And
even though the war has been stopped, its effects have not have been reversed,
which was one of the most important provisions of Dayton Peace Agreement. This
chapter was an attempt to provide at least a partial account for this failure.
90
Adnan Huskić DEMOCRATIsatiON AGAINst democracy
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of Peace Research 38, no. 2 (March 2001): 163-180.
Borden, Anthony, Slavenka Drakulic, and George Kenny. “Bosnia’s democratic
charade. (1996 elections in Bosnia).” Nation, The, 1996.
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Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.
Carothers, Thomas. “How Democracies Emerge: The Sequencing Fallacy.” Journal of
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Dahl, Robert Alan. Democracy and its Critics. New Haven and London: Yale University
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Diamond, Larry. “Promoting Democracy.” Foreign Policy (Carnegie Endowment for
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Edward D.Mansfield; Jack Snyder. “Incomplete Democratization and the Outbreak of
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March 2005.
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Fukuyama, Francis. “The End of History?” National Interest, 1989.
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Mansfield, Edward D., and Jack Snyder. “Democratic Transitions, Institutional
Strength, and War.” International Organization 56, no. 2 (2002): 297-337.
Mansfield, Edward D., and Snyder Jack. “Democratization and the Danger of War.”
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92
Building Civil Society
in Bosnia and Herzegovina:
Challenges and Mistakes
Ivana Howard
Introduction
Much has been written about civil society and its role in democratization, but
the exact nature of the role of civil society in nation- or state-building remains
difficult to grasp. The issue is closely related to a broader debate about the
relationship between democratization and state- or nation-building. Here, the
distinction between nation- and state-building is perhaps of lesser importance
and, for the purpose of briefly exploring the said relationship with civil society, the
two terms will be taken to mean one and the same. At the same time, such use of
terminology, usually found in the United States,1 is not intended to contradict the
distinction made in an earlier chapter by Sead Turčalo.
With this “American” understanding of the term(s), Francis Fukuyama
proposes three distinct aspects or phases of nation-building: 1) post-conflict
reconstruction through short-term provision of stability by outside powers; 2)
creating self-sustaining government institutions that can survive the withdrawal of
outside intervention; and 3) strengthening of state institutions.2 In the narrowest
sense most broadly applied, state building refers to creating new institutions
or strengthening the existing ones. In their core democratization strategy, U.S.
democracy promotion efforts include such institution-building as the second
category in the “democracy template” proposed by Thomas Carothers.3 The
goals targeted within this category include a democratic constitution, separation
of powers, an independent judiciary, a responsive local government, and a pro1
2
For example, see: Ottaway, Marina. “Think Again: Nation Building.” Foreign Policy Sep-Oct 2002.
Fukuyama, Francis. State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2004, 100-101.
3
Carothers, Thomas. Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. Washington, DC:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999, 88.
93
state or nation?
democratic military. The two other categories of the “democracy template” include
electoral processes and civil society.
The order in which the sectors were outlined by Carothers – from electoral
processes to state institutions to civil society – was mirrored by the general
historic trend of democracy assistance, beginning with the top-down approach.
The U.S., for example, has been engaged in democracy promotion since before the
1980s, but it was heavily focused on fostering free and fair elections in the early
stages. In the second phase, democracy assistance priorities were shifted towards
the reform of major state institutions, especially judiciaries and legislatures. By
the mid-1990s, donors finally began to focus on strengthening civil society, when
it became apparent that working from the bottom-up is just as important as the
top-down approach to democratizing. The root causes for this change can be
found both in the growing enthusiasm for the idea of civil society as a panacea for
democracy and in a certain disillusionment with the overemphasis on aid to state
institutions.
However, such logic was recently put in question and a case for clearer
separation and certain sequential order between “democratization” and “statebuilding” was made. The most vigorous debate on the topic was led in the Journal
of Democracy July 2007 issue between Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder on the
one, and Carothers on the other side, with alternative views offered separately by
Fukuyama and Sheri Berman. In their previous work, Mansfield and Snyder have
made the case for democratic “sequencing” – the strategy of building effective state
institutions before holding elections or otherwise pushing states to democratize as
the key to reducing the risk of violence during democratic transition.4 Backed by
Berman,5 Carothers reiterated the point made in his earlier article arguing instead
for “gradualism” – while moving rapidly toward elections makes no sense in cases
when a state has completely collapsed or failed due to conflict or other calamities,
democratization should not wait until a well-functioning state is in place;6 rather,
certain steps to democratization should be taken simultaneously with statebuilding in its second phase.
When it comes to building civil society, authors generally concur that a
functioning state is a prerequisite for nongovernmental organizations to operate
effectively or else they risk becoming a part of the problem and may even
4
Mansfield, Edward and Jack Snyder. “The Sequencing ‘Fallacy’.” Journal of Democracy 18, no.
3 (July 2007): 5.
5
Berman, Sheri. “The Vain Hope for ‘Correct’ Timing.” Journal of Democracy 18, no. 3 (July
2007): 14-16.
6
Carothers, Thomas. “The ‘Sequencing’ Fallacy.” Journal of Democracy 18, no. 1 (January
2007): 19.
94
Ivana Howard building civil society
undermine nation-building efforts.7 Yet, state-building should not necessarily be
emphasized over the development of civil society, as argued by some authors,8 nor
postponed indefinitely until a well-functioning state is in place. Certain aspects
of democratization processes – such as creating the space for watchdog groups
to critique state performance or advocacy groups to jointly develop policy ideas
with the government – can actually contribute to state-building.9 In other words,
it could be argued that civil society is both a product of and a precondition for a
functioning state. Although skeptics doubt the international community’s ability
to turn failed states into democracies,10 the ultimate goal of any nation-building
effort is to create a democratic state. All things considered, the inherent connection
between civil society and democracy then demands that, in the process of statebuilding, significant attention also be paid to civil society development.
1. Civil Society and Democratization
For all the rich history of debate and the frequent usage of the term “civil society”
in contemporary discourse, theorists have failed to reach a common definition
and the term remains vague and ill-defined, leaving a number of aspects open to
discussion. A commonly quoted definition by Philippe Schmitter describes civil
society as a set or system of self-organized intermediary groups that:
a) are relatively independent of both public authorities and private units of
production and reproduction, i.e. firms and families;
b) are capable of deliberating about and taking collective actions in defense/
promotion of their interests and passions;
c) but do not seek to replace either state agents or private (re)producers or
to accept responsibility for governing the polity as a whole;
d) but do agree to act within pre-established rules of a ‘civil’ or legal nature.11
Schmitter echoes here the general view of civil society as non-economic and
non-state. His outline also includes a number of elements contained in an oftcited work by Larry Diamond, who defines civil society as the realm of organized
social life that is voluntary, self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, autonomous
7
8
Ottaway, “Think Again.”
Matveeva, Anna. “Exporting Civil Society: The Post-Communist Experience.” Problems of
Post-Communism 55, no. 2 (March-April 2008): 3-13.
9
Carothers, “‘Sequencing’ Fallacy,” 20.
10
11
Ottaway, “Think Again.”
Quoted in Whitehead, Laurence. Democratization: Theory and Experience. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002. 73.
95
state or nation?
from the state, and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules. It is distinct from
“society” in general in that it involves citizens acting collectively in a public sphere
to express their interests, passions, and ideas, exchange information, achieve
mutual goals, make demands on the state, and hold state officials accountable.12
Both authors reflect the general consensus to exclude private business and the formal
political sector from the notion of civil society. Clearly implied is also the space civil
society occupies as that between individuals and families on the one, and the state and
government on the other side. Indeed, this aspect is central in a definition by Gordon
White, an author favored by Carothers. In it, civil society is seen as “an intermediate
associational realm between state and family populated by organizations which are
separate from the state, enjoy autonomy in relation to the state and are formed voluntarily
by members of the society to protect or extend their interests or values.”13
To add to the confusion created by the lack of a unified definition of civil society,
several “synonyms” have been developed for the term over the years, especially
since democratic changes swept across Europe in the late 20th century. One of
them – the third sector – rests firmly in the previously discussed understanding
of civil society as a sphere separate from the state and the market. Another –
NGOs – is not a synonym and is in fact erroneously used as such. NGO is a much
more narrow concept than civil society, the latter of which generally encompasses
a broader variety of actors and institutional forms. To be fair, NGOs are a valuable
part of civil society and play an increasingly important role in democratization. But
by definition, they are a subset of civil society, formally organized and registered,
usually characterized by their nonprofit status and a value-based orientation.14
The Western concept of a professional NGO, at least as applied by democracy
assistance practitioners in democratizing countries, includes a legally recognized
nonprofit status, salaried staff employees, and a purpose to represent public
interest.15 Simply worded, an NGO is a professional, bureaucratic structure and,
as such, tends to enjoy the greatest legitimacy in Western societies. For this and
other reasons, the NGOs have often grown to mean civil society and, deservingly
or not, carry out most of its role in democracy and democratization today.
12
Diamond, Larry. “Rethinking Civil Society: Toward Democratic Consolidation.” Journal of
Democracy 5, no. 3 (July 1994): 5.
13
White, Gordon. “Civil Society, Democratization and Development: Clearing the Analytical
Ground.” In Civil Society in Democratization, ed. Peter Burnell and Peter Calvert. London:
Frank Cass, 2004, 10.
14
15
Hudock, Ann C. NGOs and Civil Society: Democracy by Proxy? Cambridge: Polity, 1999, 1.
Aksartova, Sada. “Why NGOs? How American Donors Embraced Civil Society after the
Cold War.” International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law 8, no. 3 (May 2006): 19.
96
Ivana Howard building civil society
Civil society has long been seen as a panacea to democracy. Alexis de
Tocqueville was the first to articulate the need for a strong, independent civil
society standing between the individual and the state. For Tocqueville, civil
society consisted of social associations and relationships of all kinds independent
of state and acting as a protection against abuses of state power. In addition, these
voluntary associations serve to educate citizens in the values of democracy, being
“large free schools, where all the members of the community go to learn the
general theory of association.”16
The neo-Tocquevillean position of authors like Robert Putnam, Larry Diamond,
and Gordon White is that democracy is strengthened when it faces vigorous civil
society. Jürgen Habermas goes as far as to proclaim civil society to be the source of selfreflexivity in society, without which democracy dries up.17 Most of the recent empirical
research has confirmed a positive relationship between civil society and democracy.
Nevertheless, some authors are correct to object to the habit of treating civil society,
both in theory and in practice, as if it were the only or the most important factor
of democracy, rather than one of many. In their oft-cited five arenas of consolidated
democracy, Juan Linz and Alfred Stephan list civil society alongside political society,
rule of law, state bureaucracy, and institutionalized economic society, with the state
as a necessary precondition. Stating that all of the five interconnected and mutually
enforcing conditions must exist or be crafted for a democracy to be consolidated,18
they also imply the indispensability of civil society to democracy.
Civil society provides an arena for a number of democratic functions. As
spelled out by Diamond, they include:19
a)
providing the basis for the limitation of state power;
b) supplementing the role of political parties in stimulating quality political
participation;
c) promoting basic democratic ideas and values, including tolerance,
willingness to compromise, and a respect for opposing viewpoints;
16
Quoted in Chandler, David. Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton. 2nd ed. London: Pluto,
2000, 10.
17
Habermas, Jürgen. “Further Reflections on the Public Sphere.” Translated by Thomas Burger.
In Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig J. Calhoun. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992, 444.
18
Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern
Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1996, 7.
19
Diamond, “Rethinking Civil Society,” 7-11.
97
state or nation?
d) providing alternative channels for the articulation, aggregation, and
representation of interests, particularly for underrepresented groups, as well
as opportunities for participation at all levels of governance;
e) mitigating principle polarities of political conflict by generating a wide
range of potentially cross-cutting interests;
f )
recruiting and training new political leaders;
g) performing explicit democracy-building functions (for example, through
election monitoring or human rights promotion and reporting);
h) disseminating information, thus aiding citizens in the collective pursuit
and defense of their interests and values;
i) spreading new information and ideas essential to achieving economic
reforms; and
j) by performing the above functions, enhancing the accountability,
responsiveness, inclusiveness, effectiveness, and legitimacy of the political system.
Drawing from the civil society and democracy theory, as well as the rousing
experience of the change brought about by the European social movements in the
1980s, civil society was suddenly seen as a crucial agent in influencing the political
system and in providing a more solid foundation to democratization.20 Since then,
the general notion that civil society development is critical to democratization has
become the centerpiece of democracy assistance efforts. This oversimplified notion
almost became self-evident truth. Indeed, as Ottaway and Carothers observe, “in
the eyes of many donors and recipients, and even of many democratic theorists, the
idea that civil society as always a positive force for democracy, indeed even the most
important one, is unassailable.”21 The big Kahuna of international donors, the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID), made it a “transcendent goal to
solidify the long-term prospects for well-functioning, representative democracy by
establishing the attributes for what is broadly understood as ‘civil society’.”22
Today, most established and even new democracies have an international
20
Belloni, Roberto. “Building Civil Society in Bosnia-Herzegovina.” Human Rights Working
Papers No. 2, 12 January 2000, 1.
21
Ottaway, Marina and Thomas Carothers, eds. Funding Virtue: Civil Society Aid and
Democracy Promotion. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000, 4.
22
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Lessons in Implementation: The NGO
Story. October 1999, 3.
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Ivana Howard building civil society
democracy assistance program. In fact, the sector has developed to such an extent
since the 1990s that it has prompted some to attach to it the fairly depreciatory label
of “democracy aid industry.” The “industry” includes a variety of approaches and
tools, but the institutional mechanisms for democracy assistance implementation
are usually donors. While precise classification of donors is not possible, they can
generally be grouped into such broad categories as state and non-state, bilateral and
multilateral, American and European. Although often referred to in practice as the
“donor community”, individual donors employ such a wide variety of approaches,
resources, and priorities in their democracy promotion efforts that the term is
simply a misnomer. In practical terms, democracy assistance can include provisions
of advice and instruction, training programs, and equipment, as well as other forms
of material support, most frequently financial subventions to pro-democratic
bodies, or subsidies to cover the costs of certain democratizing processes.
The U.S. is often thought of as the largest source of democracy assistance.
Andrew Green’s comprehensive research on donor funding between 1990 and
2004 confirms this although, starting in 2003, the EU funding has at times been
larger due to assistance extended to EU accession candidates.23 More interestingly,
Green’s findings indicate that the U.S. generally has a slight inclination towards
“society-oriented” programs, which include civil society strengthening, elections,
free flow of information, and human rights.24 EU funding is overwhelmingly stateoriented. Authors like Ishkanian confirm this, noting that European bilateral and
multilateral donors focus much less on civil society as a key pillar of democracy
promotion.25 With their agenda primarily driven by the desire to firmly anchor
the East European and Western Balkan states to Europe, the European donors
generally focus on supporting programs assisting or reforming state institutions
and improving their performance. The U.S., on the other hand, not only focuses
more on society-oriented programs but also, within this orientation, heavily leans
towards civil society development.
It should be noted, however, that the broad view of civil society generally has
23
Green, Andrew. “Parsing Donor Funding for Civil Society: A New Agenda for Research.”
Paper presented at the International Development Seminar, Institute for the Theory and
Practice of International Relations, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 15
September 2008, 4.
24
Green, Andrew. “Democracy and Donor Funding: Patterns and Trends.” Paper presented at
the EES Noon Discussion, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington,
DC, 21 February 2007.
25
Ishkanian, Armine. “Democracy Promotion and Civil Society.” In Global Civil Society
2008/9: Communicative Power and Democracy, ed. Martin Albrow et al. London: Sage,
200762.
99
state or nation?
little appeal to donors who tend to be output-oriented and are pressed to show
results. Instead, the practice of democracy assistance to civil society went on to
develop on the basis of two assumptions: a) that civil society is primarily embodied
in NGOs, and b) because civil society is a prerequisite of democracy, NGOs
are indispensable for democratization.26 The reasons were very practical. First,
NGOs seek to perform many of the same roles as political parties but without
the potentially sensitive issue of partisanship, and they cost far less to support
than state institutions. Next, they are easier to define, measure and evaluate than
civil society or social movements. Moreover, unlike informal associations or social
movements, NGOs generally have the administrative capacity to meet the donors’
bureaucratic requirements. Consequently, it has not only become customary
to speak of and treat NGOs as the recognizable equivalents of civil society, but
democracy assistance often became equated with civil society aid.
The ultimate effect of civil society strengthening implemented in the name of
democracy promotion was an explosive growth of the NGO sector as well as the
“projectization” of civil society over the last two decades. Some donors have taken
the number of NGOs and their well-being to be a principal measure by which
success of democratization is assessed. However, the spectacularly rapid growth
of NGOs did not occur organically, leading authors to call it a “genetically-grown
civil society.”27 Moreover, the existence of NGOs alone does not necessarily reflect
the strength of civil society but rather its potential. The numbers can be misleading
– many of the organizations disappear as quickly as they have appeared or exist
only on paper, without any meaningful effect on democratization. Consequently,
the phenomenal growth in number of NGOs has not necessarily translated into
increased public participation, as was expected.
2. Civil Society Aid in the Bosnian Context
The international community’s role in Bosnia permanently changed the
nature of international involvement in post-conflict situations from simply
keeping warring sides apart to taking the lead in developing long-term political
solutions.28 Indeed, Bosnian society is characterized by intensive and protracted
international intervention in policy making and implementation, seeking to secure
long-term peace and stability. Consequently, Bosnia has been described as an
26
27
28
Aksartova, Sada. “Why NGOs,” 16.
Ishkanian, “Democracy Promotion and Civil Society,” 72.
Chandler, Bosnia, 1.
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Ivana Howard building civil society
example of maximalist approach to state building, with intensity and complexity
of international involvement and levels of foreign assistance outpacing even the
German Marshall Plan in the dollar per capita amount of aid by seven times.29
Immediately following the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in December
1995, the international community took almost full control over Bosnia’s policy
development and implementation. Initially, the country was effectively run by a
network of international community institutions representing the major world
powers, with NATO, the UN, and the OSCE as leading implementing organs. From
the onset, however, civil society was seen as key to the successful implementation
of Dayton Accords and became an integral part of international efforts. Thought
to have the potential for moderation, compromise, and dialogue, civil society was
injected with massive amounts of financial, human, and technical resources. But
the process was off to a shaky start, not least because of the different meaning the
term “civil society” had in Bosnia as well as the international community’s lack of
understanding of its fairly unique history.
Just as it was starting to take root, the nascent liberal civil society in Bosnia
was overpowered by the rise of ethno-nationalism in the early 1990s. Once peace
was restored, it became obvious that very little was left of organized civil society
in Bosnia. Many pre-war organizations simply disappeared, never to exist again.
In Tuzla, for example, their number went from around 800 before to only 44
after the war.30 Indeed, only 10 per cent of the currently registered civil society
organizations in Bosnia existed before the war.31 In many other ways, however, the
civil society development in Bosnia follows the general patterns found in most of
the post-communist Europe. Civil society assistance certainly had its role to play
in strengthening the sector but its effect has been largely dismal.
As war came to an end, international reconstruction aid rushed in. Just in the
year following the signing of the Dayton Accords, 17 foreign governments, 18 UN
agencies, 27 intergovernmental organizations, and about 200 nongovernmental
organizations became involved in Bosnia’s post-war reconstruction.32 It is estimated
29
Dobbins, James et al. America’s Role in Nation Building: From Germany to Iraq. Santa
Monica, CA: RAND, 2003, 157-158.
30
Sali-Terzić, Sevima. “Civil Society.” In International Support Policies to South-East European
Countries: Lessons (Not) Learned in BiH, ed. Žarko Papić. Sarajevo: Open Society Fund/
Mueller, 2001, 137.
31
Kronauer Consulting. Civilno društvo: prilozi za izradu strategije za uspostavu
stimulativnog okruženja za razvoj civilnog društva u Bosni i Herzegovini. Report produced for
the European Union. Sarajevo, 2009, 82.
32
McMahon, Patrice C. and Jon Western. “The Death of Dayton: How to Stop Bosnia from
101
state or nation?
that a total of $14 billion in international aid was poured into reconstruction
efforts from 1996 to 2007.33 Between 1995 and 2000, when international aid was
at its peak, roughly $5-6 billion was spent on various forms of assistance to local
communities, including support for the development of civil society.34 While it is
difficult to provide a reliable estimate of the amount invested specifically into civil
society building, the sheer number of organizations working with or focusing on
the sector indicate that the total should not be neglected. The EC alone spent over
€44 million on civil society organizations in Bosnia to date.35
The more recent amounts are equally impressive. For example, nine of the donors
belonging to the Donor Coordination Forum (DCF) – Switzerland, Sweden, the US,
Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, and the EC – together allocated
€3.93 million for civil society sector in 2007 alone.36 Here, civil society assistance
encompasses support for community participation and development, funding to
grass-roots organizations and cooperatives, and development of other participatory
planning and decision-making procedures and institutions. Other sectors – human
rights, youth and gender issues – may overlap, so the amount is bound to be higher.
The above number does not include €3 million available through the two EC
Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) programs focusing on civil society
in 2007. Nor does it include other bilateral donors or private foundations, such as
the C.S. Mott Foundation, which awarded over $1 million that year or the National
Endowment for Democracy, which awards an average of $0.5 million per year
directly to nongovernmental organizations and independent media in Bosnia.
Although significantly lower than it once was, the total of these amounts reflects
the basic belief held by the international donors and promoters of democracy: civil
society is essential for democratization and peace building in Bosnia. As elsewhere,
civil society development became central to the international community’s
democratization efforts and practically every donor, international organization,
or multilateral agency explicitly made civil society an element of their strategy or
program implementation. For many of the same reasons discussed earlier, NGOs
were and continue to be seen as the key agents and legitimate representatives of
civil society. In Bosnia, NGOs were not only perceived as capable of articulating
Falling Apart.” Foreign Affairs 88, no. 5 (September/October 2009): 69.
33
34
Ibid.
Papić, Žarko, ed. International Support Policies to South-East European Countries: Lessons
(Not) Learned in BiH. Sarajevo: Open Society Fund/Mueller, 2001, 30.
35
European Citizen Action Service. Towards a Sustainable Europe-wide Civil Society. Zagreb:
Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs, 2008. 48.
36
United Nations Development Program BiH. Donor Mapping Report – 2007. April 2008.
102
Ivana Howard building civil society
needs independently of vested ethno-nationalist and political interests, but also
as perfectly qualified to represent the broader civic community. Initially, however,
priority was placed on supporting NGOs focusing on humanitarian aid or
providing services such as helping the internally displaced or offering psychosocial
support to the war trauma victims. A number of scholars are critical of the fact
that it was only later that donors became more interested in supporting advocacy
NGOs,37 as this has had serious implications for the long-term role and strength
of the Bosnian civil society.
3. Impact of Civil Society
To assess the impact of civil society assistance on strength and capacity of civil
society in Bosnia, a three-tier examination proposed by Imco Brouwer38 will be
used. Specifically, the following considerations are made: At the micro level, what
is the impact of civil society aid on individuals or specific organizations? At the
meso level, what is the impact on the development of an active civil society? And
at the macro level, what is the impact on democracy?
3.1. The Micro Level
The impact of civil society aid at the micro level has probably been the most
profound. The initial civil society assessments by the OSCE listed the lack of
individual capacity to understand and meet the challenges of democratization as
one of key obstacles to the process. The elites, the OSCE assessed, were lacking
technical and organizational abilities.39 What ensued from this conclusion was an
onslaught of capacity building programs, seeking to transfer technical skills to local
leaders and activists. It is beyond doubt that such training programs contributed
to strengthening the basic NGO infrastructure, as well as to improving education,
skills, and experience of individuals. Trained and retrained, NGO staff became
well versed in strategic planning, proposal writing and budgeting, organizational
management and governance, financial management, media relations, fundraising,
and monitoring and evaluation, among others. What is more questionable is
the impact of capacity-building programs beyond the urban NGO elite, on
37
38
See Chandler, Bosnia, 138.
Brouwer, Imco. “Weak Democracy and Civil Society Promotion: The Cases of Egypt and
Palestine.” In Funding Virtue: Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion, eds. Marina
Ottaway and Thomas Carothers. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, 2000, 41.
39
Chandler, David. “Democratization in Bosnia: The Limits of Civil Society Building Strategies.” In
Civil Society in Democratization, eds. Peter Burnell and Peter Calvert. London: Frank Cass, 2004, 225.
103
state or nation?
organizations and individuals in small towns and rural communities, as well as
the new and fresh faces of civil society. All-too-known is the phenomenon of the
“usual crowd” – a group of the same NGO leaders who frequent all the seminars,
roundtables and events organized.
Nevertheless, the overall organizational-capacity score of the Bosnian NGOs, as
indicated in the latest issue of the USAID NGO Sustainability Index,40 has improved
from 5 to 3.5 in the past ten years. Although they may lack strategic planning skills,
most organizations have a clearly defined mission, permanent staff, and access to
modern equipment. For example, over 95 per cent of NGOs recently surveyed have
a clearly defined mission; however, only 42 per cent have a strategic plan.41 Still, the
increase in the level of organizational capacity is probably best illustrated by the fact
that at least four local NGOs now act as donors themselves, disbursing significant
amounts of funds to other organizations and associations. Among others, these local
donors and donor intermediaries include the Centers for Civic Initiatives (CCI),
which currently manages a five-year, $8 million civic advocacy project for USAID,
and the Civil Society Promotion Center (CSPC) with a three-year, $1 million project
focusing on NGO sustainability.
NGO sustainability is also a micro aspect that should be briefly mentioned
here. Although its score has improved from 5.6 to 3.7 over the last ten years,
NGO sustainability and financial viability remain a serious concern in Bosnia.
NGOs remain heavily dependent on foreign funding, which is increasingly being
withdrawn, especially in the time of global economic crisis. Data show that close
to 70 per cent of NGOs are financed on project basis and 35 per cent completely
depend on foreign donor support.42 Most of these organizations tend to focus on
civic initiatives, youth issues, and human rights.
3.2. The Meso Level
Assessment at the meso level is quite difficult and can include at least three
approaches. The simplest, although not the most appropriate, is the sheer number
of the NGOs. More indicative of the actual impact, as pointed out by Brouwer, is
40
See: USAID. 2008 NGO Sustainability Index for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia.
June 2009. The NGO Sustainability Index examines the overall enabling environment for civil
society, focusing on seven dimensions: legal environment, organizational capacity, financial
viability, advocacy, service provision, infrastructure, and public image. It uses a seven-point
scale for each, with 1 representing the highest and 7 the lowest score.
41
42
Kronauer Consulting, Civilno društvo, 91.
Ibid, 116.
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Ivana Howard building civil society
the ability of civil society to influence specific government policies, or the level of
civic-mindedness of the general public.
As in many other places, the international community initially focused on the
quantifiable, numeral growth of NGOs as the key indicator of the civil society
strength. But even hard numbers can be awfully misleading. Post-war period has
seen a baby-boom of NGOs who, above all, offered employment opportunities
in a devastated economy. The most recent data shows that 12,189 NGOs are
officially registered in Bosnia today. Yet, the exact number of active or even
functioning NGOs remains unknown. By surveying 988 of them, one organization
has statistically determined that roughly 6,620 NGOs are actually active.43 Data
provided also indicates that only around 7 percent of active organizations deals
with democracy-specific issues, such as civic initiatives, civil society promotion
and strengthening, and human rights.
The number of active NGOs by itself does not provide a full picture of the
strength of civil society. Direct advocacy capacity of NGOs was an area initially
neglected by the international donors, which preferred more measurable and
certainly more apolitical issues. This consequently created what Roberto Belloni
and Bruce Hemmer call “bottom-out” civil society – a sector which lacks any
ambition to interact with the political structures, preferring instead to rebuild
peaceful attitudes and relationships at the grass-roots level, mostly through
service delivery.44 Realizing their mistake, donors eventually sought to improve
the advocacy capabilities of the NGO sector, designing sizable programs entirely
devoted to advocacy initiatives and cooperation between government and NGOs
in what has become known as the “policy approach.” Notable achievements in
advocacy have been made, including the CCI’s successful lobbying to introduce
direct election of mayors as well as the recent inclusion of the Civic Coordination
– an informal network of youth movements, civic associations, and labor unions –
into a parliamentary discussion on the economic crisis measures.
Perhaps the most troublesome area at the meso level is the disconnect
between the NGO sector and the ordinary citizens. Largely created and funded
by foreign donors, NGOs in Bosnia lack a solid membership base and firm roots
in the broader civil society. From the very beginning of the NGO boom, Bosnian
citizens were skeptical of what they perceived to be alien efforts, not properly
taking into account Bosnian history and society. Even today, they largely continue
43
44
Ibid, 79.
Belloni Roberto and Bruce Hemmer. “Bosnia-Herzegovina: Civil Society in a SemiProtectorate.” In Civil Society and Peacebuilding: A Critical Assessment, ed. Thania Paffenholz.
Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming, 224.
105
state or nation?
to be distrustful, understanding nongovernmental to mean anti-governmental,
and being suspicious of the true motives behind the NGO work. However, all of
this is slowly starting to change. Citizens and even some politicians are starting
to recognize the value of civil society and are becoming more open to the idea
of NGO activism. The first sign of this was the broad civic movement GROZD
(Civic Organization for Democracy), gathering 400 different NGOs and collecting
half a million signatures during the 2006 election campaign. The initiative, which
challenged political candidates to adopt a 12-point civic platform developed by
member consensus, was and continues to be popular and recognized among
ordinary citizens, even though the network has not been very active or successful
since. More recently, informal movements such as Dosta! (Enough!) routinely
manage to mobilize a significant number of citizens to pressure decision-makers
by way of street performances, protests, and media appearances. The 2008 street
protests, bringing together thousands of Sarajevo citizens to publicly object to the
local and cantonal government’s failure to curb juvenile violence in the capital city,
resulted not only in several resignations but has likely influenced the outcome of
the 2008 local elections in Sarajevo in favor of the then opposition party.
3.3. The Macro Level
The connection between civil society and democratization is put to the real test at
the macro level of assessment. At this level, donors tend to have the most ambitious
yet unrealistic goals, which can be not only difficult to realize but also very hard
to measure. Moreover, the causality here is almost impossible to determine, since
democratization is a complex process involving many different factors and actors.
Almost 15 years after the war, Bosnia remains a peaceful yet extremely fragile
state. Recently, several Bosnian analysts and international experts sounded off
alarm bells, warning that the country is at the brink of collapse.45 And while
these warnings should not be taken lightly, a number of improvements can be
noted. Freedom House Nations in Transit rankings46 show small but consistent
improvements in electoral processes, civil society, governance, and judicial
framework between 1999 and 2009. Although they have dropped in the last two
years, the independent media and corruption rankings are also better than in
1999. It would be a gross overstatement to credit civil society for this outcome,
especially considering the role of the international community embodied in
the institution of the High Representative, which continues to be the ultimate
decision-maker as well as the grand watchdog on the Bosnian government and
45
46
For example, see: McMahon and Western, “Death of Dayton.”
Freedom House. Nations in Transit 2009. Budapest: Freedom House, 2009.
106
Ivana Howard building civil society
politicians. Still, NGOs have been and continue to be a significant element in the
equation. Arguably, a number of issues of essence to democratizing Bosnia would
not be addressed adequately, if at all, were it not for the NGOs.
4. Local Perspectives on Mistakes Made
In her brief but very influential book on the relationship between Northern and
Southern NGOs, Ann Hudock posited that the way in which assistance is channeled
to NGOs and the nature of the relationships forged in the process significantly
determine their capacity to contribute to the process of civil society development.47 If
the previous discussion indicated that NGOs in Bosnia have made notable but fairly
limited contributions to the process of civil society and democracy development,
the logical, albeit simplified conclusion would be the following: there is something
inherently wrong with the way in which resources are channeled from donors to
NGOs and the nature of the relationships forged in the process.
Considering that democracy promoters are not known for being “motivated to
share their knowledge and best ideas” nor to make public “tough-minded reviews
of their performance,”48 this research focused on soliciting opinions only from local
civil society leaders. As recipients of donor funds and the primary beneficiaries of
civil society assistance programs, NGO leaders in Bosnia were asked to elaborate
on what donors are doing wrong and how things can be made more effective. The
group of over 40 included individuals from large and small NGOs alike, located
in the capital city of Sarajevo as well as regional cities such as Banja Luka, Tuzla,
Bijeljina and Livno. The following list of top 10 mistakes donors make, as voted
for in an online survey, reinforces some of the previously identified shortcomings
of international democracy assistance, giving them a local perspective, but also
elaborates on less frequently discussed issues, all with a hope to offer suggestions
on how donor strategies may adapt to become more efficient and effective.
Mistake 1: Externally Set Priorities
Much has been written about international actors imposing their own priorities in
democracy assistance in general and in civil society programs in particular. It comes
as no surprise then that the surveyed NGO leaders ranked this to be the number
one mistake donors make. This complex issue has several important aspects and
implications. Carothers points out that the power of democratic example has a much
broader influence on actual democracy development than democracy aid itself and
47
48
Hudock, Ann C. NGOs and Civil Society: Democracy by Proxy? Cambridge: Polity, 1999, 2.
Ibid.
107
state or nation?
that, by committing their resources to assistance programs, established democracies
show that they believe in democracy and think its suitable and valuable for others.49
However, this does not justify the superior, we-know-better attitude often held by
foreign donors. In reviewing the OSCE’s early role in Bosnia’s democratization,
Chandler points out that the mission’s view was that, while only the Bosnian people
could create civil society, they lacked the confidence or skill to initiate their own
grass-roots projects.50 The OSCE may have had the best of intentions when it made
this assessment and decided to design programs to overcome the “shortcoming.” Still,
their overly simplistic view smacks of colonialism, probably most aptly described by
Chip Gagnon:
By ignoring previous experience, by not even trying to build on preexisting
notions of participation and democracy, these organizations reflected a common
assumption rooted in Cold War-era ideologies – that democracy and civil society
are concepts foreign to this region, concepts that must therefore be imported
wholesale and “taught” to the “natives.”51
Consequently, as a number of NGO leaders surveyed and interviewed confirm,
the “natives” are usually not asked to weigh in when donors conduct needs
assessments and design assistance programs. As one questionnaire respondent
stated, “the practice of donors consulting local NGOs when designing programs
is, in our experience, very rare.” When NGOs are consulted, this usually does not
result in genuine consideration of local input but often means nothing more than
“ticking the box:” activists are invited to consultations and evaluation meetings but
very few of the suggestions and comments made to donors are actually reflected
in the ensuing programs or priorities. The result is what Belloni calls “a top-down
discourse embellished by rhetoric of bottom-up empowerment.”52
What most frequently happens in practice is that donors design programs
based on their own perceptions of the local needs or templates of programs that
may have worked elsewhere. Often relying on international consultants or staff
with good technical expertise but little knowledge of local history or even present
circumstances in the target countries, donors overlook the complexities and
49
50
51
Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad, 314.
Chandler, Bosnia, 137.
Gagnon, Chip. “Catholic Relief Services, USAID, and Authentic Partnership in Serbia.” In
Transacting Transaction: The Micropolitics of Democracy Assistance in the Former Yugoslavia,
ed. Keith Brown. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian, 2006, 173.
52
Belloni, Roberto. “Civil Society and Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Journal of
Peace Research 38, no. 2 (March 2001), 174.
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specificities of the society in question. Instead, they employ a one-size-fits-all
approach. The consequences of the “copy-paste” approach can be two-fold. First, the
programs designed in such a manner often do not reflect the real needs of the society.
A number of democracy assistance programs have resulted in recommendations
and arrangements not appropriate for the social, political or economic conditions of
the country in question. More frequently than not, such misplaced focus does not
harm the democracy but it does result in less-than-optimal outcomes, which in turn
delay democratization and increase its costs. Second, NGO attention is diverted
away from local needs and towards these donor-identified priorities thanks to aid
dependency. As one civil society actor commented to an evaluator in Bosnia, “we
are still carrying out projects that we would never undertake but for the priorities of
the international community.”53 Those NGOs which choose or are forced to follow
donor-imposed priorities are only being further removed from what is supposed to
be their primary constituency – the ordinary citizen. It comes as less of a surprise
than that the general public often views NGOs as agents of foreign interests. By
using NGOs as cheap implementing agencies rather than owners of the process in
their own right, donors end up with outcomes that are not perceived as authentic
and take root only with great difficulty.
Mistake 2: Overly Bureaucratic Procedures
Ranked high by the NGO leaders is the overwhelming bureaucracy of donor
procedures, from applications to reporting and accounting. Local NGOs seek to
work directly with large donors for the prestige and security such cooperation
offers, but they are often not prepared to pay the “price” that comes with the
money. Often, they find the administrative requirements of certain donors to be
overwhelming and exceed their capacity or, at best, to divert their attention away
from the issues they should be working on, and towards reporting and accounting
for the funds received. Experiences vary but the European Commission is
frequently mentioned by the respondents as the most demanding donor in this
sense. One questionnaire respondent states, “I have never written to the European
Commission because the process of writing the application itself is very hard,
often harder than the activities.” How true this may be is best illustrated by one
assessment’s finding that the application procedures and obligations placed
on NGOs receiving funds from USAID, itself mentioned in the interviews and
questionnaires as one of the most bureaucratic and inflexible, tend to be “relatively
less complicated than that of the EC.”54 Fagan describes what is necessary to apply
53
Barnes, Catherine et al. Civil Society Assessment in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Report
produced for USAID/Bosnia-Herzegovina. 25 June 2004, 53.
54
Barnes et al., 2004 Civil Society Assessment, 51.
109
state or nation?
for funding to the EU Delegation in BiH:
NGOs are required to submit a log frame, a logic matrix identifying how the
overall objectives of the proposed project would further EU national objectives for
BiH. The specific objectives of the project must then be identified with reference
to the sustainable development of the organization and to the methodology for
measuring outcomes and identifying indicators of achievement. Applicants are
requested to identify quantitative and qualitative base-line assessments against
which the EU will measure success on completion of the project. Submissions can
end up being 150-page documents and the product of many hours of work.55
To make matters worse, organizations have cited examples of having their
applications rejected as incomplete for missing just a one-page document..
Lately, an increasing number of trainings are organized to help NGOs to develop
project-writing skills specifically dealing with the EU application procedures,
some of which are funded by the EU itself. It remains unclear why the EU finds it
more cost-effective and conducive to civil society development to fund trainings
that will help to adjust local NGOs to the capacity of the EU bureaucracy, rather
than simplifying its own procedures and adjusting them to the existing capacity
of local NGOs. Furthermore, the process tends to be prohibitive to those needing
it the most, creating a Catch-22 situation in which organizations need to have the
capacity developed before they can access the EU funds to develop it.
Reporting can be equally cumbersome. Some USAID projects reportedly
require monthly and even weekly progress reports, regardless of the project
duration and size. If an organization has multiple donors, as many do, it is not
difficult to imagine the extent of paperwork it is required to prepare every month.
By contrast, private foundations such as Mott require only annual reporting.
Mistake 3: Providing Only Project Support
Ranked at a high number 3 on the list – “providing only project support” – is
a problem that has received surprisingly little attention in democracy assistance
and civil society aid literature. Yet, the practice of not covering operating or
administrative costs seems to be not only widespread among donors but also
very problematic for long-term capacity and sustainability of recipient NGOs.
When describing capacity-building initiatives, Hudock includes provision of
institutional funding as one of priorities. In practice, few donors or intermediaries
55
Fagan, Adam. “Civil Society in Bosnia Ten Years after Dayton.” International Peacekeeping
12, no. 3 (Autumn 2005), 413-414.
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offer institutional funds or even cover operational costs, instead preferring to
fund specific activities. As pointed out in one assessment of civil society building
strategies in Bosnia, many donors refuse to “fund salaries, overheads, or other core
costs for fear that some sort of ‘dependency’ might develop.”56 Ironically, the effect
is quite the opposite. Project funding is uncertain, which makes it very difficult,
if not impossible, for NGOs to operate strategically. It creates “unsustainable
hand-to-mouth existence”57 and prevents NGOs from planning their activities or
allocating organizational resources beyond the duration or outside of the scope of
the funded project. A notable exception to the practice of covering project costs
only has been the Mott Foundation and a few other private foundations, which not
only allow operational costs but also offer general-purpose grants that can be used
for organizational development.
Mistake 4: Lack of Donor Coordination
Donor coordination is an issue that receives significant attention in program
evaluations and practitioner discussions, yet is rarely discussed by academics, who
tend to focus on the problem of international and local NGO coordination instead.
Its ranking here indicates just how serious the problem is. Donor coordination
offers many advantages, including harmonization of activities, exchange of
information, leveraging resources, and grantee promotion, to name just a few.
More importantly, it helps donors to avoid unnecessary overlaps in funding and
duplication of activities. Practitioners recognize this and acknowledge that donor
coordination has been and remains a problem. A recent coordination meeting of
the Visegrad Four donors concluded that donor coordination attempts have been
most difficult to achieve in the civil society sector.58 In reality, little has been done
to improve donor coordination in a systematic and sustainable manner. When it
has, it is often done on an individual basis or is simply yet another example of how
donors pay lip service to issues that have been identified as problematic.
Reflecting the intent of donors to “harmonize” and “align” their efforts, the
Donor Coordination Forum was formed in Bosnia in 2005. In October 2008, its
Secretariat was transferred to the Sector for Coordination of International Aid
(SCIA) within the state Ministry of Finance and Treasury. The purpose of the DCF
56
Smillie, Ian and Goran Todorović. “Reconstructing Bosnia, Constructing Civil Society:
Disjuncture and Convergence.” In Patronage or Partnership: Local Capacity Building in
Humanitarian Crises, ed. Ian Smillie. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian, 2001.
57
58
Ibid.
Pontis Foundation. Visegrad Four: Donor Coordination for Serbia Recommendation Brief.
October 2009, 5.
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state or nation?
and now SCIA is to facilitate regular donor communication and produce annual
mapping of donor priorities and programs. But despite regular communication,
donor efforts continued to overlap. An example reported in the interviews includes
two projects focusing on youth employment. The first, Youth Employment Project,
is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and will be
implemented in 2009-2011 by a German company in cooperation with local NGOs.
At the same time, the UNDP applied for funding to a Spanish donor to implement
a project with the exact same title starting in 2009. Another current example is a
USAID project providing funding to CSPC to create a strategic framework for civil
society development for one BiH government office. Concurrently, the European
Commission is funding Kronauer Consulting to prepare the same framework
for a Bosnian ministry. All of these donors – SDC, UNDP, USAID, and EC – are
members of the original Donor Coordination Forum.
The DCF also fails to include a number of private foundations, even though
they provide significant funding in some of the relevant sectors, most notably
civil society. On the other hand, donor coordination among private foundations is
generally much more frequent and productive. This is understandable considering
that the foundations’ programs tend to be managed by one person, who has
significantly more discretion and decision-making power than average staff at
bilateral or multilateral donor agencies. This form of operation makes information
sharing, funds matching, and grantee networking much simpler. Grantee
networking facilitated through such coordination has been particularly lauded by
some of the NGOs interviewed. Others believe that even more should be done by
donors to coordinate similar grantee initiatives or connect related NGOs.
To be fair, donor coordination requires frequent follow up and can be time
and resource consuming. Yet considering the amount of resources wasted
when projects and funding overlap, as well as the frustration experienced by
organizations who see the impact of their efforts reduced rather than enhanced
by similar activities of other organizations, it is worth investing the time into good
donor coordination.
Mistake 5: Short-Term Focus
Short-term focus is frequently discussed in literature and is recognized to be a
serious problem in democracy assistance. It can have at least two aspects. First, it
refers to the practice of frequently changing priorities instead of offering long-term
commitment to programs and organizations. As was mentioned in the overview of
donor interventions in Bosnia, donor focus radically shifted within a span of less
than five years from service delivery to advocacy. As funding was drying up in one
area, NGOs shifted their attention to the new donor priorities, even when they had
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no special expertise or little interest in the issues to be addressed. Hudock explains
that this phenomenon fits a basic tenant of organizational analysis, namely that
organizational survival is every organization’s primary goal, for which it will even
shift away from the value base, if necessary. It is an illusion to think that NGOs
are somehow organizationally unique and operating purely on a value base, rather
than organizational imperatives such as survival.59 Rare are the organizations that
can afford to stay true to their mission and say no to funding opportunities, even
when this means working outside of their zone of comfort or expertise.
Priorities are shifting not only within a country context but also globally.
NGOs in the entire region have felt the consequence of the geo-political attention
shift towards the Middle East since 2001. But even earlier than that, donors have
been known to allocate funds to specific countries only for short periods of time.
Without a concrete and realizable way to measure democratic progress, decisions
to cease programming and move on to other areas have largely been arbitrary
and in a number of cases premature, as evidenced by the recent democratic
backsliding in Central European countries. As Burnell points out, a premature
halt to a program of assisting a particular country’s democratization is an easily
made mistake; instead, the more relevant choice could be not on whether or not
to provide support but instead the kind of support provided considering the
circumstances.60 It is perfectly clear that donors have to leave one day. But before
they do, they should be sure that they leave behind will not crumble.
Mistake 6: Lack of Flexibility
Cumbersome application and reporting requirements discussed as mistake
number 2 often reflect donors’ lack of flexibility in project implementation
and spending, ranked by local recipients as the number 6 mistake. Many
donors find it challenging to adapt to the changing requirements as political
circumstances change. Trapped in the project cycle, they are often too slow or
completely incapable of responding both to obstacles and opportunities that arise
unexpectedly. Experiences vary but respondents generally report that they can
change their activities or budgets with prior donor approval. However, this greatly
depends on the donor. USAID was mentioned as a donor that wants “control over
every detail and prior coordination and approval.” Other than USAID, donors most
frequently labeled as inflexible tend to be multilateral organizations. In addition to
59
60
Hudock, NGOs and Civil Society, 21.
Burnell, Peter. “Democracy Assistance: The State of the Discourse.” In Democracy
Assistance: International Co-operation for Democratization, ed. Peter Burnell. London: Frank
Cass, 2000, 24.
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state or nation?
the EC, these include UNDP, UNHCR, and the OSCE. Again, private foundations
are most flexible, adapting easily to change in activities and budgets, not the least
because they tend to provide institutional rather than project funding. This leaves
ample room for organizations to design and redesign activities within a general
theme as they see fit.
Mistake 7: Choice of Organizations –
Working with the Same Grantees
In general, donors have a tendency to restrict their interactions and relationships
to a limited range of civil society actors. Here, the issue is also twofold. First is the
donor tendency to work with a limited group of NGOs, not considering support
to new groups or project ideas. Private foundations are particularly perceived as
being closed to new organizations and most organizations do not even attempt to
enter the “magic circle” without receiving a clear sign of invitation. Some donors
do this with the best intent of offering long-term commitment and capacity
building to selected organizations, which may have shown the potential to make
meaningful changes in the society. Others do it for the pure convenience of not
having to go through the learning process with new groups or take risks of having
a negative experience. But the reasons can be far more self-serving and have to
do with ownership and control, which is mostly present among donors who fund
a particular organization for an extended period of time, especially when seed
funding was provided, but can also extend to the whole notion of civil society. At a
recent conference, a donor promised to secure “cooperation by civil society” should
government seriously commit itself to fighting corruption, thereby reducing the
NGOs funded to mere executors of their donor’s wishes, rather than empowering
them as civil society actors who make their own choices and decisions.
Mistake 8: Insisting on Sustainability
Sustainability has become the magic word of civil society aid programs
in the Balkans. In the early stages of democracy assistance, little attention was
paid to long-term sustainability of the organizations or even projects funded.
New organizations were created to serve specific needs or meet certain donor
objectives, to later be left without so much of a consideration for their survival.
But as the field matured, NGOs multiplied, and funding dried up, sustainability
became a pressing issue.
For most donors, sustainability means financial viability, usually achieved by
diversifying the funding base so that the loss of one or a few donors is not fatal.
Sustainability is a delicate subject and the manner in which donors approach
it can vary significantly. Private foundations are probably most constructive in
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this aspect, allowing organizations to make capital investments or set money
aside into a reserve fund. Others are increasingly requiring matching funds to
be secured prior to approving their own funding. But cynics see this strategy as
having less to do with donors’ desire to promote real sustainability and more with
finding someone else to pay the bill. Still, donors are increasingly including such
requirements into the grant agreements. An extensive study by USAID presents
the following “innovative techniques for building sustainability:”
a)
A policy of reducing the permissible size of a second grant.
b) Increasing the matching requirement for follow-on grants from (for
example) 25 percent to 40 percent to 60 percent.
c) Requiring that the match come from a designated source such as a
corporate donor.61
Such “innovations” may sound effective on paper but are bound to frighten most
NGOs. In practice, tax and legal conditions in many Western Balkan countries do
not permit a culture of corporate philanthropy, and economic conditions restrict
individual giving or even volunteering. As Carothers notes
The professionalized NGO model comes out of a society that has wealthy,
private grant making foundations, a large middle class with considerable
discretionary income, and a corporate world with a tradition of philanthropy.
The model does not do well in societies with none of these characteristics.62
Moreover, certain types of NGO work are simply not attractive to corporate
donors or domestic governments. Neither are keen on supporting advocacy or
watchdog groups that would monitor the behavior of their respective sector,
private or public. Worse yet, the increasing inflow of EU funding does not bode
well for this type of organizations either given the fact that EU donors are heavily
state-oriented. Where they support civil society, service-oriented organizations
are better positioned to benefit from EU Structural Funds, as these funds are not
even intended to support the work of advocacy, watchdog, and policy NGOs or
NGO resource centers.
For some donors, the Darwinian approach to NGO sector consolidation is
perfectly acceptable. Organizations “will come and go,” they claim, and the NGO
formation and development is a dynamic process in which some NGOs will and
61
62
USAID, NGO Story, 27.
Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad, 220-221.
115
state or nation?
some will not survive.63 Even some NGOs agree that the inevitable decline in the
levels of financial support will lead to the necessary pruning of the NGO sector. It
is highly unlikely, however, that they see their own organizations as the ones which
should disappear.
Mistake 9: Choice of Organizations –
Working with Big or Urban NGOs Only
Closely related to mistake 7 is the more common and problematic aspect of
the “choice” issue: the donors’ preference for selecting urban over rural or big over
small organizations. The complexity of the application process and the insistence
that NGOs obtain match-funding invariably rules out smaller, rural NGOs and
benefits those that already have established contacts with other donors or are
simply physically closer to them in the large urban centers. Moreover, as donors
face pressure to demonstrate policy change or make similar large impact, they
are inevitably drawn to larger, higher-profile, national level NGOs with a proven
track record. Attempts at decentralization are further hampered by the lack of
necessary management skills and organizational capacity among rural NGOs,
which require a greater degree of training and mentoring. Consequently, rural
organizations are perpetually neglected and caught in a vicious cycle of shortterm grants, small projects, and lack of long-term prospect for development and
even survival. Local donors offering smaller grants are in a better position to
assist these organizations. But as the feedback solicited for this research indicates,
experiences with local foundations or intermediaries to foreign donors have rarely
been positive.64 Their funding decisions are often perceived as nontransparent
and politicized, while reporting procedures are not necessarily less cumbersome.
Mistake 10: Size of the Grants
Most frequently, the problem with “size” is that the grants are too small,
which is closely linked to the donors’ preference to provide only project support,
ranked as mistake number 4. The size of the grants is particularly problematic
for small town and rural NGOs, which are often perceived as “cheaper” and
needing less money to implement a project. Once again, this robs such NGOs of
the opportunity to build capacity, make larger impact in their communities, and
plan strategically. Paradoxically, smaller grants also cost more. Small individual
amounts mean that NGOs must apply to a number of donors to obtain resources
63
64
Barnes et al., 2004 Civil Society Assessment, 59.
Only 15 percent of the respondents reported having positive experiences with such donors
in Bosnia, most frequently with the Mozaik Foundation.
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for a particular project or general operation. The greater the number of such
relationships, the higher the transaction costs, as NGOs must concentrate their
energy and resources on meeting various demands of those donors. More donors
mean more reporting requirements, engaging more staff, and diverting valuable
resources from the actual purpose of the organization.
At the same time, the grants can be too big. Smaller, more numerous grants
also mean more work for the donor. Whether for this or other reasons, some
donors have been known to issue only large grants, which sometimes simply
exceed the capacity of NGOs that would otherwise be a perfect match for an
issue to be addressed. As experiences from the new EU member states show,
large grant amounts have also been known to distort the structure and purpose
of the receiving organization. Upon receiving a significantly larger grant, an
organization is usually forced to hire more staff, expand office space, and invest in
other necessary resources, only to find itself unable to sustain the new structure
once the money is spent and the grant is not renewed. Furthermore, the larger
the value of the project, the more easily and likely is it to become politicized or
abused. This is particularly true when funding decisions are made by local actors,
who may have vested interests in securing funding for a particular organization.
Conclusion
Billions of dollars and over a decade of presence in Bosnia, there is much to
show for but certainly not enough. Can the foundations built thus far guarantee
stable, peaceful societies which would not plunge into war, violence, or simply
collapse economically once the international community leaves? Likely not. Is civil
society strong enough to carry the heavy burden of the job that is yet to be done
before democracy is consolidated without outside help? Likely not.
The mistakes identified here offer some important lessons, a number of
which are not only applicable to civil society aid but democracy assistance and
perhaps even state-building in general. Namely, the international community
as represented by donors is wrong to think it knows better than those receiving
assistance, daring to declare needs and impose priorities. By doing this, external
actors create solutions that do not fit or are not readily accepted by the societies
for which they were intended. Yet the aid-dependent NGOs have little choice but
to follow, thus only being further removed from the society they were supposed to
represent. Intentionally or not, the NGOs are so created by donors, whose policies
perpetuate dependency. Mostly providing only project support, donors fail to
enable NGOs to create long-term strategies and form identities beyond donor
priorities and project duration. Such practice also has serious implications on
long-term sustainability of the NGOs and the sector as a whole. Initially generous
117
state or nation?
with money, donors do not bother to create structures at the micro or mechanisms
at the macro level to ensure the sector does not collapse or good NGOs disappear
after donors depart.
Now as the money is drying up, donors are making an even worse mistake –
forcing unrealistic sustainability expectations and policies that yet again divert
NGOs from their true purpose and towards a struggle for survival, in which most
NGOs are bound to make compromises on values and principles. The problem
particularly affects smaller or rural NGOs. After years of being neglected and
used mainly as implementing agencies by larger NGOs, hence barely managing
to survive, they are now the first to drop off the list of funding priorities as donors
withdraw or downsize. For these NGOs, the “magic circle” is forever closed while
the darlings of the donor community, comfortable in their established relationships,
shy away from taking greater risks such as challenging current policies of domestic
governments and, in particular, the international community in charge.
The pattern was set by the donors themselves, often overly confident in their
own policies but also risk averse, exercising control through rigid procedures
from application to project implementation and reporting. Such overwhelming
requirements not only further discriminate against smaller organizations, but also
fail to produce meaningful change in the societies. Donors are too sluggish or too
afraid to respond in an apt and timely manner to the ever-changing circumstances
of societies laden with problems. Besides, donors do not even focus on an issue
or a country long enough to see the changes through. Constantly moving on to
more interesting issues, more pressing problems, more troubled societies, they
are not only leaving the jobs they started half-finished, but are also forced to work
under deadlines which create unrealistic expectations. In the process, they are
again failing to provide financial security to their local partners, instead forcing or
motivating them to shift missions and priorities according to donors’ in order to
survive. Finally, donors also fail to work closely with each other, share information
or connect grantees. The chronic inability to coordinate donor activities continues
to undermine democracy promotion efforts, as project duplication and funding
overlap increase costs of democracy assistance and delay democratization.
So how can donors adapt their strategies and practices to make democracy
assistance more effective?
First, they must learn and be willing to change. As Carothers note that democracy
promoters are slow to give up the belief that democracy can be promoted in a
one-size-fits-all manner and resist the idea that they have anything to learn from
previous experiences. Yet there is much to learn and adapt as a result. Donors
designing and implementing civil society programs must recognize this and move
away from a fixed-slate approach. An idealized blueprint of democratization, void
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of any sensitivity to the context, is bound to result in formal rather than substantial
reform in democratizing societies. On a micro level, donors should also be willing
to change, particularly in the way their programs are implemented, reported on,
and assessed. Many of the recommendations related to these aspects of assistance,
which may have resulted from various program assessments, would lead to great
improvements – if they were actually implemented.
Next, they must learn to communicate. Democratization does not happen in
a vacuum and a number of factors must be considered for assistance programs
to be successful. To understand the context, democracy promoters must learn
about it from those who know it best – the locals. As previously discussed,
however, this rarely happens. Carothers notes that, although “giving people in the
recipient country a direct say in the development of democracy programs for their
country hardly seems like a radical idea…among aid providers it is.”65 However,
for the reasons previously elaborated on, local actors must be truly listened to
and programs designed in response to the needs they identify. Granted, selecting
interlocutors is not easy – being a local does not come with a guarantee of wisdom
or neutrality, but locals do know better where aid might be useful. Of course,
communicating does not just mean listening. Democracy promoters must also
tell others what they are doing. As previously noted, the lack of communication
with other donors and even recipients can lead to serious waste of resources and
delays in achieving success.
Third, donors should learn how to respect their local partners. It has been
said that democracy promoters are inclined to hubris. Western donors come with
preconceived notions that societies which do not resemble theirs are necessarily
less developed and less cultured, and they often become patronizing. At best,
such an attitude is humiliating to the “natives.” At worst, it creates systemic flaws
in program design and implementation, leading to the all-too-known practice
of “top-down planning, top-down funding, and upward accountability,”66 which
can delay, complicate, and increase the cost of democratization. As with the art
of listening, donors must move “away from the view that democracy building is
something ‘we’ do to ‘them’ toward the idea that it is something people in other
countries do, sometimes with our help.”67
Fourth, donors have to be patient. Democratization is a long-term process. To
truly make a difference and have a lasting impact, democracy assistance cannot be
65
66
67
Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad, 266.
Belloni, “Building Civil Society,” 20.
Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad, 339.
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state or nation?
a short-term, in-and-out excursion into developing or transitioning democracies.
Commentators are divided over exactly how long it takes for democracy to
consolidate, but the assessments range from “at least a generation” and “a
generation or more” to “two generations, or sixty years,”68 while Putnam’s account
of civil society in northern Italy mentioned five hundred years of development.
In a very recent policy brief, a former OSCE ambassador made the following
recommendation for the U.S. government’s future policy on Bosnia: “Prepare
to remain committed, both politically and developmentally, in Bosnia and
Herzegovina for some time to come.”69 Had the international community planned
to remain engaged in the country for 13 or more years, and designed its programs
accordingly from the very beginning thus allowing for long-term planning and
consistency in programming, it is likely that civil society and democracy in Bosnia
would have looked much healthier today.
Finally, democracy promoters must take more risks. They must be willing and
able to leave their “comfort zone” if they are going to make a difference. Above
all, this means they should engage with a variety of actors, including not just new
NGOs but also all different forms of civil society, each of which could have a role to
play in democratization. Programs should not only reach out to rural organizations
and informal associations, but also to groups donors have traditionally perceived
to be more political, such as political parties, trade and labor unions, interest
associations, and even religious groups. Seeking greater accountability through
excessively bureaucratic procedures is another troubling practice stemming from
risk averseness that should be abandoned. While still demanding accountability,
donors should nevertheless relax their requirements and learn how to be more
trusting of their grantees. Otherwise, is it not contradictory to expect or claim
changes in the society while imposing a strict set of program goals and objectives.
In sum, successful civil society development and democratization efforts
require, at the very least, programs tailored to the society in question, driven from
within that society, substantially integrating local input and being responsive to
local feedback, exhibiting long-term commitment, and allowing for new and more
flexible approaches.
68
69
Chandler, Bosnia, 13.
Davidson, Douglas. “Walking Through the Open Door: Reflections on the U.S. Role in
Helping Bosnia and Herzegovina Join a Europe Whole and Free,” German Marshall Fund
policy brief, 27 May 2009, 5.
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Part III
Culture
125
state or nation?
126
Happy Holidays for Whom?
Ethno-cultural Diversity and
the Politics of the Regulation
of Public Holidays in BiH
Nataša Bošković
Introduction
The mobilization of political forces around issues of ethnic belonging has
numerous implications, especially in post-conflict societies where the processes of
nation1 and state-building2 are directly dependent on the capacity to rebuild trust
between citizens. It is in this context of identity politics that ethnic diversity plays
an important role for stability in society. And while today the concept of cultural
diversity represents a value put forward mostly in Western public discourse and
reflected in policies of minority inclusion, in the divided societies3 of the European
southeast, diversity is perceived as a root cause of distance and division among the
populace. Thus, it is important to understand which features of ethnic identity play
1
Nation-building here refers to “actions undertaken, usually by national actors, to forge a
sense of common nationhood, usually in order to overcome ethnic, sectarian or communal
differences; usually to counter alternate sources of identity and loyalty; and usually to mobilise
a population behind a parallel state-building project“. OECD/DEC discussion paper. Concepts
and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile Situations: From Fragility to Resilience. Off-print of
the Journal on Development 2008,Volume 9, No. 3. 13.
2
State-building as different from nation-building is understood as “purposeful action to develop
the capacity, institutions and legitimacy of the state in relation to an effective political process
for negotiating the mutual demands between state and societal groups“. Ibid. 15.
3
The divided society corresponds to “a society which is both ethnically diverse and where
ethnicity is a politically salient cleavage around which interests are organized for political
purposes, such as elections”. Reilly, Benjamin. Democracy in Divided Societies: Electoral
Engineering for Conflict Management (Theories of Institutional Design). New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2001. 4.
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state or nation?
a critical role in reproducing these divisions and formulating policies that create
divided societies on the basis of cultural difference. In other words, the question
is: why is ethnic diversity such a problem in Southeast Europe? Posed as such, this
question indicates a specific focus for political analyses aiming to understand the
role of cultural difference in Balkan politics: the domain of symbolic reproduction
and use of ethnic and cultural differences in politics.
This chapter will try to examine how notions of ethnic and cultural difference
are reproduced and used by the elites of ethnopolitics, and what their implications
for human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina (hereinafter BiH) are. Ethno-cultural
diversity4 plays an important role for political mobilization in ethnically divided
BiH. In this context, questions about the equality and discrimination of citizens in
BiH also need to be raised. This analysis of Bosnian society as presented through
the regulation of public holidays in BiH will try to show what the implications of the
institutionalization of ethno-cultural differences are. I will claim that the legislative
institutionalization of ethno-cultural diversity, in the case of the regulation of public
holidays, has a negative impact on the implementation of basic human rights.
These issues represent a part of a wider discussion related to nation-building and
state-building processes where the place and function of ethno-cultural diversity can have
both unifying as well as divisive effects and is directly dependent on the application of
these concepts in reality, most of all in legislation. Namely, nation-building as a top-down
process of the creation of a common identity is directly dependent on how the societal
groups are conceived and the status that they are given in the legislation. During almost
half of the past century BiH had developed under the socialist “integrative ideology” in
the Yugoslav framework, while today, fifteen years after the conflict, and after the end of
socialism, a new set of integrative values is still not agreed upon. The only social groups
fully recognized are constituent peoples and the stark divisions between them hinder the
process of civic nation-building because they obstruct the minimum consensus needed
for the creation of functional state institutions. Namely, issues regarding the creation of
a common civic identity of Bosnians (also expressed in state paraphernalia such as flag,
anthem and public holidays) based on the “everyday plebiscite”, to word it in Renan’s
terms, still remain unresolved.
Seen through the prism of the multiculturalist5 or integrationist6 approach of
4
For the purpose of this chapter, cultural diversities stemming from the ethnic markers - be
they religion, language or secular traditions – will be considered as ethno-cultural ones.
5
See: Vertovec, Steven and Susanne Wessendorf. Assessing the backlash against
multiculturalism in Europe. Max Plalck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic
Diversity, Göttingen. MMG Working Paper April 2009. p. 8
6
Ibid., p. 27-30.
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Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
policy and institutional design, the symbols of the state, including public holidays,
even if not obvious at the first glance, are of great importance for the stability and
respect of citizens’ human rights. A peculiarity of BiH in this regard is that the state
symbols in general, and public holidays in particular actually represent symbols of
the ethnic groups, that is, of constituent peoples. This is precisely where problems
for human rights arise, as will be discussed further on in this chapter. The choice
of public holidays and corresponding disputes in BiH offer another perspective on
the topic of state policies in managing ethnic coexistence in the context of state
and nation building. The problem with public holidays in BiH is that it reaches
the point of negating the existence of the sovereignty and independence of the
country. This is the case with the 25th November – commemorated as Bosnian
National Day in Federation of BiH (hereinafter FBiH) and non-recognized in
Republika Srpska (hereinafter RS).
In reference to contemporary approaches of studying the socio-cultural aspects
of the state by anthropologists Akhil Gupta and Aradhana Sharma, this chapter
will ask questions about the symbolic messages that the state “sends” through the
choice of the holidays it officially commemorates. Thus Section 4 will present an
overview of the colliding socio-political realities in BiH. This chapter will consider
a possible alternative to the current regulation of public holidays in BiH and argue
that the “all-inclusive” solution would also lead to breach of economic, social and
cultural rights of the citizens, only perhaps to a lesser extent then the present
solution. Still, on the other hand, the benefit of recognizing the identities of all
citizens, that is, of legitimizing diversity, could contribute to enhancing social
cohesion, and therefore smooth the progress of civic nation-building.
1. Identity and Boundaries in Divided Societies
The very fact that there is no agreement on the definition of identity and even
less on the importance associated to it, speaks for itself as a kind of warrant in any
research that takes identity as an element of interest. Interdisciplinary studies have
effectively contributed to the deep and ample examination of the notion of identity
and its social implications, especially when boundaries of identity are considered as
functional elements for the coexistence of ethnic groups. Against this background,
this section will consider the possibilities through which the notion of identity and
its relevance for the case study of public holidays in BiH can be identified.
1.1. Difficulties of Defining the Notion of Identity
Within a wide interdisciplinary theoretical debate on this issue it is worth making
a brief sketch of several points important for the discussion of the case of BiH. The
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state or nation?
first point relates to the very meaning of the concept of identity. Rogers Brubaker
and Frederick Cooper propose several notions that could replace identity in social
science analyses: 1) identification and categorization; 2) self-understanding and social
location; and 3) commonality and connectedness.7 They criticize the term identity
not only in its “strong” sense, but also the “weak” constructivist8 understandings
of identity. They argue that even constructivists “take the existence of identity as
axiomatic“ disposing us therefore to “think in terms of bounded groupness“.9 A
further implication of this perspective is reflected in the fact that notions of sharply
bounded and internally homogenous groups are used in journalism, everyday life
and especially in political discourse, thus not only weakening social analysis but
constricting political possibilities.10 Regarding the practical use of the term identity,
it is important to note that it
is also used by political entrepreneurs to persuade people to understand themselves,
their interests, and their predicaments in a certain way, to persuade certain people
that they are (for certain purposes) ‘identical’ with one another and at the same time
different from Others, and to organize and justify collective action along certain lines.11
Further examination of the notion of identity leads to the question of how it
functions in practice and how much it matters as an element of social coexistence. It
seems that the importance that can be attached to the notion of identity determines
the quality of actions that could be justified or legitimized in its name. However,
identity is not, as examined above, something that can be defined in concrete terms,
with a generally accepted definition. Therefore, it can be used to different extents both
7
For the purpose of this chapter it seems helpful to expose the first cluster of proposed terms
in order to present the possibilities of more precise instruments for analysis: identification
and categorization are explained in the following way: “As a processual, active term, derived
from a verb, “identification” lacks the reifying connotations of “identity”. It invites us to
specify the agents that do the identifying. And it does not presuppose that such identifying
(even by powerful agents, such as the state) will necessarily result in the internal sameness,
the distinctiveness, the bounded groupness that political entrepreneurs may seek to achieve.
Identification of oneself and of Others is intrinsic to social life; “identity” in the strong sense
is not.” Brubaker, Rogers & Cooper, Frederick. “Beyong “Identity””. Available at: http://works.
bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=wrb. (accessed September 4 2009). 14.
8
The constructivist view sees the building of identity as an artefact of modern age and the
developments such as technological achievements and legacy of colonialism, where ethnic
identity becomes a possible and important expression in terms of the changing societal ideas.
9
Ibid., 27.
10
This tendency to objectify “identity’’ deprives us of analytical leverage. It makes it more
difficult for us to treat “groupness’’ and “boundedness’’ as emergent properties of particular
structural or conjunctural settings rather than as always already there in some form. – Ibid.
11
Ibid., 31-32.
130
Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
to enhance the political will for nation-building and to weaken it. Many struggles,
different in their goals and consequences, from the demand for recognition among
minority groups or nations waging wars are undertaken in the name of identity.
In the case of BiH certain dimensions of identity are incorporated in the
constitutional norms regulating relations among societal groups in the state. The
peculiar category of constituent peoples and the institutionalization of ethnicity
is a distinguishing feature of post-Dayton BiH. The multicultural composition of
the population in BiH is not determined by recent immigration flows, as is typical
in multicultural countries in Europe, but the result of many centuries of complex
history that has shaped the particular Bosnian experience of cultural diversity,
mainly associated with religious identities and groups. In this context it seems
worth trying to take a look at the foggy distinction between cultural and ethnic
identity as forms of collective identities. It should be acknowledged at the very
outset that these categories of identity are not self-evident and that the slippery
nature of their distinctiveness is often context-dependent. Complexly interlinked,
common cultural and distinct ethnic identities in BiH (with religion as the most
influential distinguishing factor) require case-tailored solutions for managing the
tensions that occur in these interactions.
2. Public Holidays in BiH
Public holidays clearly reflect the culture in which they are proclaimed in its many
expressions, such as religious traditions, political culture and strictly civic values
promoted by the state. They also represent the message from the state to its citizens
about the values it supports and celebrates. The very content of these values reflect
the cultural, traditional and civic dimensions of society. In multicultural contexts,
by proclaiming public holidays the state also supports minority groups’ festivals
and celebrations, thus recognizing the identity of their members. This section will
discuss how the particular way of regulating public holidays influences economic
and cultural rights in Dayton Bosnia and hinders the nation-building process.
Public holidays in BiH are not regulated by the law at the state level throughout
the country. The Dayton Peace Agreement foresees a possibility that the existing
laws of the Republic of BiH remain valid until the adoption of new law, but in
the case of laws on public holidays there is no agreement among constituent
peoples. Also, religious holidays do not have the status of public holidays at the
state level. This fact reveals an inconsistency when the political constitutive nature
of ethnicity established by the Dayton Constitution is taken into consideration.
Three constituent peoples together with “Others” are the citizens of BiH, whose
status is defined on the basis of their ethnic belonging and none of them have their
religious holidays proclaimed as public holidays at the level of the state of BiH. The
131
state or nation?
current situation is legalized through rather ambiguous regulations stipulated by
the Law on Holidays of each of the two entities and Brcko District.
Regarding the cultural attributes which distinguish the three constitutive peoples
of BiH, the one that can be recognized without doubt is religion. There are three main
religions present in BiH – Catholic and Orthodox Christianity and Islam – and these
are inherent to the ethnic differentiation of Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks respectively.
This feature is argued to be the only indisputable one in relation to ethno-cultural
differences. This element, however, is generally taken as traditional and historically
relevant to ethnic shaping and subsequent divisions of the three constitutional peoples
of BiH. Ugo Vlaisavljevic claims that “considering its pre-modern intrinsic role for the
ethnic being of the community, religion could not have a central role in political life
without the ethnopolitics coming to power”12 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It is important to note that there is a considerable variation among citizens of
BiH in terms of religious adherence, from atheists to those who do not identify
themselves as either Islam or Catholic or Orthodox Christianity practitioners
or believers. Nonetheless, since there has been no census in BiH since 1991
either on national/ethnic or religious affiliations, it is impossible to provide even
approximate figures. However, the general point is that the three main religions
that have coexisted through centuries in BiH continue to exist, now with sharp
distinctions after having been deployed by ethnopolitics.
2.1. Legal Framework(s)
Public holidays in BiH are regulated at the entity level of the Federation of BiH
and Republika Srpska. There is no regulation at the level of BiH since so far there
has been no agreement on which holidays the country should celebrate at the level
of the state as a whole. Religious holidays are proclaimed as public in RS while they
do not exist as such in FBiH Law.
RS Law on Holidays13 makes a distinction between republic holidays, religious
holidays and holidays not accompanied by leave of absence14. Republic holidays are
related to all citizens of RS and are celebrated at the entity level, with the possibility
12
13
Vlaisavljevic, Ugo. Etnopolitika i gradjanstvo. Dijalog. Mostar. 2006. 247. (my translation).
Law on Holidays in RS is available at : http://www.narodnaskupstinars.net/lat/zakoni/zakon.
php?id_zakona=231
14
The holidays not accompanied by leave of absence are 27th January - School Day (Saint Sava
Feast), 12th May – Day of the Army of RS, 4th April - Interior Ministry Day, and 14th February –
the Day of the First Serbian Uprising
132
Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
of fines for those who work on the following days: 1st January - New Year’s Day; 9th
January – Day of the Republic (the same day is celebrated in Christian Orthodox
Julian calendar as St. Stefan’s Day); 1st May - International Workers’ Day; 9th May
- the Day of Victory over Fascism; and 21st November - Day of Establishing the
General Framework Agreement for Peace in BiH. Religious holidays are celebrated
by the followers of the religion which the holiday relates to: Catholic and Orthodox
Christmases, Kurban Eid, Catholic and Orthodox Easter, and Ramadan Eid. Religious
holidays are celebrated with two days off for each15, and citizens can choose two
holidays of their preference for which they have the right to paid leave.
In the FBiH, The Law on Holidays does not mention religious holidays but
celebrates the following public holidays: 1st January - New Year’s Day; 1st of May
– International Workers’ Day; and 9th May – Day of Victory over Fascism16. 25th
November (Bosnian National Day) and 1st March (Independence Day) were added
by two separate laws17. Religious holidays are regulated by the Labour Law which
will be discussed in the next subsection and allows two days of paid leave per
calendar year for the two Eids and for the Orthodox and Catholic Christmas
and Easter. In addition there are also two more days off per calendar year that
employees and employers are allowed to use for so-called ‘traditional’ holidays.
Disputes on public holidays in BiH arise at the level of state holidays. The most
problematic public holiday is 25th November – the day celebrated in FBiH as the
Bosnian National Day. This day is celebrated in memory of the 1943 ZAVNOBIH18
Assembly in Mrkonjic Grad (today located in RS) which is considered to be the day
that set the foundations of BiH’s present independence and sovereignty. However,
all the decisions of ZAVNOBIH were officially annulled by the RS Assembly in 1993,
interpreted by RS leaders as withdrawal of the Serb people’s signature from this
Declaration.19 Another problematic date is 1st March, Independence Day20, which
is not celebrated in Republika Srpska. A large dispute arises also from the fact that
15
All religious holidays are celebrated on the day of the holiday plus one day before or after,
depending on particular holiday.
16
17
Law on Holidays – Official Gazette of RBiH n. 2/92 and 13/94.
Both Laws on proclaiming 25th of November and 1st March for public Holidays can be found
in Official Gazette R BiH, n. 9/95
18
Declaration of the State Anti-fascist Council of National Liberation of Bosnia and
Herzegovina (ZAVNOBIH)
19
20
Official Gazette of RS n. 11 of 23rd July 1993.
On 1st March 1992 the referendum on independence of BiH was held by the decision of the
Parliament of the Socialist Republic of BiH and boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs. The outcome
was in favour of independence.
133
state or nation?
Republika Srpska celebrates 21st of November – Day of Establishing the General
Framework Agreement for Peace in BiH, while this day is perceived in FBiH as the
day of the division of BiH, since the Dayton Agreement divided the country into two
entities. These examples show the high importance of holidays for identity politics
in terms of the nature of the state and the values it should or should not promote.
The two holidays regarding which there is no disagreement between the entities
are the only international holidays - New Year’s Day and International Workers’ Day.
The Ministry for Civil Affairs of BiH has come up with a proposal that the
following holidays should be celebrated as public holidays at the level of the whole
BiH: 1st January - New Year’s Day, 1st May - International Workers’ Day, 9th May
- Day of Victory over Fascism, and 26th June - UN International Day in Support
of Victims of Torture. If this proposal passes the parliamentary procedure and
actually becomes Law than both entities and Brcko District21 should harmonize
their current legislations within a period of six months. For the time being there
is no agreement on this proposal and it seems unlikely there will be a Law on
Holidays at the BiH level any time soon.
2.2. Religious Holidays
The recognition of religious holidays as public holidays by the state of BiH
is important because the belonging to different constituent peoples is primarily
distinguished by this marker. For the time being, they are not recognized as public
holidays in FBiH. Religious holidays are stipulated in the Labour Law22 which
prescribes that all employees are allowed two days of paid absence for the religious
holidays of their preference. Such a solution would seem suitable when addressing
a multi-confessional reality where Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox religious
holidays are celebrated by the three constituent peoples. However, several problems
arise in the practice of this solution. Firstly, only employees and employers can
practice the celebration of religious holidays, since for example university students
are not allowed to make such a choice. Secondly, the situation in territories which
are divided along ethnic lines produce situations whereby some of these holidays
become public de facto, since the majority of the population is celebrating, thus
disabling the functionality of enterprises and institutions. Thirdly, this regulation
21
In Brcko District, territorially on both FBiH and RS entities, Law on Public Holidays
foresees only civil holidays. See: Zakon o praznicima Brcko Distrikta available at: http://www.
skupstinabd.ba/zakoni/57/b/Zakon%20o%20praznicima%20Brcko%20distrikta-Sl.glasnik%20
Brcko%20DC,br.1902.pdf
22
Labour Law “Official Gazette of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina”, No. 43/99.
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Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
is discriminatory since on the one hand it requires citizens to be believers (what
should atheists do to have days off?), and on the other hand it compels citizens
to declare publicly (or forge) their religious beliefs, something that should be
protected as a private sphere in a liberal democratic state.
2.3. Discrimination
The influence of the legal regulation of religious holidays which are not
recognized as public holidays interferes with the right to work in several ways. In
practice, in cantons within the FBiH religious holidays are celebrated in a manner
whereby if the majority of employees in an enterprise or an institution choose
those holidays within their two days reserved by the Law for that purpose, the work
place will be closed or unable to function properly since the majority of employees
will be absent. When we bear in mind that the majority of the population in certain
cantons of the FBiH chooses Muslim holidays there is a situation where these
holidays even though not officially proclaimed as public become public de facto
since the majority of institutions and enterprises are closed or unable to function
on those days. A similar situation arises in RS with the difference that religious
holidays are proclaimed as public holidays in this entity. This is how members of
the constituent peoples in the entities find themselves in the position of a minority
(Croats and Serbs in FBiH and Bosniaks and Croats in RS) which creates an absurd
situation whereby their rights need to be protected as national minorities.
It is worth mentioning that the widely accepted position on religion in a
democratic state is that it belongs to the private sphere of citizens. This is not obvious
in BiH on the occasions when citizens want to celebrate their religious festivities.
First of all, they are obliged to declare their religious affiliation to their employers
in order to use their right to paid holidays. Secondly, the right to have the two days
of paid holidays is not guaranteed to people who are atheists, the religiously nonaffiliated, those who are affiliated with a different religion from the aforementioned
three, or those who refuse to declare their religious affiliation publicly.
Another situation is the example of university students in FBiH whose exams
can be scheduled for the date of their religious festivity (such as Easter or Christmas
for Orthodox Christians and Catholics) and there can be no rescheduling because
such a practice is not foreseen for religious holidays. This situation, however,
cannot happen to students who celebrate Muslim holidays, since the universities
in FBiH are closed during the two largest Eids. Since in FBiH the right to celebrate
religious holidays is not foreseen for students but only for employees, a student
celebrating one of the Christian or any other non-Muslim holiday can only hope
that the professor him/herself is using his/her right to celebrate that holiday.
This is not only a violation of the right to practice one’s religion but also of the
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state or nation?
principle of non-discrimination. Thus, inequalities established by the law produce
consequences that violate the human rights of citizens.
The absence of a formal recognition of religious holidays as public generates
a series of problems that ultimately lead to the breach of economic, social and
cultural rights. The way in which religious holidays are regulated by the law
produces inequalities and discrimination.
In addition, the notion of citizenship is of direct importance when discussing
the implications of civil and political inequalities and how they influence economic,
social and cultural rights. Discussing citizenship as it is usually understood in terms
of citizens as right-holders and co-nationals, Dejan Guzina rightly claims that:
there is a direct link between the two. Any success or failure in the realm of economic,
social and political reforms will directly affect the civil, political and social rights
of Bosnian citizens. Also, acceptance or rejection of the genuinely multinational
character of the Bosnian state by its communities and their political entrepreneurs
will directly affect the extent to which Bosnian citizens recognize each other as conationals on terms of political equality and enjoying cultural diversity. 23
In the context of public holidays it is therefore clear how regulation of such
a dimension of the public sphere is interdependent with the multicultural/
multiethnic composition of the country and how ethnopolitics influence political
and civil rights, and consequently economic, social and cultural rights.
If we regard the commitment of states to protect human rights as a reflection
of identity, which is a common denominator of all members of the society, then
it is important to identify how ethno-cultural diversity perceived as a source of
difference or distance can limit this scope. The relevance of cultural differences
is often emphasized and exploited by politicians in the context of BiH’s three
constitutional peoples in terms of the difficulties that they pose to their
coexistence. However, these supposedly important differences are not recognized
in the legislation and are often regulated in a way which negatively influences the
human rights of the citizens.
3. What do Holidays Mean in BiH?
After the examination of public and religious holidays celebrated in BiH and
23
Guzina, Dejan. “How Multiethnic is Democracy in the Balkans: The Case of Bosnia” Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Hilton Hawaiian
Village, Honolulu, Hawaii, Mar 05, 2005 Online <PDF>. 2009-04-26 <http://www.allacademic.
com/meta/p70760_index.html>
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Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
their ramifications for the rights of citizens, it seems necessary to examine the
context of these holidays and their weight in terms of values that the state is promoting on the one hand, and that citizens perceive on the other. Namely, there is a
need to address the colliding realities of formal ethnic incorporation present in the
very foundations of the state established by the Dayton Accords and the neglect
of the recognition of cultural diversities in BiH’s legislation and the reluctance of
political agents in state institutions to address them. In addition, the implications
that this particular dimension carries in terms of nation-building, that is, in terms
of the unsuccessful building of an integrative concept of national belonging and
the idea of a common state, will be the point of interest of this section. This is
reflected in the reluctance to accept the Bosnian and Herzegovinian identity as a
linking identity of all citizens, those belonging to the constituent peoples as well
as the Others.
3.1. Socio-cultural Aspects of Recognition
of Identities and Cultural Rights
The influential anthropological study of the socio-cultural aspects of the
state by Akhil Gupta and Aradhana Sharma endeavours to examine cultural and
representational frames of the state arguing for a “deeply cultural nature of states”
as an important aspect of study in addition to structural and functional approaches
considered by political scientists.
An anthropological perspective allows us to pay careful attention to the
cultural constitution of the state – that is, how people perceive the state, how
their understandings are shaped by their particular locations and intimate
and embodied encounters with state processes and officials, and how the state
manifests itself in their lives.24
This view is relevant for the study of the implications of public holidays for
the nation-state building process in BiH in two ways: firstly, by posing questions
related to the signifying practices that public holidays imply by the nature of the
value that is promoted and celebrated; and secondly, by offering a new perspective
for the observation of the meaning that the common state has for its population.
The argument is that “public cultural representations and performance of
statehood crucially shape people’s perceptions about the nature of the state”25. In
24
Gupta, Akhil. Sharma, A. “Introduction: Rethinking Theories of State in an Age of
Globalization”. In The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (Blackwell Readers in Anthropology).
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. 11.
25
Ibid., 18.
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state or nation?
the perspective of multicultural BiH, where two entities by their respective Laws
regulate public holidays while at the level of the state as a whole this regulation
does not exist, can citizens’ perception about the nature of the state be anything
else but straightforwardly divided? If this view is taken into consideration, are
there not two states functioning separately, and treating citizens unequally within
the formally single state of BiH? Among pertinent representations of the state it
is important to take account of how citizens learn about the state through media.
They also watch military parades and participate in ceremonial rituals staged by
state officials such as the celebration of national independence.26
Signifying practices in the example of public holidays in BiH are of an ethnic and
religious nature. This represents a substantial problem for BiH society where ethnic
and religious backgrounds are multiple, namely the three constituent peoples and
national and religious minorities, not to mention unrecognized citizens of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, which relate to the problem of non-recognition and lesser rights
for the Others27. The fact that BiH does not regulate public holidays coherently
at the level of the state as a whole “communicates” the message of a state which
is unfinished and which does not have common values that all the citizens agree
to promote and celebrate. This is most obvious when we consider the contested
holidays of 25th November – Bosnian National Day and 1st March - Independence
Day – neither of which are recognized by the RS entity, and, in contrast, the 21st
November – Day of Establishing the General Framework Peace Agreement in
BiH that in FBiH is perceived as a holiday of division. Moreover, the signifying
practice of celebrating 9th January as Republic Day in RS, which is at the same time
an Orthodox Christian holiday – St. Stefan’s Day – sends a “message” to other
non-Orthodox citizens that the Republic is not secular and that the Orthodox
Christians are those to whom it “belongs”.
An absurd situation arises when we consider that religious holidays are
regulated by law in such a manner that the state appears not to recognize religious
plurality by not recognizing all religious holidays (Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox)
of its constituent peoples as public holidays (consider the proposal of Ministry of
Civil Affairs that does not mention religious holidays, in Section 3 of this chapter).
The issue of public holidays seems to reflect the complexity of the civic nationbuilding challenge which is conditioned both by the institutionalized ethnicity
26
Gupta, Akhil. Sharma, A. “Introduction: Rethinking Theories of State in an Age of
Globalization”. In The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (Blackwell Readers in Anthropology).
Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006. 18.
27
For a detailed elaboration of this problem see: Mujkic, Asim. We, the Citizens of Ethnopolis.
Sarajevo: Centar za ljudska prava Univerziteta u Sarajevu, 2008. 138
Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
and democratic state-building process which implies respect for human rights for
all citizens regardless of their status of constituent peoples, minorities or “Others”.
A view from the anthropological perspective is especially relevant when we
consider the weight of ethnic diversities in BiH society. If we try to view the issue
posed by Gupta and Sharma of how the state and its boundaries are culturally
constructed, then the recognition of cultural diversity as a vital part of the
“building material” of the state is actually missing. What meaning the state confers
to its citizens is a question that remains for discussion since there are two distinct
realities in which people live, formally within one state of BiH. If cultural struggles
are waged in representations, as Gupta and Sharma propose, and if they determine
what a state means to its people, then in the case of BiH we can observe many
such conflicting activities going on. From the point of view of the common state,
all that can be observed is a deep division and silence when addressing cultural
differences, heavily debated but not recognized through the state regulations.
3.2. Possible Future Shifts
Bearing in mind that the recognition of cultural diversity in a multiethnic state
is vital for social cohesion, and in the case of BiH for the nation-building process,
a possible shift for the future and one that would enhance its political stability
would be for the state to legislate for all religious and civic holidays to be public.
This recognition is currently absent in BiH, fuelling deeper segregation among
its citizens on an ethnic basis in this already divided society. By proclaiming all
the major religious holidays of its constituent peoples and regulating the rights of
religious minorities accordingly, the state would make it possible for citizens to keep
their religious affiliations in the private sphere, not to be discriminated against, and
to get to know each other in an atmosphere of equality. More importantly, it would
promote the rehabilitation of a common culture of coexistence. This solution
would also diminish the problems for non-affiliated citizens because it would
allow them to have days off without having to compromise their non-affiliation by
declaring false ones or not having those days off at all. The “all-inclusive” solution
would enable all citizens to use their days off without the discrimination that is
prevalent today, especially in FBiH where only those who work are entitled to
enjoy the right to religious holidays.
In the present situation there are six days in total in one calendar year that are
considered to be major religious holidays of Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox.
Since in FBiH there are two days for religious plus two days for traditional holidays
(four days in total) reserved per calendar year, and in RS two days for two religious
holidays (four days in total), the solution of including all religious holidays would
actually only add two days (six in total) and would not endanger the productivity
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state or nation?
and functionality of institutions and enterprises.
When the principle of separation of state and ethnicity is taken into consideration,
one could argue, and most liberals do, that there should be no religious holidays
at all if we opt for a secular state and “benign neglect” towards present cultures.
However, apart from the fact that this situation does not actually exist anywhere
in the world, all policies on public holidays seen from this perspective actually do
violate the separation of ethnicity and state, starting with the structure of the workweek which implies that Sunday is the day of rest (at least in Western states). In his
discussion of the notion of “benign neglect” and the liberal critique of violation of
separation of ethnicity, state and multiculturalism, Kymlicka claims that “decisions
about government holidays were made when there was far less religious diversity, and
people just took for granted that the government work-week should accommodate
Christian beliefs about days of rest and religious celebrations”28.
However the situation has changed, especially in immigrant countries where
these decisions represent a disadvantage to members of other religious faiths.
Kymlicka argues that “by having established a work-week that favours Christians,
one can hardly object to exemptions of Muslims or Jews from Sunday closing
legislation (in the USA) on the ground that they violate separation of state and
ethnicity”.29 Consequently, specific rights should be recognized to groups on the
basis of cultural differences, and in this case religious ones.
Even if the “death of multiculturalism”30 did not actually occur and multicultural
policies are still functioning and alive, since the beginning of the 21st century there
is an increasing public critique of the notion and reality of group rights, which in
a changing world has become increasingly problematic. As was the case with the
term “multiculturalism” in the 1990’s (the Dayton Accords were signed in 1995),
today’s public political discourse, especially in the EU, is overwhelmed with the
term “diversity”, which is now accepted in its more complex meaning, entailing
individual and cross-cutting categories of diversity as well as group ones.31 Such
contemporary developments and a new kind of doctrine of diversity management
28
Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford
Political Theory). New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1996.114.
29
Ibid.
30
Vertovec, Steven and Susanne Wessendorf. Assessing the backlash against multiculturalism
in Europe. Max Plalck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen.
MMG Working Paper April 2009. Available at: www.mmg.mpg.de/workingpapers. (accessed
March 13, 2010).
31
Vertovec, Steven. Conceiving Diversity. Lecture at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of
Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Einstein Forum. November, 2009.
140
Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
should be taken into account when BiH is discussed, primarily in terms of a
possible way of shaping and appeasing the colliding realities of group vs. individual
requests for rights, recognition and interests.
4. Legitimizing Diversity in BiH
The Dayton Bosnia is a country of controversies between the very foundation
of the Western value-based liberal democracy created by the international
community on the one hand, and an attempt to incorporate ethnicity (and its
local peculiarities) as a crucial political constitutive part of that democracy on
the other. The tension between these principles has reached the point at which
some observers do not exclude the possibility of a new conflict. Opportunities for
compromise are unlikely to be sought in the present political setting, where the
elites have the decisive word and ordinary citizens almost represent a minority
group in need of protection.
BiH is a country of centuries-long embedded diversities but also a country in which
today differences are being created by various forms of political influence in order to
be used as obstacles to coexistence. In terms of culture, as in almost any other field in
BiH, religion plays a key role in the creation of new “traditions” whilst not recognizing
existing ones, and this is deepening the differences as perceived by its citizens.
It is debatable how multiculturalism as a policy model can be applied to BiH for
several reasons. Firstly, multiculturalist policies are applied mainly in immigrant
Western European societies, after the state and the corresponding national identity
have already been established. In contrast, BiH is a post-communist, post-conflict
state created by the international community and without one dominant nation,
so that the very notion of culture is highly problematic. In this context it is also
important to mention that in Western societies multicultural policies are meant
to balance the influences brought about by immigration and the new realities and
challenges created by this process, while in BiH a set of additional problems has
been created by a changed population structure in a territory divided along ethnic
lines, with the additional issue of the return of refugees.
Secondly, BiH is an absolutely unique example of a multiethnic state in many
ways: its past as a constitutive republic of Yugoslavia which for the time of its
duration demonstrated the peaceful coexistence of “nations and nationalities”;
today’s absence of one ‘nation-building group’ (to use Kymlicka’s term) and in
its place three recognized constituent peoples who went through a bloody and
long armed conflict. Another important element is the post-conflict external
introduction of democracy. This is where the existence of “thick” identity is
needed in order to achieve social cohesion. But is this realistic in a country where
141
state or nation?
daily politics create and reproduce differences, and promote them as a source
of the impossibility for a peaceful coexistence? Difficulties linked to diversity
management are also reflected in the fact that there are fourteen Constitutions
in BiH32 with fourteen governments and parliaments and 180 ministries. This fact
can be interpreted as the existence of fourteen positions of power which, divided
along ethnic lines as they are, do not seem to contribute to social cohesion and
political stability.
4.1. The “Others”
One more important point here is to briefly address a peculiar situation
of the citizen and its position in BiH. Brubaker and Cooper’s argument about
the unsuitability of the term ‘identity’ in social sciences here finds its direct
application in their proposal for its replacement with one of three idioms, namely,
with identification and categorization. According to this application, it seems that
in the case of BiH individual identification as a citizen cannot coexist with the
identification with and loyalty to the state because the categorization of the state
(as determined by the Constitution) does not recognize the citizen as a rights
holder if the citizen is not qualified by ethnic belonging. The cost of these blurred
categories of identity is the tacit social segregation and the existence of parallel
systems: the official one which claims to guarantee equality in the Constitution,
and the reality - discrimination by the means of categorization by a powerful
actor, that is, the state.
If we deploy the framework of multiculturalism to consider the influence
of a lack of communication between self-identification and categorization
by the state, it can be said that ethnic and individual identifications and
categorizations do not reflect Kymlicka’s idea of the “context of choice” since
they appear not to be commensurable, belonging as they do to two parallel
systems, one group and other individual-oriented. What seems more applicable
here is Iris Marion Young’s argument of an unequal power setting that, as
such, cannot generate equal distribution of rights and equal outcomes. It is
the ethnic group that holds power in this setting, causing the individual to be
disempowered. Consequently, it is the group (the constituent peoples) that is
the basic category of BiH’s democracy, not the citizen. This fact is reflected in
probably the most appropriate definition of identity politics that is applicable
to the case of BiH, namely “as a struggle between the need for social cohesion
32
Constitution of BiH (the Annex 4 of the Dayton Agreement), Ten Cantonal Constitutions,
Constitution of FBiH, Constitution of RS, Statute of the Brcko District (special administrative
unit subordinated directly to the state of BiH).
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Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
at the level of the state and the imperative of cultural integrity for the various
groups that make up the state’s population.”33 It is important to recall that in
the entities, members of the constituent peoples find themselves in the position
of a “factual” minority (Croats and Serbs in Sarajevo canton, Bosniaks and
Serbs in Western Herzegovina, and Bosniaks and Croats in RS) which creates
an absurd situation whereby their rights should be protected as if they were
national minorities. However, this framework is the reality which cannot be
changed without changes to the Constitution.
The number of those who regard themselves firstly (if not exclusively)
as citizens in today’s BiH is unknown. The efforts of citizens in BiH to be
recognized as a political force currently consist of an attempt to “count”
themselves in the first place. This is why the census (possibly upcoming in
2011), if properly conducted, would provide an objective and recognized
method of finding out how the population of BiH declares itself in terms of
ethnic belonging. It is clear that the formulation of questions for the census
will be of utmost importance in terms of providing the possibility for the
people to declare themselves as Bosnians and Herzegovinians (a possibility
that today does not exist), to use the right not to declare themselves ethnically
or to use their right “not to belong”.
One of the efforts in this direction is the project named Others: Initiative for
Rethinking Constitutional Categories in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This project
aims “to influence stakeholders to change the position of ‘Others’ in Constitution
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, harmonizing it with the European Convention on
Human Rights”34 It involves civil society organizations in general, the academic
community, associations of national minorities, OHR/EUSR, the European
Commission, to mention just some stakeholders, and attempts to convince
those “who can make change: political leaders and members of political parties
in BiH, parliamentarians and general public for awareness raising purposes”
of “the necessity to change Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina that is
discriminatory to the Others, those not belonging to any of the three groups of
constituent peoples”35
33
Levy, Naomi. “Learning National Identity: Identity Politics in the Schools of BosniaHerzegovina and Croatia” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political
Science Association, Marriott Hotel, Portland, Oregon, Mar 11, 2004 <Not Available>. 2009-0526 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p87747_index.html>
34
University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Political Sciences - Institute for Social Research. ACIPS.
Project in proposal: Others: Initiative for Rethinking Constitutional Categories in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.2009. 4.
35
Ibid.
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state or nation?
In this way, the Others could become a group which is able to claim its rights
based on the democratic principle of participation and access to the public sphere.
It will have to be included in the enjoyment of rights as well as in the decisionmaking processes. The Others could be also mobilized as a political force which
would exit the ethnic principle of the political organization currently applied in
BiH. Such a change could as a result generate a re-examination of the adopted
ethnic pattern and gain more support from those who, in order to enjoy certain
ethnically conditioned rights, currently have to declare themselves as belonging to
one of the constituent peoples.
At this point, it might be worth asking whether the process of state-building
should precede or be a step ahead of the nation-building one (taking into account
the presence and influence of the foreign actors, especially the role of the EU after
signing the Stabilization and Association Agreement in 2008) in recognizing other
societal groups as legitimate (“Others”) and thus including them in the negotiation
process with the state36. It seems in this case that sustainable and accountable
institutions are the precondition of successful nation-building and come before the
identity politics of ethnic entrepreneurs, which today is given absolute precedence
in BiH. Again, the issue of identity is wildly used as a political tool of blocking
legislation (as in the case of holidays) and pursuing narrow interests of constituent
peoples’ elites - the only legitimate societal groups in BiH today.
4.2. Ethnic Diversity as a Category of Cultural Diversity
The political use of ethno-cultural diversity through inappropriate legislation
leads to a violation of human rights, as in the case of regulation of public holidays
discussed in Section 2. However, seen in a wider perspective which implies potential
for social cohesion, ethno-cultural diversity can also perform a reconciliatory role
in changing values through the development of tolerance, that is, if it is elevated to
the level of cultural diversities in general. In other words, if ethnic diversity is seen
as only one category of cultural diversity then its importance becomes relative and,
more importantly, “equal” to other cultural characteristics that inevitably exist in
36
Even if there are doubts whether the state can be regarded as an independent subject in BiH
taking into account that the behaviour of the state institutions basically implies behaviour of
the three groups, it is still appropriate to consider the state as a subject in relation to certain
issues which it is called upon to address; because it is the Constitution of this internationally
recognized state that foresees the status of those groups as it is. Certainly, there can be, as it is
the case, discussions on the changes to be made in the Constitution in terms of rethinking the
categories, but if there is no state, BiH would have no responsibilities, duties or power towards
anyone, which is simply not the case.
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Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
any society. Cultural cleavages of a non-ethnic type can reflect urban/rural ways
of life, education, past experiences, beliefs or social background. This is especially
important in the case of cultural characteristics which are based on civic values,
and which reflect a particular political culture linked to the values of democracy
and rights-based society as well as their present exclusion in multicultural BiH.
Cultural interaction influenced by ethnic discrimination denies the concept
of cultural plurality perceived as richness, and thus enhances the potential for
conflict. With all the attention that academic literature has dedicated to the issue
of ethnicity in BiH in terms of reasons for the conflict, post-conflict reconciliation,
constitutional and institutional design (mostly in terms of equal representation) it
seems that there has not been too much attention bestowed on the importance of
Others in the broader sense.
The concept of multiculturalism integrated with the primary request of social
inclusion and accommodation, today reformulated in diversity management and
integration, seems to be applicable in BiH, starting with the formal recognition
of cultural diversity of the three constituent peoples together with “Others”.
Many peculiarities of BiH would demand the tailoring of policies to the present
realities. An element not to be underestimated in formulating multiculturalist
and diversity management policies is that searching for solutions would require
significant participation of citizens in addition to the decision-makers’ activities,
which presently do not display much of concern for managing diversities. This
is particularly evident if we take into consideration the absence of diversity
regulation which could promote and boost social unity and thus create a symbolic
basis for nation building. Or as Kymlicka put it: “Indeed, multination” (or in this
case, multiethnic) “states cannot survive unless the various national groups have
an allegiance to the larger political community they cohabit”.37 This particular
point seems to be the juncture where a divided society becomes a diverse society.
In the case of the commemoration of religious holidays of constituent peoples
there is a possibility that it only calls forth the allegiance to respective ethnoreligious groups, rather than to the common state. However, religion is not the
cause of tensions and disputes. Instead, the ways in which religious arguments are
used in politics are. During long periods of peace, the very same religions were
present in BiH. It may seem somewhat paradoxical to claim that the recognition of
religious holidays could call forth the allegiance to the state. However, taking into
account on the one hand the present setting of the Dayton Constitution which
recognizes constituent peoples, that is, ethnic groups, and does not regulate their
37
Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford
Political Theory). New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 1996. 13
145
state or nation?
identity markers consistently on the other, it perhaps could. The point is that if
the key marker of institutionalized ethnicity is recognized through the law on
holidays, which would include the respective religious holidays, the whole state,
not just the entities, would belong to all citizens who would be obliged to respect
the cultural Others – for diversity is the main feature of the BiH nation. In the long
run, the Constitution should change its main categories, but at the current phase
of the process this could be a step towards that change.
Conclusion
For the time being, the identity of Bosnian citizens remains unrecognized at
the state level. A certain degree of allegiance to the new state would be achieved
by passing laws which not only promote the most important religious holidays as
public holidays at the state level but also the civic dimension of nation-building
through the commemoration of common civic values. Such laws would provide for
the equality of the distinguishing markers and legitimize them. Perhaps it would
turn out that once nobody needs to fight for the rights of ethnic groups there will
be other very important problems to face, such as individual rights, social and
economic issues, and the fulfillment of the requirements for joining the EU.
The present situation with regard to public holidays is certainly not the major
problem in BiH today. However the persistence of inequalities and discrimination
in such a deeply divided society, as this one clearly is, can only generate further
instability. In this context the introduction of concrete policies in BiH is a delicate
task, especially in consideration of the fact that “where there is a long history
of inter ethnic hostility and a failure of alternative policy models to result in
integration, the task facing a multiculturalist model in seeking to ‘turn around’
the existing situation is immense”38. However, it is not impossible. More than
anything, it seems a matter of political will and a will to compromise on how the
constituent peoples will find a way to recognize each other as well as the “Others”
in terms of their symbols and values, or continue to push those issues under the
carpet as has been the case so far throughout the history of conflicts in BiH.
Finally, in these particular circumstances it seems unlikely that BiH will
achieve the degree of political will between the ethno-political elites necessary for
the promotion of social coexistence and integration purely on liberal principles,
namely on the basis of supremacy of the principle of individual rights. However,
38
Inglis, Christine. “Multiculturalism: New Policy Responses to Diversity.” Policy paper n.4.
Management of Social Transformations (MOST) – UNESCO, available at: http://www.unesco.
org/most/pp4.htm#does
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Nataša Bošković happy holidays for whom?
in terms of democratization and aspirations towards joining the EU, the process
requires certain steps in the direction of the affirmation of individual rights before
the interests of the elites of ethnic groups. These could be undertaken through
the re-normalization of the multiethnic composition of the country that would
de-emphasize the current dominance of ethnicity and instead promote individual
citizens’ rights. One of these steps could be the state-level regulation of holidays
of the common state and the holidays of the ethnic ‘Others’.
147
state or nation?
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150
Religion, Nation and
State: The “Holy Trinity”
of Disunity of post-Dayton
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko
Introduction
This chapter claims that religious communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(hereinafter: BiH) hamper democratic and inclusive state-building processes through
their interventions in the educational system and electoral process. ‘Democratic’
means that the state is based upon popular legitimacy gained through free, fair and
transparent elections. ‘Inclusive’ means that citizens are not discriminated against on
the basis of their national, ethnic, and religious belonging, which is not the case in BiH
since the political system discriminates those who define themselves as “Others“1.
The way in which religious communities undermine the role of the state in
education will be illustrated here through examples from textbooks used for
1
The Preamble of the BIH Constitution, which was drafted as part of the complex Dayton Peace
Agreements in 1995, states that the carriers of sovereignty are “constituent peoples” (Bosniaks,
Croats and Serbs), along with “Others” and “citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. It confines
the possibility for those who belong to the group of “Others” to a certain political position
within the country. In the widely debated “Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina“ case, the
European Court for Human Rights ruled that Bosnia and Herzegovina discriminated against
Jews and Roma by forbidding them to stand for key elected posts, including parliament and the
Presidency. The Court had no doubts in finding violations of both the right to stand for election
(Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 ECHR) in conjunction with the prohibition of discrimination of
Article 14 ECHR in regard to the House of Peoples and to a violation of Article 1 of Protocol
12 regarding the possibility to stand for election for the Presidency. See: “Sejdić and Finci vs.
Bosnia and Herzegovina” (application nos. 27996/06 and 34836/06). Press release issued by the
Registrar Grand Chamber judgment. The European Court of Human Rights, 22 December 2009.
151
state or nation?
religious education classes in schools. This is important because these books
promote particular values that have an impact on individual behavior, as well as
on forming opinions, and even voting decisions. We will also focus our attention
on messages religious leaders send in their speeches and public appearances, and
examine linkages with the certain political candidates and parties. However, it must
be acknowledged that the concrete impact – whether in the period before elections
or in schools, can only be assumed. There are several reasons for that. First, since
there is no relevant research on religiosity among citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
it could be only supposed in which way they perceive speeches and suggestions
of religious leaders. Second, it is hard to prove the exact impact of “organized
religions” on voting decisions. Even though researchers have indicated that religious
organizations are among the most trusted organizations in the country, they did not
measure the consequences of this trust and disregarded internal divisions within
religious organizations.2
Based on the analysis of the two selected cases presented here, we will try to
elaborate on our starting hypothesis in order to answer the question – why do
religious communities intervene in this way?
Our assumption is that their perception of the state is restricted to their understanding
of the nation. Accordingly, a modern, secular and inclusive state (understood in a
trans-ethnic sense) is considered a threat to their particular ethno-national identities.
Together with ethno-national politicians, each religious community has created
its own perception of a nation. The result is three exclusive concepts of nation, with
almost nothing in common, that creates division and mistrust among the people. Such
perceptions maintain the atmosphere of mutual fear, which is the most important tool
for preserving the status quo. In the context we will analyze here, the status quo implies
the maintenance of weak state institutions and divisions within Bosnian society.
1. Religion in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina
In the former Yugoslav republics at the beginning of the 1990s, religion was
recognized and significantly used as a source of political legitimacy and was
considered as the main marker of difference. Some authors argue that religion is
2
This was the case with the Islamic Community this year – while its leader supported one
political option, organizations on lower levels supported another one. The same applies to the
Franciscans, a Catholic order in BIH which is under the direct jurisdiction of the Vatican, who
openly criticize nationalism and the Catholic Church in BIH. See: Lovrenović, Ivan. Bosanski
Hrvati. Zagreb – Sarajevo: Synopsis, 2010.
152
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
a basis of collective identity3, and accordingly claim that the three ethnic groups in
BiH “are formed along religious lines, which serve as the only `striking` difference
between their respective communities”.4 Religion has been used by political and
religious actors intensively as a dominant cultural and political resource in order to
construct borders between the ethnic (as religious) “Others” and deepen the interethnic cleavages in the country even further. As a result, weak state institutions and
the absence of an integrative ideology characterize the post-Dayton BiH.
Therefore, the increasing importance of religion and religious communities in the
entire society can be observed. As Gallup researches show, religion is an important
part of everyday’s life for people in BiH. It is equally important to the young and
middle aged, and it is almost the same between those with high education and those
who have little formal education, as well as between the rural and urban population.
Furthermore, half of people stated they had participated in a religious ceremony
within the last week (of the questioning time), and that is the highest percentage
of such participation in the whole of the Balkans.5 As in the research conducted by
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, religious communities are emphasized as the most trusted
organization: 27,5% have great trust for religious communities, 7,8% for the media,
and the lowest percentage goes to political parties (1,6 %). Religious participation
by political leaders was not desirable, and was even forbidden in the socialist era, but
today it is a way of gaining credibility with the voting body. 6
3
As Gun outlined, religion could be understood as a belief, as an identity, and as a way of life.
Understood in its narrow sense, as a belief, religion concerns the convictions or passions that
people hold regarding the God, truth, faith, conscience. As a way of life, religion is associated
with actions, rituals, customs, and traditions that may distinguish the believer from adherents
of other religions. For our analysis, the most appropriate aspect of religion is its potential
to play a role as the basis of group(s) identity. In this sense, religion is less likely to highlight
shared theological beliefs and more likely to emphasize shared histories, cultures, ethnicity, and
traditions. See in: Gunn, T. Jeremy. The Complexity of Religion and the Definition of “Religion”
in International Law. Harvard Human rights Journal, vol 16, spring 2003, available on http://
www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss16/gunn.shtml accessed on 16 July 2009.
4
5
Mujkić, Asim. We, the citizens of Ethnopolis. Centar za ljudska prava. Sarajevo: 2008. 23.
Research from 2010 confirmed results from the previous years that religious communities are
the most trusted organizations among the BIH citizens. On the other hand, it was indicated that
religion plays a more important role in the lives of Bosnian Croats (25 percent) and Bosnian Serbs
(26 percent), while its importance has decreased for Bosniak respondents (13 percent). See: Gallup
Balkan Monitor. „Insights and Perceptions: Voices of the Balkans“. Main Findings 2010.
6
According to Abazović, there are too few empirical researches / surveys in BIH that would contribute to a
more precise presentation and understanding of the processes such as the retreat of institutional religions,
the revitalization of religion, the increase of personal religiousness and spiritualization of personal life.
See in: Abazović, Dino. “Sekularizam i sekularizacija u današnjem javnom diskursu – iz nereligijske
perspektive“,in: Alibašić, Ahmet (ed.) Religija i sekularna država. Sarajevo: KAS, 2008. 189 - 196
153
state or nation?
This guides us to the next important observation: that religious rituals
(especially for local politicians) are a tacit civic duty. 7 That confirms data from the
research conducted at the Faculty of Political Sciences from Sarajevo on political
elites. Of 22 interviewed political leaders in BiH, 13 described themselves as
religious. When asked how often they visit a church or a mosque, 41% answered
to attend at least once a week, nine of them on a monthly basis or on religious
holidays, and 41% said they do it rarely, but did not say they never attend
religious services.8 Abazović, therefore, detects in this practice a sociological
phenomenon called belonging without believing, which indicates that religious
consciousness has been established in relation to other markers of identity.9 This
is also recognized by political leaders who are not trusted by their voting body, so
it is very valuable to create cooperation with religious communities and leaders
to gain trust. In addition, any criticism of the public or political participation of
religious leaders could be considered as “a disturbance of the peace, an attack on
our identity, even, in the extreme, as an act of blasphemy”.10
However, in the absence of data on religiosity of people in BiH, it is still
uncertain whether religion as a faith or religion as an organized institution is more
important for people. But what can be observed is the fact that Bosnian society
is highly de-secularized.11 It means that religious communities are involved in
various social processes on a regular basis. But, at the same time, de-secularism
7
According to Dewey, by being engaged in the public sphere, in political and national arenas,
churches are becoming public buildings, clergy public officials, and rituals gain civil functions.
By this, religious rituals become civil obligations, continues Dewey, and, importantly in the
context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, any critique of public or political engagement of religious
representatives becomes an attack on “our” identity. See: Mujkić, 2008. 24, 62
8
Ćurak, Nerzuk, Đorđe Čekrlija, Eldar Sarajlić and Sead Turčalo (eds.) Politička elita u Bosni i
Hercegovini i Evropska unija: odnos vrijednosti. Sarajevo: Fakultet političkih nauka, Institut za
društvena istraživanja, 2009. 78 - 79
9
Abazović, Dino. „O religijskom i etničkom“. Status: Mostar, no. 11, spring 2007. 68 - 71
10
11
Mujkić, 2008. 62
As was acknowledged by Berger, the simplified paradigm of modernity and its influence on
religiosity (“the more modern we become, the less religious we would become”) has to be reconsidered, since we are witnessing the processes of de-privatization and de-secularization of
religion in a very modern age. He claims that modernisation had secularizing effects but, also,
provoked counter-secular movements. He recognizes two possible ways of getting people to
reject modernity – religious revolution and creation of religious subcultures. The first refers to
the effort of taking over society as a whole and making one’s counter-modern religion obligatory
for everyone, while the second is designed to keep out the influences of the outside society. As
result, the resurgence of religion takes place. See in: Berger, Peter. “The Desecularization of the
World: A Global Overview”, in Berger, Peter L. et al. (eds). Resurgent Religion and World Politics.
Washington: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999.
154
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
doesn’t necessarily mean a high level of religiosity, it just provides a context in
which organized religions play important political and social roles, disseminating
their messages and influencing the state affairs. Operating in a context that lacks
integrative ideologies (which was “brotherhood and unity” during the socialist
period), religious communities have been perceived as legitimate integrators on
the level of ethno-national communities. As a dominant ideological pattern, they
promote religious nationalism.12 As one of the most important characteristics
of this ideology, Abazović outlines its particular nature: religions and religious
communities are insisting on their particularity, on their symbiosis with a certain
ethnos and on representing desired values that are particular as well.13
This ideology of religious nationalism maintains religious communities and
ruling ethno-national elites as the sole legitimate guardians of the vital national
interest.14 Due to the synergy of clergy and politicians we have no ground to claim
that post-Dayton BiH is secular in spite of its declarative secular nature. If we
refer to Smith’s definition of the secular state as one that “guarantees individual
and collective freedom of religion, treat individuals as citizens regardless of
their religious beliefs, and that does not promote any religion solely as the
official one and does not interfere in the religious matters of specific religious
communities”15, we can see that the most endangered principle in his triangle
“state – religion – individual”, is the principle of autonomy. This principle means
that the state and religion are free from mutual influence, which can hardly be
said to be true in the ‘de-secularized’ context of BiH. 16
12
According to Abazović, religious nationalism is the type of modernist paradigm that serves as
a substitute for classic models of nationalism: civic and ethnic. See: Abazović, Dino. Za naciju i
Boga. Sarajevo. Magistrat/CIPS, 2006. 17
13
14
Abazović, Dino. Status, 2007, 70
The phrase ‘vital national interest’ has a particular and specific meaning in the post-war
Bosnian context, it is legal/constitutional provision that guarantees that none of the three
constituient peopl will not be over-voted in situation where their interests could be endagered.
However, this phrase is usually misused by ethno-nationalist politicians or by religious leaders.
15
Smith, Donald Eugen. India as a secular state. Princetown, N.J.: Princetown University Press,
1963. 4 - 8
16
In spite of the fact that all three elements of the secular state have been nominally accepted
in Bosnia and Herzegovina (freedom of religion, citizen status that is not based upon religious
background and the principle of the state / church division) and prescribed by the Constitution
and respectable laws, in practice we have a different situation. Religion and religious authorities
play much more imporant roles and their appearence in the public sphere as the source of
political legitimization affirms for many that religion dominates the publich sphere of this
country. See in: Karčić, Fikret. „Islam u sekularnoj državi: primjer Bosne i Hercegovine“, in:
Alibašić, Ahmet (ed.) Religija i sekularna država. KAS, 2008. 27 - 30
155
state or nation?
The following sections will show how religious communities in BiH are
involved in the education and political systems, two domains that should be under
the secular state’s jurisdiction.
2. Deconstructing the state: Religious Education in BiH
Schools are very important for the preservation of ethno-national identities,
and therefore also the confessional. 17 For that reason three different curricula
exist in BiH schools and Religious education (further in the text “RE”) belongs
to the group of national subjects considered as important for the preservation of
Self-group and its identity. 18 Generally, two main models of religious education
exist: denominational and confessional. The main difference between the two
is that either religious communities or the state is responsible for the teachers,
curricula and teaching materials. How it shall be delivered to students varies from
one country to another.19 In BiH the operative model is the confessional one.
2.1. Confessional Religious Education: Context and Contents
Confessional religious education in BiH was introduced in 1994.20 It was decided
17
It is important to emphasize research from 2009 where schools and religious communities are
recognized as the most trusted institution in BIH. In: Berto Šalaj. “Socijalno povjerenje u Bosni
i Hercegovini”, 2009.
18
Due to the multiperspectivity presented in BIH, a group of national subjects has been created.
Called as such because it relates to national identities, this group includes language, history,
geography and religious education. Textbooks for these subjects are completely different and
children are often separated for these classes on the basis of their nationality.
19
For example, in Austria, Belgium and parts of Germany different kinds of religious education are
offered in the form of denominational religious education, and there is also opportunity for pupils
to choose alternative subjects such as ‘ethics of philosophy’. In the view of churches in Germany,
denominational religious education does not have the task of turning children into followers; it
should give them a chance to encounter a clear religious outlook and a choice. In a secular France,
the Catholic Church managed to build a reputation as a good educator and, therefore, support
given to them by the state is based on the quality of the curricula they are offering. See: Good
practice in religious education in Europe; Examples and Perspectives of Primary Schools, 10;
Religion and Pluralism in Education: Comparative Approaches in the Western Balkans, 1; and,
Alibašić, Ahmet. „Modeli uređenja odnosa između države i vjerskih zajednica u Evropi i SAD -u i
njihove”, in: Alibašić, Ahmet (ed.). Religija i sekularna država. Sarajevo: KAS, 2007. 93
20
The debate arose on whether there is a place in public schools for religious instruction based
on normative theology, or only for a neutrally informative subject on religions based on secular
principles; should children of different religions be taught jointly or separately; should the subject
be compulsory; what should be the curriculum, who should write the textbooks, who should
156
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
that curricula will be developed by religious communities and passed by the
government’s laws. In spite of the fact that the issue of dominant religion(s) seeking
and having too much privilege and power to shape children’s minds through the
school system was a major concern at the beginning21, further surveys, such as the
one conducted by the Centre for Investigative Journalism Sarajevo, pointed out that
most of the parents support this type of religious education in public schools.22
Beside this concern, detailed analyses of the contents of religious textbooks
indicated many other problematic issues.
For example, Islamic textbooks are purely confessional and speak about Jews
and Christians from a position of having the only and whole truth, and it is even
claimed that every child is born in the nature of Islam, yet his/her parents make
of him a Jew or a Christian.23 Catholic textbooks got a somewhat better critique,
as they are written in a critical way offering a view on the nature of religions in
general. But they do omit some controversial periods in the history of the Catholic
Church, namely, the period of the Second World War. And national (Croatian)
history is presented as a struggle for freedom, national and religious liberty and
martyrdom.24 Textbooks used in teaching Orthodoxy are purely confessional, but
also nationally oriented, presenting a “one and only truth” and there is very little
information about other religions.25
Research analysis by Open Society Fund BiH “Obrazovanje u Bosni i
Hercegovini: Čemu učimo djecu” („Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina:
What are we teaching our children“) concluded that there are tensions
teach, etc. See in: Kuburić, Zorica, and Christian Moe, ed. Religion and Pluralism in Education,
Comparative Approaches in the Western Balkans. Novi Sad: Kotor Network, 2006. 1
21
22
Kuburić, Zorica, and Christian Moe, eds, 2006. 1
More precisely, 66% of parents in BiH see the need to have RE in schools. It is interesting that
two out of three parents said that they should, as parents, be actively involved in preparation of
curricula for RE. That is, however, not the case with these classes. This is the result of a phone
survey conducted by an agency for the Center for Investigative Journalism, with the method of
random sample, on 500 parents.
23
Texbook from the fourth grade asks children to think about the fact that all people are not Muslim
and that all Muslims are not believers. See: Religion and Pluralism in Education, 84
24
i.e., nothing is written about the connection of the Catholic Church with the Ustasha regime
in the Independent Croatia, or about the massive atrocities (genocide) committed against Serbs,
Jews and Gypsies. See: Religion and Pluralism in Education, 88
25
i.e., Others are described as sects (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, Pentacostalists...) whose
goal is to destroy the person, the family, and thus the whole society. See: Religion and Pluralism
in Education.
157
state or nation?
presented in the religious education textbooks. These tensions are related
mostly to historical events, those that each of the constitutive peoples of BiH
perceives differently.26 For example, each side uses only one source, simplifiing
or presenting only particular historical facts, promoting significant persons
selectively (through facts that would present that person only in positive
or negative light), etc. Negative in contrast to positive examples prevail,
accompanied with stereotypical observations of another faith, nation, state, or
of a certain person.27
Religious communities present an alternative source of authority and
influence state building by approving and promoting various statements in
their textbooks content. For example, in the 7th grade textbook for Muslim
RE, it is stated that “in our proud homeland Bosnia and Herzegovina there
were many fighters that confirmed the size and truthfulness of Sehadet with
their own lives. And today, Bosniaks are ready to confirm Sehadet, if Faith
and Homeland need to be defended. There are many such Muslims on other
parts of our planet”.28 In a similar way, Catholic textbooks (used in 8th grade)
emphasized their own values to be the guiding principles of a desired and ideal
society. It states that “we are all as members of society invited to respect civic
authorities and cooperate with them in building a just society”. On the other
hand, if civic society prescribes and follows regulations that are contrary to
human and Christian values, as it is claimed, “we owe to withhold our respect
and obey, because we should always comply to God and not to the people”.29
How can one discern when authorities are to be disobeyed or disrespected?
This is a subtle message to children that society has to be governed by Christian
(or Muslim) values, and societies that function differently, or exclude those
values, are not ones they should agree with.
As we can see from the above example, Muslim textbooks are the only ones
that refer to Bosnia and Herzegovina as their homeland. In contrast, this is not
the case with Catholic and Orthodox educational materials. The textbook used in
the 6th grade of elementary school for Catholic RE emphasizes the significance of
the visit of Pope John Paul II to Croatiaas an event that has “helped international
recognition of Republic of Croatia which he visited in three pastoral visits”. In the
textbook for 7th grade, it is stated that every human being has a right to live and “in
26
Fond za otvoreno drustvo BiH. “Obrazovanje u Bosni i Hercegovini: Čemu učimo djecu”.
Sarajevo, 2007. 149
27
28
29
Ibid. 157
Ibid. 166 - 167
Ibid. 167
158
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
Republic of Croatia there is no death penalty”. In neither of the two cases was BiH
used as an example, although the Pope has visited this state, and Bosnia has also
legally banned the death penalty.30
2.2. Alternative Voice
Some efforts to establish a balanced educational platform regarding the
dissemination of knowledge on religions in BiH were made in the year 2000. In that
year, an idea was announced in order to introduce a non-confessional subject that
would deal with religion and that would, perhaps, try to embrace reconciliation
in the post-war society of BiH.31 This was an important effort because nonconfessional religious education usually aims to primarily transmit knowledge, as
well as values, whereas confessional religious education aims to form the religious
identity of the believer and teaches content specific to a particular religious
tradition.32 The subject Culture of Religions was formulated as a non-confessional
elective subject with the goal of spreading knowledge about religion and traditions,
rituals, beliefs and practices in BiH, to enhance understanding of the importance
of religion as a force in the development of different cultures, to develop dialogues
skills, respect and encourage tolerance.33 However, it was not warmly accepted by
religious communities (even though it is not meant to replace RE, but to expand
the students’ knowledge of “Others” outside their ‘group’) and schools. It is only
taught in schools of three cantons (Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj and Sarajevo), and for the
second year in schools high schools of Republika Srpska.34
3. Deconstructing the State: Religion and Elections
In the ethno-political climate of this country there is one main reason why
the bond between religious communities and politicians is created, and that is
the source of legitimacy. On the one hand religions are considered an important
source of moral and spiritual legitimacy. According to Vrcan, this sort of legitimacy
is not of a democratic nature but rather of a sanctified one,because it is “from
30
31
Ibid. 158 - 160
The idea was formally introduced in the year 2000, at the conference of Bosnian ministers of
education, that was organized by the Office of High Representative and the Council of Europe.
Initiative was created by OSCE, Goethe Institut i Sarajevo Open Centar.
32
33
34
Kuburic, Moe, 2006, 3
Ibid. 78
Kajan, Sanel. “Vjeronauka u školi. Da ili ne!?!“ Deutsche Welle, 28 May 2010. Available at:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5613327,00.html (last accessed 12/10/10).
159
state or nation?
above”.35 Through direct and transparent support to certain political options, on
the other hand, religious leaders are stipulating the “symbiosis of the secular and
profane” that enables them to present themselves as exclusive and legitimate (in
a democratic sense) guardians and protectors of ethno-national interests. This
phenomenon, Ramet, identifies as national-religious messianism.36
3.1. “The Chosen One(s)”
During the 1990’s, pioneers of ethno-nationalism – Srpska demokratska stranka or
SDS [Serbian Democratic Party], Bosniak’s Stranka demokratske akcije or SDA [Party
of Democratic Action], and Hrvatska demokratska zajednica or HDZ [the Croatian
Democratic Union] -- imposed themselves as the protectors of the vital national
interests. The synergy between these parties and leading nationalist politicians on
one side, and religious leaders and communities on the other was unquestionable.
Therefore, these parties and their leadership were the ultimate winners of the first
elections in post-Dayton BiH. As a consequence, the SDA’s founder, Alija Izetbegović,
considered to be the “father of Bosniaks“, easily won the election for the Bosniak’s
member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.37 The same goes for the SDS’s
candidate Momčilo Krajišnik and HDZ’s candidate Krešimir Zubak38, who became
the Serbian and Croatian representatives in the Presidency, respectively. Synergy
with the leading religious communities was obvious. The „cult of Alija Izetbegović“
(especially after he passed away in 2003) has been built and promoted by the Head of
the Islamic Community of BiH, reisu-l-ulema Mustafa ef. Cerić as the „only legitimate
one in Bosniak politics“.39 Accordingly, cooperation between the SDS and the Serbian
35
Vrcan, Srđan. „Faith and State: the Exemplary Case of Former Yugoslavia“, Transeuropeennes,
Vol. 23, 2003. 56.
36
Ramet cites five crucial reasons for religious messianism -- religion represents the historical
essence of culture; it is a symbol of collective identity and distinguishes one people from
another; the avant-garde role of religious groups in the development of a national language
and literature is important; the leading role in society has been assumed by the clergy because
of their education, prominence, and political awareness; and, also important is the conviction
that the religion of a group of people—as opposed to a neighboring people or religion—is
theirs alone. See: Velikonja, Mitja. Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in BosniaHerzegovina. Texas A&M University Press, 2003. 13
37
In 1996 he won 730.592 votes or 75,6 % (comparing to the 124.396 votes or 12,9 % of Haris
Silajdžić, Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s candidate for the Presidency). See: Službene
novine BiH, godina III – broj 20, Sarajevo: nedjelja, 20. listopada 1996.
38
Krajišnik won 690.646 votes or 61,2 % and Zubak has been supported by 330.477 votes or
77,65 %. See: Službene novine, 1996.
39
Marko, Davor. „Ko će biti prvi u Bošnjaka: Na Alijinom putu i reisovoj sećiji“. Novi pogledi,
160
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
Orthodox Church was without hesitation publicly announced, while HDZ openly
promote Christian values as the core of their political goals.40
A series of elections, with almost no uncertainties in the results, was
interrupted in 2000 when the winner was the Alliance for Change, led by the
Socijal-demokratska partija or SDP [Social-Democratic Party]. The initial
explanation for this situation indicates that citizens were over-saturated with
nationalism and strived for changes, but this was in fact, only part of the truth.
As explained by Nerzuk Ćurak, the majority of political parties, including the
winner, SDP, accepted the “ethno-political rules of the game” in order to gain the
legitimacy based on religious affiliation. The Islamic community, too, changed
their course; reis Ceric stopped his exclusive support for the SDA. This was a
place, as Ćurak observes, where the “politics with two faces” has been promoted
by the Islamic religious leader in BiH. Two faces were seen throughout different
support at local and state levels: on the local level (including Mostar) it overlaps
with the SDA official politics, while on the general level and in the big cities (in
which SDA lost its privileged position) Cerić used non-aligned politics free of
national, ethnic and particular values.41 This was a “meeting place” of SDP and
Islamic community, where they became closer to each other. As result, the Islamic
community unofficially recognized the “Bosniak” character of SDP. Today, the
image of this party and its leader, Lagumdžija, in spite of its declarative multiethnic perspective, has been mainly perceived as „Bosniak“.42
The basic characteristic of the local elections held in 2004, as was observed by
the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, was “the large degree of involvement of
the leaders of religious communities, who, for the most part, implicitly navigated
the constituencies to vote for the three nationalistic parties - SDS, SDA and HDZ”.43
As the most active, HCHR outlined the leaders of the Islamic Community, reis
vol. 18, Sarajevo: ACIPS, September 2010. 28 - 31
40
In its program, HDZ clearly states principles of Christian civilization as those that are in
tradition of Croat people, thus important determining element of the party as well.
41
Ćurak, Nerzuk. “Bogovi su pali na tjeme”. Sarajevo: Archive of magazine “Dani”, No. 150, 14
April, 2000.
42
The first evidence for this is that Lagumdžija chairs the Board of the Bosniak Institute in
Sarajevo, and another sign is the public prayer that Lagumdžija performed in Bratunac, which
was published on the cover of “Oslobođenje”. The third issue, to which the Croat parties have
the most objections, is the election of SDP member Željko Komšić for the Croat member of the
Presidency by the support of “Bosniak’s votes“.
43
“Campaign in the sign of religious leaders (press release)“. Sarajevo: Helsinki Committee for
HR in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29 September, 2004. Available online: http://www.bh-hchr.org/
Statements/e29-09-04.htm (last accessed 30/10/10).
161
state or nation?
Cerić and his deputy Ismet ef. Spahić who said, at the ceremony of opening the
mosque in the village of Miričina, near Gračanica, he “...will not stand by those who
are ashamed of declaring themselves as Muslims” and added that he “as a believer
shall not stand by those who in their program do not have la ilaha ilAllah”44. On
the other hand, in Dobruna, near Višegrad, a museum of the First Serb Uprising
was opened, to commemorate the two hundred year anniversary of the event linked
with neighboring Serbia. Serb Patriarch Pavle led the religious ceremony, and the
event was marked by a strong presence of the representatives of the SDS, who used
it for their electoral campaign aims. Similarly, for Croats, on several occasions the
Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Vinko Puljić, spoke of a conspiracy against the Catholics in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, openly requested help from the Holy See and the Republic
of Croatia.45
3.2. New Favorites, Old Habits
It became commonplace to refer to reis-l-ulema’s Mustafa ef. Cerić’s
words from 2006, when he authorized a Bosniak politician Haris Silajdžić,
later on elected for the member of Presidency of BiH, to “write the new
Constitution”. 46 For the first time in his “political life” Mr. Silajdžić gained
the official support of reis Cerić, and became the Bosniak’s member of the
Presidency of BiH.47 But, once he lost reis Cerić’s support, Silajdžić became
the “political loser”. On the eve of local elections in 2008, relations between
the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Haris Silajdžić were “frozen”. Reis
Cerić, on the central religious ceremony (Bayram or Eid ul-Fitr), hosted
the leaders of SDA, Sulejman Tihić, Mirsad Kebo, and Nedžad Branković,
showing that he will support this party again. These elections have been
marked by a “political come-back” of Tihić and SDA.
In 2006, a delegation from HDZ visited the Vatican just three days before
the elections. They met Pope Benedict XVI and had a meeting with the Pope’s
secretary cardinal Tarcisi Bertone. At the end of the meeting, the Pope blessed
44
La ilaha ilAllah is part of the Muslim proclamation of faith (Shahada). It could be translated
as: “There is no deity except God”.
45
46
Helsinki Committee for HR in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29 September, 2004.
Borić, Faruk. „Slučaj Butmir: Bošnjačka politika između stranačkih interesa i ideologije“.
Published online and avalable on the following link: http://www.pulsdemokratije.ba/
index.php?a=print&l=bs&id=1931 (last accessed 27/10/10).
47
Silajdžić has been elected with the vast majority (62,8 % or 350.520 votes), in front of Sulejman
Tihić (he gain 27,53 % or 153.683 votes) who lost reis Cerić’s confidence and, therefore, the
elections. See: www.izbori.ba
162
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
their delegation. It was interesting that just a few, Croatian-oriented media
reported on this visit throughout journalistic forms, while in other media this
party paid for its coverage.48 This was the year when the unquestioned position
and authority of this party (HDZ) was challenged by other political options. One
of the main examples of this was HDZ 1990, which was established by former
members of HDZ.49 In order to regain their support among the Croatian voting
body, which was undecided and separated, HDZ’s leadership was very active in
misusing the spiritual authority of local clergy. Two years later, in 2008 – during
the pre-election campaign – local priests were a regular part of HDZ’s rallies.50
3.3. United and Divided
On the eve of the 2010 General Elections the owner of daily newspaper Dnevni
avaz, Fahrudin Radončić,51 established his own political party - Savez za bolju
budućnost BiH or SBBBiH [Alliance for better future of Bosnia and Herzegovina],
running for the Bosniak seat in the BiH Presidency.52 During the campaign, Reis’s
statements for the daily Dnevni avaz did not overtly state his political favourite,
but careful analysis clearly indicates that his messages (“we need new people
48
For example -- M.D.A. “Opća audiencija u Vatikanu: Papa Benedikt XVI blagoslovio
izaslanstvo hrvatskih dužnosnika“. Sarajevo: Dnevni avaz, 2 October 2006. 12
49
For some, the results of the general elections in 2006 were surprising – HDZ BIH won 27
percent of votes in the run for the Parliamentary Assembly of BIH, while HDZ 1990 won 26.28
percent (unit 512), while in run for the seats in the Federal Parliament HDZ 1990 was supported
with 18,29 percent, leaving HDZ BIH insecond place with 17,5 percent of support. Source:
www.izbori.ba
50
51
See: “Prvo kod fratra, a potom pred birače”. Sarajevo: Oslobođenje, 28 September 2008. 5
For a long period of time Radončić promoted his daily as a protagonist of „Bosniaks’
interests“, supported Alija Izetbegović, and having a good cooperation with the Head of the
Islamic Community. Due to the manner in which „Avaz“ articulated Bosniak policy, changing
its course of support and bad-mouthing certain Bosniak politicians, Mr. Ivan Lovrenović, a
BIH intellectual and publicist, described this phenomenon in his article as avazovština (engl.
avazianism). According to Lovrenović, avazovština is “a symbol embodying all the worst features
of unscrupulous petty politics, chameleon-style serving of all regimes, systematic violation of
fundamental postulates of the journalist profession (credibility, verifiability, truthfulness, and so
on), and sometimes the cruelest public lynching methods. Not to mention those higher levels
of editorializing and editorial philosophy, which comprise a professionally devised promotion
of general social and cultural values. For Avaz and Avazovstina, this is uncharted territory”.
See in: Vildana Selimbegović. “Bosna u Radončićevoj suri” (Bosnia in the verse of Radončić),
Oslobođenje, 24 January 2009. 25
52
Surprisingly, he won second place with 30% of votes, close to Bakir Izetbegović, but far ahead
of Haris Silajdžić.
163
state or nation?
in politics”, “we have to plan a better and happier future”, etc.53) significantly
overlapped with the rhetoric and, especially, with the name of the party – the
Alliance for the better future of BiH. Such a message, though ‘coded’ and covert,
would have had clear overtures to the media audience who were following the
election campaign.
At the same time, the Serbian Orthodox Church was not very active during the
campaign, nor were its leaders where addressing their messages publicly. This (un)
expected inactivity of Orthodox religious officials may be explained in terms of
the kind of consensus that was reached among politicians from Republika Srpska.
All of them agreed upon the territorial inalienability of this entity, to advocate for
the interests of the Serbian people, and to treat the Bosnia and Herzegovina as an
“imposed” necessity, and considered the authority of the Church and its tradition
as indisputable.54 After a convincing win, representatives of Savez nezavisnih
socijademokrata or SNSD [Alliance of Independent Social Democrats], led by
Milorad Dodik, went to the Holy Trinity Church in Banja Luka to give a “spiritual”
oath. This was a clear example of how contemporary Serbian politics in BiH has
been shaped, seeking both democratic and spiritual legitimacy.55
The lack of unity among Croats in BiH, and between political parties representing
their interests, was the characteristic of the last two cycles of general elections.
Dissatisfaction with the policy of HDZ gave the floor to other political options, such as
the HDZ 1990, Hrvatska stranka prava or HSP, or Narodna stranka Radom za boljitak
or NSRzB. In 2010, the Catholic Church leadership was not active during the campaign,
in spite of the fact that their proposal for the re-organization of the state overlaps with
53
This is not a coincidence, since this was noticed on several occasions – due to the Muslim
holiday Bayram a big interview with the Reis has been published with the title – „We have to find
new people, those who want, know and can!“ (Dnevni avaz, September 8, 2010, cover page); two
days later his speech (khutba or sermon) was published where he stated that we should strive
for the better and happier future (Dnevni avaz, September 10, 2010, 2); and, finally, on the last
day of the campaign one more interview with the Reis was published, in which he said that
people should „not be afraid of changes“ and invited them to vote and „to create a better future...“
(Dnevni avaz, September 10, 2010, 4 – 5).
54
Almost all political subjects in this entity, as the most important point of their programs,
emphasized the preservation of the Republic of Srpska within the existing framework of Dayton.
Thus, Perica Bundalo from the Party of Democratic Progress (PDP) said that “the basis will be
stable RS“ (September 6), Mirko Kojic from SNSD that “elections are essential for the survival of
the RS” (September 6) and Radmila Trbojevic the Serbian Democratic Party that “the priority is
the preservation of the Dayton Agreement” (September 9). Source: Daily newspaper Glas Srpske
55
Available online, http://www.nezavisne.com/novosti/bih/Dodik-Bicu-predsjednik-svimgradjanima-RS-71999.html Accessed on 17 November 2010.
164
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
the HDZ vision56, and in spite of appeals from the side of HDZ’s president Dragan
Čović to the Church to help Croats elect their own political representatives.57
4. The “Holy Trinity”: Religion, Nation and State
In this part of the chapter, we will use the data examined above, in order to find
out why religious communities are deconstructing the state. It is assumed that main
reason lies in their interpretation and definition of the concept of ‘nation’, which is
partial and based upon the ethno-religious characteristics of the Self-group.
4.1. Primordial Conceptions of the Nation
Visions and conception of the nation(s), generated by religious communities
in BiH, are exclusive, particular, contradictory to one another, and are mainly
based on primordial markers, such as blood, birth, language, and the conception
of Fatherland.58 The concept of Fatherland will be taken into consideration in this
part of the chapter, since it seems to be crucial for deconstructing and analyzing
the dominant national narratives. It is interesting that Fatherland, as a common
marker, is important for all three communities, but as we will see its content varies
from one community to another. For Bosniaks, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been
classified as their kin country, while Catholics and Orthodox refer to Croatia or
Serbia as their Fatherland. The same goes for the concept of Martyrdom, which is
also important for the creation of national myths and which enlighten the spiritual
56
See in: Čilić, Zvonimir. “Dragan Čović: Zalaganje za BiH s tri razine vlasti i sa četiri federalne
jedinice”. Mostar: Večernji list, 4 September 2010. Pp. 16; “Kardinal Puljić: Crkva nije odustala
od svog prijedloga teritorijalnog preuređenja BiH”. Published on 1 November 2010. Available on
www.dnevnik.ba
57
The main concern was the election of Željko Komšić, member of SDP, for the Croat
representative in the Presidency of BIH. See in: “Očekujemo pomoć od Katoličke crkve”.
Sarajevo: Oslobođenje, 10 October 2010.
58
Primordialists refer to blood ties and origin, as well as to organic and biological nature of
the “fatherland”. They argue that national identity is determined by birth and it cannot be
changed. In his Addresses to the German Nation Fichte emphasized the importance of the
Fatherland., and he clearly points out distinction between the state and nation as more spiritual
and transcendental concept: “Wherever the German language was spoken, everyone who had
first seen the light of the day in its domain could consider himself as in a double sense a citizen,
on the one hand, of the State where he was born and to whose care he was in the first instance
commended, and, on the other hand, of the whole common fatherland of the German nation”.
See: Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Addresses to the German Nation (translated by R.F. Jones and G.H.
Turnbull). Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Co, 1922. 69 - 71
165
state or nation?
dimension of the nation which is based upon religious symbolism, suffering and
Self-victimization.
Myth-creation and the conceptualization of nation have been achieved, by
religious communities, through the processes of the nationalization of an ethnos,
and, the ethnicization of the state. In spite of the fact that Mujkić claims that these
two processes are “one and the same process”, we will rather claim that the two are
different phases or stages of the same process. Another reason for this separation
is the fact that nationalization of an ethnos could be applied to all three constituent
people(s), while ethnicization of the state could be applied just particularly
Bosniaks as their ethno-religious homogenization process targets the entire state
of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some benchmarks of this process, as Mujkić outlined,
are – an ethnic matrix of self-identification; institutional, political and cultural
homogenization; the mobilization of part of the population in pre-election
process and demobilization in post-election period; (quasi)elite driven political
process; “our” problems, “our” politicians, “our” symbols – “our” occupied legal
institutions, economy, civil sector, etc.59 In order to distinguish nationalism of
Serbs and Croats living in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the ones living in Serbia
and Croatia, scholars refers on it as ethno-nationalism since nationality, in the
Bosnian context, has been reduced to (or exclusively understood) in ethnic terms.60
For Haverić, ethnos in this context is similar to demos, and could be translated as
people (or “narod”).61
Bosniaks in their post-Dayton rhetoric insist on the re-appropriation of the
Middle Age’s period and the notion of Bosnians (transl. Bošnjani). Highly illustrative
of this are the statements and speeches by the Reisu-l-ulema ef. Cerić. Their subtext, which is not explicitly uttered, is the exclusion of everyone who does not fall
in the group of those mentioned in the speech. Using the old term Bošnjani, it can
be assumed that the Reis is referring to the centuries-long existence of people on
Bosnian-Herzegovinian soil, but it can also be inferred that he is referring only to
Muslims, which is contrary to the opinions and arguments of many historians who
argue that in the Middle Ages the term Bošnjanin denoted every citizen of Bosnia,
whether he be of the Orthodox, Catholic or Islamic faith. As the Reisu-l-ulema
59
60
Mujkić, 2008.
Ethnicity differs from nations and nationalisms because it excludes political organization and
state apparatus. Anthony D. Smith defines ethnie as human population that shares common
myths, history and culture, and is connected to a certain territory and sense of solidarity. That
community, throughout history and various social processes, has a potential to become a nation.
See: Ichijo, A., and G. Uzelac, (eds.) When is a Nation? Towards an understanding of theories of
nationalism. Routledge. New York, 2005. 90
61
Haverić, Tarik. Ethnos i demokratija. Sarajevo: Rabic, 2006. 20 - 21
166
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
is addressing Muslims when he says Bošnjani, the statement may be interpreted
as an attempt to raise awareness of Muslims and Bosniaks62 as an ancient and
dominant people who have more right to Bosnia, denying or suppressing their
historical coexistence with Others.63 According to ethno-symbolists, one of the
basic markers of ethnicity are names, and this explains why the usage of a certain
name for an ethnic group is important in the creation of its identity.64 Bearing this
in mind, it is very indicative when Bosniak (or bošnjački) intellectuals, political
and religious representatives refer to their name to be in continuum with the
medieval terms Bosnians (or Bošnjani), using this terminological similarity to
claim that Bosnia and Herzegovina is their kin-state and that it should be unitarily
established.
On the other hand, some authors claimed that Bosnian Muslims do not exist
as a nation, and rather that this identity should be understood as a layer of Serbian
or Croatian national identities, like Serbians or Croats of Islamic faith. This claim
has been made by Serbian and Croatian nationalist propaganda. There are also
contemporary efforts to re-consider the term Bosnians (Bošnjani), referring to the
citizens of the medieval Bosnian state, to be the founding identity for all those
identities that exist today in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Bosnian Serb identity,
Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims or Bosniaks.65 According to this perception
of Bosnia and Herzegovina as their own (and only) country, the Islamic Community
has unilaterally agreed that those fighters of the Army of BiH who died defending
their country should be considered as martyrs (or “šehidi“).66 Since 1995, Muslims
in BiH traditionally marked the second day of Ramadan Bayram as the Day of
Martyrs. On this day all Muslims visiting the cemetery, commemorating the killed
soldiers, remember their earthly achievements and their heroic contribution to
62
Translated as Bošnjaci, which is adopted in 1993 as the official name for Bosnian Muslims,
one of the three constituent group in BIH
63
The following Cerić’s speech is a good example for this:
(…) To the joy of all of us and to the pride of our people, a group of brave and determined
Bosniak businessmen a year ago initiated the construction of a permanent spiritual seat as a
symbol of freedom, honor and dignity of our people. (…) Gratitude to Allah, the good Bosnjani
have not betrayed, they have not become afraid of their success, they have not denied what they
said a year ago. (…) We are building ourselves a house, the house of all Muslims and Bosniaks.
(Published in “Dnevni avaz”, on 7 September 2009. “Good Bosnjani have not betrayed”)
64
65
66
Hutchinson, J. and Anthony D. Smith (eds.). Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Zoranić, Hakija. O etnogenezi Bošnjana – Bošnjaka, Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 2010.
“Šehid” is a religious term in Islam, which literally means a victim or martyr. In a metaphorical
sense, martyrs are good slaves of Allah who gave their lives in battle in the way of God.
167
state or nation?
their people, faith, home and Fatherland. This is an opportunity for reis Cerić to
issue his messages to the Bosniaks, to share his vision of religion and nation.
In contrast, Serbs based their modern nationhood on ideas formulated in two
documents belonging to different historical epochs – Načertanije67 and The SANU
Memorandum.68 Analysing the involvement of the Serbian Orthodox Church in
the creation of Serbian nationalism, Ramet refers to its tendency to “spiritualize”
the concept of national destiny and to infuse the preservation of ethnic culture
with fundamental values. The strongest manifestation of this is the revival of
the myth of the battle of Kosovo and the divine character of Prince Lazar.69 As
Sells pointed out, the Prince Lazar story “was tied to a revolutionary mixture of
romantic nationalism and anti-Islamic polemic”, and this combination resulted in
the ideology he named Christoslavism70. The Serbian Orthodox Church very often
proclaimed this ideology, especially during the 1990s, in their public processions
and manifestations.71 Moreover, this did not occur only within the boundaries
67
This document has been drawn up by Ilija Garašanin, a Serbian politician, in 1844, and
expresses his desire for a re-united Serbian people that, at the time, were divided by the
Ottomans. It contains an appeal for the reconstruction of the Serbian Empire on the grounds
of its medieval tradition. In such a state, all Bulgarians, Macedonians, Albanians, Greeks,
Montenegrins, and Bosniaks, would be subservient to the Serbs.
68
The SANU Memorandum, dated from 1986, gave the floor to controversial views on the
state of the nation, urging for a fundamental reorganization of Yugoslavia in the terms of
decentralization that will lead to a national Serbian state under which Serbs will not be
discriminated as was the case in socialist Yugoslavia. As outlined by Judah, it pointed out that 24
per cent of Serbs lived outside Serbia, while 40.3 per cent lived outside the boundaries of central
Serbia, that is to say either outside Serbia itself or in Kosovo and Vojvodina. The language of
the Memorandum was strong, as he explains, and it “might have agreed that Serbs in Kosovo
were living through difficult times, the Memorandum asserted that they were being subjected to
nothing less than ‘genocide”. See in: Judah, Tim. Kosovo: War and Revenge. USA: Yale University
Press, 2002. 49 - 50
69
Ramet, Sabrina P. Religion and nationalism in Soviet and East European politics. Duke
University Press, 1989. 7
70
Within this ideology, Prince Lazar was proclaimed for the martyrdom of the Kosovo battle,
and portrayed as a Christ figure. Therefore, his enemies, the Turks and metaphorically speaking
– all Muslims including the converts - are considered to be Christ-killers. In their version of the
“Last Supper”, Serbs recognized their Judas, which they correlated with Vuk Branković, who
‘betrayed’ Lazar and became the ancestral curse of all Muslims with Slavic origins. As example
of such ideology Sells mentioned Petar Petrović II Njegoš work “The Mounting Wreath” known
as for its sub-title - “The Extermination of the Turkifiers” (“Istraga Poturica”). See: Sells, Michael.
Religion, History, and Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Davis, G. Scott, ed. Religion and the
Justice in the War over Bosnia. USA: Routledge, 1996. 63
71
Tomanić, Milorad. Srpska crkva u ratu i ratovi u njoj. Beograd: Medijska knjižara Krug, 2001.
168
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
of the Republic of Serbia: in fact, they targeted all territories where Serbian
people constituted the majority of the population (namely, parts of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Croatia). In 1987, as preparation for the commemoration of the
600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, Orthodox priests took Prince Lazar’s
bones and went on an outing prescribed by Orthodox custom. After a procession
in Belgrade, and carrying the bones through monasteries in Serbia, they visited
parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, and finally buried them in Kosovo.
The message was clear – Lazar’s remains set the boundaries of the Great Serbia, in
spite of the fact that certain territories belonged to the other Republics. In the case
of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was an obvious attack on its territorial sovereignty.
Today, the Republic of Srpska exists as an entity of the Bosnian state, populated by
Serbs, and spiritually protected by the Church and its saints.72
Another problematic issue is the name of the church – the Serbian Orthodox
Church – which indicatively shows that it is purely national, and focused on the
spiritual, territorial and political unity of all Serbian people. Identification of the Serbs
and Orthodoxy led to the creation and imposition of an absolute symbiosis of the
spiritual and secular. As a result, in the public we have the presence of the following
phrases “Serbian Orthodox national individuality”, “Serbian Orthodox people”,
etc. 73 In terms of martyrdom, it is worth noting the significant efforts made by the
exiled bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic (1888 – 1956) who proposed “commemoration
of the victims of the Croatian and communist crimes across the country at the sites
of Serbian martyrdom”.74 Imposing upon all Croats a sense of collective guilt (for
the crimes committed against Serbs by “Ustasha” regime, during the Second World
War) and asking for a public apology, the representatives of the radical stream of the
Orthodox Church had two goals. Firstly, they tend to present “Others” as perpetrators
(in this case, Croats and Catholics) or as a threat (Muslims or converts); secondly, they
want to emphasize the victimized position of their own people.
Having “God on their side”75 and revitalizing the victim position during the
communist regime, the Catholic Church was also very active in the revival of
72
According to the Law on Holidays of Republika Srpska, the republic holidays in this entity
include Republic Day which is celebrated on 9 January, and which is actually the Orthodox saint
– St. Stefan.
73
See: Ćimić, Esad. Iskušenja zajedništva. Sarajevo: DID, 2005. 155; Milosavljević, Olivera.
U tradiciji nacionalizma ili stereotipi srpskih intelektualaca XX veka o „nama“ i „drugima“.
Beograd: Ogledi br. 1 – Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji, 2002. 51
74
Perica, Vjekoslav. “Interfaith Dialogue versus Recent Hatred: Serbian Orthodoxy and Croatian
Catholicism from the Second Vatican Council to the Yugoslav War, 1965 – 1992”. Religion, State
& Society, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2001. 46
75
This phrase was used in 1936 by Sarajevo archbishop Ivan Šarić (1876 – 1966)
169
state or nation?
nationalism among Croat people. According to Lovrenović, the Catholic Church,
among other agents (politics, media, and culture), imposed on Bosnians Croats
the centralistic and metropolitian, model of the nation and national culture.
Therefore, the state of Croatia and its capital Zagreb have been proclaimed as
their center, while the rest is considered to be the periphery (including Bosnia
and Herzegovina). In this regard he refers on the legacy of Sarajevo’s archbishop
Josip Stadler (1843 – 1918) and his project of „political Catholicism“. In 1900, on
Catholic congress held in Zagreb, Stadler proclaimed his political goal of reunion
of Bosnia and Herzegovina with Croatia, which he considered to be the Fatherland
or, to be precise, the Matherland (matera zemlja).76 Role of the Catholic Church
was especially significant during the organization of the Great Novena (1975 – 84),
a series of events marking 13 centuries of Christianity among the Croatian people.
As Perica observed, this grand jubilee “had quintessentially nationalistic content”,
but the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965) affected it in a positive way. 77 It had
all the elements of populist national movements, and finally, on 8 September 1984,
in Marija Bistrica, more than 400,000 people took part in the “largest religious
convention in the history of Yugoslavia”.78 Along with these happenings, in 1979
Archbishop Franjo Kuharić inaugurated the annual commemoration of Cardinal
Stepinac, portraying him in his sermons as a Christian martyr, proclaiming him as
a victim of the communist regime (akin to the Croat people as a whole, according
to his viewpoint). In contrast, it is worth noting that the Serbian Orthodox
Church considers Stepinac a collaborator with the “Ustasha” regime, neglecting
his sanctification and vindication.
Based on this analysis on conceptions of nation(s), and their corresponding
state’s framework, in public displays and performances of the three main
confessional groups in BiH, we saw that among them dialogue, understanding, or
consensus is entirely absent. While Bosniaks advocate for the unity of nation and
state, attributing its own (through the name and historical legacy) exclusivity over
it, the other side, Serbs, completely deny and derogate the state of BiH, insisting
in their narratives on the unity of Serbian people, religion and territory. Croats
are somewhere in between. On the one hand, they acknowledge the authority and
legitimacy of the state of BiH, and, on the other, insist on their disadvantaged,
marginal political position and disunity; they refer to the religious (Catholic)
authorities from BiH and neighbouring Croatia in order to play a key role of
‘spiritual link’ between the two.
76
77
78
Lovrenović, 2010. 190 - 192
Perica, 2001. 42 - 43
Ibid, 2001. 52
170
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
Therefore, the contents of their narratives and the concepts of Fatherland are
completely exclusive and divergent from one another, yet the matrix of behaviour
in the revitalization and public promotion of these narratives is very similar.
Marking the suffering of their own people, insisting on the role of victims, and
treating Others as perpetrators and threats, contributes to the development
of the cult of martyrdom. As we saw, this matrix has been ritually used for the
inauguration of their ideas and, as the final consequence, it derogates the common
state.
Conclusion
If religion plays a significant role as a symbolic “nexus” of a group identity and
represents the only differentia specifica with regard to Others, we can talk about
its crucial role, not only in the creation of the group identity but also in creation of
inter-group social cleavages. In multiethnic contexts which are determined both
by religion’s role in identity conflicts and group contests over state sovereignty, we
can also observe the religious institutions’ role in various state (de)construction
processes. Overcoming the weak-state and its competences, and promising the
protection and welfare for the “self ” group, religious communities in BiH present
themselves as the main legitimizers of the “preferred and desired politics”.
This chapter started with the assumption that religious communities play a
decisive role in the nation and state-building in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our aim
was to show how religious communities deconstruct the state of BiH by intervening
in the spheres of education and politics (mainly in the pre-election period). Their
impact has being institutionalized through their synergy with “suitable” politicians
who play according to the ethno-political rules. In such a system of power-sharing,
it is legitimized for politicians and religious leaders to use and promote ethnobased narratives, overwhelmingly neglecting the universal and common values –
those that, usually, refer to the state. Particularly oriented towards the “self ” group,
offering their own and exclusive visions of the nation, religious communities have
occupied public space (spiritual, political, educational, social, and cultural) that
should belong to the modern, democratic and inclusive state.
Through analysis of religious (confessional) education we concluded that
religious communities are not merely transmitting knowledge, but are additionally
molding their followers into suitable Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats (or Muslims,
Orthodox and Catholics). This kind of confessional education system is convenient
for ethno political elites (national parties) because it creates a new generation of
voters, those who will support the politics of division, exclusivity and the status
quo in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
171
state or nation?
In order to find a comprehensive answer as to why religious communities are
engaged in this process, we assumed that it is because their perception of the
state is restricted to their understanding of the nation. Accordingly, the state, as
understood in a trans-ethnic sense, is considered a threat to their particular ethnonational identity. Analysis of their national narratives showed that their visions of
nation(s) have almost nothing in common, which makes almost impossible, and
even undermines, any effort to establish a common framework for the state.
172
Tatjana Ljubić and Davor Marko religion, nation and state
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state or nation?
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About the Authors
177
state or nation?
178
Eldar SARAJLIĆ is a PhD student in political philosophy at the Central European University in Budapest. He completed his Masters at the University of Sarajevo. He has published one book and contributed several chapters and articles
on the issues of ethnicity, citizenship, political elite, consociatonal democracy. He
is active as a researcher of citizenship policies and practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Yugoslavia, Islamic networks in the Balkans and other
regional issues, cooperating with research centres at universities in Edinburgh
and Oxford. Eldar is a member of the European Union Democracy Observatory
(EUDO) network of citizenship scholars.
Davor MARKO holds an MA in Democracy and Human Rights, a degree
awarded jointly by the University of Sarajevo and Bologna. He completed his BA
studies in journalism at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, Serbia. For
the past six years he he has worked in Sarajevo as a journalist, media analyst and
project coordinator. His field of expertise is media reporting on diversity. He was
the leader of a regional project, Dialogue of Diversities, that was implemented
over 2007-2008, and which included educational, research and production activities. He is editor-in-chief of the academic magazine Novi pogledi [New Perspectives], published by the Alumni Association of the Centre for Interdisciplinary
Postgraduate Studies (ACIPS), and has collaborated with various magazines and
journals from the SEE region. In 2009 he published a book Zar na Zapadu postoji
drugi Bog? [Does Another God Exist in the West?], in which he analysed dominant
stereotypes and prejudices related to Islam in the media of the Western Balkans.
Adnan HUSKIĆ graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and received a Master Degree in European Studies from the Centre
of Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies in Sarajevo. The title of his Master thesis
was “Democratic Consolidation in a Post-Conflict Setting”. He manages projects
for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and works as
a lecturer teaching courses in International Relations, International Security and
the European Union at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology (University
of Buckingham). He writes occasionally for Oslobodjenje and Vecernji List daily
newspapers and several think-tanks.
Sead TURČALO is an assistant lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Sarajevo. He is an author of texts published in journals
and periodicals in the country and the region. Recent publications relate to the
role of the international community in state building, the distribution of power in
a divided society, and security policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is a member
of the editorial staff of the Yearbook of the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo
and the Secretary General of the BiH Political Science Association.
179
state or nation?
Mateja PETER is working towards a Ph.D in Politics and International Studies
at the University of Cambridge, researching the global-local dynamics in peacebuilding operations. Her thesis is on the power negotiations between peacebuilders on the ground and their international underwriters. She is conducting a
detailed case study on the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she also did her ethnographic research. Ms. Peter earned her undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Ljubljana. During her undergraduate years she was the national university
debate coordinator as well as an intern at the Department for Western Balkans of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia. She has been engaged in numerous
NGO projects in the region. Ms. Peter completed her M.Phil. at Cambridge and
was subsequently employed as a teaching assistant at the University of Ljubljana.
She also worked for the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House
in London and the International Peace Institute in New York. Her work has been
presented at major international conferences and published in edited volumes
and peer-reviewed journals. Ms. Peter currently serves as Managing Editor for the
Journal of International Relations and Development.
Ivana HOWARD is Program Officer for Europe at the National Endowment for
Democracy, a leading democracy-building foundation based in Washington, D.C.
In this capacity, she manages the NED’s democracy assistance program for Southeast European countries. Prior to joining NED in 2005, Ivana supported several
USAID-funded development projects including a World Trade Organization accession program in Serbia. She also worked for the United Nations Information
Center in Washington, D.C. Her previous experiences include training U.S. soldiers deploying to the Balkans in the languages, politics, history, and culture of
the region, as well as supporting the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and
Herzegovina immediately after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords. Ivana
serves as a leading resource for policy analysts, academics, and decision-makers in
Washington on political developments in the Balkans. She has testified in the U.S.
Congress, authored several articles, and made a number of appearances in the U.S.
and international electronic media, including NPR, PBS, VOA, Al Jazeera English, and BBC Radio. Ivana received her Masters in Public Administration from
Bowie State University in Germany and an MA in Democracy and Human Rights
in Southeast Europe from the universities of Sarajevo and Bologna, where her final
thesis focused on the effectiveness of democracy assistance and civil society building efforts in the Balkans.
Nataša BOŠKOVIĆ obtained her BA Hons degree in International Political
Studies from Nottingham Trent University, while her MA degree in Democracy
and Human Rights in South East Europe was awarded jointly by the universities of
Sarajevo and Bologna. Her main research interests include interdisciplinary stud-
180
ies related to human rights and the relationship between politics and culture. Current professional engagements include: advocacy and PR coordination at NGO
ASTRA (Anti Trafficking Action), Belgrade; the translation of publications in
contemporary social sciences into Serbian (Zavod za udžbenike, University and
Special Editions) and collaboration with the Sarajevo based ACIPS magazine New
Perspectives.
Tatjana LJUBIĆ was born in Subotica, Serbia. She completed a Masters program Religious Studies at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies
(CIPS) in Sarajevo, BiH, and graduated in journalism at the Faculty of Political
Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia. She specialized in TV journalism at the High College
of Journalism Media Plan in Sarajevo. She she has worked as a journalist for the
Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji list, Bosnian public broadcasting service BHT1,
regional internet portals and the magazine New Perspectives that is published by
Alumni of CIPS (ACIPS). During her two years of working at ACIPS, she established and coordinated its Public Relations Department. She is author of the documentary films The International community in BiH and Green – The Color of the
Future, produced by the Media Plan Institute and Heinrich Boell Stiftung, as well
as Primary Pupils in BiH – Will They Have Joint Memories?, produced by ACIPS
and the French embassy in BiH. She has worked on several research projects and
papers on the media and political situation in BiH.
181