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The “national key” in Bosnia and Herzegovina: a historical perspective†

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Sevan Pearson
Sevan Pearson*
Affiliation:
Collegium Carolinum, Hochstr. 8, 81669 Munich, Germany Faculté des Sciences Sociales et Politiques, Institut d'études politiques, historiques et internationales, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland Fakultät für Geschichts-und Kunstwissenschaften, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Historiches Seminar, Geschichte Osteuropas und Südosteuropas, Munich, Germany
*
*Emails: sevan.pearson@unil.ch, sevan.pearson@collegium-carolinum.de
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Abstract

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina instituted ethnic quotas between Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats: the three “constituent peoples.” This institutionalization of ethnicity, criticized by some contemporary authors, is often seen as a creation of the peace agreement. Interestingly, several scholars deem such proportional representation a legacy from socialist times. But the existing literature lacks a historical perspective on the question of ethnic quotas. In addressing this issue, this paper reminds one of the existence of ethnic quotas, called the “national key,” during socialist times. A deeper analysis of the “national key” in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of the ethnic quotas in the last two decades shows, interestingly, more differences than continuity. The article concludes that few similarities and more differences can be observed between the two periods, especially regarding the legal aspects of the “national key,” in ideological justification and in the conceptions based on parity or proportional representation.

Keywords

Bosnia and Herzegovinanational keyethnic quotassocialismcurrent political system
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 213 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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Footnotes

†

This article is based on a paper presented at the Association for Study of Nationalities World Convention, Columbia University, 24–26 April 2014.

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