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Imagined Institutions: The Symbolic Power of Formal Rules in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

Karlo Basta
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Through a detailed examination of institutional discourses in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina, this article demonstrates that formal political institutions may play a more layered role than is allowed by existing theories of nationalist and ethnic conflict. Competing institutional preferences of Bosniak, Serb, and Croat elites are not simply instruments for the achievement of collective or individual goals. They are symbolically salient expressions of collective identity as well. For Bosniak elites, the stated preference for a non-ethnicized territorial framework and majoritarian central government suggest the vision of a multiethnic, but not institutionally multinational, Bosnian political community. Their Serb and Croat counterparts, by contrast, insist on the continued “ethnicization” of the territorial architecture and the central government apparatus. These preferences express an understanding of Bosnia as a state of three discrete political communities. Any attempts at comprehensive institutional reform must thus reckon with the opposing and deeply embedded visions of institutions-as-symbols. The theoretical implications of this work go well beyond the Bosnian case.

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Slavic Review , Volume 75 , Issue 4 , Winter 2016 , pp. 944 - 969
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2016

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References

I am grateful to Roger Petersen, Jeff rey Isaac, Edith Klein, Yoanna Terziyska, Harriet Murav, and anonymous reviewers for their comments on the previous versions of this article. The intellectual stimulus came from early conversations with Saud Arnautović and Marsaili Fraser, and numerous exchanges with Ziran Oklopčić. I am indebted to all three, though the article's shortcomings are my own. Research for this paper was made possible by the generous support of Memorial University.

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35. Šefi k Džaferović (SDA), interview, Sarajevo, June 3, 2013. Mr. Džaferović noted that SDA considers the question of central state organization more easily solvable than the issue of territorial reconstitution. Thus, his party does not wish to slow down reforms related to the former at the expense of the latter.

36. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies; Elkins and Sides, “Can Institutions Build Unity, 693–708.”

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38. This assumes that, contrary to the public statements of some Bosnian Serb leaders, RS elites do not intend to separate from Bosnia. Such a move is unconstitutional, would be opposed by western powers, and would leave RS isolated. Furthermore, secession and merger with Serbia would amount to political demotion for the Bosnian Serb elites. Interview with Tanja Topić (Friedrich Ebert Foundation), Banja Luka, June 14, 2013Still, Bosniaks and Croats continue to be concerned about the Serbs’ intentions (International Crisis Group, “Bosnia's Incomplete Transition: Between Dayton and Europe,” Europe Report #198 (2009) at http://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/balkans/bosnia-and-herzegovina/bosnia-s-incomplete-transition-between-dayton-and-europe (last accessed October 10, 2016).

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51. Ibid., 71.

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56. SDP, “Program,” 18; SDA, “Programska Deklaracija,” 5; SBiH, “Program Stranke,” 25.

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58. IPSOS Strategic Marketing, Strategies of Symbolic Nation-Building in West Balkan States: Intents and Results (Bosnia and Herzegovina) at http://www.hf.uio.no/ilos/english/research/projects/nation-w-balkan/ (last accessed October 10, 2016), 44.

59. Soberg, “The Quest for Institutional Reform,” 729–30.

60. Though SDA also started to play up the language of civic nationalism since the late 1990s ( Babuna, Aydin, “National Identity, Islam and Politics in Post-Communist Bosnia-Hercegovina,” East European Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2005): 405–48, 425Google Scholar).

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67. Toal and Dahlman, Bosnia Remade, 49.

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79. Nešković, Nedovršena država, 170.

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82. IPSOS Strategic Marketing, Strategies of Symbolic Nation-Building, 44.

83. PDP, “Programska orijentacija”; SNSD, “Program,” 2.

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88. SNSD, “Program,” 1–2; SDS, “Program,” 74.

89. SDS, “Program,” 4.

90. Ibid., 70.

91. See notably Nenad Kecmanović, Nemoguća država: Bosna i Hercegovina (Beograd, 2007), 61.

92. This intuition was confi rmed by two Bosnian Serb politicians interviewed by the author. Interview with Lazar Prodanović (SNSD), Banja Luka, June 14, 2013; interview with Mladen Ivanić (PDP), Sarajevo, June 4, 2013.

93. SDS, “Program,” 22.

94. Hrvatska demokratska zajednica BiH (HDZ BiH), “Program Hrvatske Demokratske Zajednice Bosne i Hercegovine,” at http://hdzbih.org/sites/default/files/dokumenti/statut_program_programska_deklaracija_51459_0.pdf (last accessed October 10, 2016), 8; Hrvatska demokratska zajednica 1990 (HDZ 1990), “Programska Deklaracija,” at http://www.hdz1990.org/?page_id=1035 (last accessed October 10, 2016).

95. Mato Franjičević (HDZ BiH), interview, Sarajevo, May 22, 2013; Božo Ljubić (HDZ 1990), interview, Sarajevo, June 5, 2013.

96. Ibid.

97. Burg and Shoup, The War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 65–66. The division ran within the HDZ itself.

98. Grandits, “The Power of ‘Armchair Politicians,’ “ 114–116.

99. Soberg, “The Quest for Institutional Reform,” 730.

100. Božo Ljubić (HDZ 1990), interview, Sarajevo, June 5, 2013.

101. HDZ BiH, “Program,” 5; HDZ 1990, “Programska Deklaracija.”

102. Kasapović, Mirjana, “Bosnia and Herzegovina: Consociational or Liberal Democracy?” Politička Misao 42, no. 5 (2005): 3–30, here 11Google Scholar.

103. Mato Franjičević (HDZ BiH), interview, Sarajevo, May 22, 2013.

104. Ibid.

105. International Crisis Group, “Bosnia's Gordian Knot: Constitutional Reform,” Europe Briefing #68 (2012) at http://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/balkans/bosniaand-herzegovina/bosnia-s-gordian-knot-constitutional-reform (last accessed October 10, 2016), 3–4.

106. Božo Ljubić (HDZ 1990), interview, Sarajevo, June 5, 2013.

107. International Crisis Group, “Bosnia: State Institutions under Attack,” Europe Briefi ng #62 (2011) at http://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/balkans/bosnia-and-herzegovina/bosnia-state-institutions-under-attack (last accessed October 10, 2016).

108. Božo Ljubić (HDZ 1990), Sarajevo, June 5, 2013.

109. Mato Franjičević (HDZ BiH), Sarajevo, May 22, 2013.

110. Božo Ljubić (HDZ 1990), interview, Sarajevo, June 5, 2013.

111. Mato Franjičević (HDZ BiH), interview, Sarajevo, May 22, 2013.

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116. Juncos, “Europeanization,” 384–85.

117. Roger Petersen argues that the police reform failed because it would have entailed Serbs potentially being policed by Bosniaks, whereas the quasi-federal character of military reform did not lend itself to such dynamics, see: Petersen, Roger Dale, Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict (New York, 2011), 261–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Though superfi cially similar to mine, Petersen's argument foregrounds the way in which particulars of institutional design structure group interaction and trigger specific emotions.

118. Cederman, Lars-Erik, Hug, Simon, Schadel, Andreas, and Wucherpfennig, Julian, “Territorial Autonomy in the Shadow of Conflict: Too Little, Too Late?,” American Political Science Review 109, no. 2 (May 2015): 354–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cederman, Lars-Erik, Wimmer, Andreas, and Min, Brian, “Why Do Ethnic Groups Rebel? New Data and Analysis,” World Politics 62, no.1 (2010): 87–119 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wimmer, Waves of War.

119. Cederman et al., “Territorial Autonomy in the Shadow of Future Conflict,” 15.

120. Wimmer, Waves of War, 190.

121. Basta, Karlo, “The State as a Symbol or a Means to an End: Internal Border Changes in Multinational Federations,” Nations and Nationalism 20, no. 3 (2014): 459–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122. Hale, The Foundations of Ethnic Politics, ch. 7.

123. For a similar dynamic, see Subotić, Jelena, “Genocide Narratives as Narratives-in- Dialogue,” Journal of Regional Security 10, no. 2 (2015): 177–98Google Scholar.

124. Another “tangible” element contributing to these dynamics is the politics of refugee return, covered particularly well in Toal and Dahlman, Bosnia Remade.

125. Eckstein, Harry, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson W., eds., Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 7 (Reading, Mass, 1975), 108–13Google Scholar.

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127. Vujacic, “Perceptions of the State,” 186.

128. Ibid., 183–84.

129. Basta, “The State as a Symbol.” The article responds to claims that subdividing major ethnic groups into two or more territorial units might defuse inter-group conflict.

130. Loizides, Neophytos. Designing Peace: Cyprus and Institutional Innovations in Divided Societies (Philadelphia, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

131. In his undervalued contribution to this debate, Nettl distinguishes the continental European idea of the state from that in the Anglo-Saxon world, and places its roots in the French, and subsequently German, political experience. Nettl, J. P., “The State as a Conceptual Variable,” World Politics 20, no. 4(1968): 559–92, here 567CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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