Send page Print

Eastern dimension and the Balkans / Working Paper

Leaving Dayton behind: constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

16/11/2007 By Sofia Sebastián

More than a decade on from the Dayton Peace Agreement, which put in place a system of calculated checks and balances between three ethnic groups, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) continues to be mired in political instability and ethnic mistrust.

Nationalist rhetoric has been on the rise since last year’s elections and state level institutions remain weak, poisoning the functioning of the state and Bosnia’s bid for EU membership. While Bosnia’s location on Europe’s doorstep has provided the country with a unique opportunity for stabilisation and integration into the EU, moving towards such a goal has proven problematic.

During the eighteen months in office of International High Representative and European Special Representative Christian Schwarz-Schilling, little progress was made on the EU’s two declared priorities, namely the Stability and Association Agreement (SAA) and police reform.

Only at the end of October 2007, as this paper was going to press, did six Bosnian parties sign a much-delayed agreement on police reform; the European Commission was to judge whether this agreement sufficed to sign an SAA, averting the risk of BiH becoming the only country in the region without such an agreement.

This paper examines the dynamics involved in constitutional reform in BiH since 2005. It assesses the shortcomings of the prevailing system of “Dayton democracy”, before outlining the international community’s role in recent attempts to reform this system.

The paper explains why the so-called 2006 “April Package” of constitutional reform failed, and finds that the EU’s rather hands-off and passive stance was one contributory factor. The implications for future European policy towards BiH are discussed.

A key lesson to learn is that in contrast to previous rounds of enlargement, BiH presents a situation where the state remains contested by different ethnic groups. This calls for an adjustment of the “enlargement machinery” that takes full consideration of BiH as a post-conflict country and offers a framework for political stabilisation tailored to the conditions of the Western Balkans.

With the support of:

 

 

 

 

Download the full version of this publication, available in English (552 kB)
Spanish (566 kB)

Keywords

Bosnia and Herzegovina EU Foreign Policy Political Reform State building Western Balkans

Bio author: Sofia Sebastián

Sofia Sebastian is a PhD candidate in the Government Department at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she teaches a seminar on democracy and democratization processes. The title of her thesis is 'The Interplay of Domestic and International Actors in the Process of Political Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina.' Prior to her PhD studies, Sofia earned an MSc in Foreign Service with a focus on foreign policy and international security at Georgetown University under the sponsorship of the Fulbright Commission. Sofia received her BA in Political Science and International Relations from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.