Who watches the watchmen? External actors and consociational democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is portrayed as a classic case of consociationalism in the literature, but the reality is much more complicated. The complex political system that the Dayton Agreement produced is a hybrid system of power-sharing and of control of the entire system by external actors through the role of the High Representative. The role of external actors in creating, maintaining and (re)shaping consociational democracies is, perhaps, the most important question that consociational theory faces today. The aim of this study is to explain the evolution of power-sharing in BiH and the impact of external actors on it, as well as to apply these lessons about the role of external actors in BiH to the theory of consociationalism. By employing a mixed methods approach that includes in-depth interviews with the local political elite and international diplomats, statistical analysis of elections and censuses, legislative analysis, and the exploration of primary sources in both the local languages and in English, this study explores the nature of the role of external actors in the creation and transformation of consociational democracy in BiH and reveals normative and empirical lessons for the theory and its practitioners. External actors in BiH turned consociational incentives upside down by introducing integrative mechanisms into the political system. Through the 930 imposed decisions of the High Representative, the control of electoral rules by the OSCE, and the crucial role of the three foreign Constitutional Court judges in redefining the nature of consociationalism in BiH in 2000, the political system of BiH has been fundamentally altered from the foundations of its consociational constitution into a hybrid system of controlled consociation. The tragedy is that these changes were not implemented out of negligence or malice, but rather with the best of intentions. However, the fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of BiH itself and of accommodation, especially consociationalism, has largely doomed the actions of external actors. Their integrative approach has backfired, and instead of more moderation in the political system and the integration of BiH’s three constituent peoples into an overarching Bosnian identity, as envisioned by external actors, the approach has produced greater fragmentation of the political system and the control of relative minorities by relative majorities.