Bosnia and Herzegovina: Executive Summary

Overall Score: 4

This assessment was completed in 2021.

At the heart of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) constitution lies an attempt to reconcile with its past ethnic violences, rebuild a community that fosters pluralism and safeguard the sovereignty and integrity of the state. BiH’s society is structured to reduce inequalities and prevent the rise of future ethnic grievances. However, BiH struggles to fully dismantle these complex political and social divisions which prevent the country from moving forward from its past.

While BiH’s extensive legislative framework has integrated most international legal and constitutional commitments for safeguarding human rights and freedoms, the distribution of power among the country’s three constitutent communities serves to mask and minimize other forms of discrimination and inequalities prevalent in the country. With most international attention focussed on ethno-national cleavages and the peace process, other systemic violence persists relatively unnoticed. For instance, social class is one of the most salient yet overlooked cleavages in BiH, exemplified by the increasingly impoverished, disadvantaged and worn-out citizenry. What emerges from the Global Pluralism Monitor report for BiH is not an isolated discussion of BiH’s ethnic groups. Rather, the Monitor report examines the relationship of ethnicity alongside class and gender inequalities; these inequalities are legitimized by the country’s consociational (power-sharing) democracy.

Legal Commitments

BiH has numerous international, national and regional agreements and instruments in place to safeguard human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly for people of marginalized backgrounds.

Due to the country’s constitutional protections and distribution of power among the three constituent communities – Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs – ethnic groups’ rights often take precedence and minimize other forms of discrimination or inequality.

Moreover, constitutional reform has stalled since 2009 and discrimination remains prevalent, with the exception of the adoption of legal frameworks such as the Law on Gender Equality. Even though BiH’s constitution includes advanced international instruments to protect human rights, deficiencies in its power-sharing system reveal human rights concerns and exclusionary citizenship practices.

 

Practices and Leadership

BiH has many agencies, initiatives and commitments that foster respect for diversity. Despite this, ethnic cleavages and the consociational system continue to dominate political, social and economic life. The constitutional design of BiH effectively ‘ethnicizes’ claims-making, consolidates power in the hands of a few elites and obstructs cross-group solidarity. As a result, communities such as the Roma, who fall outside of the three dominant ethnic groups, lack protection and are discriminated against regarding access to employment, health services, higher education and housing. In addition, political power is not only divided based on ethnicity but is also highly gendered. While BiH has made considerable efforts to retain many international commitments to gender equality, continued discriminatory practices, unequal opportunities in the labour market and women’s low participation in governance demonstrate that women’s lived realities do not necessarily align with BiH’s political commitments.

BiH maintains transparency with regards to inequality in its society, with data collection increasing substantially over the past decade.

The data tells a story of a country with high poverty levels and staggering inequality, coupled with low levels of foreign direct investment, high levels of corruption and an inefficient regulatory environment.

These challenges present significant obstacles to economic growth and development. As the country transitioned from a state-owned to market economy in the 1990s, post-war ethno-national elites capitalized on this shift, further exacerbating BiH’s wealth disparity. BiH leadership is still plagued with difficulties surrounding power consolidation, economic entitlement and ethnic exclusions, showcasing that while BiH’s power-sharing agreement led to the dissolution of physical violence, the country’s leadership still mirrors many of its pre-war ethnic tensions.

Group-based Inequalities, Inter-group Relations and Belonging

The Dayton Agreement, a peace agreement which formally ended the Bosnian war in 1995, legitimized and solidified ethnic, religious and linguistic categories across BiH’s political, social, economic and cultural landscapes. Ethno-religious and linguistic categories have become the country’s main dividing lines, which limit sociocultural cohesion and produce mistrust and antagonism across communities.

Not only does this unintentionally normalize homogenous communities but also creates an “otherness” to communities, such as the Roma and transitory migrants, who fall outside these ethnic boundaries.

Disillusionment across all political, social and economic sectors stifles progress in BiH. Ethnic quotas institutionalize political representation, which means that political candidates are not representative of the full diversity of the population. Often for groups not belonging to the three constituent communities, there is no political representation and their interests are not protected. Economic and social inequalities are highly gendered and classist, which reflect persistent urban-rural divides with the rural population facing harsher economic conditions, less health care access and lower education prospects. Feelings of trust and national belonging are also diminishing. With low trust in institutions, a lack of trust across the different groups in society and intergroup marriage remaining uncommon, BiH struggles to cultivate a shared sense of ownership across its population and to foster the inclusion of marginalized communities. Inter-group violence is also still a reality since the Bosnian war. The result is a polarizing of communities with some groups completely closed off from political decision-making, economic prosperity and social life.

Monitor Takeaways

BiH has substantial official commitments to support pluralism. However, the Monitor report documents BiH’s struggle to move these commitments from policy to practice. In privileging discussions of ethnic groups and specific constituent peoples, BiH nurtures ethnic belonging at the expense of developing a sense of citizenship at the national level. This unintentionally causes further divisions. This is a paradox given that the policies to protect ethnic belonging were created to preserve cultural rights and identities. Together, the Monitor report identifies three obstacles to democracy and pluralism, which are the politicization of ethnic identities, high levels of political corruption and economic instability. Addressing these issues is likely to be a long-term, complex process, which will require cooperation among different social, political and economic actors from BiH and the international community.

Across the Monitor report, the duality of struggles in the nation is highlighted. While ethnic concerns claim centre stage in BiH, other systemic challenges persist that hinder pluralism. Class divides, elevated inter-group violence, limited cross-group solidarity and mobilization, partisanship and discrimination based on race, religion, gender and sexuality are overlooked in favour of strengthening the three constituent groups’ access to power. Moreover, with ethno-nationalist elites consolidating power and building narratives of mistrust and animosity against each other, BiH citizens lack access to the many traditional political routes to evoke change that are not constrained by ethnic cleavages, such as who to vote for and who can run for office.

Overall, BiH struggles with a low sense of shared ownership across society, particularly amongst individuals who identify as part of a marginalized community.

While some voices are magnified in the public sphere, others are silenced. To move toward a more pluralistic society, tackling the deeply entrenched social, economic and political inequalities may allow for more equal opportunities across the country. BiH demonstrates that while the Dayton Peace Accords and power-sharing mechanisms have subdued future possibilities of violence, power-sharing systems cannot necessarily be equated with equality until all forms of diversity are viewed as legitimate and all discriminatory systems are removed.

• To address the inequalities faced by the country’s most marginalized communities, government officials can set a positive precedent by finding ways to include perspectives and open up conversations beyond the three ethnic cleavages. In the future, this could be extended to modify the ethnic power-sharing structure to enable more inclusive practices. It could also involve providing greater political, economic and social supports to individuals or groups who identify as Roma, transnational migrants and refugees, women and LGBTQIA+. These supports can be through affirmative action mechanisms or educational initiatives.
• Civil society actors can help bolster more inclusive practices by becoming more vocal during policy-making processes and pushing to establish educational initiatives on respect for diversity.
• BiH can bolster its work on data collection and inclusive policy to better include issues related to class and transnational migration. Without continuing to develop better policies, monitoring mechanisms and data collection about class disparities and migration, BiH’s three constituent groups will continue to dominate policy and practice decisions that limit the inclusion and visibility of those who do not belong to the three groups.