Who Do You Trust? Ethnicity and Trust in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This article examines the question of trust in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a special focus on the role of ethnicity. We find generalised trust to be low and declining in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, generalised trust is negatively affected by the degree of ethnic heterogeneity in the region. However, a further examination of trust reveals a more complex relationship between ethnicity and trust: people tend to show low levels of trust in all other people irrespective of their ethnic belongings. We argue that ethnic distribution might capture some other regional specific characteristics that also affect the level of trust.     

Remittances and Chain Migration: Longitudinal Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Most of the literature on remittances focuses on their implications for the welfare of family members in the country of origin and disregards their role as facilitator of chain migration. We address this issue with the use of longitudinal data from Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the primary exporters of migrants and recipients of remittances in the world. We find that remittances have a significant positive impact on the migration prospects of their recipients. Better-endowed people are most likely to migrate, which highlights a potential negative implication of migration and remittances.     

Facing institutional change in Mostar: a litmus test for Bosnia and Herzegovina

The reconstruction of Mostar could have been a symbol of renewed multiethnic coexistence. Instead, it has become a synonym for failed institutions and divisions, mirroring the difficulties of the whole country. While imposition of both the 1996 and 2004 statutes establishing the city’s administrative units was connected with crisis, the city has also faced two major deadlocks, in 2008–2009 and 2012. In the first, a solution was imposed by the international community’s High Representative (HR). But the second remains unresolved, as the HR resists intervening. The aim of the paper is to analyze these impasses – moments when institutional change should have occurred, but for some reason did not. Even the solutions – acts of external imposition – might be treated at best as institutional pseudo-change that shows that imposed institutions have a particular inertia that resists change. The topic will be presented from the perspective of historical institutionalism, with special emphasis on the path-dependency approach, which refers here not only to the formal institutional structure of the city, but also to the decision-making processes in the moments of stalemate.     

Public perceptions of non-governmental organisations in Serbia,Bosnia & Herzegovina,and Macedonia

The article examines the relationship between NGOs and the general public in Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Macedonia. This relationship is often perceived as troubled. Focus group findings, however, suggest that ordinary people's attitudes towards local NGOs are rather more nuanced and that quite a few people would like to join an NGO themselves, if given an opportunity. NGOs should therefore make more effort to tap into this potential, by providing more and better information about their activities available to the general public and by being more inclusive, thus enhancing both NGO legitimacy and future sustainability in the region.     

Fragmented memories in a fragmented country: memory competition and political identity-building in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina is politically fragmented, and so is the memory landscape within the country. Narratives of the 1992–1995 war, the Second World War, Tito's Yugoslavia, and earlier historical periods form highly disputed patterns in a memory competition involving representatives of the three “constituent peoples” of Bosnia and Herzegovina – Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks – but also non-nationalist actors within BiH, as well as the international community. By looking especially at political declarations and the practices of commemoration and monument building, the article gives an overview of the fragmented memory landscape in Bosnia and Herzegovina, pointing out the different existing memory narratives and policies and the competition between them in the public sphere, and analyzing the conflicting memory narratives as a central part of the highly disputed political identity construction processes in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. The paper also discusses the question whether an “Europeanization” of Bosnian memory cultures could be an alternative to the current fragmentation and nationalist domination of the memory landscape in BiH.     

Forced Displacement and Technology Adoption: An Empirical Analysis Based on Agricultural Households in Bosnia and Herzegovina

We use the Bosnian Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) survey to show that conflict-induced displacement of agricultural households dramatically affects the adoption of new technologies in agriculture. We exploit the heterogeneity in the level of violence in the pre-war location to account for selection bias. This natural experiment seems to be a source of exogenous variation in our case because violence aims at ethnic cleansing, without economic consideration. We find that the displaced are less likely than stayers to adopt fertiliser and pesticide.     

Elitocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its impact on the contemporary understanding of the crime of genocide

In my paper I will present and discuss the theoretical concept of elitocide (a systematic elimination of leading figures of a society or a group) and its impact on the crime of genocide on the example of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992–1995. A systematization and scientific classification of elitocide as a sociological phenomenon bears great importance to the field of study on genocide, mass murder and human rights abuses. The scientific elaboration of new or hitherto neglected occurrences of organized violence has a significant impact on the understanding of the phenomenon of systematic war crimes and mass atrocities in modern war conflicts. In order to better understand how genocide or potentially genocidal mass murders emerge and how they can be prevented, it is necessary to modify and redevelop their conventional theoretical framework. Since the premises of modern war have changed, the science is obliged to adapt its approach to this new reality. This paper is a contribution to making the causes and consequences of mass atrocities practically cognizable and theoretically comprehensive.     

The Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and nation building by Muslims/Bosniaks in the Western Balkans

The disintegration of the former Yugoslavia posed challenges for the universal concept of the Yugoslav Muslim nation for which several development paths were imaginable under the new circumstances. The concept of Bosniakdom, which was initially developed to address the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina, gradually grew to become a new and coherent national program to include all the Muslims of former Yugoslavia, primarily due to its new pan-Bosniak orientation. The present article traces the conceptual history of the national ideas of Muslimdom versus Bosniakdom within the former Yugoslav states, as well as the conceptual and institutional history of the pan-Bosniak idea and movement during the 1990s and 2000s. It does this by emphasizing the decisive role the Official Muslim Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina played in their development and divulgence. This article claims that, contrary to some expectations, the strategy of internationalization and universalization of the hitherto territorial concept of Bosniakdom toward Muslims in neighboring countries during the second half of 1990s and 2000s was closely linked to the idea of the construction of the Bosniak national state. It also proposes that the evolution of Bosniakdom into pan-Bosniakdom during that time primarily followed concerns related to that goal.     

The Public Administration Reform in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Reform Process Embedded in a Sovereignty Paradox

As the post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina has turned its interest towards a European Union membership, it has entered an accession process requiring it, among other things, to reform its public administration system. The European Union's involvement within the reform has been placed under critique, as it has been claimed to have placed Bosnia and Herzegovina's sovereignty at risk by presenting contradicting behaviors leading to a sovereignty paradox. By examining the European Union's role in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its possible relations to a sovereignty paradox in the process, the article finds sovereignty paradox indicators to exist along its processes.     

Discursive democracy and the challenge of state building in divided societies: reckoning with symbolic capital in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Current approaches to democratic state building place serious conceptual limits on policy options. A democratic future for Bosnia's people will require far more searching engagement with identity formation and its politicization than reform efforts have so far contemplated. Theories of discursive democracy illuminate how this might be possible. We deploy the discursive idea of symbolic capital to show how one might identify the lines along which people in Bosnia could constitute meaningful, internally legitimated political communities – or that would indicate the experiment was not worth attempting. Unless advocates of democratic state building can articulate, rather than assume, a sufficiency of common ground among the populations' multiple, overlapping and conflicting identities, they may have to revert to the default of separate political communities.     

The muslim slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (with reference to the Sandzak of Novi Pazar): Islam as national identity

Using results from a 2010 survey conducted in the Republic of Buryatia, this paper compares the responses of Russians and Buryats on questions of religious practice and belief, as well as the role of religion and religious organizations in the political sphere of contemporary Russia. Buryats more commonly identify with a religion and more frequently attend religious services in comparison to Russians living in the republic. There is greater consonance between the two groups on the public role of religion, with both Russians and Buryats generally supportive of the recent extension of religious education into schools and the creation of national holidays for all traditional religions, among other issues.     

New federalism and health policy

The making of health policy in the United States is a complex process that involves the private and public sectors, including multiple levels of government. Five characteristics of the policy process are identified, which establish the means by which policies are formulated and which affect the nature of the policies that emerge. These characteristics include (1) the relationship of the government to the private sector; (2) the distribution of authority and responsibility within a federal system of government; (3) the relationship between policy formation and implementation; (4) a pluralistic ideology as the basis of politics; and (5) incrementalism as the strategy for reform. The article focuses on the impact on health policy of the distribution of authority and responsibility within the federal system, particularly the impact of new federalism policies as they emerged during the past decade. The effects of dual federalism, cooperative federalism, creative federalism, and new federalism are examined in relation to health policies. The article concludes with an examination of the challenge to long-established values and health policies posed by new federalism.     

A year in Bosnia: What was achieved

The challenges presented to the UN and the international community following the Cold War demand new responses and thinking with regard to peacekeeping operations. The situation in the former Yugoslavia provided a forum in which to develop a new approach to peacekeeping. The UN operated in a humanitarian role within a civil war, and a much greater level of enforcement was required than in other peacekeeping missions. The Security Council mandates defined the aspirations and limitations of the international community. Although at times the UN peacekeepers used high levels of force, it was not, and did not allow itself to be seen as, unacceptably partial or applying undue force. In a peacekeeping situation, there is still a clear need for a campaign plan to ensure cooperation between all organizations and the delivery of humanitarian aid. A UN mission cannot operate in a political vacuum; gains made on the security front will be lost if political momentum is not maintained.     

Institutions and Ethnic Trust: Evidence from Bosnia

This study considers the prospects for rebuilding trust in a multi-ethnic society with a history of ethnic violence. Findings are based on survey data from a stratified random sample of 681 Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, conducted between September 2003 and January 2004. The data indicate significant trust problems in Bosnian society both within and across ethnicity. However, the study also finds strong linkages between ethnic trust and trust in institutions, suggesting that institutions can play a vital role in restoring ethnic trust and promoting reconciliation.     

Ethiopian federalism: autonomy versus control in the Somali region

This study examines the relationship between Ethiopia's federal and regional authorities since the Tigray led regime came to power in 1991. The redivision of Ethiopia into ethnic regions was aimed to effect two changes: to abolish certain ethnic domination of the state; and to enable various communities to govern their local affairs. Using material from the Somali Region, this article evaluates whether ethnic‐based regional authorities have sufficient autonomy from the centre to be accountable to local populations. The ability of local people to elect their leaders is central to undoing past ethnic injustices. Although communities have gained from the new order, however, the federal ruling party tightly controls regional political authorities. Federal domination of regional governance is partly the result of the ineptness of local elite. This arrangement creates formal ethnic regions without significantly altering power relations in Ethiopia. Consequently, the spirit of the 1991 change is lost as local communities lack leeway while a new ethnic group reigns supreme at the federal level.     

Governance,federalism and organizing institutions to manage complex problems

In managing complex policy problems in the federal system, state and local governments are organized into different arrangements for translating policy goals into policy outcomes. Air quality management is used as a test case to understand these variations and their impact on policy outcomes. With data from Clean Air Act implementation plans and a survey of state and local air quality managers, five separate institutional designs are identified: (1) central agencies; (2) top-down; (3) donor–recipient; (4) regional agencies; and (5) emergent governance. Findings indicate that some arrangements (donor–recipient and emergent governance) result in notably better air quality than others (central agencies, top-down). Specifically, when designed to allow bargaining between state and local officials, intergovernmental management is still the most effective approach to complex policy problems; but, in absence of this, conventional federalism arrangements are less effective than public agencies self-organizing around shared policy goals.