Post-War Statebuilding and Constitutional Reform

Beyond Dayton in Bosnia

Kenneth A. Loparo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137336880
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Military Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Sebastián explores the experience of statebuilding and constitution making after violent conflict, using the failed reform of Dayton in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a case study to reflect upon the fundamental questions of post-war statebuilding, reform and the role of local and external actors.

1

Post-War Statebuilding in Divided Societies: A Conceptual Framework

Statebuilding after violent conflict: a review

Conceptual notes

This section engages critically with the growing body of work that focuses on the interdependency of domestic and external (f)actors in processes of political reform. After the collapse of communism that revealed how international factors could prepare the groundwork for the rise of vigorous democratic forces in specific contexts, further attention was paid to exploring whether and how international dynamics may contribute to promoting political change. Furthermore, as a result of various developments such as the massive, multi-strand EU enlargement process in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), academic interest in exploring the interactions between domestic and international actors in processes of institutional change grew rapidly. In particular, scholars focused on the issue of conditionality and external leverage (if not direct intervention) in securing domestic change. This area of research was further stimulated by the various statebuilding interventions that took place in places such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s. Notwithstanding the increase of studies devoted to this area of research, many questions have remained unanswered. More specifically, under what conditions can we expect external actors to have an impact on domestic politics? How do external and internal actors interact with one another in processes of externally led political reform?

Various strands of the literature have grappled with the study of the external push in processes of domestic change and political reform in recent times, including the literature on post-conflict statebuilding and conditionality.¹ This section briefly reviews these, focusing on two overarching themes, namely the analysis of the intertwinements between domestic and external factors and the role of political elites.

Post-conflict statebuilding

Both the failed record of peacebuilding missions in the late 1980s and early 1990s (including Bosnia over the period of 1995 to 1997), and the emergence of complex, “second-generation” external interventions in post-conflict contexts (such as in Bosnia from 1997 onwards, Kosovo, Timor Leste, Afghanistan, and Iraq), gave rise in the late 1990s and early 2000s to a new research agenda within the broader peacebuilding literature that focused on the experiences of externally led statebuilding in post-conflict societies.² Three major areas of research within the statebuilding literature are relevant for the purposes of this book. The first area focuses on the weaknesses and strengths of external interventions, with a predisposed focus on the supply/external side but neglecting the two-way dynamics this study aims to explore.³ Generally, these studies have presented rather pessimistic accounts on the ability of external actors to create or influence the basis of modern states in post-conflict deeply divided societies.⁴ Some of the criticism has involved the lack of international resolve and assertiveness;⁵ the absence of sufficient resources to undertake such endeavors;⁶ and problems of multi-targeting and rushed deadlines.⁷ As Simon Chesterman has stated in a comparative study of transitional administrations, the most common mistakes of what he calls “benevolent autocracies” is that “the means are inconsistent with the ends, they are frequently inadequate for those ends, and in many situations the means are irrelevant to the ends.”⁸ Marina Ottaway and Roland Paris, for their part, have criticized international actors for engaging in overly ambitious democratic reconstruction operations, given the limited resources available.⁹ Other studies have pointed to the creation of mechanisms of dependency between international and domestic actors that have turned inimical to building self-sustaining states.¹⁰ All in all, a systematic analysis of how local politics may impact the unfolding of externally driven statebuilding is still lacking.

A second line of research has revolved around the long-term impact of institutions upon the conditions for sustainable peace. Particularly, these studies have explored the impact of externally engineered institutions (such as the electoral system and power-sharing constitutional arrangements such as Dayton) on the outcome of the statebuilding process, and how states become consolidated after intra-state conflict.¹¹ Confronted with the pressing challenges of post-conflict, divided societies, a new research agenda within the conflict regulation literature has also looked at the failing record of externally designed, post-conflict power-sharing arrangements.¹² These studies have provided an initial assessment of the sources of political and institutional instability of the so-called “complex power-sharing arrangements” that combine a range of different mechanisms aimed at assuaging groups’ security fears and/or other political, economic, and cultural concerns in divided societies such as Dayton’s Bosnia.¹³ There are two different schools within this literature. Critics of the consociational model¹⁴ have contended that complex power-sharing institutions, based on the promotion of ethnic differences, have tended to perpetuate the sources of communal conflict in post-conflict, deeply divided societies and, in turn, undermined the basis of inter-ethnic cooperation.¹⁵ Some of the oft-cited shortcomings include: the tendency of consociational models to institutionalize ethnic differences (hence perpetuating the sources of communal conflict); the risk of immobilism at the institutional level; and the predisposition of such models to encourage extremism and outbidding at the elite level as a result of the above. Advocates of the consociational model have however argued that not enough efforts have been devoted to adjusting the consociational model to the specific circumstances of post-conflict societies, and to incorporating the role of external actors.¹⁶ Generally, these studies have focused primarily on institutions, although recent studies have explored the role of political elites in the functioning of complex power-sharing arrangements. Some of these studies are further explored in the third section of this chapter.

A third line of research within the statebuilding literature has focused on particular themes within the statebuilding experience, such as inter alia the issue of transitional justice, the role of civil society, and the impact of the economics of war in the outcome of statebuilding.¹⁷ Achem Wennmann, for example, has contended that post-war power structures benefit from the wartime economy, driving peacebuilding resources away and working towards maintaining the post-conflict status quo.¹⁸

Studies on post-conflict Bosnia have followed similar lines of research, with four major overarching themes.¹⁹ The first one has focused on the role of international actors, following similar lines as the literature on statebuilding. Some studies have pointed to the lack of strategy and resolve on the part of the international community, and, hence, have urged for a revitalized intervention.²⁰ Others have argued against the pervasive, intrusive role of the international community that has created mechanisms of dependence and opportunities for political irresponsibility, thus undermining statebuilding in this country.²¹

A second overarching theme has revolved around the role of Dayton institutions. Here the contention is made that Dayton has created a too rigid institutional arrangement for inter-ethnic cooperation, and led to the “institutionalization of ethnicity.”²² As Florian Bieber has noted, the invasive fragmentation of power, including multiple ethnic guarantees granted to the three ethnic groups, has posed long-term challenges that have impaired the performance of the political arrangement in Bosnia.²³ Some scholars have also suggested that power-sharing has not worked in Bosnia due to the experience of war and the lack of inter-ethnic cross-party coalitions.²⁴ More recently, however, it has been argued that despite the initial criticism of the peace agreement’s rigidity, Dayton institutions have turned out to be rather flexible, mostly as a result of the pervasive efforts of the international community.²⁵

A third research line has focused on specific issues such as the economics of war. Timothy Donais, for example, has focused on the political economy of post-conflict Bosnia, with a special focus on the perpetuation of Bosnia’s political economy of conflict.²⁶ He has suggested that post-conflict Bosnia’s power structures have generally benefited from the status quo, especially in the first few years after the war, and have stood “opposed to the types of marketization and democratization strategies that the international community has pursued in the post-Dayton period.”²⁷

A final argument is made within the literature on post-conflict Bosnia that focuses on the statehood problem of that country. These studies have suggested that inter-ethnic intransigence has stemmed from the fact that Dayton has failed to assuage ethnic anxieties and resolve the statehood problem in Bosnia.²⁸ Donais, however, has argued that Dayton can be argued to have succeeded in displacing the sources of conflict (that is, the competing visions of Bosnian statehood) from the military to the political realm.²⁹ Some of these studies on post-conflict Bosnia have also provided specific propositions about how external actors have impacted the practices of conflict regulation in post-conflict Bosnia. These propositions are explored in the third section of this chapter where the three-tiered framework is laid out.

Statebuilding and European conditionality

While post-conflict Bosnia has been marked by strong external interference, particularly as a result of the powers vested in the High Representative (HR), the externally led statebuilding process has, however, evolved since early 2000 into one framed within the process of EU accession. This development has triggered a transition into a new form of statebuilding in which European incentives and domestic ownership have progressively taken primacy over the practice of direct control or interference. In other words, the new phase of European incentives has transformed the external influence in Bosnia from one of direct control to increasing domestic ownership supported by external incentives (including economic rewards and sanctions, the lure of EU membership, diplomatic pressure, and political persuasion). A brief review of how (European) conditionality may affect local dynamics in the broader statebuilding process is thus in order.

The literature on European conditionality presents rather sophisticated and complex analytical frameworks to analyze the interactions between local and external (f)actors (the connection between conditionality and the post-conflict condition has, however, been mostly neglected). Three major theoretical traditions have looked at the impact of European conditionality upon the reform process in EU-accession countries.³⁰ The first one, the socio-institutionalist approach, has contended that European conditionality leads to domestic change through socialization and collective learning, resulting in norm internationalization and the development of new ideas that are conducive to domestic change. The analysis of these mechanisms are, however, outside of the scope of this book.

The second approach is represented by the historical institutionalism that places the emphasis on the role of institutions and structures and its restricting effects upon actors’ options and preferences. According to this approach, existing institutions tend to be stable over time, and the changes to be expected are minimal.³¹ While this book does not relate to the study of institutions and their effects upon actors’ choices, the institutional approach offers good insights on the study of institutional change within the process of EU accession. As a case in point, by looking into the regionalization policy, Hughes, Sasse, and Gordon have contended that there is no causal, clear-cut relationship between EU conditionality and institutional outcomes.³² Furthermore, they have argued that the ambiguity surrounding EU conditionality in enforcing a specific regional model (which has turned conditionality into a highly politicized and selective instrument) has prevented the EU from having a more salient role in shaping institutional structures in this sector area. As a result, it has been argued that conditionality ought to be seen as “a process which involves a tool of differentiated and shifting instruments” that need to be studied on a case-by-case basis.³³ These authors have also contended that institutional outcomes have been in the end overwhelmingly driven by domestic factors stemming from the respective transitions from communism that, in their own words, “generated preferences that often overrode external incentives and pressures.”³⁴ Along similar lines, the post-conflict condition, this book argues, should be studied as a key transitional/contextual variable that affects institutional compliance in such ways that new conceptual relationships between the international push and institutional change in post-conflict societies need to be established. This sector area, however, has not been fully explored.

Finally, the third approach is represented by the rationalist tradition (the most relevant for the purposes of this book) that adopts an actor-centered approach. This approach investigates domestic actors’ preferences and interests while pointing simultaneously to other political variables, including: institutional constraints and power asymmetries; broader political processes such as political transitions; and variables associated with the process of enlargement. One of the basic claims of this approach has been that actors “will use EU policy requirements as a resource in order to strengthen their position in the national political conflicts.”³⁵ These studies have been, however, based on the neglect of informal conditionality and domestic constraints other than the so-called adoption costs and the ability to form coaliti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  Post-war Statebuilding in Divided Societies: A Conceptual Framework
• 2  Dayton
• 3  Beyond Dayton I: Inter-ethnic Divisions
• 4  Beyond Dayton II: External Agency
• 5  Beyond Dayton III: Intra-ethnic Divisions and Collapse
• 6  Elusive Reform and the New International Engagement
• 7  Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index