Dayton Bosnia is 25, time to act like an adult

The Foreign Service Journal earlier this week published my thoughts on how to reform the Dayton peace agreement under which Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently governed, 25 years after the war. I would like to see an end to the governance structures derived directly from the warring parties–the so-called entities, namely the Federation and its cantons as well as Republika Srpska–and a redistribution of their authority to the “state” (“national” in American lingo) government in Sarajevo to negotiate and implement the obligations of European Union membership (the acquis communautaire) and to the municipalities to deliver services to citizens. I would also like to see increased judicial capacity to protect individual rights and, though I don’t discuss it in the Foreign Service Journal paper, reduction in the mechanisms for exerting group rights.

This is pretty radical stuff. It would essentially convert Bosnia and Herzegovina to a civic state based on respect for the rights of individuals as citizens rather than a “multiethnic” state based on the privileges of favored ethnic groups, aka “constituent peoples.” Can it happen?

Yes, it can, but it would require an unusual coincidence of commitments. You can’t expect the current leadership to institute this kind of reform, which would quickly remove the ethnic nationalist political parties they represent from power. The impulse would have to come from the citizens in a popular movement, encouraged and supported by the key internationals, namely the US, UK, and Germany (spurring the EU to action). There have been recurrent signs of the kind of popular discontent required in recent years, but it has never coalesced into a movement with clear country-wide goals to alter the constitution. The internationals would need to starve the beast by dramatically reducing international funding to the entities and cantons and objecting to repression of popular discontent.

It is arguable that precisely the opposite direction is more likely: an ethnic breakup of the state into Croat, Bosniak, and Serb statelets, with accompanying violence and ethnic cleansing. I wrote my piece last spring, when the prospect of ethnic partition of Kosovo seemed possible, even likely, and I therefore emphasized that as a possible trigger for breakup of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That possibility has receded, not least because of the realization that partition of Kosovo would indeed create problems in Bosnia and elsewhere.

But there are still big risks of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The excessive arming of Republika Srpska’s police by the Russians, Serbia’s willingness to support pan-Serbian sentiment not only in Bosnia but also in Montenegro and Kosovo, Milorad Dodik’s open advocacy of secession and denial of the 1990s genocide, the growing cooperation between Croat and Serb nationalists, and feelings of isolation and even desperation among Bosniaks all point to possible instability or worse.

It is clear we won’t get through the next 25 years with Dayton Bosnia. Whatever good it did in ending the war, Dayton Bosnia cannot fulfill its citizens’ aspirations for integration into the European Union. It would be far better to fix it as soon as we can, rather than let current problems fester until violence erupts. President-elect Biden wants to restore American leadership and reassert democratic values. Bosnia and Herzegovina would be a good place to start.

Dayton Bosnia is 25. It’s time to act like an adult.