THE END OF LIBERAL PEACEBUILDING? STATEBUILDING RECONFIGURATION IN THE EMERGING INTERNATIONAL ORDER: A POST-DAYTON CASE STUDY
THE END OF LIBERAL PEACEBUILDING? STATEBUILDING RECONFIGURATION IN THE EMERGING INTERNATIONAL ORDER: A POST-DAYTON CASE STUDY

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the relationship between the Dayton Peace Agreement, liberal peacebuilding, and the contemporary challenges of democratic backsliding within the transformation of the liberal international order. It argues that the Dayton Agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and preserved state sovereignty, but only partially achieved its long-term objectives of democratic consolidation, effective state-building, and sustainable political integration. Persistent ethnic divisions, institutional fragmentation, and contested statehood continue to shape political development and complicate European integration. The article situates Dayton within liberal peacebuilding scholarship by tracing three generations of debate: early optimism about democratization and institutional transfer; a second generation of institutional critiques focused on sequencing, legitimacy, and capacity; and a third generation of post-liberal and hybrid approaches that question externally driven peacebuilding. Engaging scholars such as Roland Paris, Simon Chesterman, Oliver Richmond, David Chandler, Roger Mac Ginty, and James Dobbins, it highlights both the achievements and limitations of liberal peacebuilding in post-conflict contexts. The study connects these debates to the contemporary crisis of the liberal international order, marked by geopolitical rivalry, domestic polarization, and declining Western normative authority. It concludes that Bosnia and Herzegovina’s stalled state-building reflects both constraints embedded in the Dayton framework and broader systemic uncertainty regarding the future of liberal international engagement.

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