Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Quest for Sovereignty
Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Quest for Sovereignty

Summary/Abstract: This paper will examine the process of state-building in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) with particular focus on exploring the domestic and international constraints to sovereignty. The main purpose is to demonstrate the prevailing issues and obstacles to state-consolidation that continue to shape Bosnia’s political reality. I argue that despite extensive executive powers of the High Representative and the intrusive nature of his mandate, main constraints to sovereignty in BiH are self-inflicted. Competing ethnonationalist narratives and ambitions that dominate the political scene are examined in the context of the EU conditionality and reveal that the lack of reconciliation and consensus among citizens pose the greatest risk to the success of the whole state-building project in BiH.

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