In the past few days I have had conversations where it has been noted to me that the political system in Bosnia and Herzegovina is rather complex and unique. To understand the political system is important to understand the history of the country, and in particular what happened during the Bosnian War that took place between 1991 - 1995. The constitution of the country resides within the Dayton Peace Agreement signed in 1995. This agreement marks the end of the 4-year Bosnian War and establishes a new constitution for the country, which creates the "three-headed presidency", a hybrid presidential/parliamentarian government, and recognized the governance of two separate entities within the country: The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (51% of country's area), and the Republika Sprska (49%). In addition a third self governed district exist called Brcko District, although it is formally under administrative control of the two large entities. What was the war all about? Who fought in it? And other questions required an entire new post, but for now check out the link I placed under the Bosnian War, or the resources I attach down below.
The governance structured is based on a power-sharing approach consociationalism. In a very broad sense, consociationalism is a political system that seeks to bring about governmental stability and avoidance of violence in places that have significant internal division. In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, its consociationalism democracy brings about three constituencies of the people of the country, and thus three presidents. The three mejor ethnic groups are: Bosniaks, which today comprise 50.1% of the population; Serbs, 30.8%; and Croats, 15.4% (2013). The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has a 70.4% Bosniak, 22.4% Croats, and a 3.6% Serbs; the Republika Srspka in turn, an 81.5% Serbs, 13.9% Bosniak, and 2.4% Croat (as shown in Aljazeera, 2018). In this consociational democracy established after the Dayton Peace Agreement, who you are allowed to vote for, and eventually who you do vote for depends on who you are and where you live. Citizens can only vote for one president. Residents of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina can only vote for Bosniak and Croat presidents; and residentes of Republiska Srspka for a Serb president.
So, how do you vote in this system? Although I do not particularly resonate with the way these videos make value judgement about the system itself, or with Bosnians understanding of the system itself, I find it a digestable resource - in english - for foreigners trying to understand better how the system works.
One of the interesting things with the system, is that as both videos mention, it was created by the international community. In the context of peace and justice, I find this to be very interesting. On the one hand, you have a region heavily affected by the larger wars happening in the world, with its own social conflicts, you have the Yugoslav wars that majorly affected Bosnia and Herzegovina, and you waves of ethnic tension going through the region.
In the larger scheme of things, when it comes to war-like conflict, seems like the creation of this three headed political system has brought a stop, at least in Bosnia, to the warlike conflicts in the country. Nonetheless, layers and layers of structural and cultural violence still seem to exist. Mostar itself, for instance, is heavily geo-socially divided, a common phrase I have heard in the past few days is of people being afraid of crossing the bridge, where on the one side you have the Catholic Croats, the other Muslims Bosniaks, and the orthodox Serbs. As I have been learning, the city has two fire brigades, two hospitals, the country has two different educational systems, and finally the three headed presidency - along with all the governance structures of the constitution, are also a representation of the existing division.
The question on how to attain peace in divided communities continues deepening its layers of complexity to me. Social movements, international negotiations, foreign policy, power of the people, peace education, there are very many aspects to peace and violence. Some of them obvious, some of them not so much. Some of them explicit some other not. Questions of inequality, social and economy play a big role on the addressing of these issues. Inequality however, is the result of histories of violence, oppression, war, discrimination, genocide, and many other processes that have build the world to be what it is today. It is systemic, it is structural, it is even cultural. It affects all spaces of living, and when you grow up in one place, with limited resources, limited access to education, and a lot of hardship to withstand, it is harder to reflect on this inequality and violence that one suffers. We are socialized to naturalize violence. We are socialized to naturalize inequality and get along with it. This is dangerous. But we live in a world where education continues to be a privilege, and to work on areas that do not bring money is also a privilege. Which means that unless you make social change a commodity, an enterprise, a corporation, to have the voices of those who have been historically silenced and marginalized is going to be a struggle.
The political system of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an interesting initiative to bring together a divided region under the name of a nation-state. If anything, they are figuring it out, and so we all are.
References, resources, further reading:
Dayton Peace Agreement and Bosnia and Herzegovina Constitution:
https://www.osce.org/bih/126173?download=true
Bosnia, the country with three presidents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYR8-LBVnZw
Mostar Wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostar
Bosnian and Herzegovinan Political system, it is complicated; Article in Fomoso.
https://www.fomoso.org/en/mosopedia/background-knowledge/bosnian-and-herzegovinian-political-system-it-is-complicated/
Bosnian War Wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina
Consociational democracy as a tool for conflict resolution in plural societies.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d035/e503f916378ccfa3296a0f1f8e1e381bde70.pdf
From Power Sharing to Democracy; Conflict Resolution in Ethnically Divided Societies.
https://books.google.ba/books?id=oQHX2Xz185EC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false
Constitutional Design for Divided Societies
https://web.archive.org/web/20061028102639/http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris/Acrobat/stm103%20articles/lijphart%20Constitutional_Design.pdf
Independent Article:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/the-bosnia-crisis-serbs-croats-and-muslims-who-hates-who-and-why-tony-barber-in-zagreb-traces-the-1539305.html
Human Rights Watch.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/bosnia-and-herzegovina#b2a1d8
World Atlas, Ethnic Groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-ethnic-groups-of-bosnia-and-herzegovina.html
Indexmundi, Demographic Profile.
https://www.indexmundi.com/bosnia_and_herzegovina/demographics_profile.html
New York Times Article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/world/europe/mostar-bosnia-ethnic-divisions-nationalism.html