Introduction
The Peace Agreement signed in Dayton in November 1995 stopped the war that plagued Bosnia HerzegovinaFootnote 1 since April 1992. The Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) grounded BiH on three ethnic Constituent Peoples (Serbs, Croats, and Bošnjaks), and the consociational model of democracy (Lijphart Reference Lijphart1977) was implemented to favor the representation of, and compromise between, the three major Bosnian groups. The state was set up as a loose, highly decentralized federation and, although officially united, BiH was internally divided into two Entities, ten cantons, and an autonomous district.Footnote 2 The Inter-Entity Boundary Line (IELB) marks the border between the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina (FBiH), predominantly inhabited by Bosnian Croats and Bošnjaks, and divided into ten cantons (all but two almost completely ethnically homogeneous); and the Republika Srpska (RS), more centralized and predominantly inhabited by Bosnian Serbs.
Although the decentralization and power-sharing mechanisms were meant to rebuild the society and the state alike, and to teach citizens and elites to practice democracy (O’Halloran Reference O’Halloran and Noel2005), this latter remains weak and its institutions not consolidated.Footnote 3 Moreover, such a state structure and institutional functioning, both “ethnically exclusive,” have favored the establishment of an ethnocratic system (Howard Reference Howard2012; Hulsey and Stjepanović Reference Hulsey, Stjepanovic and Schakel2017) featuring ethnopolitics (Mujkić 2008, Reference Mujkić2015), where processes of ethnicization of citizenship (see Džankić Reference Džankić2015; Štikš Reference Štikš2010) and politicization of ethnicity and collective identities are widely promoted by the ethnonational parties governing the country. Nevertheless, by stressing that identities are multiple and fluid, and ethnicity only represents one of identity’s many components, individuals and political representatives holding and promoting “alternative nonethnic identities,” and wishing and struggling for a more inclusive idea of democracy and participation, do exist as well. Their aim is to resist and enter, so to change and possibly dismantle, the ethnopolitical scaffolding.
Starting from the assumption that political parties’ support goes hand in hand with citizens’ evaluation of their performances in relation to their demands (Mishler and Rose Reference Mishler and Rose2002), the article focuses on those “nonaligned” political parties and citizens and their positive potential in breaking-through the ethnopolitical deadlocks of Bosnia Herzegovina. By arguing that disappointment and disdain for ethnopolitics, coupled with the existence-resistance of nonethnic political parties, are key factors encouraging the birth of a potentially critical mass of citizens embracing a more inclusive and ethnically blind conception of democracy, the article seeks to answer the following questions: Are political disappointment and dissatisfaction factors potentially driving toward a “self-exclusion” from the Bosnian ethnically exclusive power-sharing system? To what extent they might incentivize individuals’ detachment from ethnic labels as well as the development of alternative forms of identification? Can nonaligned citizens and political representatives represent and/or become part of a solution toward a de-ethnicized and more inclusive BiH?
This contribution begins with a brief overview of the Bosnian power-sharing system and its ethnopolitical features; it looks at the composition of the political spectrum, taking into consideration both the ethnonational and the nonethnic and civic political options. Then, by drawing upon empirical material collected in Sarajevo, the article explores ordinary citizens’ opinions and perceptions over politics and democracy, trying to understand what lies behind citizens non-alignment with the Bosnian ethnopolitical scaffolding. The article concludes by reflecting on how the existence of a nonaligned mass of citizens, bearers of an inclusive idea of citizenship and democratic participation, proves and is reflected in the existence of that positive potential necessary to help adjust the ethnically exclusive Bosnian system.
The Ethnically Exclusive Democracy of Bosnia Herzegovina
The design of political institutions and the division of political power within and between them is of paramount importance in managing plurality, avoiding/preventing conflict, and achieving democracy (Reilly Reference Reilly2004). The state structure greatly influences political and social actors’ behaviors, as well as the relationship between rulers and ruled, as “both ethnic group formation and nation building result from a renegotiation of [that] relationship” (Wimmer Reference Wimmer2013, 5). However, if on the one side it is true that democratic institutions and procedures alone do not define and bring democracy by themselves, since “they are necessary but not sufficient conditions for its existence” (Schmitter and Karl Reference Schmitter and Karl1991, 81), on the other side it is also true that an institutional, state asset based on ethnic constituencies hardly promotes inclusion and democratic participation (see Hulsey and Stjepanović Reference Hulsey, Stjepanovic and Schakel2017, 53).
With the signing of the DPA in 1995, BiH was set up according to the consociational model of democracy (Lijphart Reference Lijphart1977), and ethnic power-sharing principles were implemented to represent, and favor cooperation between, the three main Bosnian groups. Consociations foresee the creation of a grand coalition formed by political leaders who represent all the society’s significant segments; proportional representation of the society’s segments; veto rights; and a high degree of autonomy often mirrored in decentralization and/or federalism. The implementation of such mechanisms represented the post-conflict solution towards peace- and state-(re)building; it was, back in 1995, the most viable way to accommodate ethnic claims while slowly bringing about democracy. However, although consociationalism has been applied to secure equal representation and participation of the three major Bosnian ethnic groups, it has institutionalized ethnicity (O’Leary Reference O’Leary and Noel2005), but also excluded from the system all those who do not belong to any of the three “constituent peoples” and who do not identify themselves in ethnonational terms (see Agarin, McCulloch, and Murtag Reference Agarin, McCulloch and Murtag2018).
No Representation without Ethnic Affiliation
Bosnia’s 1995 constitution, otherwise identifiable as the DPA’s Annex IV (Office of the High Representative 2015), recognized the three major ethnic groups as constituent of the state; yet that was not a novelty for BiH, given that Serbs, Croats, and Bošnjaks already had enjoyed the status of narod, Footnote 4 meaning constituent nations (Bringa Reference Bringa1993), back in the Yugoslav system. Nevertheless, in a post-conflict reality featured by the heavy politicization of identity and absence of mechanisms promoting supra-ethnic identifications and feelings of attachment, the constitutional emphasis on ethnic belonging rather than state citizenship represented a major problem hampering that fundamental precondition for the healthy functioning of any plural society: that is, the presence of crosscutting or overlapping memberships (Lijphart Reference Lijphart1977). In BiH, in fact, the constituent character assumed by the three ethnic nations, coupled with the absence of a non/supra-ethnic nationality and mechanisms promoting its birth, have implied that on the one side, the Bosnian demos is not unified and reflected in the Bosnian Herzegovinian citizens but split along ethnic lines; while, and consequently, on the other side, all those who do not declare/do not belong to any of the three major ethnic groups are officially not represented and included in some of the main state bodies. Bosnian law, in fact, requires political candidates to declare their ethnicity in all the state institutions (except for the Constitutional Court), and they are elected according to both ethnic and territorial principles.
In 1995, the Bosnian republic inherited the rotation presidency mechanism already set up by the Yugoslav authorities in 1974 and replicated after the 1990 elections. The aim was to provide and guarantee the equal representation of all the three main groups, while also avoiding the supremacy of one group over the others. However, if until 1990 the Bosnian Presidency was composed of seven members, representing both the three major groups and the “Others” (Kapidžić 2014), the Dayton agreement’s presidency became triple, composed of one Croat and one Bošnjak member elected in the FBiH, and one Serb member elected in the RS. “Others” are excluded from both the state’s Presidency and the House of Peoples. The Bosnian state is, in fact, provided with a Parliamentary Assembly composed of the House of Peoples and the House of Representatives. Also in this latter case, representation and decision-making mechanisms are set up according to both ethnic and territorial mechanisms (Keil Reference Keil2013). In more detail, the House of People comprises 15 members (five Serbs, five Croats, five Bosniacs) proportionally elected in the two Entities (two-thirds in FBiH plus one-third in RS), and decisions are taken with a quorum of nine members, three for each community. The House of Representatives, instead, comprises 42 members directly and proportionally elected in the two Entities (two-thirds in FBiH plus one-third in RS), and decisions are approved with one-third of the representatives from both the entities. Representatives’ abstention during the voting functions as a veto, which often causes deadlocks and slows down the procedures. Finally, the Constitutional Court, composed of nine members (four appointed by the House of Representatives of the Federation, two by the RS National Assembly, and three appointed by the President of the European Court of Human Rights) is the only institution for which an ethnic composition is not prescribed.
The “Bosnian Herzegovinians,” as well as all those who have different and/or nonethnic identities, have thus considerably lower status compared to the three ethnic nations’ members since there is no representation without ethnonational affiliation. The status assumed by ethnonational belonging is further stressed by both Bosnia’s ethnofederalism (Bunce Reference Bunce, Mungiu-Pippidi and Krastev2004) and its close ties with the citizenship policies implemented by the DPA, according to which individuals are guaranteed with both a state and an entity citizenship. However, it is worth highlighting that the rationale behind the implementation of both territorial divisions and particular citizenship policies was to favor cooperation and compromise between the belligerent groups, and their implementation has been a direct, perhaps inevitable, consequence of the war. Nonetheless, it is also worth recognizing that measures implemented and thought to help the democratic functioning of the country have been, and are, often used by ethnopolitical entrepreneurs (Brubaker Reference Brubaker2004; Mujkić 2015) to build and strength their ethnos, rather than forging a united demos, eventually further challenging the achievement of an inclusive democracy. The last two decades of Bosnian democratic malfunctioning and immobility have, indeed, proven the insufficiency of the consociational arrangements and mechanisms in favoring not only political cooperation toward democratic consolidation, but also and especially the birth of shared feelings of attachment and modalities of self-identification among the whole country of BiH. Because of the above mentioned reasons, the state of BiH seems to match Howard’s (Reference Howard2012, 155–156) description of ethnocratic systems, whose main features are “1) political parties … based foremost on ethnic interests; 2) ethnic quotas to determine the allocation of key posts; and 3) state institutions, especially in education and the security sector, that are segmented by ethnic group.”
Nevertheless, it is not only matter of institutions’ shape and representational mechanisms. Certainly ethnic power-sharing has legitimized an ethnonational, rather than civic, understanding and functioning of the country, thus fragmenting the state, its citizenry, and democracy as well; but it is also true that the exclusion of nonethnic, thus nondominant, groups was and is massively promoted by the ethnonationalist leaders governing the country (almost continuously) since the first postwar elections held in 1996.
Political Representatives
Ethnic Political Options
Political parties and political elites have a crucial role in tailoring a democratic society because they are the mediating institutions between the citizens and the state (Lipset Reference Lipset1994). However, in societies lacking a state identity, and where ethnonational belonging is the ruling principle of the representation mechanisms, political parties are institutionally incentivized to build their image and support upon ethnonationality itself. Hence, parties are more likely to be monoethnic, while the multiethnic ones obtain a wider, and cross-ethnic, support (Reilly Reference Reilly2004). Accordingly and not surprisingly, the Bosnian political elite is ethnically fragmented and polarized (Kapidžić 2014), and the major political parties’ narratives and messages are oriented toward each, and sole, ethnic constituency rather than to the whole citizenry.
Since the first multiparty elections, held in 1990 at the republics level and before the collapse of the Yugoslav Federation, Bosnian political parties have been campaigning along ethnonational lines, and they have not been competing among each other but against a common enemy: the multiethnic and civic parties (Andjelić 2003). The three traditional ethnonational parties, namely SDA (Stranka Demokratske Akcije, or Party of Democratic Action), representing the Bosnjak population; HDZ (Hrvatska Demokratska Stranka, or Croat Democratic Community) representing the ethnic Croats, and SDS (Srpska Demokratska Stranka, or Serb Democratic Party) representing the ethnic Serbs, had been ruling, almost unchallenged, until the 2006 elections. Then new parties emerged but, for the most part, they also have adapted to the ethnopolitical framework. An example of this adaptation to ethnopolitics is SNSD (Savez Nezavisnih Socijaldemokrata, or Alliance of Independent Social Democrats), Footnote 5 which has gradually obscured SDS (the party founded by Radovan Karadžić in 1990) dominating the Republika Srpska since the 2006 elections. Initially, SNSD was a moderate party, among those “who accepted the DPA and cooperation with the international community” (Šedo Reference Šedo, Stojarová and Emerson2010, 93); later, instead, both the party and its leader Milorad DodikFootnote 6 became strongly ethnonationalist. According to some, a similar fate has recently characterized SDP (Socijaldemokratska Partija BiH, or Social Democratic Party of BiH), which played an important role in counteracting nationalism.Footnote 7 As an SDP party member stated during our interview, “We had our chance in 2010 but we lost people’s trust. We allied with SDA and we failed to form a government.”Footnote 8 Indeed, as a former SDP’s MPFootnote 9 pointed out during our conversation, the political evolution of SDP may be considered similar to that of Dodik’s SNSD (although SNSD has never been multiethnic): initially both were liberal and moderate, and then, after having understood what pays and what does not, turned into ethnonationalist. Eventually, therefore, the Bosnian party system remains “structured into multiple ethnically defined subsystems” (Kapidžić Reference Kapidžić2016, 129), with each one using ethnonationality as a tool to mobilize, represent, and protect the masses, while becoming a safe option for one’s own group’s security and representation.
Given the Bosnian state’s structural features, as well as the peculiarities of the overall environment in which political competition takes place, we can say that an inclusive model of democracy aiming at representing and satisfying the interests of the whole citizenry is not only difficult to build, but also practically disadvantageous, and for both the rulers and the ruled.
Nonaligned Political Alternatives
Focusing on the ethnopolitical particularities of the Bosnian context, in his study on political moderation Hulsey (Reference Hulsey2010) looked at how the environment in which elections take place influences voters’ behavior. He argued that the Bosnian ethnopolitical environment affects voters’ support for nonnationalist parties, and that “even voters who vote for non-nationalist parties in other elections, will choose nationalist parties in electoral contexts that include an element of competition with other ethnic groups” (Hulsey Reference Hulsey2010, 1133).
Nonetheless, despite the ethnically polarized political context in Bosnia, and the country’s constitutional and institutional structure that favors ethnic alignment, nonethnic civic political alternatives do exist as well, and they do compete against the ethnonationalist parties, while also hoping to enter, so to dismantle, the ethnopolitical scaffolding. While working within the corporate consociational framework (McCulloch 2014), political parties such as Naša Stranka (NS)Footnote 10 and Demokratska Fronta (DF)Footnote 11 try not to align themselves with the ethnopolitical structure and environment. They do not define themselves in ethnic terms and aim to represent the whole citizenry, going beyond ethnic identifications. This however does not mean that their “members or the mobilised do not have feelings of affiliation for their national group” (Touquet Reference Touquet2011, 461): on the contrary, it is by putting the attention on the notion of citizenship, rather than on ethnic belonging, that these parties respect and include any kind of identity. Additionally, by acknowledging that identities are multiple and fluid, while recognizing the existence of ethnic sentiments, these parties address two Bosnian specificities: the cultural one, which is linked to the fact that many individuals cannot fit into the ethnic system due to, for example, their ethnically mixed backgrounds or feelings of belonging linked to the old Yugoslav system; the second one is, instead, constitutional and consequently institutional, connected to the absence of a supra-ethnic constituent people and, thus, the exclusion of all those not identifying themselves in exclusive ethnic terms from the system (see Agarin et al. Reference Agarin, McCulloch and Murtag2018), in other words, of all those formally falling into the category of “others.”
With that said, we can address these political parties as nonaligned political alternatives. Recalling the Yugoslav Non-Aligned Movement, which was founded by Tito in the early 1960s as an alternative block in the middle of the Cold War (see Zukin Reference Zukin1975), these political parties aim at the same goal. By giving citizens a nonethnic and civic political option, yet operating within the ethnopolitical system of BiH, parties such as Naša Stranka and Demokratska Fronta do not align with the ethnopolitical scaffolding and try to represent citizens across and beyond ethnicity—hence those formally nonrepresented. By doing so, they also try to promote the birth of civic forms of identification, stressing the need to build a state and a society able to include any individual on the basis of his or her equality within the Bosnian Herzegovinian state.
Accordingly, this was the rationale behind the creation, in 2008, of Naša Stranka (NS), English translation of which is “Our Party.” A group of artists and social activists wished to effectively represent Bosnian citizens, mobilizing them on civic platforms, so to break-through the ethnic collectivism rooted in the state’s constitution and institutional asset. Focusing on NS’s mobilizing strategy, Touquet (Reference Touquet2011, 461) defined it as “postethnic” because it does acknowledge “the existence of previous and intersubjectively ‘real’ categorizations, by humans. [As well as] that identities are subject to changes and fluctuation.” Yet the party’s approach may also be broadly understood as “cosmopolitan,” given that cosmopolitanism may function “as a rhetorical resource in these struggles to value certain forms of belonging over others. From a nationalist perspective it stood for the dangers of rootless disloyalty that threatened national unity and authenticity, whereas in antinationalism it could signpost a desirable alternative organization of social life” (Jansen Reference Jansen, Nowicka and Rovisco2008, 76).
Naša Stranka is a social liberal, anti-nationalist, and anti-elite political party. It targets all Bosnian citizens, and it especially wishes to attract the support of all those not participating into the political life of the country because of dissatisfaction and disappointment with the system and its political elite. The party was initially rather successful mostly in the Sarajevo area, focusing its activities on the local level and trying to ameliorate citizens’ everyday lives. However, as confirmed by the last parliamentary elections held in October 2018, the party is gradually growing and spreading especially in the Federation of BiH, attracting the support of the urban population across social and ethnic distinctions. Nevertheless, in an ethnically polarized environment, nonethnic and civic political parties may be seen as weak and tool-less, and not able to fight against or defeat the ethnonationalist parties. Many factors contribute to this belief, such as the ethnopolitical parties’ control over the media and the creation of ethnically selective mechanisms of resources’ allocation; that is, rights and benefits are very often redistributed according to ethnic, rather than citizenship, criteria by establishing ethno-clientelistic and favoritism relations between ethnic parties and ethnic masses in exchange for political loyalty during elections (see Piacentini Reference Piacentini2019).
Nevertheless, in the last parliamentary elections (2018), Naša Stranka for the first time since its creation gained enough votes to enter the state parliament (IEFS 2019), and also obtained positive results outside Sarajevo.Footnote 12 Its electoral support mainly came from the Federation’s cantons of Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, and Una-Sana, Footnote 13 where the Bošnjak group constitutes the numerical majority.
Next to Naša Stranka, another multiethnic political party worth mentioning is Demokratska Fronta (DF), which was formed in April 2013 after a split from SDP. DF was created by the initiative of Željko Komšić, former SDP member and former Croat member of the Bosnian Triple Presidency (from 2006 to 2014), who gathered together all those disappointed by the social democrats. DF’s voters are, indeed, for the largest part former SDP supporters, and new segments of the electorate have not really been mobilized. In the October 2018’s elections, similarly to NS, DF also received electoral support from the cantons of Una-Sana, Tuzla, Zenica-Doboj, and Sarajevo, as well as from Bosnian-Podrinje, Goražde, and Central Bosnia, this latter characterized by an ethnic Croat majority.Footnote 14 Additionally, DF’s leader Komšić was elected as the Croat member of the triple Bosnian presidency. The Croat nationalists, however, contested his election, accusing him of illegitimately representing the Croat people given that his electoral support, as seen above, mainly came from the ethnic Bošnjak population.
Despite these critiques, DF keeps fighting ethnonationalism while respecting ethnic affiliations and sentiments. As one party member stated, “DF supports the expression of the national identities of all the people living in BiH. This reflects the multiethnic tradition of the country, our multiethnic precious tradition of equality” (Demokratska Fronta, member of the party Presidency and member of the Federation Parliament, Zenica, October 2017). Yet, as both members of NS and DF pointed out, to attract votes from all the different ethnic communities, and particularly to bridge the two Bosnian entities, is a hard task. If on one hand, the state architecture and power-sharing mechanisms incentivize ethnic polarization, encouraging political parties to build consent upon ethnicity and “voters to vote for candidates of their own ethnicity” (Bieber Reference Bieber and Noel2005, 92), on the other hand the major political representatives are ably exploiting in their favor ethnically biased democratic institutions and mechanisms, using ethnocentrism and nationalist propaganda to incentivize people to “ally with their respective ethnic elites, rather than all members of the polity” (Wimmer Reference Wimmer2013, 19). In turn, BiH does showcase the structural conditions typical of ethnocracies, “which favour the separation of parties along ethnonational lines … in spite of the more recent examples of significant cross-ethnic political mobilization” (Hulsey and Stjepanović Reference Hulsey, Stjepanovic and Schakel2017, 55). Nonetheless, the civic and nonethnic political parties are not surrendering. Driven by the belief that an inclusive Bosnian society, reflected in an inclusive model of democracy, is possible, they aim to gather together all those citizens who are disappointed by, and/or cannot fit in, the ethnopolitical establishment and lack trust in their political institutions and representatives. These sentiments are echoed in statements from party members we interviewed. According to one interviewee.
“We need to show the citizens that we are the only option, the only alternative for the future of BiH” (SDP, party member, Sarajevo, October 2017).
According to another, “It is necessary to achieve a good cooperation level among the civic parties and against the national parties, make serious strategies for awakening the apathetic voters” (Demokratska Fronta, member of the party Presidency and member of the Federation Parliament, Zenica, October 2017).
Moved by the shared will of developing and promoting a different conception of citizenship and participation in the public life of the country, and so to enter the system and change it in a more inclusive way, parties such as Naša Stranka and Demokratska Fronta are crucial presences in the Bosnian political spectrum. Their conjoined actions and possible cooperation on civic platforms can potentially make a big difference, helping citizens to detach themselves from exclusive collective identities while building an inclusive model of democracy reflected at both the institutional and social levels.
Nonaligned Citizens
Methodological Note
In the light of the institutional and political overview offered by the previous sections, we can shift our attention to the Bosnian citizens themselves. Bearing in mind that there are many possible reasons why citizens cannot, or do not want to, identify themselves in ethnically exclusive terms (as mentioned, due to ethnically mixed backgrounds, feelings of belonging rooted in the old Yugoslav system, but also war experiences and political opinions), the following empirical analysis focuses on the ethnopolitical environment in which people live, and explores the possible reasons explaining and informing their wish to avoid ethnic identifications. More specifically, the investigation is grounded on empirical material collected in the years 2016–2018 through semi-structured interviews performed with ordinary citizens of different ages and of both sexes, living in the Bosnian capital city, Sarajevo.
The research questions addressed in the analysis are as follows: Are political disappointment and dissatisfaction factors driving citizens toward self-exclusion from the Bosnian ethnically exclusive system? Are these factors also incentivizing both individuals’ detachment from ethic labels and the development of alternative forms of identification? Can nonaligned citizens and political parties represent and/or become the solution toward a de-ethnicized and inclusive BiH? As mentioned, the study targeted ordinary citizens living in Sarajevo, males and females, aged 20 years old and up. The interviewees were reached through the snowball sampling technique, and they were not selected according to ethnonational criteria. The sample was composed of respondents belonging to, or not belonging to, the three Bosnian constituent peoples. The respondents were asked about their perceptions and opinions over (ethno) politics and (ethnically exclusive) democracy so to deepen our understanding of the discrepancy existing between democratic institutions and mechanisms, and the un-democratic functioning of the country. Questions also covered the topic of identity and forms of identification, so to reach a better understanding of what drives some Bosnian citizens in nonaligning themselves with the system, as well as in developing, or retaining, forms of identification untied from ethnonational and ethnoreligious origins.
The study does, however, suffer from one main methodological limitation—namely it is circumscribed to the sole reality of Sarajevo. As a consequence, there are two possible critiques that might be moved against it: (i) the impossibility of comparing Sarajevo’s research findings given the lack of empirical material collected in other Bosnian cities, both in the Federation and in the Republika Srpska; and (ii) the claim that Sarajevo represents a “special reality.” Nevertheless, it is worth keeping in mind that, although it is undeniably true that Sarajevo has always been a peculiar context—not only in Bosnia Herzegovina, but all over former Yugoslavia—it is also true that since the war’s end in 1995, its demographic composition has substantially changed, not only making the city much less ethnically heterogeneous than how it was used to beFootnote 15 (see Touquet Reference Touquet2015), but also shaping new relational dynamics both between the groups, and between them and the political representatives. Therefore, while recognizing the lack of empirical material collected in other urban areas of BiH, the findings here presented here do however furnish us interesting insights for inquiring into alternative political agents and forces necessary for breaking through the ethnopolitical deadlocks of Bosnia Herzegovina, as well as the motivations driving people toward non-aligning themselves with the ethnopolitical scaffolding.
While acknowledging the need for further research on the topic, the next sections present and organize the findings into subthemes so as to give the reader a complete overview of the topic analyzed.
On the Bosnian Ethnically Exclusive Democracy
In BiH, groups’ boundaries and collective identities are well and sharply defined from a political and institutional point of view but not exactly from an individual one. Life experiences, territorially scattered family ties, and antinationalist political opinions are among the main reasons making people’s identities and feelings of attachment difficult to define. The politicization of identity happened with the spread of nationalism, since the end of the 1980s had a big impact on the Bosnian population, either producing crystallization and exclusive identification in ethnonational/ethnoterritorial terms or, on the contrary, strengthening already existing and/or promoting the birth of nonethnic alternative ways of identification untied from ethnicity and its politicization.
While discussing with the interviewees the current Bosnian Herzegovinian political situation, one of the major concerns that emerged was the ethnic-based constitutional and institutional asset of the state and, more in detail, the fact that “Bosnian citizens” do not formally exist as a consequence of the constitutional absence of a nonethnic constituent nation. While describing the processes of ethnicization of citizenship and ethnic collectivism’s institutionalization, the respondents recognized how an ethnicity-based and ethnically exclusive system prevents and discourages the birth of a shared civic form of identification, as well as cross-cutting cleavages. In the eyes of the interviewees, the Bosnian system is coercive and pushes toward ethnonational identifications:
There are no Bosnian Herzegovinians here. We are not allowed to be that. Serbs, Croats, and Bošnjaks do not allow us. We are in extinction. They are all against this “Bosnian Herzegovinians.” When I travel, I am a Bosnian but back home they say I am a bošnjak.
(Male, age 64, Sarajevo, November 2016)Here people don’t feel the same. Some feel more Serbian or Croatian citizens than Bosnian.
(Female, age 25, Sarajevo, August 2016)The problem is inherently constitutional yet consequently deeply political. Ethnic-based forms of identification, indeed, have been described as due forms of identification imposed upon people in virtue of the constituent character of their national belonging, more than a spontaneous expression of origins and backgrounds.
As the interviewees explained, identification in terms of citizens of the state, namely as Bosnians/Bosnian Herzegovinians, is pragmatically disadvantageous since citizens are formally considered “others” (ostali in BCS language), invisible in the state’s eyes, and not fully represented. In turn, the respondents had a very negative opinion of the Bosnian democracy, considered far from being practiced.
The three parties are actually cooperating in keeping the status quo, it is the same situation since 20 years.… Politics uses nationalism to divide people. They need to keep the machine working, and without divisions the system would collapse.
(Female, age 30, Sarajevo, October 2016)We still have war, cold war. War without weapons.
(Female, age 28, Sarajevo, October 2016)Moreover, according to some, democracy (the term used by the respondents as synonymous of the implementation of consociationalism and ethnic power-sharing) has been the reason for the current fragmentation:
The chaos we have now is the product of democracy.… The West made us believe we live in a democratic country.… All this is not democracy.
(Male, age 65, Sarajevo, December 2016)The implementation of ethnic power-sharing, along with the consequent institutionalization of ethnicity, are frequently seen as the democratic legitimization of the nationalist identity politics initiated by ethnic entrepreneurs in the 1990s and eventually made official by the DPA and its Annex IV.
On Politics and Political Opinions
However, as the interviewees explained, it is not only a matter of constitutional and institutional imperfections. Even more dangerous is their misuse by the ethnic political elites, who are largely accused of and blamed for having first created, and then exploited and nurtured, ethnic collectivization and related divisions.
The main goal was to divide people according to ethno-religious beliefs. They started with propaganda, saying we were not equal.… The consequences are visible now.… The people who let Yugoslavia fall apart are still alive and they are poisoning groups.… Normal people don’t hate anyone.
(Male, age 66, Sarajevo, December 2016)They don’t want unity in BiH. Politicians in Banja Luka are deliberatively helping the politicians in Sarajevo by saying things the others don’t want to hear—so they create these situations where they can fight. And that’s how they help each other to stay in power, and maybe they don’t even mean what they say. But that creates divisions among people.
(Female, age 55, Sarajevo, September 2016)Each party has its own propaganda: if you watch the news from Sarajevo, it is half an hour of “Serbs that are trying to do this, to do that…”. Then you turn the channel over to the TV based in Banja Luka and they spend another half an hour talking about Sarajevo.… So if you spend your entire life believing that the devil lives in Banja Luka or Sarajevo, it is going to be difficult to accept that there are also normal people living in both sides.
(Female, age 26, Sarajevo, August 2016)The problem in Bosnia is not people. It is the political elite. Politicians are there for their personal interests.… It is just a show. In this country, who is not nationalist doesn’t get any vote.
(Female, age 26, Sarajevo, September 2016)The ethnopolitical elite, more than the ethnically biased institutional asset, has been identified as the main cause of the state’s and democracy’s malfunctioning. With their arguments, the interviewees made clear how politicians, by taking advantage of an ethnicized state structure while controlling both its institutions and the media, have no incentives—and even less intentions—to behave differently by de-politicizing ethnicity or in ameliorating the system itself.
The respondents, therefore, seemed not to trust their state institutions, and even less the main political parties, which have never been depicted as their own political representatives, but as nationalist representatives of the ethnic groups:
As s****y country as it is, still Bosnia is my country…. I am Serb yes, part of one constituent people, but I don’t identify myself as that right-wing hard-core nationalist Serb.
(Male, age 25, Sarajevo, October 2016)Therefore, mistrust toward a self-interested ethnic political elite, which is accused of manipulating ethno-religious backgrounds and the wounds of war within an ethnically exclusive, though formally democratic, framework has provided some citizens with good enough reasons to distance themselves from “that politics,” thus nonaligning themselves. The most supported political parties among the interviewees included in the sample, and in the context of Sarajevo, were indeed Naša Stranka followed by Demokratska Fronta.
Naša Stranka because it was the best option in BiH. It’s the only party with a solid “moral” part.… They start from the small things … for example at the local level you can clearly see discrimination based on where you live and how wealth is your municipality. It is important to give people at least the same initial opportunities, the same “beginning”
(Male, age 22, Sarajevo, October 2018)SDP went in coalition with SDA and that was a huge mistake, same corruption, same nepotism. At that time I had big expectations, but it was just disappointment after disappointment. They were giving job to their own people, they were doing the same things the other parties were already doing. So Komšić decided to split and form his own party … and I joined the party.
(Male, age 34, September 2017)As the above quotations bring to the surface, the choice of supporting parties such as NS and DF is often due to the perception of these parties being different compared to the ethnonational ones. They are perceived as such not only because they target and focus on the citizens rather than the ethnic groups, but also because of their perceived moral integrity and their commitment to not buying their electoral support through clientelism and nepotism (see Piacentini Reference Piacentini2019).
On Nonalignment
When asked about their political opinions, perceptions over the institutional system, and the democratic status of the country, the interviewees also illustrated that their way of seeing themselves and the others was generally not based on ethnic categorization and labeling. Their identities emerged to be not only multiple and fluid, but also civic and cosmopolitan. Their ethnic origins, when definable, were considered as one among many other components of their identities. This idea of multiplicity and inclusion was generally expressed in two different but conceptually similar forms of self-identification: one in terms of “Bosnian Herzegovinian” and one in terms of “Sarajevan.”
I am Bosnian Herzegovinian, I belong to “others.” I am not a constituent people of this country, but it is ok if this implies not to pick a side.… I am not Muslim and I am not orthodox, but I do celebrate Christmas and Bajram. I can’t say I am Serbian, although my mother is from Serbia, but she is Muslim; and my dad is Serb but from Bosnia. I am from here … I am richer with this family background. That’s why I would never identify myself as Muslim or Serb, but always as Bosnian Herzegovinian.
(Female, age 27, Sarajevo, November 2016)I am Sarajevan. Sarajevo in the first place. Not only Bosnian but Sarajevan.
(Male, age 59, Sarajevo, September 2016)I am ethnically Serb but I am from Bosnia Herzegovina, it is a different thing. I’m Bosnian.
(Male, age 25, Sarajevo, September 2016)Me personally, I feel Sarajka.
(Female, age 25, Sarajevo, August 2016)Both the Bosnian Herzegovinian and the Sarajevan identifications not only signified attachment toward the country of BiH and/or the city of Sarajevo but, more specifically, towards their symbolic meanings. The Sarajevan identity emerged to be an all-encompassing identity that does not deny the existence of ethnonational groups and identities but, on the contrary, includes all of them and relies on Sarajevo’s cultural heritage. Similarly, the identification as Bosnian Herzegovinian featured not only a sense of attachment toward the country but, also in this case, included and symbolized its plurality.
Accordingly, if Bosnia Herzegovina was nicknamed “Little Yugoslavia,” then Sarajevo was its symbolical reality. The Bosnian capital city has in fact a heritage of “unity in diversity,” which not only denotes its ever-since mixed character, but also means that diversity has traditionally been respected and cherished as a richness—never impeding people from sharing the same urban spaces and personal lives alike.
Especially until before the war, Sarajevo was the symbol of the Bosnian groups’ coexistence—the place in which any group, religion, and identity was respected, and where this respect served as a ground for building positive intergroup relations.
Sarajevo is the best part of interethnic relation because we are actually the most mixed part of the entire country. In Sarajevo you can’t see that much nationalism because here there are Serbs, Bošnjaks, Croats, so there are not much problems.
(Male, age 28, Sarajevo, August 2016)As soon as you go to Mostar, even before entering the city, you see the flag of Croatia; and if you go to Banja Luka there is the Serbian flags or graffiti. Personally, when I see those things, I’m really sorry…. In Sarajevo no, nationalism is not evident. Because in Sarajevo you have people from any group and coming from all over; while if you live always in the same place and you never move, it is hard to think differently.
(Female, age 25, Sarajevo, August 2016)Although the ethnic composition of Sarajevo has changed compared to the prewar time, becoming a prevalently Bošnjak city, Footnote 16 most of its inhabitants try to preserve the old tradition of komšiluk together with, and reflected in, a cosmopolitan idea of citizenship (Jansen Reference Jansen, Nowicka and Rovisco2008). This cosmopolitan idea of citizenship is tied to both people’s rejection of ethnic collectivization and politicization of identity (hence mirrored in their political opinions and distrust toward the political class), and to Sarajevo’s cultural heritage as well (see Touquet Reference Touquet2015). Indeed, it is in Sarajevo more than in other urban contexts of Bosnia Herzegovina that we can find both a larger support for civic political parties and forms of self-identification that are untied from ethnonational origins.
As the quotations provided have shown, the interviewees’ nonethnic civic identifications—hence their choice of falling into the “ostali box”—were highly connected to their political opinions, which were in clear opposition to hegemonizing nationalisms promoted by the major political parties, and the divisions and exclusions stemming from a biased state asset. As a young woman summarized it:
I am from the 1990s; my generation is disgusted by the system. When I was supposed to ride my bike it was war outside.… There is lots of anger inside us. And most of us do not want to be part of this system. (Female, age 27, Sarajevo, November 2016)
Their political disappointment, coupled with the development/adoption of alternative identities, was thus often mirrored in their support for minor, though civic and inclusive, political parties struggling for citizens’ reappropriation of their multinational Bosnian state.
Concluding Reflections
The analysis provided in this contribution has shown that, regardless of what their constitution and political parties say—or, better even, because of what their constitution and political parties say—the respondents from Sarajevo included in this research sample have developed and/or maintained a civic and inclusive conception of citizenship and idea of how a plural society should work.
The interviews have shown how disdain for the ethnic collectivism promoted by the political elite, together with an already existing cosmopolitan conception of citizenship rooted especially in the city of Sarajevo, have favored the adoption and development of alternative forms of identification. Similarly, political disappointment and dissatisfaction have led many respondents to support nonethnic and civic political parties, such as Naša Stranka, Demokratska Fronta, and Social Democratic Party of BiH (SDP), and consider them as valid political alternatives that are able to drive society toward inclusive democracy.
Paradoxically, these citizens’ self-exclusion from the ethnonational Bosnian framework may be seen as a positive reaction and democratic outcome of an otherwise ethnically exclusive and ethnocratic system. But more precisely, more than self-exclusion from the political system, what these citizens and nonethnic political representatives aim at is the promotion and spread of another way of doing politics while participating in the political system. In a broader perspective, nonethnic political choices and identities mirror a different idea of politics and democracy, opposite to that promoted and endorsed by the major Bosnian political parties and embedded in the ethnically exclusive power-sharing system.
Nevertheless, it has to be said that political disappointment and dissatisfaction do not always drive alternative forms of identification and/or the support for nonethnic political parties. Very often political dissatisfaction and mistrust toward state institutions, politicians, and the system itself are reflected in the resigned acceptance of the status quo and the absence of the expectation that the system can be replaced.
However, although still mainly confined to the reality of Sarajevo’s and those of a few other major urban cities (such as Tuzla), the existence of this small, yet potentially critical, mass of citizens, alongside the growing popularity of and support for nonethnic civic political alternatives, represent an important chance for building a different Bosnia Herzegovina, as well as a step forward in the democracy’s direction. A serious cooperation between those civic parties, driven by the common goal of creating an inclusive state and society, may thus help individuals to take back their rights in equality of citizens (rather than ethnic groups’ members), getting rid of the anonymity that traps them into ethnonational categories, and finally to change the ethnically exclusive Bosnian state from the inside.
Disclosure.
Author has nothing to disclose.
