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My reaction to this letter from the Secretary of
State to the tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)
is mixed. It is good that it presses hard on the need for
constitutional as well as other reforms. It has been apparent for
the better part of two decades that BiH needs profound changes in
how power is gained and distributed in order to make it a functional
state that can deliver services to its citizens.
But it fails to make clear, except by implication,
that reform will need to go in the direction of strengthening
individual rights relative to the group rights that the Dayton
constitution favored. It also pretends to be modest in its goals,
while laying out a broad requirement for constitutional, legal,
electoral, and economic reforms. It is not clear whether those goals
have been sufficiently coordinated with the European Union and its
member states, who hold most of the carrots and sticks that can
incentivize the needed reforms. Broad goals without sufficient
incentives are not a formula for success.
In the more than 25 years since the Dayton
agreements were signed, most BiH reform processes have either ended
in drivel or in strengthening the ethnically-based power sharing
system that is at the root of the country’s dysfunctional
governance. It will take vigorous and coordinated diplomatic and
political effort by the EU and US to prevent that from happening
again. Milorad Dodik, the first member of the presidency to which
this note is addressed, is a past master at blocking any reforms
that threaten his corrupt and autocratic control over BiH’s
Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska. He exploits fear of the
country’s Muslim majority and Serb nationalism, including the threat
of secession and union with Serbia, to ensure that he stays in one
powerful position or another.
It is a particular irony that Dodik is necessarily
an addressee of this letter. The US has sanctioned him for violation
of the Dayton accords:
Specifically, Dodik was designated for his
role in defying the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina
in violation of the rule of law, thereby actively obstructing the
Dayton Accords; Dodik was also designated for conduct that poses a
significant risk of actively obstructing the same.
At the same time, Dodik is collaborating with a
nationalist Croat leader, Dragan Covic, in attempting to implement a
Constitutional Court decision in a way that favors ethnic
nationalist political parties. While objecting to the authority of
the Constitutional Court in principle, Dodik exploits any decisions
it makes that he likes.
The missing ingredient in BiH reform proposals in
the past has been popular support. The country’s citizens have left
governance and reform largely to ethnic nationalists who have
convinced their three respective groups (Bosniak, Serb, and Croat)
that they need to be protected from one or two of the others. If
there is no pressure from the street, the ethnic nationalists will
do with the American initiative what they have always done:
strengthen their own positions and prevent the emergence of a
trans-ethnic coalition that can challenge their hold on power.
The Americans know this. What is unclear from
Blinken’s letter is what they will try to do about it. Without
popular demand for reform that protects individual rights and
reduces the saliency of group rights, BiH will continue to be a
dysfunctional and semi-democratic state ruled mainly by kleptocratic
ethnic leaders who enjoy near monopolies on power. Individuals with
equal rights are the essential ingredient of democratic governance.
They are what BiH lacks. Only Bosnians, with some international
assistance, can produce them.
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