Dayton +20: peacebuilding and the perils of exclusivity

Abstract

This paper reviews the past two decades of peacebuilding in Bosnia through the lens of recent debates around inclusivity. It explores how the exclusive pact-making of the Dayton Accords – and the elite-centrism of the subsequent peace implementation process – has precluded the emergence of a social contract between the Bosnian state and Bosnian society. In particular, the paper suggests that in combination with the Dayton agreement’s well-known structural flaws, the broader tendency of key international actors to view Bosnia’s peace process in terms of elite-level relations across the international–domestic divide has perpetuated conditions of low-intensity democracy in Bosnia. The growing attention to questions of inclusivity, conversely, views peacebuilding increasingly in terms of a longer term effort to strengthen state–society relations. In the light of emerging insights from the inclusivity debate, the paper emphasises the need to attend more carefully to the relationship between how, and with whom, peace is negotiated in the short term and how it is subsequently implemented over the longer term.