Flying Flags at Weddings in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Nationalism and the Limits of Flag Power

Keith Doubt,Amna Tuzović,Alem Hamzić

doi:10.1017/nps.2021.58

Abstract

AbstractThis study examines the practice of ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina flying a state, entity, religious, or foreign flag at wedding ceremonies in public spaces. The wedding custom is analyzed through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s discussion of the way nationalism in the modern era links family and state. After a tragic war, flag power in this context appears to exacerbate nationalism and ethnic tensions in a polyethnic society trapped in a dysfunctional state structure created by the Dayton Accords. The empirical study finds that flag power does not, in fact, privilege ethnic solidarity over national solidarity to the degree that social and political theory would have us imagine. The national identity of being Bosnian is more likely to be exemplified. A clustered, stratified, random sample of 2,500 subjects over the age of eighteen was drawn from the country’s population, including the two entities, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska and Brčko District. Survey questions involving face-to-face structured questions asked participants whether flags were flown at their weddings, which flags were flown, and attitudes toward the wedding custom. Variations by age, religiosity, education, ethnicity, type of flag flown, and political party affiliation are reported and interpreted.

Highlights

This study addresses the problematic character of flying a state, entity, religious, or foreign flag during wedding processions on streets and in parks in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the tragic war that ended in 1995
Families link themselves to an ethnic polis and an ethnic polis to families
The survey asked the following questions: “did you display a flag at your wedding,” “was a flag displayed at a wedding you attended,” and “did you observe a flag being displayed at a wedding you did not attend?” Respondents were asked which flags were displayed at their weddings or the weddings they observed, that is, whether the flags were a state, entity, religious, or foreign flag

Summary

Introduction

This study addresses the problematic character of flying a state, entity, religious, or foreign flag during wedding processions on streets and in parks in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the tragic war that ended in 1995. While the wedding custom gives nationalism an inflated sense of political significance, the survey results show the indifference of many respondents to the everyday practice. We analyze the survey results in terms of respondents’ attitudes and feelings toward flying identity flags in the public domain and political party affiliations, measuring the degree to which the cultural practice both does and does not exemplify the power of nationalism.

Results

Conclusion