Abstract

The international intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina was intended to support conflict resolution by introducing territorial self-government and power sharing as the foundation for a governance framework that would provide for collective and individual security alignment over time. Instead, it has contributed to the ethnification of security whereby collective security in the form of an ‘ethnified state’ remains at the forefront of political discourse and practice. Social acceptance of this ethnified state as the guarantor of security—despite the fading reality of the ethnic threat in public perceptions of post-war insecurity—has been actively manufactured by the country’s ethnic elites using the very institutional means put in place by the international intervention. The result is an ‘ethnic security paradox’ in which the idea of individual safety—linked to the protection of ethnic identity in the form of an ethnified state—unsettles both collective and individual security alike.

Highlights

  • In many respects, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a paradigmatic case of a liberal peace-style international intervention, aimed to ensure stability by building effective democratic and economic governance and by promoting societal reconciliation

  • Bojicic-Dzelilovic: The Politics, Practice and Paradox of ‘Ethnic Security’ in Bosnia-Herzegovina identified ‘ethnic security’ as the axis of political discourse and action (Haynes 2008; Beha & Visoka 2010). While this can be expected in the case of ethno-national parties ideologically committed to the notion of security as the protection of ethnic identity, it is ominous that some nominally civic political parties have embraced the idea of ethnic security in one form or another (McClelland 2013; Azinovic et al 2011; Saferworld 2012)

  • I submit that the relationship between the idea of security as protection of ethnic identity and individual security is manifested as an ‘ethnic security paradox’

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Summary

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The international intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina was intended to support conflict resolution by introducing territorial self-government and power sharing as the foundation for a governance framework that would provide for collective and individual security alignment over time. It has contributed to the ethnification of security whereby collective security in the form of an ‘ethnified state’ remains at the forefront of political discourse and practice. Social acceptance of this ethnified state as the guarantor of security—despite the fading reality of the ethnic threat in public perceptions of post-war insecurity—has been actively manufactured by the country’s ethnic elites using the very institutional means put in place by the international intervention. The result is an ‘ethnic security paradox’ in which the idea of individual safety—linked to the protection of ethnic identity in the form of an ethnified state—unsettles both collective and individual security alike

Introduction
Bosnian Croats
Findings
Conclusion

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