The Role of the EU in the Reform of Dayton in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

Most accounts of European integration stress the positive role that EU conditionality and other accession tools play in the process of institutional adjustment to EU standards. This paper explores whether the EU can influence the domestic politics of conflict management in divided societies within the framework of European accession. It examines the role of the EU in the failed negotiation process of constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2005–2006. The EU's role is analysed on two dimensions: as a traditional third-party player in conflict management; and as an agent imposing conditionality in the process of European integration. Drawing from personal interviews and documentary research, the article claims that the failed constitutional reform outcome not only was driven by irreconcilable domestic differences, but also was a product of the weak leverage of the EU despite its assumed conditionality power. The EU's inability to secure constitutional reform was shaped by the uncertainties that have developed in the EU accession process for the Western Balkans, and the ambivalent role of the EU as a mediator in conflict management.