To be a Bosniak or to be a citizen? Bosnia and Herzegovina's 2013 census as an election

Laurence Cooley

doi:10.1111/nana.12500

Abstract

AbstractBosnia and Herzegovina's first post‐war population census, held in 2013, was accompanied by campaigns associated with each of the country's three main ethnic groups, which sought to maximise their share of the recorded population. These campaigns were challenged by a rival ‘civic’ campaign that instead stressed the right to freedom of self‐identification, however. This article compares the aims, methods and framings used by this civic campaign with those of the most prominent of the ‘ethnic’ campaigns – that of Bosniak ethnic entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that the two campaigns were each motivated by a combination of symbolic motives, centred on recognition and highlighting discrimination, and instrumental motives relating to the country's power‐sharing institutions. The limited success of the civic campaign in countering the messages of its rival ethnic campaigns demonstrates the difficulties that civic movements face in mobilising citizens in consociational democracies such as BiH.

Highlights

In his classic study of ethnic conflict, Donald Horowitz notes that in deeply divided societies, elections tend to resemble ethnic censuses and that population censuses become contests ‘to be “won”’
It is unsurprising that the first post-war census in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its political system based on the principle of group rights, was accompanied by campaigns led by ethnic entrepreneurs seeking to mobilise people to maximise their group’s share of the recorded population
Analysing the motives behind the civic campaign run by these organisations alongside those of the most prominent of the ethnic campaigns run by Bosniak ethnic entrepreneurs, this article has demonstrated the symbolic and instrumental rationales for census mobilisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)

Summary

Introduction

In his classic study of ethnic conflict, Donald Horowitz notes that in deeply divided societies, elections tend to resemble ethnic censuses and that population censuses become contests ‘to be “won”’. The country’s first census since independence, conducted in 2013, resembled an election campaign, with politicians and civil society organisations associated with each of the country’s three largest ethnic groups – Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats – seeking to ensure the maximisation of their share in the population statistics.

Results

Conclusion