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Mediterranean Quarterly 14.3 (2003) 122-125



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Sumantra Bose: Bosnia after Dayton: Nationalist Partition and International Intervention. London: Oxford University Press, 2002. 303 pages. ISBN 0-19-515848-2. $35.00.

Sumantra Bose is a lecturer at the London School of Economics who specializes in conflict management and democratization in societies gripped by ethnic conflict. Bosnia, therefore, fits his academic specialty perfectly, and he approaches the subject after extensive previous study of ethnic conflict on the Indian subcontinent. He very rightly observes that the planners at Dayton attempted to construct a multiethnic state of disparate, antagonistic elements, virtually a microcosm of the multiethnic Yugoslav state that had just disintegrated so spectacularly. One could therefore logically ask, although Bose does not, If the original failed, could a small-scale replica succeed?

In the opening pages, he states that his perspective flows from the belief that there were belligerents and victims among all three communities in the Bosnian war and that it is improper to assign the label of aggressor or victim to a nation in the blanket sense. He adheres to this belief consistently throughout the book and does not indulge in moral posturing or finger-pointing. His stance is always that of a social scientist striving to find solutions.

Clearly, the future of Bosnia could have gone in only one of three directions: (1) a centralized state on the order of the former Bosnian Republic of Yugoslavia, which the Muslims wanted; (2) partition, which both the Serbs and Croats wanted, meaning the Serbian parts of Bosnia would merge with Serbia, the Croatian parts merge with Croatia, and the remainder form a rather small rump Muslim state; or (3) a decentralized state within the existing borders with a government based on relatively fixed ethnic components. The centralized state that the Muslims wanted was not possible, because more than half the population was against it, as demonstrated by the war that had just ended. [End Page 122] Partition was not possible, because the population was so intermixed that it would be exceedingly difficult to draw dividing lines, an outcome that would, anyway, cause even more suffering through massive population shifts. It would also reward aggression.

The planners of Dayton were hard put to come up with a feasible solution and eventually devised the extraordinarily complex structure that is now the government of Bosnia. Geographically the country remains the same, but it is now divided into two "entities": The Srbska Republica and the Bosniac-Croat Federation. Residents are citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the entity they live in, plus, if they desire, either Serbia or Croatia, giving a rather new meaning to the term citizen. The supreme authority rests in the high representative, a kind of viceroy, who is a non-Bosnian selected by the United Nations. His power is virtually absolute. The High Court consists of twelve judges, three from each community and three non-Bosnians. There are three copresidents, one from each community. Other governing bodies are equally convoluted. To this complicated structure Bose devotes his attention and at times, perhaps unwittingly, illustrates its paradoxes.

Although due deference is given in the new "country" to civil liberties for all citizens, governing positions are determined by ethnic background. Whether this is fair and democratic, as originally envisioned, is problematic. For example, the city of Mostar, which is divided between Croats and Muslims, has a Croat chief of police and a Muslim deputy chief of police. In actual practice the chief of police runs the police force while his deputy is tolerated as a symbol of international good intentions but is given little real authority. Croatian and Muslim police officers wear a common uniform, but they are easily distinguishable by their accoutrements. A resident of Mostar has to be careful whom he appeals to for aid.

Bose devotes considerable space to the idea of consociational democracy, which differs from the traditional majority-rule democracy we live in, and defines it as a system based on equality and the practice of power sharing among segments of society via their representational elites. This, he says, is what...

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