Bosnia Today: Despair, Hope, and History

Nearly two decades after the end of its brutal war, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia, for short) remains paralyzed by political corruption and ethnic mistrust. The country staggers from one constitutional crisis to another, the economy vegetates, many young people leave, and the rest of the world tunes out. Bosnia's political dysfunction results in large measure from the Constitution imposed by the peace agreement signed at Dayton, Ohio, in 1995. With its superfluity of local, regional, and national institutions, the Constitution perpetuates the ethnic divisions that, with other factors, were used to justify the war.