Activism in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Struggles against Dual Hegemony and the Emergence of “Local First”

Abstract

The 2014 protests and plenums in Bosnia-Herzegovina were widely noted for their insertion of economic and social justice topics into the stale public discourse of ethnocracy. They also signified a potential to break with an anemic civil society shaped by international intervention, technocratic “project logic” and apolitical service provision. This article argues for treating these struggles in reference to the dual nature of the hegemony created by both local ethnonationalists and international liberal intervenors. It applies a Gramscian perspective to the processes by which hegemony is created and (re)produced via consensus in civil society. The challenge to dual hegemony can be seen in the central focus of contestation on social justice in economic arrangements as well as in the alternative logics of engagement and organizational forms in society. We describe the tensions arising from this dual challenge in terms of the degree to which they contest or reproduce the predominant anti-politics, a stance of distancing from dialogue or even contact with political actors and institutions. We conclude that the events during and since 2014 have strengthened the means to build an alternative third bloc via a “local first” approach, containing heterogeneous forms of local-scale action with explicitly political strategies.

Scalability of Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Interventions: Moving Toward Wider Socio-political Change

“…Structure, institutions and electoral changes: A key outcome of the 2014 protests was their quick evolution into plenums (informal, inclusive citizens-led councils) throughout the country (Belloni, 2020;Lai, 2020;Milan, 2017). Plenums constituted another opportunity for inter-ethnic contact as ordinary citizens; and served as an alternative public sphere in which criticising ethnic elites was possible (Lai, 2020;Puljek-Shank & Fritsch, 2019;Milan, 2017). In order to promote the sustainability of interventions, NDC Sarajevo's dialogue initiative similarly allowed for crucial follow-up in the form of financial support for community actions and the establishment of multiethnic coordination bodies and action groups (Šerá Komlossyová, 2019).…”

“…This signalled the emergence of alternative forms of political practices (Belloni, 2020;Lai, 2020). Activists voiced an independent, third vision of the state as serving socio-economic needs and guaranteeing the social rights of all its constituents, independent of ethnicity (Puljek-Shank & Fritsch, 2019).…”

“…A key outcome of the 2014 protests was their quick evolution into plenums, established first in Tuzla than spreading throughout the country (Belloni, 2020;Lai, 2020;Milan, 2017). People participated in the plenums as ordinary citizens, articulating demands and grievances toward the government in a coherent way and engaging in decision-making democratically (Puljek-Shank & Fritsch, 2019;Milan, 2017). They constituted another opportunity for inter-ethnic contact, through physical presence at the meetings and through the formulation of plenum demands that transcended ethnic divisions and focused on citizens as a whole (Lai, 2020).…”

“…These features encouraged citizens to see the plenums as a truly civic space where the ethnic divisions enforced by the institutional system were suspended (Lai, 2020). They served as an alternative public sphere in which criticising ethnic elites became possible (Puljek-Shank & Fritsch, 2019).…”

Navigating Ethnicity: Collective Identities and Movement Framing in Deeply Divided Societies

“…Yet, this case should not be surprising given that recent scholarship has challenged the assumption that an ethnically fragmented setting is unconducive to the growth of social mobilization, which suggests instead that ethnic diversity does not necessarily constitute a stumbling block for social mobilization of civic movements and parties (Murtagh 2020;Puljek-Shank and Fritsch 2019;Piacentini 2020;Milan 2020). Nonetheless, the ways in which social movement actors tackle ethnicity in their discourses has not yet been studied systematically.…”