Deconstructing Dayton: Ethnic Politics and the Legacy of War in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Twenty years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) which brought the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to an end, the dysfunctional nature of the Bosnian state means that the question of how political actors in BiH engage with the DPA as a response to the war remains vitally important. This article argues that moving beyond the ethnicisation of politics in BiH enacted by the DPA can be achieved by challenging the understandings of the war which informs the DPA while simultaneously challenging the effects of these understandings in the present. By advancing what I term a 'deconstructive conclusion' of the DPA, this article demonstrates the practical utility of Jacques Derrida's thought for engaging with the legacy of war in BiH.

How Can “Overall Progress and Development” Fail in Post-Conflict Societies? Securitization of the 2005–07 Stabilization and Association Agreement Negotiations in Republika Srpska

“…3 "Doxa," in its most rudimentary understanding, is understood as a set of beliefs and viewpoints of the dominant actor that defines a particular arena and that appears natural to others (Bourdieu 1990, 60). 4 The biggest problem is not just the consolidation of the perception of DPA's immutability but the institutionalization of the "ethnic principle" through legal language (McEvoy 2015;Pinkerton 2016;Zupančič, Kočan, and Vuga 2021). The DPA has managedthrough legal languageto create the delusion of unchanging and even homogeneous ethnic identities through the creation of political structures based on the ethnic key (Toal and Dahlman 2011).…”

“…4 The biggest problem is not just the consolidation of the perception of DPA’s immutability but the institutionalization of the “ethnic principle” through legal language (McEvoy 2015; Pinkerton 2016; Zupančič, Kočan, and Vuga 2021). The DPA has managed – through legal language – to create the delusion of unchanging and even homogeneous ethnic identities through the creation of political structures based on the ethnic key (Toal and Dahlman 2011).…”