Who Do You Trust? Ethnicity and Trust in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

Bosnia and Herzegovina has experienced a turbulent post-independence transition. It can be argued that the level of trust is likely to have been negatively affected by this turbulence and that it is important to restore trust to achieve sustainable political and economic development. This paper looks at trust in Bosnia and Herzegovina and puts a special focus on the role of ethnicity. We find generalized trust to be low in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it seems to have declined in recent years. Moreover, generalized trust is negatively affected by the degree of ethnic heterogeneity in the region. However, a further and more detailed examination of trust reveals a more complex relationship between ethnicity and trust: people tend to show low levels of trust in all other people irrespective of their ethnic belongings. We argue that ethnic distribution might capture some other regional specific characteristics that also affect the level of trust. One possibility is that ethnically heterogeneous regions tended to be severely affected by the war and that this has negatively affected the level of trust towards all people outside of a person's family.

Rebuilding multi-ethnic communities in post-conflict nations: returnee assessment of municipal services in Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…Re-integration and success in creating a multi-ethnic community at the local level has a mixed record. Lack of trust between ethnic groups continues to be an impediment to re-creating and sustaining multi-ethnic communities (Clark, 2010;Eastmond, 2006;Håkansson & Sjöholm, 2007). Dahlman and Ó Tuathail (2005) observe that, despite the increases in returns to mixed pre-war communities, the post-war ethnic composition of Bosnian communities is unlikely to regain its pre-war diversity.…”

Driven to sanity: An ethnographic critique of the senses in automobilities

“…However, fuelled by living memory of the Bosnian war of succession and suspicion that should the wrong Great Powers circumstances come to pass again, people worry that neighbours may once again become enemies. This results in absence of trust, and consequent social isolation, phenomena widely identified as key impediments to realising Dayton's ambition of re‐building a multi‐ethnic Bosnia (Håkansson & Sjöholm ). The experience of Mirsad Osmanbegović is a case in point.…”

Cultural standards of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Empirical findings and implications for strategic human resource management

“…In fact, a noteworthy study on trust in Bosnia reveals that trust is generally low and higher levels of trust are only found within the traditional structures of family networks (Håkansson/Sjöholm 2007). Considering Bosnia's turbulent past of a war-torn country it is argued that socialism had a negative effect on trust building and the process of regaining trust in Bosnia will be difficult.…”