Bosnia Herzegovina, forever at cross roads? Constructing "the other" in Brčko District

Abstract

The evolution of Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH) as a functioning state after the Dayton Agreement is still questionable. Both international policymakers and local statesman are searching for a viable solution for the future of BiH as a unitary state, a self-sustainable political community. In the field of social sciences there is a need for a more specific type of explanation to tackle this complex reality of the relations between the Self and the Other (as the symbolic basis of ethnic/political cooperation) inside the process of Europeanization of BiH. The scope of the paper is two folded: first, it aims at describing in the constructivist theoretical framework the ethnic situation in Brčko District as an illustrative case study; second it wishes to complete the perspective with an institutional analysis that reflects the way socially constructed norms shape administrative performance. The time frame of the analysis is the last decade (since the final Award of the Brčko Arbitration in 1999 to the present day) and the conclusions will focus on the importance of the Brčko institutional evolution to the Europeanization of the entire BiH.