"It stopped the war, but it stopped everything else"

This past week has been crammed-pack with interviews, including ones with the European Commission (basically, the EU) delegation to Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), the press secretary for the parliament, the the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Office of the High Representative, the World Bank, a representative from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, local NGOs, and international NGOs. Today I finished the interviews after meeting with a municipality politician from Pale in Republika Srpska (the Serbian dominated section of BiH). Many of the organizations talked to us as if we knew nothing about what happened after the Dayton Agreement or did their best to not answer difficult questions. Even though the organizations either gave us basic information, the week has been very informative. The best part was when we would have an interview with one organization and then drive across town to another organization that would speak poorly of what the other organization does. Some of the interviews were "off the record" so that I cannot repeat what was said, but those were the most interesting interviews that gave me an in depth view of what has been happening here. If I was to use write about Bosnia and wanted to use something from these "off the record" interviews, I could easily find news articles or other papers that collaborate the information I learned, so those interviews just pointed me in a direction where I could find more. However, I probably won't write any papers based on the interviews this week.

I took this photo while at the

European Union's delegation to BiH

Here are a couple highlights from the week:

Our first meeting was Monday at the European Commission's delegation to BiH, and a group of European professionals gave us a standard presentation about their work in BiH. Basically, they are trying to convince BiH to accept reforms and to move towards a better democracy so that BiH can become an EU member. BiH has been slipping behind its neighbors in this effort. However, the EU doesn't seem willing to nudge BiH too much so that the country can take "ownership" of the process, but one can easily see how the political structure in BiH encourages politicians not to enact reforms that won't benefit them much and not have much effect until after their terms in office are over. According to a report they gave us, part of these reforms include increased cooperation between the government and NGOs/civil society because this cooperation would lead to "security." Since "security" is a difficult word to define in academia, I asked the delegation, "What is your definition of security, and what does a secure BiH look like to you?" They were a little stumped because they were not political experts (they were experts in education, media, etc), but they basically said that Bosnia was the most secure country in the world because there were so many European troops here to guarantee the peace. Someone else said that BiH is the only country in the world giving security and receiving security because they have troops in Afghanistan. Even though they didn't understand how to define 'security,' their answer told me exactly how they defined security: they mean "state security." With this kind of security, the state may violate human rights or be full or corruption, but it is still stable. Other forms of security include human security, environmental security, and economic security. I would argue that BiH has very little of these kinds of security.

Another organization argued that the country has a long way to go because the political structure is so dysfunctional. The Dayton Accords set up a government that doesn't include one president but three presidents- including one Bosniak, one Croat, and one Serb- who must all agree in order to pass laws (I believe that's how it works). Also, the peace agreement encourages ethnic-based parties that stir up ethnic animosity in order to secure votes. They basically argue, "The other ethnic groups are bad and don't care about you. I'm the only one who'll take care of you." People thus vote along ethnic lines and not according to the issues. This process produced a very divisive government after the 2006 elections. The international community has tried to convince the politicians to raise the issues, but the efforts have not been successful for various reasons. A new non-ethnic party has been formed to challenge the traditional parties, and we'll have to wait until the fall to see if they can win votes. Because this political process the came out of the Dayton Peace Accords, one representative told us (as a citizen and not as the official views of that organization) about the peace agreement, "It stopped the war, but it stopped everything else." This quote reminds me of the EU's view on state-centric security: there is much security because there probably won't be a new war as long as foreign governments prop up this state, but government is very fragile and has trouble getting anything done.