Consociational Democracies and the Political Participation of “Others”: Does the corporate consociational arrangement in Bosnia and Herzegovina result in an exclusion of Others from political participation?

In corporate consociationalism, power-sharers are pre-determined, which in some cases ended up in differentiation of citizens into constituent groups and Others. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, individuals who don't affiliate as Bosniak, Serb or Croat, are therefore categorized as Others. Given that the right to stand for presidential elections or a seat in the House of Peoples is reserved for constituent peoples, Others are excluded from that right. The following thesis analyzes why this exclusion remains despite international efforts to reform the Bosnian Constitution until this day. Investigating the case from 2005, the beginning of the first reform negotiations, to 2018, when the last general elections took place under discriminatory conditions. Proposing a causal mechanism of four steps, I argue that the issue lies in the general approach of corporate consociationalism, in which cooperation is unlikely due to the institutionalization of often hostile ethnic groups. Finally, in this...Show moreIn corporate consociationalism, power-sharers are pre-determined, which in some cases ended up in differentiation of citizens into constituent groups and Others. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, individuals who don't affiliate as Bosniak, Serb or Croat, are therefore categorized as Others. Given that the right to stand for presidential elections or a seat in the House of Peoples is reserved for constituent peoples, Others are excluded from that right. The following thesis analyzes why this exclusion remains despite international efforts to reform the Bosnian Constitution until this day. Investigating the case from 2005, the beginning of the first reform negotiations, to 2018, when the last general elections took place under discriminatory conditions. Proposing a causal mechanism of four steps, I argue that the issue lies in the general approach of corporate consociationalism, in which cooperation is unlikely due to the institutionalization of often hostile ethnic groups. Finally, in this thesis, it becomes clear that the link to this issue is the abuse of the veto-right in Bosnia, making cooperation and negotiation on complex political problems nearly impossibleShow less

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Consociational Democracies and the Political Participation of “Others”: Does the corporate consociational arrangement in Bosnia and Herzegovina result in an exclusion of Others from political participation?