There has been a surge in ethnic conflicts in recent decades, coinciding with a rise in foreign development aid targeted at post-conflict reconstruction in the affected states. While extant...Show moreThere has been a surge in ethnic conflicts in recent decades, coinciding with a rise in foreign development aid targeted at post-conflict reconstruction in the affected states. While extant literature highlights contradictions in the desired outcomes of foreign aid in recipient states, fewer studies address these outcomes in post-ethnic conflict contexts. This project addresses this gap, focusing on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and argues that foreign development aid plays a crucial role in sustaining peace through its capacity to bolster democracy and stimulate economic growth, thereby mitigating ethnic tensions and fostering cooperation. Since the end of the Bosnian War in 1995, the three ethnic factions continue to co-exist within BiH, and the country is today on the path to European Union membership, making it an interesting case to study regarding the evaluation of foreign development aid’s contributions in sustaining the peace there. However, the findings of this study yield ambiguous results, shedding light on the complexities of aid's impact in such contexts. While foreign development aid has prevented another war, ethnic and political tensions still linger. The broader implications of this study inform the future of conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and foreign development aid implementation strategies.Show less
Focusing on the city of Bihać, Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), this thesis discusses the ways in which urban space is contested and negotiated between People on the Move (PoM) and Migration...Show moreFocusing on the city of Bihać, Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), this thesis discusses the ways in which urban space is contested and negotiated between People on the Move (PoM) and Migration Managers. Bihać, a small city in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, has since 2018 become an important node on the so-called “Balkan Route.” The route is traversed by many people from the Global South seeking to migrate to Western Europe. Importantly, Bihać lies some mere 5 km from the Croatian border, making the city an ideal place for PoM to plan their way forward on the route, or rest after an illegal pushback at the border. Often, people in transit irregularly reside in abandoned buildings. Many of such occupied buildings, also known as squats, have been evicted by local Migration Managers repeatedly over the past five years. Yet, despite the evictions, PoM would often come back from the camps where they had been deported, and re-occupy the squats in Bihać. These cycles of evictions and (re)occupations are framed in this thesis as contestations of urban space. Such space contestations, recounted using relational ethnography, are then given further theoretical grounding through the bi-focal lens of biopolitics and resistance. In light of these theoretical elaborations, camps in the area of Bihać are speculatively characterized as biopolitical technologies of control, dispersal, and governance of migrant lives and mobility. In contrast, squats are understood as cases of resistance against the border regime, by virtue of their role as Infrastructures of border crossing.Show less
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,...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
While the Balkans - Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular - are geographically situated within Europe, they are often presented and perceived as not truly European. Through the close-readings of...Show moreWhile the Balkans - Bosnia and Herzegovina in particular - are geographically situated within Europe, they are often presented and perceived as not truly European. Through the close-readings of lyrics of the popular Bosnian music group Dubioza Kolektiv, this thesis analyzes how local music can challenge and engage with this existing misperception.Show less
Using three different national representations from the 55th Venice Biennale as case studies, this thesis investigates the complexities of post Yugoslav national identities as articulated through...Show moreUsing three different national representations from the 55th Venice Biennale as case studies, this thesis investigates the complexities of post Yugoslav national identities as articulated through different positions and experiences of their makers. Through the examination of individual local and state narratives across selected post Yugoslav states (Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo), I ask whether we can begin to see a larger picture of the region in question, in the process that Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak refers to as “learning to speak to”.Show less
Events of extreme ethnic violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rwanda shook up the international community in the 1990s. In the years after genocide and ethnic cleansing both countries employed in...Show moreEvents of extreme ethnic violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rwanda shook up the international community in the 1990s. In the years after genocide and ethnic cleansing both countries employed in different strategies for rehabilitating ethnic groups and mitigating ethnic tensions. This thesis focuses on the electoral institutions, and thereby aims to contribute to the literature on power sharing institutions. In Bosnia international actors have attempted to reconcile ethnic groups by dividing power in the country’s most important political institutions along ethnic lines. Though Bosnia has remained peaceful in the last two decades, cooperation between the Bosniak, Croat and Serbian ethnic minorities has proven difficult. The Office of the High Representative has used his ‘Bonn powers’ frequently to pass legislation or remove politicians that frustrated the peace process. In Rwanda the story is entirely different. The Arusha Peace Agreement of 1993 entailed democratization and power sharing between the Hutu government and Tutsi rebels, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). However, in a society in civil war, where ethnic discrimination was prevalent, power sharing catalysed a genocide. Now the RPF are in firm control of Rwanda’s political institutions. The RPF aims to ban the notion of ethnicity from the political sphere.Show less
This study concerns the EU's external policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and their effectiveness. The policies of the EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Dayton Accords in 1995 are analysed from...Show moreThis study concerns the EU's external policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and their effectiveness. The policies of the EU in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Dayton Accords in 1995 are analysed from a constructivist point of view, and the effectiveness of these policies is studied. Although the EU has been involved in Bosnia and Herzegovina for almost twenty years, both during the war and afterwards, the goal of Bosnia and Herzegovina becoming at least an EU candidate member state has not yet been reached. The EU has invested millions of euros a year in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but its economy is still very unstable and the unemployment rate has increased. The EU itself has engaged mainly with Bosnian politicians for the responsibility of improving Bosnia's unstable situation. However, at the same time the EU criticises these same politicians for not being able to reform to a society that is divided by ethnicity. With their policies in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EU has only been acting from its own identity and values, and has not taken into consideration the Bosnian history and identity in this process. Due to this, the EU policies on Bosnia and Herzegovina have been ineffective for they only act from a European perspective. In their attempt to make democracy succeed, the EU has enforced democracy on Bosnia and Herzegovina, resulting in a contradiction in terms against the values that the EU stands for. The principle of conditionality that is used by the EU to compel Bosnia and Herzegovina to reform is weakened by this contradiction. That leads to a credibility gap in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which undermines the EU's efforts and further increases the ineffectiveness of their actions.Show less
