Abstract
Bosnia and Herzegovina is marred with ethnopolitics despite significant peacebuilding activities by the international community following the peace agreement signed in 1995. The post-Dayton mechanism, which is based on ethnic parity, benefits political elites who can maintain their power base, while people are disillusioned with the economic and political stalemate. This chapter aims to analyze people’s perception of the stalemate in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the resilience they have developed in this adverse situation. The questions to be addressed are how the current state of the country is perceived by the people; what problems they identify; and how they cope with or resist the status quo. Through narrative analysis of life stories, this chapter finds people’s disillusion, disappointment and helplessness. People identify corruption, nepotism, and nationalism as the major problems behind the country’s stagnation. However, they show their resilience through accommodative and assimilative coping measures. The accommodative measures include ignoring the reality or focusing on small blessings. The assimilative measure can manifest in social movements to change the adverse situation as seen in the country in the 2010s. Harnessing the latter type of resilience, the stalled peacebuilding process can be revitalized by the citizens.
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Notes
- 1.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral system consisting of the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples. For the issue of the political rights of the “Others”, see: Amicus Curiae Brief in the cases of Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina (Applications no. 27996/06 and 34836/06) pending before The European Court of Human Rights adopted by the Venice Commission at its 76th Plenary Session (Venice, 17–18 October 2008), CDL-AD(2008)027-e.
- 2.
The past election results are available on the website of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Centralna izborna komisija BiH (izbori.ba).
- 3.
A photo in Kurtović and Hromadžić (2017, p. 9). Translation by the present author.
- 4.
Since the interviews were conducted in 2016, this means around 2010.
- 5.
Cyprus is divided into the north occupied by Turkish Cypriots and the south occupied by Greek Cypriots respectively and function in different systems. For recent development, see Ulsoy (2016).
- 6.
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Acknowledgements
This research is based on the interviews conducted under the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development’s project “Obtaining a Second Chance of Education during and after Conflict.”
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Katayanagi, M. (2022). Resilience Against Everyday Disillusion: Voices for Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Kubota, Y. (eds) Micro-evidence for Peacebuilding Theories and Policies. Evidence-Based Approaches to Peace and Conflict Studies, vol 8. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-4899-2_3
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