The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion: Citizenship and Voting Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This article uses the lenses of citizenship to examine the uneven distribution of voting rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). While recognizing the significance of power-sharing in BiH, the article argues that the key obstacle to modifying the politics of inclusion and exclusion through citizenship and the franchise is the static nature of political competition in the country. The intimate relationship between political parties and their ethno-centric agendas on the one hand, and the multi-tiered governance structure on the other, prevents the possibility of reaching an agreement on constitutional reform as it would disrupt the current power balances that favour ethnic elites.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Soeren Keil and Valery Perry for comments on earlier drafts.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jelena Džankić is a Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Politics, Psychology and Social Sciences (PPSIS) at the University of Cambridge (New Hall College). Her academic interests include citizenship in Europe and beyond, Europeanization and politics of identity. Before coming to the European University Institute, she was part of the CITSEE team at the University of Edinburgh. Her manuscript Citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro: Effects of Statehood and Identity Challenges was published with Ashgate in August 2015.

Notes

1. Sören Keil, Multinational Federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aldridge: Ashgate, 2013, p.5.

2. OHR, ‘Amendment I to the Constitution of Bosnia And Herzegovina’, Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Vol.25, No.9, Article VI, 4, p.2.

3. The exact percentage of each of the ethno-national communities in BiH remains unknown as of September 2015, since the official results of the 2013 population census have not yet been published. In January 2014, Bosnian newspaper Dnevni Avaz published an unofficial estimation as follows: 48.4 per cent Bosniaks, 32.7 per cent Serbs and 14.6 per cent Croats. See European Parliamentary Research Service, Bosnia 2013 Census, 27 Jan. 2014 (at: http://epthinktank.eu/2014/01/27/bosnia-2013-census).

4. ECtHR, Sejdić and Finci vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, ECtHR Nos 27996/06 and 34836/06.

5. See Edin Hodžić, New/Old Constitutional Engineering? Challenges and Implications of the European Court of Human Rights Decision in the Case of Sejdić and Finci, Sarajevo: Analitika, 2011.

6. Valery Perry, ‘Not-So-Great Expectations: The EU and the Constitutional Politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, in Soeren Keil and Zeynep Arkan (eds), The EU and Member State Building in the Balkans: European Foreign Policy and Intervention in the Western Balkans, Basingstoke: Routledge, 2014, pp.163–87.

7. Following the international law literature, the term ‘nationality’ is used here to designate the legal link between an individual and the state. It does not imply ethnic or national belonging.

8. Anna Grzymała-Busse, Rebuilding Leviathan: Party Competition and State Exploitation in Post-Communist Democracies, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p.204.

9. Ibid.

10. Jelena Džankić, Citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro: Effects of Statehood and Identity Challenges, Aldridge: Ashgate, 2015.

11. Siofra O'Leary, European Union Citizenship: Options for Reform, London: IPPR, 1996, p.10.

12. Ayelet Shachar, The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009, p.32.

13. Timofey Agarin and Pavel I. Karolewski, Extraterritorial Citizenship in Post-Communist Europe, London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.

14. Jelena Džankić, Citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro, Alderidge: Ashgate, 2015, pp.25–40.

15. Oxana Shevel, ‘The Politics of Citizenship Policy in New States’, Comparative Politics, Vol.41, No.3, 2009, pp.273–93.

16. Grzymała-Busse (see n.8 above).

17. See Shevel (n.15 above); also Andre Liebich, ‘Altneuländer or the Vicissitudes of Citizenship in the New EU States’, in Rainer Bauböck, Bernhard Perchinig and Wiebke Sievers (eds), Citizenship Policies in the New Europe, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009, pp.21–38; Hugh Best, ‘History Matters: Dimensions and Determinants of National Identities among European Populations and Elites’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.61, No.6, 2009, pp.921–41.

18. Igor Štiks, ‘Nationality and Citizenship in the Former Yugoslavia: From Disintegration to the European Integration', South East European and Black Sea Studies, Vol.6, No.4, 2006, pp.483–500.

19. Rogers Brubaker, ‘Citizenship Struggles in Soviet Successor States’, International Migration Review, Vol.26, No.2, 1992, pp.269–91.

20. Jo Shaw and Igor Štiks, ‘The Europeanisation of Citizenship in Former Yugoslavia: An Introduction’, CITSEE Working Paper No.1, Edinburgh: EdiSchool of Law, University of Edinburgh, 2010.

21. Scott P. Mainwaring, and Mariano Torcal, ‘Party System Institutionalization and Party System Theory after the Third Wave of Democratization’, in Richard S. Katz and William J. Crotty (eds), Handbook of Party Politics, London: SAGE, 2006, p.206.

22. Peter Mair, ‘The Freezing Hypothesis: An Evaluation’, in Lauri Karvonen and Stein Kuhnle (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments Revisited, London: Routledge, 2000, pp.27–44; Fernando Casal-Bertoa and Peter Mair, ‘Two Decades On: How Institutionalized Are the Post-Communist Party Systems?’, EUI SPS Working Paper 2010/03, Florence: EUI, 2010; Zsolt Enyedi and Fernando Casal Bertoa, ‘Patterns of Party Competition (1990–2009)’, in Paul Lewis and Radoslav Markowski (eds), Europeanising Party Politics? Comparative Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe after Enlargement, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011, pp.116–42.

23. Keil (see n.1 above).

24. Eldar Sarajlić, ‘The Bosnian Triangle: Ethnicity, Politics and Citizenship’, CITSEE Working Paper 2010/06, Edinburgh: School of Law, University of Edinburgh, 2010.

25. In order to be able to exercise their voting rights, they have to register entity citizenship, and have it declared on their identity cards.

26. Office of the High Representative (OHR), ‘Preamble, the General Framework Agreement: Annex 4 – the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 14 Dec. 1995 (at: http://www.ohr.int/dpa/?content_id=372).

27. Who belongs to the group of Others is not defined either in the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina or in the 2003 Law on the Protection of Rights of Members of National Minorities. That is, the term includes the 17 formally recognized national minorities (Albanians, Montenegrins, Czechs, Italians, Jews, Hungarians, Macedonians, Germans, Poles, Roma, Romanians, Russians, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Slovenians, Turks and Ukrainians) as well as any other individual possessing the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina who has not self-declared to belong to any of the three constituent peoples.

28. See Michael G. Karnavas, ‘Creating the Legal Framework of the Brčko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Model for the Region and Other Postconflict Countries’, American Journal of International Law, Vol.97, No.1, 2003, pp.111–31; also Florian Bieber, ‘Local Institutional Engineering: A Tale of Two Cities, Mostar and Brčko’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.12, No.3, 2005, pp.420–33; Janine Natalya, ‘Bosnia's Success Story? Brčko District and the “View from Below”’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.17, No.1, 2010, pp.67–79.

29. Bieber (see n.28 above), p.431.

30. Dejan Stjepanović, ‘Bosnia's Third Citizens: A Story of Brčko's Exception, Citizenship in Southeast Europe, 2012 (at: http://www.citsee.eu/citsee-story/bosnia's-third-citizens-story-brčko's-exception).

31. Ibid.

32. For instance, a Serb living in the Brčko District is more likely to get the entity citizenship of the Republika Srpska (RS), because that ensures him better political representation. That is, the electoral rules foresee the direct election of 42 representatives to the House of Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (14 from the RS, 14 from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH)), and the appointment of 15 representatives to the House of Peoples (five Serbs from the RS, five Croats and Bosniaks each from the FBiH). This means that a (self-declared) Croat or Bosniak from the RS, and equally the (self-declared) Serb from the FBiH have virtually no political representation at the House of Peoples. It is also more difficult for them to be represented through the respective entities, due to ethnic voting in BiH. In the October 2014 direct parliamentary elections, no ethnic Serb party gained representation in the FBiH (although multi-ethnic Democratic Front (DF) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) gained eight out of 28 seats), and in the RS only the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA) gained one out of 14 seats. Hence, a person from the Brčko District would likely opt for the entity and ethnicity that would ensure that he or she is politically represented.

33. ECtHR (see n.4 above).

34. Ibid, para.45.

35. Ibid., para.48.

36. Ibid., para.49.

37. Keil (see n.1 above), pp.99–100.

38. International Crisis Group, ‘Bosnia's Gordian Knot: Constitutional Reform’, Europe Briefing 68, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Brussels: ICG, 2012 (at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/europe/balkans/bosnia-herzegovina/b068-bosnias-gordian-knot-constitutional-reform.aspx).

39. Hodžić (see n.5 above), pp.30–2.

40. In December 2011, six political parties including the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ), the Croatian Democratic Union 1990, the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) and the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), reached a coalition agreement. The coalition fell apart six months later as its members failed to agree on the state's budget.

41. Valery Perry, ‘Constitutional Reform Processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Top–Down Failure, Bottom–Up Potential, Continued Stalemate’, in Soeren Keil and Valery Perry (eds), Statebuilding and Democratization in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alderidge: Ashgate, 2015, pp.163–87, p.176.

42. ECtHR, Zornić vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, ECtHR No.3681/06.

43. ECtHR, Pilav vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina, ECtHR No.41939/07.

44. Soeren Keil and Valery Perry, ‘Introduction', in Soeren Keil and Valery Perry (eds), Statebuilding and Democratization in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aldridge: Ashgate, 2015, pp.1–15.

45. International Crisis Group (see n.38 above).

46. Valery Perry (see n.41 above), pp.175–7.

47. At the local and cantonal level, closure is lower, as these levels are commonly seen as forums a within which citizens express their dissatisfaction with governance. See Carrie Manning, The Making of Democrats: Elections and Party Development in Postwar Bosnia, El Salvador, and Mozambique, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.53–115.

48. Jakub Šedo, ‘The Party System of Bosnia and Herzegovina', in Vera Stojarova and Peter Emerson (eds), Party Politics in the Western Balkans, London: Routledge, 2010, pp.85–99.

49. Jan Gross, ‘Poland: From Civil Society to Political Nation’, in Ivo Banac (ed.), Eastern Europe in Revolution, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp.56–71.

50. Šedo (see n.48 above), p.90; Mirjana Kasapović, ‘1996 Parliamentary Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, Electoral Studies, Vol.16, No.1, 1997, pp.117–21.

51. Keil (see n.1 above), p.121.

52. For instance, a system with six as the absolute number of parties and 3.40 as the effective number is a system which despite having six parties with seats in Parliament operates as if it had 3.40.

53. Fernando Casal Bertoa, ‘Seismic Wave or Tsunami? Assessing Party System Change in Times of Crisis’, Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, Glasgow, 6 Sept. 2014 (at: http://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/9dabb544-7971-4954-8ccd-21ff084ea2a4.pdf).

54. Šedo (see n.48 above), pp.90–4.

55. Maja Nenadović, ‘An Uneasy Symbiosis: The Impact of International Administrations on Political Parties in Post-Conflict Countries’, Democratization, Vol.17, No.6, 2010, p.1170, fn.26.

56. Šedo (see n.48 above), p.94.

57. Keil (see n.1 above).

58. Šedo (see n.48 above); also Keil (see n.1 above).

59. Zsolt Enyedi and Bojan Todosijević, ‘Adversarial Politics, Civic Virtues and Party Identification in Eastern and Western Europe’, in John Bartle and Paolo Bellucci (eds), Political Parties and Partisanship: Social Identities and Individual Attitudes, London: Routledge, 2009, pp.142–61.

60. Šedo (see n.48 above); also Keil (see n.1 above).

61. Jelena Džankić, ‘In the Frame of Party Competition: Citizenship, Voting Rights and Nation-Building in the Post-Yugoslav Space', APSA Annual Meeting Paper, Washington DC, 2014 (at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2455701http://ssrn.com/abstract=2455701).

62. See Demokratska fronta – Željko Komšić, Statut, 2014 (at: http://www.demokratskafronta.ba/index.php?lang=ba&sel=29www.demokratskafronta.ba/index.php?lang=ba&sel=29); Socijaldemokratska partija, Statut, 1998 (at: www.sdp.ba).

63. Bernd Burwitz, ‘The Elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina, October 2002′, Electoral Studies, Vol.23, No.2, 2004, pp.334–5.

64. See Stranka nezavisnih socijaldemokrata, 2015 (at: www.snsd.org).

Additional information

Funding

This article comes out of my research on the links between citizenship, nation building and Europeanization, kindly supported by the European Union under a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship for Career Development [PEF-GA-2012-326865].