Why small ethnic minorities participate in politics: comparing Jews and Poles in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

In ethnically divided consociational societies small minorities opt for different channels of political participation. They may do so to increase the importance of their group or challenge the consequences of limited participation channels, thus navigating the exclusion-amid-inclusion dilemma. However, it remains unclear how and why individuals belonging to small ethnic minorities with limited political opportunities, engage in politics. This article aims to explore and explain the levels of political participation of Jews and Poles in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It seeks to understand why some members of these communities choose to participate actively while others engage only in voting practices or refrain from getting involved. This is outlined using four different criteria: whether the act communicates a message about an individual’s political preference, the potential degree of conflict, the effort put into the activity and the degree of cooperation with other people involved in the action. The qualitative analysis of this study relies on a series of semi-structured interviews and focus-groups conducted among the two ethnic communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Consociational societies
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• political participation
• small minorities
• Jews
• Poles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The specificities of BiH's constitutional arrangements in the context of EAI dilemma are discussed below.

2 I.e. party membership, voting, communication with politicians.

3 The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina – FBiH (mostly populated by Bosniaks and Croats) and the Republic of Srpska – RS (mostly populated by Serbs) alongside Brčko District (an entirely self-governing city in close to Croatian border).

4 The Constitution of BiH is rooted in the principle of ethnic constituency symbolized by ‘constituent peoples’, which implies that each ‘constituent group’ has equal rights to governing the state. The Constitution does not employ the term ‘citizen’, but divides the people living in BiH into three ‘constituent groups’. The Constitution also mentions a non-constituent group of people, referred to as ‘Others’ and this is the group to which all of the country's 17 national minorities belong. According to the last census (2013), 3.7% of citizens of BiH fall under the general category of Others, including members of 17 national minorities, as well as those citizens who express a civic identity.

5 In July 2014, the ECHR maintained this position in the case of Zornić vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina when it accepted the appeal by Azra Zornić who refuses an ethnic affiliation and declares herself only as a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

6 Here, the reference is made to Verba, Nie and Kim's measurement factors used in their book entitled ‘Participation and Political Equality: A Seven Nation Comparison’ (1978), since the scale used in this study has proven widely effective, valid and easy to administer across different cultures.

7 Milbrath and Goel (1977), Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) and Verba et al. (1995).

8 Although the last population census held in 2013 does not estimate the number of any national minority groups, data from the Council of National Minorities of BiH of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH (2015) use data from minority associations to describe their size. According to them, the Jewish community numbers 1089 members, while the Polish minority records 526 Poles across BiH.

9 Two were held in Sarajevo and two in Banja Luka, while three were conducted in the cities of Gradiška, Zenica and Tuzla.

10 Separate sessions were held with both groups and they were never put in contact throughout the entire process.

11 Direct quotations from all interviews and focus groups were used throughout the paper. The author did not quote every single respondent, but their responses were used to form wider observations as will be noted in the paper. The age of each participant is included in the lines preceding the quotation.

12 In case of Jews, minority-specific problems refer to the social status of the community, state protection and preservation of Jewish monuments and symbols, protection against discrimination, etc.

13 Although various links to Israel exist and many of the pre-war Jews from BiH emigrated to Israel during 1992–1995 war, it is essential to note that Bosnian Jews arrived either from Spain in the 1500s (Sephardic Jews) or in the 1800s during the Austro-Hungarian rule (Ashkenazi Jews). They were very well accepted in BiH and later also in Yugoslavia and Jews who still live here always speak of BiH as their state without any reference to Israel as their kin-state.

14 ‘Jewish community’ (Jevrejska zajednica) is a term that is most commonly used among members of ethnic Jewish associations in BiH.

15 Author's note: Ethnicity in BiH may be changed, especially if an ‘Other’ chooses to run for Presidency or be appointed as a member of the House of Peoples. What this interviewee speaks about is a ‘label’ that a child may have during his/her lifetime if ever detonated as a Jew and before he/she is allowed to change his/her ethnic belonging at the age of 18.

16 Political party membership.

17 Only 12 participants from 4 focus groups consisting of 10 participants.

18 Mostly on Jewish matters and constitutional inequalities.

19 No ideological orientation of political parties to which the participants belong was mentioned. Participants were not asked about their political orientation as the primary interest of this research is political participation regardless of ideological options.

20 E.g. Economic issues.

21 ‘Getting a job’, ‘moving to a larger city’, ‘getting a scholarship’ were some of the personal reasons that Polish participants cited as motivators to engage in political parties or other types of formal participation.

22 Author's note: What participants mean by ‘higher politics’ refers to ‘state level politics’. Constitutionally, all members of national minority groups who express their belonging to ‘Others’ (a third constitutional category after three majority constituent peoples) cannot become candidates for state level institutions.

23 See Wattenberg (2002).

24 Quoted phrases emerged out of focus groups. They were mentioned five or more times by different participants.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maja Savić-Bojanić

Maja Savić-Bojanić is an Assistant Professor and currently also the Head of Department of Political Science & International Relations at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology. She also holds the position of an honorary associate professor at the University of Exeter (UK) where she teaches within the Applied Security Strategy Programme. She is a recipient of numerous grants, projects and awards both at her home university and abroad. Her research interests lie in the area of national minority rights, ranging from political participation to cultural recognition, with a focus on small groups from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has studied minority groups in post-communist states, but also focuses on issues of ethnic identity, Yugoslav cultures and Yugoslav identity and migration. She has published in peer reviewed journals, as well as books, studies and conference proceedings.