Imposed unions and imperfect states: the State Union of Serbia-Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina in comparative perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the political conflicts generated by imposed unions and the unionist actors (international and domestic) that defend them. It shows how the imposed political institutions symbolise directly or indirectly not only unionism in these states but also the resulting contestation over the statehood of these unions. It takes as its examples the State Unions of Serbia and Montenegro and of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Building on the existing literature the paper examines the links between the imposed nature of these two states and the continuation of state contestation. It assesses how contestation becomes an integral part of a political system, undermining decision-making procedures and making the union completely dysfunctional. It asks how this dysfunctionality might be overcome. Finally, the paper addresses the comparative significance of these cases for partially functional unions, like Northern Ireland.

KEYWORDS:

• Unions
• nationalism
• conflict
• Serbia and Montenegro
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• international involvement

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Jennifer Todd and Dawn Walsh, as well as two anonymous reviewers for their feedback. I am also grateful to Paul Anderson for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Soeren Keil, PhD is Reader in Politics and International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK. His research focuses on the use of territorial autonomy as a tool of conflict resolution, the political systems of the Western Balkan states and the process of EU enlargement. His recent publications include: Power-sharing in Europe - past practice, present cases, and future directions (Palgrave 2020, co-edited with Allison McCulloch) and Federalism and conflict resolution (forthcoming with Palgrave, co-authored with Paul Anderson). He is also the Academic Director of the website www.50shadesoffederalism.com which publishes regularly freely accessible discussion papers on federalism and decentralisation.

Notes

1 Following the general use of term, the short forms BiH and Bosnia will be used. This always refers to the whole country.

2 The former Yugoslavia included Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as the two autonomous provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo. When talking about the Western Balkans today, usually this refers to the area of the former Yugoslavia, minus Slovenia and plus Albania.

3 See for the party’s programme: https://www.srpskaradikalnastranka.org.rs/ (in Serbian); accessed 9 March, 2020.

4 See for the party’s programme: https://www.vetevendosje.org/ (in Albanian); accessed 9 March, 2020.

5 The whole agreement, including its annexes, is available at: http://www.ohr.int/?page_id=1252; accessed 15 July 2019.

6 In fact, according to Article III.1, the only competences given to the central institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina were foreign policy, foreign trade policy, customs policy, monetary policy, finances of the institutions and for the international obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, immigration, refugee, and asylum policy and regulation, international and inter-entity criminal law enforcement, including relations with Interpol, establishment and operation of common and international communications facilities, regulation of inter-entity transportation, and air traffic control.

7 The Constitutional Charter of Serbia and Montenegro is available at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitutional_Charter_of_Serbia_and_Montenegro; accessed 15 July 2019.

8 Montenegro eventually became a member of NATO in 2017.

9 The Office of the High Representative (OHR) is an institution created by the Dayton Peace Agreement. It is designed to allow the international community to ensure the implementation of the civilian aspects of the peace agreement. In 1997, the powers of the High Representative were extended so that s/he could impose laws and remove Bosnian officials from office if they obstruct the implementation of the peace agreement. As a result of these so-called Bonn powers, High Representatives have imposed numerous laws, dismissed hundreds of officials and even implemented changes to the entity constitutions.

10 See Todd’s discussion on the links between Unionism and nationalism and the similarities according to Hutchinson and Smith (1994) in the Introduction to this special issue (Todd, 2020).