The interaction between local and international power in EU police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interaction between local and international power structures in EU peacebuilding. While citizens in a state only face order from one authority (the state), local actors in a peacebuilding context are subject to orders from two institutions (the domestic state and the peacebuilding mission). This article explores the nature of interactions of these two institutions and their effect on local police officers’ compliance and resistance. Specifically, it analyzes the example of the police restructuring process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It demonstrates that the choices of local officers to comply or resist depended on whether the interactions between the EU Police Mission and the local police organization were positive and mutually supportive, or whether they were competitive and contradictory. The findings of the article contribute to the debates on the role of local power and the importance of local legitimacy in peacebuilding.

KEYWORDS:

• Peacebuilding
• local power
• legitimacy
• resistance
• compliance
• Bosnia and Herzegovina

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors of this special issue, Ana Juncos and Filip Ejdus for their support with this article. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the journal editor Hylke Dijkstra for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on the contributor

Birte Julia Gippert is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Liverpool. She holds a PhD from the University of Reading. Birte has published on local agency in international peacebuilding, local legitimacy and local resistance, and international police reform. Her monograph Local Legitimacy in Peacebuilding: Pathways to Local Compliance with International Police reform was published by Routledge in 2017. Before entering Academia, Birte worked as a researcher for the Kosovo Stability Initiative in Pristina.

ORCID

Birte Julia Gippert http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7960-4725