EU Conditionality and Ethnic Coexistence in the Balkans: Macedonia and Bosnia in a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In this article, the practice and theory of conditionality as it has applied to Bosnia and Macedonia is explored. The goals are twofold: first, to analyse how the EU uses conditionality to bring about favourable changes in the relationship between ethnic groups; second, to shed light on why the effectiveness of conditionality has been so variable between each context. The author argues that whereas the EU's main focus in previous eastward enlargements was on the production of normative policy outcomes, its primary focus in Bosnia and Macedonia has been to generate normative procedures. In addition, attention is drawn to the transformation of ethnic preferences that has occurred in Macedonia and the hardening of ethnic preferences that has occurred in Bosnia in the course of accession politics. These divergent outcomes are explained on the basis of several factors: power-shifts, framing strategies, reform parties and external agents.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Daniel Bray, Kingsley Edney and Kate Rogers for comments and assistance on earlier drafts of this paper. The ideas of this paper were first put to test at the CERC ‘The Europe that was, is and will be’ conference, University of Melbourne, 9 November 2009, and the author is grateful to conference participants for offering suggestions that assisted in the paper's evolution. Finally, the author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for very helpful feedback and comments on the text.

Notes

For a background on the inter-ethnic conflicts in Bosnia and Macedonia, see Weller & Wolff (2006) and Ilievski & Taleski (2009), respectively.

For an analysis of the socialization mechanisms used to bring about norm conformance on minority-related issues in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), see Kelley (2004).

For an interpretation of socialization in CEE as the outcome of persuasion and social learning by Euro-Atlantic institutions, see Gheciu (2005).

In the ‘Conclusions on Bosnia and Herzegovina’ section of an extract of Commission to the Council and the European Parliament (2009).

In the ‘Conclusions on Bosnia and Herzegovina’ section of an extract of Commission to the Council and the European Parliament (2009).

In opposition to this claim, one might wish to assert that Macedonian parties are in fact less ethnonationalist than I am led to believe by pointing out that they have formed coalitions across ethnic lines throughout the country's existence. This, more importantly, they have done as a matter of choice, rather than in response to any constitutional requirement, a situation that presumably marks them off from Bosnian parties, which make all manner of efforts to avoid working with one another. However, the fact that parties choose to form coalitions across ethnic boundaries says less of their character than it does of what they perceive to be in their interest at a given moment. There is no reason why a strongly nationalist party would not go into a coalition with a party of a different ethnic persuasion if doing so furthered some core interest. It is in these terms, I would suggest, that across-ethnicity coalitions ought to be understood in Macedonia, rather than as an indication of the presence of less ethnonationalist and more ‘civic’ identities among parties.

For a analysis of this zero sum pattern of behaviour in contexts of deep mistrust, see Horowitz (1985, p. 194).

For a detailed overview of Mostar's mayoral deadlock and breakdown of government, see ICG (2009a, pp. 6–8).

The subsidiarity principle denotes where decision-making authority resides in the EU when conflicts over it arise between sub-state, state and supranational actors. See Føllesdal (1998, p. 191).

These features of EU language policy are based on the EC Treaty, Articles 290 and 314. They are also present in the ‘Charter of Fundmental Rights’ (Articles 21, 22). See Europa (2008b) and European Parliament (2008).

Both countries have denied the existence of a Macedonian minority in their territories and both have historically taken measures to prohibit self-identification along such lines. See Human Rights Watch (1994) and Rechel (2008).

For example, Dodik recently charged that the international community and Bosniak politicians are using functionality arguments to cloak their intentions of shaping Bosnia in their own favourable direction (Arslanagic, 2010).

I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this point.

Again, I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for bringing to my attention these aspects of the OHR's presence in Bosnia.

For comments on the way public discussions over secession have unwittingly fostered a fait accompli mentality among citizens and analysts of Bosnia, see Bieber (2009).

For example, the Albanian government was quick to distance itself from 2001 insurgency, with Illir Meta, the Prime Minister at the time, publicly condemning the insurgents. Likewise, in his official visits to Macedonia, Fatos Nano made it clear he had no time for Albanian separatism, criticizing political solutions that sought ‘separate institutions, parallel institutions, and ghettoization’, and stressing that ‘maintaining [Macedonia's] territorial integrity and sovereignty is as essential for Albania as it is for regional stability’ (Ortakovski, 2001, p. 36).

Most notably KLA splinter groups fomenting the insurgency from Kosovo and Southern Serbia (Daftary, 2001, p. 293).