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ABSTRACT
This article explores the role of informal networks in producing strategic knowledge and influencing policy responses to the 2011 post-election crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The analytical focus is on networks of shadow peacebuilders, defined as actors who are often not visible to the public and who promote a mix of altruistic and personal interests of their broader network by generating strategic narratives and influencing peacebuilding policy. As this article shows, shadow peacebuilders engage in diplomatic counterinsurgencies waged by means of diplomacy, politics, public relations and legal means. Strategic narratives are instrumental in legitimizing diplomatic counterinsurgency, inducing internal cohesion within the network and delegitimizing alternative narratives and policy solutions. Yet the production of strategic knowledge by shadow peacebuilders has its limitations. When the gap between strategic narrative and actions becomes too big, the network risks fragmentation and defeat by other networks that promote alternative strategic narratives and paths of action in the battle over control of peacebuilding policy.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Berit Bliesemann de Guevara for her constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper and his interviewees for contributing their insights to the paper. In addition, I am grateful to Goran Miljan, Oscar Jansson and Mats Utas for valuable suggestions and inspiration.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. The paper also benefited from comments at the Hugo Valentin Centrum’s research seminar as well as from discussions at the research node on Conflict and Method, funded by the Faculty of Humanities, Uppsala University. Finally, special thanks go to the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments, the editors at the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding for their support as well as the Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse for funding fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2012
Notes on contributor
Roland Kostić, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Research at Hugo Valentin Centre, Uppsala University. His current research interests include knowledge production in conflict and peacebuilding interventions, diversification and privatization of knowledge production by think tanks, experts, policy-makers and diplomats, and transfers and shaping of intervention knowledge by means of formal and informal networks. His other interests include research on transitional justice and reconciliation processes in the aftermath of mass violence.
Notes
1. The PIC Steering Board consist of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, UK, USA, EU Presidency, European Commission, and with Turkey representing the Islamic Conference. Formally, it provides guidance to the High Representative, who chairs the weekly meetings of the ambassadors to BiH who are members of the Steering Board (Ashdown Citation2007).
2. Interviews, former OHR official, 13 March 2013 and 6 December 2013; former senior OHR official, 5 January 2014.
3. LinkedIn profiles for d’Aoust and Leon Dias (accessed 11 November 2013).
4. Interviews, ICG Europe staff, 18 November 2013; former OHR staff, 16 December 2013.
5. ‘Bosnia and Hercegovina: New International Thinking’, Oxford University, 30 January 2015. http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/bih_workshop_programme.pdf (accessed 20 March 2016).
6. Interviews, former OHR senior staff, 5 January 2014; former mid-level OHR staff, 6 December 2013.
7. Doyle’s LinkedIn profile (accessed 15 September 2015).
8. Interview, former senior member of the international community in BiH, 23 December 2013.
9. Lyon’s Linkedin profile (accessed 16 March 2014).
10. Interviews, former ICG Europe analyst, 18 November 2013; former OHR official, 13 March 2013.
11. Moore was Senior Political Adviser at the OSCE in Sarajevo in 1996 and became Principal Deputy High Representative in September 2010. Online biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_W._Moore (accessed 13 March 2016).
12. Interviews, former senior member of the international community in BiH, 23 December 2013; similar: ICG Europe analyst, 18 November 2013; cf. Peter Citation2016, 144.
13. Fieldtrip notes, discussion with former senior OHR member, 28 November 2012; email correspondence with former prosecutor of the State Court BiH, 27 July 2014.
14. Interview, ICG Europe staff, 18 November 2013.
15. Transcript of Lagumdžija speech at ‘New Transatlantic Approach for the Western Balkans’, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), panel 2, 22 November 2011.
16. Ibid.
17. The Platform document (version of 20 December 2010) is available from the author.
18. Transcript of Lagumdžija presentation at ‘New Transatlantic Approach for the Western Balkans’, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), panel 2, 22 November 2011.
19. Cvetković-Bajrović’s LinkedIn profile (accessed 18 March 2016).
20. HSP BiH is a party which, while presenting itself as a modern neo-conservative party, relies heavily on the symbols of the Croatian fascist Ustaša movement (Miljan Citation2014). However, according to senior OHR staff, HSP BiH was not real Ustaša, any more than HDZ BiH, and had some really competent people in the party. Fieldtrip notes, meeting with senior OHR staff, Sarajevo, 22 November 2012.
21. The ‘Lijanović’ meat-packing industry became a major food provider for NATO troops in BiH in 1999. In 2000, US diplomats spearheading the diplomatic counterinsurgency against Croat HDZ BiH encouraged the Lijanović brothers to form the political party ‘Work for Betterment’ (Lijanović Citation2015). During the 2006 and 2010 general elections, the Lijanovićs were suspected of buying votes, and are currently under investigation for embezzling the state funds.
22. For details, see Electoral Law of BiH (chap. 11, Art. 6).
23. For a detailed overview of voting patterns per municipality, see http://www.izbori.ba/Finalni2010/Finalni/PredsjednistvoBiH/Nivo701702.aspx.
24. Personal correspondence with head of Central Electoral Commission. 21 January 2014.
25. Ibid.
26. Interview, former OHR staff, 13 March 2013.
27. Ibid.
28. Interviews, former OHR staff, 13 March 2013 and 6 December 2013.
29. Ibid.
30. Transcript of TV interview with Elvira Abdić-Jelenović, ‘Dobar, Loš, Zao’, N1, 22 May 2011.
31. Confirmed in written correspondence with then head of the CEC, 21 January 2014.
32. Transcripts of TV interviews with Elvira Abdić-Jelenović on Face TV, 20 March 2011, and ‘Dobar, Loš, Zao, N1, 22 May 2011.
33. Besides being a first cousin of the leading SDP politician Lidija Korać, who was close to leading OHR decision-makers, Budimir was also one of the senior Croat military officers who forced by Stabilisation Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (SFOR) to leave the FBiH army in 1998 due to his connections to the informal Croat network in Herzegovina (Swain Citation2003, 193–243).
34. Written correspondence with then head of CEC, 21 January 2014.
35. Interviews, former OHR staff, 13 March 2013 and 6 December 2013.
36. Ibid.
37. OHR staff working with the CEC were informed by a CEC member, while senior OHR staff reportedly had their own sources in the Court BiH. Interview, former OHR staff, 13 March 2013.
38. Interviews, former OHR staff, 13 March 2013 and 6 December 2013.
39. Interview, former OHR staff, 6 December 2013.
40. Interviews, former OHR staff, 13 March 2013, 6 December 2013 and 30 March 2016.
41. Personal correspondence with then head of Central Electoral Commission, 21 January 2014.
42. Interviews, then ICG staff, Sarajevo, 18 November 2013; former OHR staff, 13 March 2013 and 6. December 2013.
43. Interview, then ICG staff, Sarajevo, 18 November 2013.
44. Ibid.
45. Interview, then ICG staff, Sarajevo, 18 November 2013.
46. Ibid.
47. Interviews, former OHR staff, 13 March 2013 and 6 December 2013.
48. Interview, then ICG staff, 18 November 2013.
49. Fieldtrip notes, discussion with a former senior OHR member, 28 November 2012; interview, former senior OHR member, 5 January 2014.
50. Field notes, conversation with former senior OHR staff, 28 November 2012; interviews with former senior OHR staff, 5 January 2014, and then ICG Europe staff, 18 November 2013.