Electoral Geography of Bosnia and Herzegovina – is there anything beyond the ethnic rule?

ABSTRACT

The majority of experts consider ethnicisation the defining factor in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political life. Our objective is to uncover what other factors affect party performance and what, if any, territorial pattern different from the ethnic one, can be drawn. We argue, based on quantitative analyses, that besides the “ethnic rule”, other social cleavages (like the urban-rural one) with territorial patterns are also present in the country, though they are less significant. In the the entity of Federation ethnic polarisation is a significant contextual factor, while in the party competition of the entity of Republic of Srpska mainly non-ethnic factors are decisive.

KEYWORDS:

• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• electoral geography
• cleavage theory
• ethnoterritoriality
• regression

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Articles 9.2 and 9.

2 General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Annex 3, Article 4, Regularity of Democratic Elections in B&H.

3 Law on Financing Political Parties of B&H, Article 7.

4 In early 2014 protests and demonstrations started in Bosnia (mainly in FBiH) largely due to the bad economic and social situation as well as the dysfunctional political structure. The bottom up movement slowly faded away, but could also add to the bad performance of SDP in the general elections later that year.

5 As Stanari municipality was only formed in 2014, census data are not available, therefore, we analysed it together with the municipality of Doboj. The 2018 election results were calculated by applying population weight.

6 In the RS, none of the last three elections have five parties over five percent. We opted to include SDA here as a fifth to analyse the largest Bosniak party’s performance in the RS.

7 There has been some controversy surrounding the census, mainly in the RS over a uniform data processing methodology suggested by Eurostat. However, despite disagreement from the side of the RS the data has been officially published and Eurostat ensured its validity.

8 Sociodemographic data before 2013 is not reliable.

9 BD is a special territorial unit (a former municipality) in a northern strategic point of BiH along the River Sava. It divides the RS into two parts, and it provides access to the river for the vast majority of FBiH. This is the only major territory on which the parties were unable to agree on in Dayton.

10 The null hypothesis of Moran's I is spatial randomness, so if the Moran's I value is positive and significant, then clustering is observed, whereas if it is negative, then a checkerboard-like pattern is present.

11 Dobretići, Prozor, Ravno, Tomislavgrad 2010: HDZ1990; Velika Kladuša 2010: DNZ BIH; Drvar, Bosansko Grahovo 2010: SNSD (in the FBiH); Velika Kladuša 2014: Laburistička; Cazin 2014: A-SDA; Drvar, Glamoč, Bosansko Grahovo: SNSD (in the FBiH); Velika Kladuša 2018: Laburisti; Cazin, Bužim 2018: A-SDA; Zenica 2018: Nezavisni Blok; Centar, Novo Sarajevo 2018: Naša stranka; Sapna, Banovići 2018: PDA; Prozor 2018: HDZ1990; Drvar 2018: SNSD (in the FBiH); Pelagićevo 2018: Socijalistička Partija.

Additional information

Funding

This publication was supported by the University of Pécs, Szentágothai Research Centre, the Research Centre of Historical and Political Geography and PADME Foundation. Péter Reményi’s work was supported by the [Hungarian Academy of Sciences] under Grant [János Bolyai Research Scholarship]; and [Ministry for Innovation and Technology–National Research, Development and Innovation Fund] under Grant [ÚNKP-20-5 New National Excellence Program].

Notes on contributors

Péter Reményi

Péter Reményi is an associate professor at the Department of Political Geography, Development and Regional Studies, University of Pécs, Hungary. He is one of the chief organisers of the Hungarian Conference on Political Geography, deputy director of the Center for Eastern Mediterranean and Balkan Studies, editor of the Mediterranean and Balkan Forum, member of the Hungarian Geographical Society and the American Association of Geographers.

Haris Gekić

Haris Gekić is an associate professor of Human Geography at the Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is an active member in the Geographical Society of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, deputy editor of scientific journal “Geografski pregled”, and member of several COST EU projects. His research is focused on the Human geography of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Aida Bidžan-Gekić

Aida Bidžan-Gekić is an associate professor of Regional Geography at the Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is an active member in the Geographical Society of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, technical editor of scientific journal “Geografski pregled”, and active participant of several COST EU and domestic projects. Her research is focused on the Regional geography and Tourism geography of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Dávid Sümeghy

Dávid Sümeghy is a PhD student at the Department of Political Geography, Development and Regional Studies, University of Pécs, Hungary. He is the copy editor of Mediterranean and Balkan Forum, and a former member of the European Association of Geographers.