STATIC VERSUS DYNAMIC ELEMENTS IN THE (RE-) CONSTRUCTION OF THE STATE
While probably necessary for ending hostilities, the institutionalization of ethnicity and the continued ethnic identification of territory have further entrenched ethnic divisions and prevented progress in establishing peaceful relations and the reconstruction of the country.30 The combination of federalism and power sharing established by the Dayton Peace Accord has contributed to a negative elite consensus (divide et impera) directed toward obstruction rather than reconstruction.
The extensive veto rights established in Dayton have been (ab) used by the groups that have no interest in strengthening the common State, especially Croat and Serb nationalists, to block each step towards integration. Often the primary loyalty of political representatives in State-level institutions lies with the Entities, where the “real power” is exercised, with the national groups they represent, and – most importantly – with the nationalist political party they represent. Thus, numerous efforts to block State action have further weakened an already structurally weak central government, contributing to the continuous disintegration of the State, while both Entities have operated nearly independently from each other.The complexity of the institutional system further encouraged obstructionist and divisive behaviour: the establishment of thirteen governments and constitutions, parliaments, constitutional courts, and so on, at the levels of State, Entity, and Canton, along with the special district of Brčko, in a country of roughly four million inhabitants, risks the creation of “institutional overkill” in the face of scarce financial resources and of limited capacities and staff at each level of government.31 The dysfunctional and disproportionate institutional arrangement has proved extremely costly: it is estimated that government expenditure, which is necessary in large part needed to maintain the huge institutional apparatus and bureaucracy at all levels, is around 50 percent of the GDP.32 Instead of creating beneficial checks and balances for controlling and containing power by distributing it among various institutional players, this system has allowed players to defend the status quo by regularly using power to block initiatives advanced by other players.
The action-frustrating effect of these ethnically based institutional structures stand in sharp contrast to the declared objectives of the international community, which were to restore the multi-ethnic society and structures of 1991 as a means of promoting “justice” and long-term stabilisation.
It was expected that this transformation into a multi-national State would be progressively achieved by encouraging and actively promoting the return of refugees and displaced persons to their pre-war residence ( “minority returns”). Even before their effective return, therefore, these persons were allowed to vote in their pre-war residence in order to make political representation more diverse than the actual population distribution. The aim was to add a virtual community of former inhabitants to the current, often ethnically more homogenous one and thereby to change, at least virtually, the ethnic composition of local communities.