Nature of State Building in Bosnia and Sovereignty during Its Post War Reconstruction - Essay Example

?Nature of building in Bosnia and sovereignty during its post war reconstruction Introduction A review of the research papers on Bosnia and itspost war reconstruction reveal that a majority of the scholars suggest that after more than a decade of high-level interference from various global actors, has turned Bosnia into a paradigm of conducted experiments on western policies and social values, framed by various international bodies, foreign powers, and NGOs (Venneri, 2010). Earlier in the process of state building, there was an understanding that non-western states were autonomous and independent entities, and did not require western interference. However, in the post-Cold war era, in cases of domestic conflict, the issues of development and security have broadened to such an extent that non-western states cannot prevent the interference of foreign bodies in their domestic processes (Chandler, 2006). Bosnia, after the end of the civil war, was a transition state, and hence fragile in nature. In such cases, while helping to rebuild a fragile nation, the response from the international communities is often based on the establishment of new political orders and a new constitutional mechanism. Not promoting notions of state fragmentation through secession, the global community looks to pacify all parties that were at strife during the civil war by advocating agreements that make sovereignty a shared right amongst the existing warring factions within the state. Those in the arena of international relations often term this form of state sovereignty as internal self-determination (Cassese, 1995). This comprises the rights of different nationalistic groups within the realms of a multi-ethnic state that aims at preserving all the existent socio-cultural, language and religious identities, equal participation of these groups in state politics, with even a certain extent of regional autonomy (Hannum, 1990). Thus, to bring in peace initiatives for helping states in transition, experts in the line of international relations bring forth the notions of ‘consociational democracy’ that advocate a moderate form of political attitude (Lijphardt, 1969, 207). In real practice, various instances have shown that post-conflict reconstruction cannot be based only on establishing a new constitutional mechanism. In a fragile state, when a new constitutional mechanism is place, there are chances that the newly formed social and cultural institutions and political framework may fail to form a sustaining framework. According to a report by the World Bank, chances of a conflict breaking out again after the close of a civil war, in a fragile state, is nearly 40 % (Collier, 2000, 6). Even with extensive negotiations with various concerned parties, undertaken by any international peace mission to prevent a fragile state from regressing back into armed conflict, there are substantial barriers in establishing an effective sovereign state. In case of Bosnia, we find that even after 16 years of large-scale efforts from the global community to reconstruct Bosnia and bring in socio-political stability in the country, the state is yet to achieve an established form. In 2009, after 14 years since the Dayton treaty (1995) heralded the end of a near four yearlong violent ethnic civil war, Bosnians again faced a serious threat of another civil war (McMahon and Western, 2009). In this context, keeping Bosnia as a frame of reference, this paper will explore concepts associated with modern notions of state building, whether international form of state building is actually a way of assuming control over state functioning, the differences between peace building and state building, and viable alternatives to the current form of international state building. Discussion Viewing state building as regards its effectiveness in case of post-war Bosnia The Dayton peace agreement signed in 1995 is often viewed as a treaty, which was “designed to end a war, not build a state” (Ashdown, 2004, 15). Various scholars contend that leaders of ethnic nationalist parties that initiated the violent civil war, at the end of it secured maximum power for themselves (Kaldor, 1997, 28-30) while negotiating the Dayton treaty. Therefore, these experts consider the process of building state level political procedures and constitutional framework created in post-war Bosnia under the Dayton treaty (a peace building process) as illegal, with serious flaws in its basic principles. In OECD/DAC report, we find the process of peace building defined as “Peace-building covers a broad range of measures implemented in the context of emerging, current or post-conflict situations and which are explicitly guided and motivated by a primary commitment to the prevention of violent conflict and the promotion of lasting and sustainable peace”(2005, 1). Peace building can be also defined as “actions undertaken by international or national actors to institutionalize peace, understood as the absence of armed conflict and a modicum of participatory politics” (Call and Cousens, 2007, 4). Thus, the term peace building is deals chiefly with post-conflict situations, where state building would be the core element, necessary for institutionalising peace in the state. On the other hand, state building is defined by OECD/DAC, “as purposeful action to develop the capacity, institutions and legitimacy of the state in relation to an effective political process for negotiating the mutual demands between state and societal groups” (2008, 14). Here, legitimacy of the entire process combined with State resources and capacity, State institutions and socio-cultural identities, and an adequate political order create a kind of flexibility or resilience. Almost all instances of an efficacious state building result from internal or domestic activities, but can be assisted with a responsive and well-aimed support from the global community. In case of Bosnia, we find that after the 1995 Dayton peace treat the state was divided into two almost separate entities that were semi-independent in nature. These were the Republika Srpska or Serb Republic (RS Federation of Bosnia) dominated primarily by the Serbs; and Herzegovina, dominated by Muslim Bosnians and the Croats. Each entity had its own government, educational and tax systems, and even different foreign policies, turning the state into a shared sovereignty. After the war, with almost $14 billion coming as global aid, the country soon turned into a laboratory for conducting experiments on democratic theories, by various foreign powers (McMahon, and Western, 2009). By the start of 1997, there were involved 18 UN bodies, 17 foreign powers, 200 NGOs and 27 intergovernmental agencies, along with thousands of foreign troops all aiming at reconstructing Bosnia (ibid). Thus, here we find in the initial years, too many foreign entities present in a country having a population of less than 4 million, which did not allow the domestic mechanisms to start functioning effectively leading to a failure of a successful state building process. As David Chandler opined that foreign powers and the “‘shared sovereignty’ under the framework established by the Dayton agreement, have done little to either build the capacity of the Bosnia state or to legitimate it in the eyes of the population. The powers and the authority of the state have been subsumed by external actors, sucking out the life from the elected bodies, which were initially to have taken over government responsibilities following a year’s transitional period” (2006a, 33). Thus, state building in case of Bosnia, turned out as form of control by various foreign powers, where each had their own interests in mind rather than reconstructing the state on effective lines (Yordan, 2003, 62-63). In post-war Bosnia, reconstruction primarily followed there phases. The first phase, which started after the signing of the 1995 Dayton Agreement, lasted until the start of 1998. In this phase, global efforts aimed mainly at trying to control chances of a fresh outbreak of violent ethnic clashes, and a general physical rebuilding of a non-existent infrastructure. Therefore, we find this process was more peace building in nature, than being a state-building one. In the second phase starting from 1998 lasting until 2000-01, there was an increase in foreign involvement in internal political matter, and an evolution of the High Representative’s role (very limited role under Dayton agreement; later power was increased in 1997, leading to some success as regards effective governance, though there are still some power limitations associated with the post). The third phase, which started as late as 2000-01, saw the global community finally taking an interest in developing a strategy that would help to create a sustainable, stable and effective Bosnian state (a state-building procedure). However, the democratic experiments conducted by various foreign states, which led to a long delay in the initiation of the actual state-building processes, had already corrupted Bosnian state functioning. Furthermore, 2006 onward, the ethnic leaders representing the country's three main ethnic groups (Croats, Serbs and Muslims) have brought in various new demands, leading to a complete halt in the country’s reform procedures. This has resulted in a downward spiralling economic graph, plunging unemployment rates (around 27 %), rising poverty figures, while Bosnia is rated by the World Bank as being near the lowest rungs in terms of commercial development (McMahon, and Western, 2009). From the Bosnian state building instance, we find that during the initial years while reconstructing a fragile state peace building processes must be initiated by the global community keeping state building at its core (as defined by OECD/DAC). However, state building, a long-term process, must be allowed to be the outcome of domestic activities, instead of the foreign powers trying to dominate the scenario. New political order and a new constitutional mechanism, which often leads to shared sovereignty or liberal undertaking during the initial years, is not a good option for a fragile state, while greater powers must necessarily be vested with the central government for effective governance (Zaum, 2007). In this context, we will now explore the outcome of the weak constitutional framework, shared sovereignty and weak central governing bodies that resulted from ineffective state building processes, causing Bosnia to become a near-failed state. Weak constitutional framework, power structure, poor form of governance and their respective remedies (viable alternatives): The chief objective of any constitutional mechanism created in a post-civil war situation, is to join along the lines of division, slowly changing the nature of the violent conflict into political procedures that are non-violent in form. Here the chief risk arises from the fact that the main political players may reject any form of participation within the newly formed political order, leading to the breakdown of the new constitutional framework right at the beginning. To minimise this risk, the peace treaties seek to distribute the constitutional power across different autonomous units, leading to the formation of weak central power (Cox, 2001). By giving more importance to the factional units, the peace treaties under the intervention of various global communities tend to create a weak centre, and subsequently fail to form a stable and effective state. These form of constitutional settlements that aim to alleviate the chances of a state failure; however, in reality they tend to be more of a trade-off resulting in weak states (Ibid). The Dayton Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina created by global experts was negotiated under a great deal of international pressure on the state representatives and other concerned parties. Under the treaty, power was widely distributed amongst the 2 leading warring entities, 149 municipalities, 10 Federation cantons, the District of Brcko (added in 1999) (ibid, 6). Between the two main entities in Bosnia, Republika Srpska being more centralised in form, is close to being a state; however, power sharing exist between Croats and the Bosniaks that lead to widespread dispersal of public duties and the collected revenues. The Centre has control only over external affairs and some inter-entity issues like monetary policy, foreign trade and policy, customs policy, immigration and asylum policy, international and inter-entity criminal law enforcement, (Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Article III, 1995). The Dayton treaty did not include any of the organs from the previous constitution of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the new state failed to create a powerful executive body as it lacked its own revenue earning system. Within the shared sovereignty and the parliament, the overt distinctness of the ethnic groups have created a situation where the political organs have failed to acquire legitimate identity (institutional) of their own, in the eyes of the civil society (Yordan, 2003, 61-63). All the ethnic groups have their own separate financial system, pension funds system, public services, and even armies. Thus, there is serious lack of a state/national identity, which the civic populace can identify with. Therefore, it is quite evident that the primary hurdle in state building (as a mechanism for conflict resolution) is in creating a strong and effective constitutional design. While trying to create a form of shared sovereignty with liberal undertaking, a compromise formula would have to be chalked out, allowing the participation of all groups. This would lead to a weak central government that would have no power to govern its territories competently. Bosnians require central institutions with greater degree of autonomy and power, in order to progress and become a strong state. In the arena of power structure within a state, observations show that long-term conflicts create a pool of wealth and power that remain highly concentrated amongst political and military elite groups (Cox, 2001). To sustain the unrest and army activities and a conflict economy, the warring factions place economic bodies and social institutions under a tight control. Under such conditions, wealth is an important source of power for the army and political entities, for rewarding supporters and suppressing political dissidents. Similar conditions were noticed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the five-year long war created power structures amongst the warring ethnic factions that had strong interests in continuing with the war and unrest. These power structures were the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS), the Croat Democratic Union (HDZ) and the Bosniak Party for Democratic Action (SDA) (ibid). The three parties were the main negotiators in the Dayton peace agreement process, demanded that significant regional autonomy, and took over the reins from the former Communist government, and followed their policy of asserting direct party control over the State’s military, executive and economic bodies. By controlling the appointments within public sector, they established a network of patronage, which allows them to control all social institutions (ibid). After creating such a situation, now the main political players operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina see no reason to allow the formation of new institutions that will not come under their direct control. The presence of a weak constitutional framework and continuous opposition from the political parties has halted the growth of ‘institutional capacity’ of the government (ibid, 9). Under such conditions the Bosnian central government remains ill equipped to handle post war reconstruction and move towards open economy, thus remaining dependent to a large extent on foreign support. Until efforts are made towards allowing proper institutional development and breaking the stronghold of the three ethnic- nationalist political parties, there is little chance for Bosnia to receive better governance. Presently in the way of state building, one major problem faced by Bosnia is its poor state of the public funds. Lack of an efficient system for collection of revenue, owing to a weak centre and highly divisive and disorganised bureaucracy, has made public funding and public services almost non-existent in Bosnia. As Cox frames it “Poor revenue collection makes it difficult for the state to sustain the public institutions required for a modern economy. Inadequate salaries result in a constant drain of qualified personnel out of the public sector. Those who remain suffer from low morale, and are likely to supplement meagre salaries through corruption” (2001, 9). Such weak institutions stall all growth and development within the economic sector of a country, and a corrupt or ineffective judiciary fail to accord protection to the citizens from the coercive actions of the political bodies. Therefore, it is quite evident that a poor and incompetent ‘institutional capacity,’ as seen in Bosnia, is a major hurdle to bring socio-economic stability in the country creating a high risk for a violent conflict to make a comeback (ibid). Conclusion From the above discourse it is quite clear that international support for Bosnia, (though during the initial post-war years was more of a nuisance), actually helped the state to end its conflict and start moving towards peace building and state building (Bose, 2005, 333). However, the present form of international state building has certain flaws in its processes, one of which is shared sovereignty that allows all members of the warring faction to take part in the political processes. This leads to divisive politics that tends to stall all growth and development in a state. It also creates a weak central government that does not have much authority to handle important matters. 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