Peacebuilding in Practice

Local Experience in Two Bosnian Towns

Adam D. Moore

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780801469558
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Peace & Global Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In November 2007 Adam Moore was conducting fieldwork in Mostar when the southern Bosnian city was rocked by two days of violent clashes between Croat and Bosniak youth. It was not the city's only experience of ethnic conflict in recent years. Indeed, Mostar's problems are often cited as emblematic of the failure of international efforts to overcome deep divisions that continue to stymie the postwar peace process in Bosnia. Yet not all of Bosnia has been plagued by such troubles. Mostar remains mired in distrust and division, but the Brcko District in the northeast corner of the country has become a model of what Bosnia could be. Its multiethnic institutions operate well compared to other municipalities, and are broadly supported by those who live there; it also boasts the only fully integrated school system in the country. What accounts for the striking divergence in postwar peacebuilding in these two towns?Moore argues that a conjunction of four factors explains the contrast in outcomes in Mostar and Brcko: The design of political institutions, the sequencing of political and economic reforms, local and regional legacies from the war, and the practice and organization of international peacebuilding efforts in the two towns. Differences in the latter, in particular, have profoundly shaped relations between local political elites and international officials. Through a grounded analysis of localized peacebuilding dynamics in these two cities Moore generates a powerful argument concerning the need to rethink how peacebuilding is done—that is, a shift in the habitus or culture that governs international peacebuilding activities and priorities today.

1

THE STUDY OF PEACEBUILDING

Over the past twenty years the study of peacebuilding has exploded, fueled in part by a surge in multilateral peacebuilding missions around the world. While much progress has been made in understanding peacebuilding processes there is “still no reliable formula for transforming a fragile ceasefire into a stable and lasting peace.”1 If anything, in fact, there is a greater appreciation for just how little we still know about the transition from war to peace. This analysis of localized peacebuilding in Brčko and Mostar does not purport to offer a general template for achieving stable and lasting peace, but it does aim to inform certain key topics of interest in contemporary peacebuilding research. In this chapter I situate this project more fully by outlining the relevant theoretical literatures and briefly discussing how my findings relate to current debates.

Institutions

One of the most contentious debates in the peacebuilding literature concerns the design of political institutions to mitigate conflict. Despite years of research the question of which configurations of political institutions are most appropriate for ethnically plural states in the aftermath of war remains unresolved. Broadly framed, the debate revolves around two competing models: consociational, or what are sometimes called power-sharing compacts, and centripetal, or integrative, arrangements.2

Consociational theorists prescribe a political architecture based on two broad principles: (1) proportional sharing of power, representation, and resources along ethnic lines, and (2) ethnic autonomy.3 Several institutional measures are recommended in order to achieve the first goal, foremost being a proportional representation electoral system, governing coalitions consisting of elite representatives from all major ethnic factions, mutual group vetoes on major political issues, and allocation of financial resources and civil service positions in proportion to ethnic membership in the country.4 The second goal, ethnic autonomy, can be facilitated through either ethno-territorial political arrangements—most frequently, though not exclusively, this means ethno-federalism—nonterritorial measures, or some combination of both approaches. Examples of nonterritorial forms of ethnic autonomy include separate educational systems, independent cultural affairs councils, ethnically based courts with jurisdiction over family or religious laws, and language rights policies such as separate broadcast networks for different ethno-linguistic communities.

In practice, consociationalists tend to prefer a combination of power sharing and ethno-territorial autonomy, though in some situations where ethnic communities are more intermixed, corporate forms of autonomy may be a preferable option.5 As Arend Lijphart, the scholar most responsible for developing the consociational model, succinctly puts it, “Good fences make good neighbors.”6 Smaller ethno-federal units are considered preferable to the extent that they enable a more precise division of ethnic groups into autonomous territorial spheres, limit the incentives for secession, or prevent one region from dominating state politics.7 However the proper size of federal structures, consociational advocates maintain, is best determined with reference to the territorial concentration of ethnic groups in a given state rather than any theoretical prescription. If they are already relatively geographically isolated, then few regions are necessary.8

In contrast to the consociational approach, centripetal advocates call for institutional arrangements that promote ethnic interaction and cross-ethnic political coalitions in order to blunt the sharp edges of ethnic antagonism and solidarity. It is possible to distinguish between “weak” and “strong” centripetalist prescriptions. The former generally has a limited focus on electoral systems that create incentives for the formation of multiethnic parties or moderate ethnic parties that seek cross-ethnic votes and coalition partners.9 Thus while consociationalists view proportional representation as the most desirable solution for divided states, centripetalists prefer electoral arrangements that promote “aggregative majoritarianism.”10 In practice this means that the latter favor preferential systems such as the alternative vote, which requires voters to rank-order their candidate preferences and encourages “vote pooling.” Stronger centripetal prescriptions, perhaps more accurately called integrative approaches, go beyond a narrow emphasis on electoral systems and aim for political solutions that “deliberately promote social integration across group lines.”11

Centripetalists are generally suspicious of ethno-federal solutions, especially those based on relatively few large and ethnically homogenous provinces, arguing that such arrangements can allow a single ethnic group to leverage control of a region into outsized power at the state level, as happened in the first Nigerian Republic.12 Ethno-federalism, they maintain, also does little to promote cross-cutting cleavages or disperse political conflict down to the subnational level. Indeed, as the Nigerian case demonstrates, it tends to heighten conflict as ethnic majorities with secure domination over large federal regions fight even more intensely for control of the levers of state power. Consequently, if the goal is to create homogenous substate spaces centripetalists prefer that federalism be organized around a large number of small regions, a solution that is more likely to facilitate the emergence of intraethnic political differences and promote the diffusion of bargaining points that allow regional and other cross-cutting cleavages to emerge.13

An alternative to ethno-territorial solutions that is favored by some centripetalists involves the creation of ethnically heterogeneous political units. Ethnically mixed regions can serve as important sites of political socialization as interethnic bargaining and cooperation at these lower levels of government may create norms of interaction that moderate interethnic political relations at the state level.14 Heterogeneous federalism is most practical when ethnic communities are relatively dispersed across state territory. But it is also possible to design federal systems that maximize heterogeneity—rather than maximize homogeneity as is typically the case—in states with varying degrees of territorially concentrated ethnic settlement patterns.

At root the debate between the two camps revolves around differing assumptions along two axes: ethnic identity and interaction. Supporters of centripetalism see identity as relatively malleable and are more optimistic that properly designed institutions can modify social relations in divided societies. This leads them to criticize consociationalists’ reliance on ethnic parties, the explicit ethnic distribution of government resources and jobs, and the corporate or territorial division of society along ethnic lines. They contend that these policies entrench ethnicity and foreclose the possibility that alternative forms of collective identity and association can emerge as politically salient. The result is that consociational policies tend to harden and reproduce rather than ameliorate ethnic antagonisms. Furthermore, consociational policies force individuals to choose a recognized group identity in order to enjoy certain political and social benefits, thus violating the rights of certain groups and individuals.15

Advocates of integrative approaches also point out that ethnic interaction in divided societies is, short of partition, inevitable. Therefore the relevant question is, what types of interaction, and what types of institutional frameworks that govern interaction, lead to a reduction of ethnic conflict? Centripetalists find fault with consociationalism’s reliance on elite-led interaction and accommodation. At a theoretical level, they argue that Lijphart’s conceptualization of consociational democracy is tautological: “Consociational democracy is defined by a deeply divided society and by elite cooperation; in other words, both the problem and its solution are part of the definition.”16 They also claim that the assumption that ethnic elites in divided societies tend to be more moderate and likely to seek accommodation than the masses is empirically dubious. Instead, research on ethnic violence suggests that elites often play a central role in fomenting conflict for political advantage, as was the case in the wars across former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.17 Centripetalists also maintain that elites have little incentive to compromise in consociational democracies. As Horowitz argues: “The mere need to form a coalition will not produce compromise. The incentive to compromise, and not merely coalesce, is the key to accommodation.”18 Others go further, suggesting that the structural logic of consociationalism promotes elite-initiated conflict by pushing elites to pursue antagonistic politics in the interethnic parliamentary arena in order to protect themselves from ethnic outbidding by rivals in the intraethnic electoral sphere.19

Consociational partisans have ready responses to these criticisms. First, they note that ethnic identities are already salient in divided societies. Any viable political compromise has to take this fact into account. Moreover, they argue that identity is less fluid than centripetal advocates assume. This is not to say that consociationalists are ethnic primordialists. Most subscribe to a constructivist view of identity that is now the orthodox scholarly position. But they tend to believe that ethnic identities and relations are relatively “sticky” and difficult to alter, especially after violent conflict. To think otherwise—to believe that it is possible to design political institutions that are capable of transforming or dissolving these collective identities—is misplaced optimism.20

Supporters of consociational arrangements also rebut the charges that consociations necessarily reify ethnic identity and violate the rights of unrecognized groups and individuals. Two prominent consociational scholars in particular, John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary, have replied to these criticisms by developing the argument that consociations come in two types: “corporate” and “liberal.” The former privileges collective groups according to ascriptive criteria such as ethnicity or religion. An example of this was Cyprus’s 1960 constitution, under which citizens had to register with either the Greek or Turkish Cypriot electoral rolls. McGarry and O’Leary concede that this form of consociation, based on the assumption of fixed ethnic or religious identities, forecloses opportunities for political movements that are not associated with privileged identity categories. However they maintain that most consociational scholars are proponents of liberal consociations in which citizens are free to vote for whatever political option they wish. In such liberal consociations political identities and associations that emerge as salient through elections are “self-determined” rather than “pre-determined.”21

Finally, consociationalists contend that direct interaction, especially in sensitive areas such as political competition and cultural reproduction, almost inevitably exacerbates tensions, thereby reproducing ethnic conflict. Hence centripetalists’ call to design institutions that promote the integration of antagonistic communities is a futile, utopian goal that rests on wooly thinking about ethnic relations. In contrast consociational politics is based on hard-headed political “realism.” It is rooted in, as O’Leary puts it, “a politics of shared accommodation, of shared fears, but not one in which an imagined or imaginary unity can or should be presented. At most, consociation is a politics with a shared vision of catastrophe.”22 This leads consociationalists to conclude that the best possible approach for divided societies is to manage conflict by limiting interaction, with the hope that this may lead to a gradual lessening of ethnic division over time.

Mostar and Brčko offer an interesting, if imperfect, test of the relative merits of consociational and integrative approaches to institutional design. Interesting because given the different assumptions concerning ethnic identity and interaction there is a surprising lack of research that explores the effects of these two political arrangements in local communities, the scale at which everyday interactions and identity practices take place and are mediated by political institutions. Imperfect because while the political framework in Mostar has closely followed ethno-territorial consociational prescriptions, the Brčko District is more of a hybrid in which the pursuit of broad social and territorial integration is balanced in part by the sharing of power, representation, and resources through consociational measures such as proportional elections. Nonetheless, as I argue in chapter 3, it is clear that the integrative approach pursued in Brčko has proven to be more successful to date in mitigating conflict and creating an effective multiethnic government. Conversely Mostar’s political institutions have, as predicted by critics, bolstered the position of the most obstructionist nationalists and hardened ethnic divisions in the city—both spatially and socially.

Wartime Legacies

Perhaps one of the most important, but least understood, elements of postwar peacebuilding is the ways in which wartime social processes shape postwar peace outcomes. It is well known that countries that have experienced civil war are more likely to experience further outbreaks of violence. In general the political economy liter...