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Facing institutional change in Mostar: a litmus test for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Aleksandra Zdeb
Aleksandra Zdeb*
Affiliation:
Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Kraków, Poland
*
∗Email: aleksandra.zdeb@uj.edu.pl
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Abstract

The reconstruction of Mostar could have been a symbol of renewed multiethnic coexistence. Instead, it has become a synonym for failed institutions and divisions, mirroring the difficulties of the whole country. While imposition of both the 1996 and 2004 statutes establishing the city's administrative units was connected with crisis, the city has also faced two major deadlocks, in 2008–2009 and 2012. In the first, a solution was imposed by the international community's High Representative (HR). But the second remains unresolved, as the HR resists intervening. The aim of the paper is to analyze these impasses – moments when institutional change should have occurred, but for some reason did not. Even the solutions – acts of external imposition – might be treated at best as institutional pseudo-change that shows that imposed institutions have a particular inertia that resists change. The topic will be presented from the perspective of historical institutionalism, with special emphasis on the path-dependency approach, which refers here not only to the formal institutional structure of the city, but also to the decision-making processes in the moments of stalemate.

Keywords

Bosnia and HerzegovinaMostarpath dependencyinstitutional change
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 96 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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