(Re)constructing a Deeply Divided Society: Peacebuilding Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract: In this thesis I have discussed the possibility of building a stable and long-lasting peace in a state whose society is considered to be deeply divided ? Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main question to be answered by this study was Which factors facilitate and which factors obstruct stable and long-lasting peace in a deeply divided society? I have examined the post-war constitutional design of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the consociational devices built in the Constitution of the country. I have tried to generate new hypothesis on what it takes to create stable peace in a deeply divided society and propose a theoretical alternative through inductive conclusions, based on the empirical research of the Bosnian case as the starting point of this research. My conclusion is that constitutional devices lead to further division of society, which in fact is an explicit goal of the theory, but expected results (politics of accommodation) are absent. Ten years after signing of The General Framework Agreement for Peace, Bosnia and Herzegovina is still a highly divided society, with no accommodation in sight. I argue that ethnonational balance of power, as prescribed by consociationalism, is an obstructing factor for peacebuilding and, that the facilitating factor for peacebuilding in societies, such as Bosnian, is instead a framework that will lead politics beyond ethnonational way of thinking, a framework that will dissolve the segments and not emphasise them.