Suchergebnisse

This article investigates the quest for institutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. Reform does not take place in a vacuum and the successful reform of the Bosnian polity is dependent on public support. Public demands for reform are likely to be influenced by how the current institutions are believed to be functioning and by the public support for the current institutional set-up as such. Still, the demands for alterations by the political elites of the different national communities highlight a continuing lack of consensus. Although the Constitution allows for a revision, the political room for such changes is limited, and the challenge remains to provide adequate degree of autonomy of national groups without diminishing the quality of democracy. The need to differentiate between the protection of legitimate national and minority rights and unacceptable nationalist demands emerges as a challenge with no easy solution. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2008 by the American Council of Learned Societies.]

When Yugoslavia dissolved in the 1990s, many Serbs found themselves in new states in which they were not the majority population. They often rejected their inclusion in these states, first through political boycotts and then through violence and secession. This paper will look at the integration of the Serb community in the new states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo. The aim is to achieve a clearer picture of the different strategies of state-building and group integration in the post-Yugoslav states. The integration of Serbs in these states took place in a number of ways: in Bosnia and Herzegovina they were recognised as one of three constituent peoples (in 1995), while Croatia awarded Serbs the status of a national minority. In Kosovo (after 2008), Serbs have also been recognised as a constituent element of the state and protected by legal equality. Applying the framework of the "quadratic nexus", this paper will look at the interplay of new states, the Serb community, Serbia, and international actors in order to assess the current state of Serb integration in these states.

The Country Opinion Survey in Bosnia and Herzegovina assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Bosnia and Herzegovina perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 1) their views regarding the general environment in Bosnia and Herzegovina; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Bosnia and Herzegovina; 3) overall impressions of the WBG's effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Bosnia and Herzegovina; and 4) their perceptions of the WBG's future role in Bosnia and Herzegovina.