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AbstractThe author claims that strategies of ethnic mobilization have deep roots in the politics of ex-Yugoslav nations, and that these roots are closely related to the response of the Western Balkans, especially Serbian political elites, to the challenges of democratization and modernization. The author develops this notion in two basic sections, outlining the ontology and history, and psychological background of the ethnic mobilization. Beyond the larger historical perspective, which will be reviewed, the very source of current ethno-mobilization processes lies in the deep opposition of Serbian political elites to the loose federal Yugoslav Constitution of 1974 that initiated various political strategies of ethno-mobilization's undermining and neglect. The author understands the term 'ethnic mobilization' to have three layers of meaning, the first being most rudimentary: an orderly and phased procedure aimed at ethnic crystallization or homogenization of Serb people. The second layer encompasses the underlying framing narrative of the reinterpretation of certain social events or conflicts within a particular interpretative frame or 'code.' The third meaning is, in a very important sense, demobilization, namely, the competing elites had to be demobilized, neutralized, or marginalized, and were usually described as ethnic 'traitors,' or 'those who sold to the interests of the enemy, or of the West.' Based on ideas of Latinka Perović and Dubravka Stojanović, the author traces the roots of the ethnopolitics back to the Russian anti-modernist movement of 'narodnichestvo.' This anti-Western and deeply anti-democratic strategy of political power lies at the heart of violent conflicts in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia/Kosovo, and even Macedonia. And, in the author's view, it remains the key obstacle to a post-war democratic transition for these countries. Strategies of ethnic mobilization remain, up to the present day, the driving force of power structures in these countries.

One of the key questions of Bosnia & Herzegovina's political community, raised afresh after every multiparty election since 1990, could be stated as follows: "How come a majority of the electorate keeps voting for the political parties that use a markedly nationalist rhetoric?" The experience with "national" parties, or more accurately the ethnopolitical experience of the past two decades, which in its most radical form has proved to be so destructive for Bosnia & Herzegovina's political community, be it through the atrocities & ravages of war or through more or less subtle forms of discriminatory practice, justifies us in rephrasing the question thus: "How come a majority of the electorate keeps choosing the worst political option?" The fact is that from 1990 to 2006, despite their open & often widely expressed contempt for the ethnopolitical elites and, which is particularly interesting, "their own" ethnopolitical elites at that, once in the privacy of the voting booths on election day, the citizens of Bosnia & Herzegovina still diligently put a cross beside the name of "their" national leaders. Why is this? We will be so bold as to claim that if there is a consensus about anything at all in this country, there is a general consensus that we all know there will be absolutely no change at all. And yet, at the very next elections the same voters will hasten to the polling station to give their votes to "their" people. The authors inquire into the possible answer to this question following the model of the Prisoner's Dilemma, or the Dilemma of Ethnopolitical Prisoner. Adapted from the source document.

One of the key questions of Bosnia & Herzegovina's political community, raised afresh after every multiparty election since 1990, could be stated as follows: "How come a majority of the electorate keeps voting for the political parties that use a markedly nationalist rhetoric?" The experience with "national" parties, or more accurately the ethnopolitical experience of the past two decades, which in its most radical form has proved to be so destructive for Bosnia & Herzegovina's political community, be it through the atrocities & ravages of war or through more or less subtle forms of discriminatory practice, justifies us in rephrasing the question thus: "How come a majority of the electorate keeps choosing the worst political option?" The fact is that from 1990 to 2006, despite their open & often widely expressed contempt for the ethnopolitical elites and, which is particularly interesting, "their own" ethnopolitical elites at that, once in the privacy of the voting booths on election day, the citizens of Bosnia & Herzegovina still diligently put a cross beside the name of "their" national leaders. Why is this? We will be so bold as to claim that if there is a consensus about anything at all in this country, there is a general consensus that we all know there will be absolutely no change at all. And yet, at the very next elections the same voters will hasten to the polling station to give their votes to "their" people. The authors inquire into the possible answer to this question following the model of the Prisoner's Dilemma, or the Dilemma of Ethnopolitical Prisoner. Adapted from the source document.