A good move, but more is needed

My reaction to this letter from the Secretary of State to the tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is mixed. It is good that it presses hard on the need for constitutional as well as other reforms. It has been apparent for the better part of two decades that BiH needs profound changes in how power is gained and distributed in order to make it a functional state that can deliver services to its citizens.

But it fails to make clear, except by implication, that reform will need to go in the direction of strengthening individual rights relative to the group rights that the Dayton constitution favored. It also pretends to be modest in its goals, while laying out a broad requirement for constitutional, legal, electoral, and economic reforms. It is not clear whether those goals have been sufficiently coordinated with the European Union and its member states, who hold most of the carrots and sticks that can incentivize the needed reforms. Broad goals without sufficient incentives are not a formula for success.

In the more than 25 years since the Dayton agreements were signed, most BiH reform processes have either ended in drivel or in strengthening the ethnically-based power sharing system that is at the root of the country’s dysfunctional governance. It will take vigorous and coordinated diplomatic and political effort by the EU and US to prevent that from happening again. Milorad Dodik, the first member of the presidency to which this note is addressed, is a past master at blocking any reforms that threaten his corrupt and autocratic control over BiH’s Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska. He exploits fear of the country’s Muslim majority and Serb nationalism, including the threat of secession and union with Serbia, to ensure that he stays in one powerful position or another.

It is a particular irony that Dodik is necessarily an addressee of this letter. The US has sanctioned him for violation of the Dayton accords:

Specifically, Dodik was designated for his role in defying the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in violation of the rule of law, thereby actively obstructing the Dayton Accords; Dodik was also designated for conduct that poses a significant risk of actively obstructing the same.  

At the same time, Dodik is collaborating with a nationalist Croat leader, Dragan Covic, in attempting to implement a Constitutional Court decision in a way that favors ethnic nationalist political parties. While objecting to the authority of the Constitutional Court in principle, Dodik exploits any decisions it makes that he likes.

The missing ingredient in BiH reform proposals in the past has been popular support. The country’s citizens have left governance and reform largely to ethnic nationalists who have convinced their three respective groups (Bosniak, Serb, and Croat) that they need to be protected from one or two of the others. If there is no pressure from the street, the ethnic nationalists will do with the American initiative what they have always done: strengthen their own positions and prevent the emergence of a trans-ethnic coalition that can challenge their hold on power.

The Americans know this. What is unclear from Blinken’s letter is what they will try to do about it. Without popular demand for reform that protects individual rights and reduces the saliency of group rights, BiH will continue to be a dysfunctional and semi-democratic state ruled mainly by kleptocratic ethnic leaders who enjoy near monopolies on power. Individuals with equal rights are the essential ingredient of democratic governance. They are what BiH lacks. Only Bosnians, with some international assistance, can produce them.