The Foreign Service Journal, December 2020

52 DECEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL THE DAYTON ACCORDS AT25 T wenty-five years ago, the United States brought forth on the European continent a new state dedicated to the proposition that citizens are not equal as individuals but rather endowed with group rights. Those three groups (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats), denomi- nated as “constituent peoples,” are entitled to block numerical majority decisions. We have tested whether that state—Bosnia and Herze- govina (B&H)—or any state so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. The answer is now clear: It can endure, but it cannot function effectively to enable its citizens to prosper and enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. B&H is trapped in a scheme of gov- ernance that permanently empowers those who appeal to group Daniel Serwer, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies since 2010, retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1998 after serving as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires in Rome, providing support to the Bosnian Federation during the war, and negotiating the first agreement reached at the Dayton peace talks. He served thereafter as vice presi- dent for peace and stability operations at the United States Institute of Peace. He blogs at www.peacefare.net and tweets @DanielSerwer. A retired FSO and veteran of the Balkan crisis offers a clear-eyed assessment of Bosnia and Herzegovina a quarter-century after Dayton. BY DAN I E L SERWER ethnic identity and disempowers those who try to appeal across ethnic lines to people as individuals or groups that include more than one ethnicity. There is no real possibility of alternation in power or representation of civic interests, only reformulation of elite bargains among ethnically defined and centrally com- manded political parties. Political Paralysis This ethnically based scheme is not a total failure. It ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, attracted massive interna- tional reconstruction assistance and permitted some people to return to their homes and restart their lives. B&H today has a per capita gross domestic product close to double that of the former Yugoslavia before the 1990s wars. People of all ethnicities can travel safely in the entire country, even if living and work- ing in areas where they are in the minority can still be difficult. Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim Bosnians worship freely, many of them in restored churches and mosques. But politics at all levels remains frozen in a constant struggle of conflicting ethnic group rights. The elaborate architecture of the state—division into two “entities,” majority-Serbian Repub- lika Srpska (R.S.) and the (Croat-Bosniak) Federation; division of the Federation into cantons; and, ultimately, division of both entities into municipalities—ensures ethnic vetoes over all important decisions and many unimportant ones. Govern- ment jobs, state-owned companies and other public resources FEATURE