In pursuit of the state: Majority nationalism, state legitimization and internationally-sponsored statebuilding in Bosnia after Dayton

This dissertation addresses the relationship between majority nationalism and state legitimization in the context of an externally-imposed peace settlement which ended a violent ethnic conflict. Using the case of post-Dayton Bosnia, the project demonstrates how state practices of majority group elites - a statebuilding strategy consistent with majority nationalism and seemingly aligned with the interests of external actors - are rendering state-legitimization extremely difficult. Central to the Bosniak state building strategy have been the principles of victim group's entitlement to a state and the international community's obligations, both moral and legal, to restore the state that was destroyed in the process of 'genocidal aggression.' While appealing to the emerging norm of normative statehood and the growing trend of political restitution, the strategy advances the claims for restoring a unitary state and for challenging the right to self-determination of ethno-national minorities based on territorial autonomy. The project studies the role of majority nationalist claims in internationally-sponsored, post-conflict statebuilding by analyzing the interaction of ethnic conflict and nationalism with public international law and constitutional statecraft.