The role of identity in post-conflict state-building: The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Dayton Agreement

From an institutionalist perspective, post-settlement peace-building in cases of conflict defined in terms of ethnonationalism requires a transformation in cultural identity politics from ethnonationalist institutions that perpetuate ethnic cleavages to civic ones that promote equal and universal citizenship. In December 1995, the Dayton Accord for peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina created a federal, democratic and free market state based on the Western state model. The Accord concentrated on the development of political institutions and gave only cursory attention to what may be called society building. A constructivist approach to institutionalism that combines elements of both sociological and historical institutionalism argues that superimposing a state model onto a divided society and encouraging people to live within that particular framework is only half of the solution. The other half is the development of civic national ideas and social cohesion. This paper posits that durable ethnonationalist conflict resolution and post-conflict state-building must address ideational variables in addition to the traditional structural ones. In particular, identity as constructed and maintained by the informal and formal institutions of ethnonationalism is a fundamental cause of instability in the state-building process by impeding the interethnic cooperation upon which the project is premised. Whereas a rationalist approach assumes behavioural change may eventually occur as a reaction to political structural change, a neo-institutional approach assumes that the transformation from ethnonationalism to civic nationalism or civic society requires a simultaneous modification of ethnonationalist behaviour. In a case study of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the implementation of the General Framework Agreement for Peace, it is argued that a project aspiring to establish a democratic and pluralistic state composed of three exclusionary ethnic entities is destined for failure unless a complete institutional transformation occurs. Multi-ethnic state-building is about society-building. It is about negotiating formal institutional interests between conflict groups, self-defined by primordial cultural ties, within the context of their corresponding informal institutions. Society-building in the case of Bosnia includes the construction of a new civic identity that transcends incompatible or conflicting national identities and their corresponding ethnocentric interests.