Non-nationalist voting in Bosnian municipal elections: Implications for democracy and peacebuilding

In both the general theory of peacebuilding and the specific implementation of peace agreements, the establishment of democratic political processes a nd institutions is accorded a high priority by external actors in their eff orts to stabilize war-torn societies. An emphasis on free elections has bee n especially insistent in the peacebuilding processes developed for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was a keystone of the 1995 Dayton Agreement. This arti cle focuses on the 1997 municipal elections because they were widely regard ed as an important test of peacebuilding assumptions and because they illum inate local differentiation in non-nationalist voting. Our analysis indicat es chat a higher degree of optimism about the strength of non-nationalist v oting may be justified than commentators have detected, especially if it al lows for an ideological interpretation of the policies of former communists in Republika Srpska Non-nationalist voting has varied in relation to the p resence of ethnic Bosniacs, the population density and the mix of ethnic ty pes. Generally, however, the municipal elections indicate that casting vote s has not been a peacebuilding panacea in terms of the international organi zations' strategic goal of building a unitary, self-governing, multi-ethnic stare. Instead, the elections have legitimized ethnically purged constitue ncies and led to a flawed protectorate in which the Office of the UN Secret ary-General's High Representative (OHR) and the Organization for Cooperatio n and Security in Europe (OSCE) have become increasingly inveigled into att empting to manipulate local politics.