Bosnia-Herzegovina: Trying to Build a Federal State on Paradoxes

The basis for federalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH)1 is rather peculiar owing to the unique complexity of the situation: a multiethnic population consisting of three major groups (Bosniaks/Muslims, Croats, and Serbs) and a number of smaller minority groups,2 the experience of "ethnic federalism" in former Yugoslavia, the experience of democratization and transition to a free-market and liberal-democratic system, and the post-conlict situation involving massive intervention by the International Community. After more than three years of war, military intervention by nato inally ended the Bosnian War in 1995. It had been characterized by brutal atrocities against the civilian population for the purpose of "ethnic cleansing,"3 and the International Community's4 most important short-term objective was creating security through stability, which was to be accomplished by physical reconstruction as well as by preserving Bosnia and Herzegovina as one country. For this purpose, a peculiar feder...