CIAO DATE: 05/2008
May 2005
Austrian National Defence Academy
Foreword
Capturing any change in time is difficult, particularly if the topic is
as precarious as the post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina has been and still is.
That is why each book dealing with and looking at the peace process in
Bosnia-Herzegovina deserves a special attention. This especially
relates to this piece of work created by an expert who had a chance to
be very close to various segments of the implementation of this peace
process be it on the ground or close up to the decision making
institutions. This kind of practical experience combined with the
outstanding analytical expertise makes this book very relevant and
reliable source for any kind of historical analysis dealing with this
period of time in this area.
The wars in the former Yugoslavia, among which the Bosnian one was the
bloodiest, were the first after the fall of Communism and the last of
the twentieth century. They took place at a particular time in history
which facilitated their impact on regional, European and Euro-Atlantic
relations. The international community was involved in the breakup of
Yugoslavia from the very moment, beginning with the infamous "The Hour
of Europe” statement to unenthusiastic peace initiatives to bombings
and arms twitching of spoiler groups.
The involvement of the international community was particularly
significant and intensive in relation to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina
and even more so in the implementation of the Dayton Agreement once it
mounted enough pressure on the warring parties to end the war.
Therefore, the peace process in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a direct result
of the involvement of the international community and the international
community will be responsible, along with the locals, for its eventual
success (or failure). Without going any deeper into the interventionist
problematique, I will underline few key elements of this analytical
peace of work.
The main asset of this book is the fact that it moves a step further
from ‘simply’ analyzing relations among the foreigners, among the
locals and relations between the two camps and rather strives to give a
holistic picture of the Bosnian peace process that revolves around one
key issue - state building. The author develops an original model of
phases of post-war state building under foreign supervision: first
comes security building, then institution building and eventually norm
building all this oriented to the final goal of democracy building. And
yet than all this process, providing they will end successfully, will
enable some form of nation building taking of course very persistently
account of the specific Bosnian conditions, especially the relations
among three constitutional nations. However it would be the task of
some future analysis and research.
The author explains what constitutes each phase, making sure we
understand that these phases flow into each other and are to be
separated for analytical purposes only, allowing occasional
sidestepping of developments on the ground. The key question the author
asks herself is whether the intervention is viable, that is whether the
international community as the guardian of state building will be able
to transfer the process to the locals? Are locals to eventually
‘embrace’ the state that is being created by foreign decree?
There are other issues touched upon in this peace of work - the
question of why intervening at all, ethical issues in intervention, the
impact of Euro-Atlantic relations, the politics of victimhood and many
more. Senada cannot give the final verdict on the level of success of
the state building intervention in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, but she
skillfully manages to create a firm analytical framework for a study of
state building interventions as such, and the Bosnian case in
particular. In addition, she manages to raise a few fundamental
questions on defining the nature of intervention; on discerning a point
in time when a peace process can be judged finished; on creating
further problems by raising too high expectations; on empowering a
local actor who can take over the process once the intervener decides
to leave.
She has answered or has come close to answering some of these
fundamental questions and has managed to end the analysis of the
Bosnian state building experience in an optimistic tone. This is no
easy task.
This book focuses, within certain time limits, on a phenomenon of state
building in Bosnia-Herzegovina - the process that is still evolving and
thus constantly redefined. The author has assumed a demanding task of
capturing core elements of this process in a comprehensive framework,
perceptively incorporating few fundamental issues in the analysis. The
result is a peace of work that is informative, probing and
multilayered, although a work-in-progress as the author herself
concludes. A work-in-progress that, in my opinion, has managed to
systematically order a number of elements of ‘state building under
foreign supervision’. One could hardly expect more from the effort
which is shaped in the time where there are still a lot of
uncertainties, challenges and threats existing on the ground which
makes impossible for all actors to create a reliable "exit strategy”
Mladen Stanicic
Institute for International Relations
Zagreb
Resource link: State Building under Foreign Supervision: Intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina 1996-2003 [PDF] - 1.5M