Bosnia's Paralysed Peace

The scale of international investment in peace-building in Bosnia has been unprecedented. A plethora of international institutions, including the EU, the IMF, the OHR, the OSCE, the World Bank and the United Nations, as well as many development agencies, set about piecing the country together, a process cushioned by generous flows of aid. However, despite the massive international commitment in time, resources and effort, a decade and a half later Bosnia's peace is at best paralyzed. War remains a risk because of the myriad of unresolved issues, zero-sum politics and incompatible positions of rival ethno-national leaders. In the face of paralysis, international officials repeat the mantra that there is no alternative to Bosnia's European path and urge the country's leaders to see sense, to temper their rhetoric and to carry out internationally approved reforms. To no avail. Christopher Bennett argues that the failure of peace-building is the failure of the 'liberal peace model'. Policy-makers have focused on 'what should be' in terms of trying to reproduce Western liberal democracy, rather than 'what is' in Bosnia, where ethno-national security concerns remain critically important to most people. Bennett's book offers a comprehensive analysis of stalled peace process. He concludes by proposing a paradigm shift in strategy aimed at ensuring a self-sustaining ethno-national security for all of its people.